Category: Driving

Dancin’ – 1 February 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Driving over to Brookfield for a dance class.

I really thought we were going to have to give up on dance class last night. Nobody seemed to want to tell us if the class was on or off. As it happened, it was on. Thanks for making us wait for hours to find out if the class was on!! Yes, that was sarcasm.

Anyway, today we started with the October waltz. A rather over complicated and clumsy at times, waltz. Eventually with the help of Scamp I managed the first part of it, but it wasn’t easy. I can’t imagine dancing this on a busy floor, like at the Salutation with about eighty other dancers on the floor. Maybe I’m being over critical, but we just don’t have the time to drive over to Brookfield twice a week like a lot of the class do. We survived it, but I was glad to move on to the Tango.

We’d learned the basis of the tango a year or so ago and this one wasn’t really all that different. Basically the same moves in a different order, I thought. Lots of little tweaks that were interesting were included and we did manage a fairly decent run around the floor.

Next stop was a few jive steps. The problem here is that we learned Glasgow Jive, away back in the dim mists of time. It’s totally different from Ballroom Jive. It’s all to do with the beats I’m told, but it complicates matters, not knowing which foot I should be on. Maybe we should just forget Glasgow Jive and throw ourselves into the Ballroom Jive. Seriously, it would be difficult to unlearn a dance and start anew, but it might be the only way to keep in step with the rest of the class.

Final torture was the Midnight Jive, of all things. One track was enough for all of us, I think. Too much work today and not enough breaks for lighter, sequence dances.

We drove home on a very quiet M80. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the road so empty, but I didn’t complain, I just kept on keeping the car between the white lines!

I went for a walk in the afternoon to clear my head and to get some photos. I was hoping to get a couple of shots of the ladybirds that overwinter in St Mo’s, but none were visible this year. Such a shame. Lots of trees down here, most of them old and rotten. I imaging none of the tree doctors will be tending to them, deep in the woods.

PoD went to a tiny wee mushroom. The cap is less than 3mm high. How did something so fragile survive Storm Éowyn?

No plans for tomorrow.

Rather a busy day – 30 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

I was out in the morning. Scamp and I were out in the afternoon.

I was out first to go to the doc’s for the results of my PSA test. About three years ago my last test, result was 2.1 ng/ml (I have no idea what that stands for, except it was a good result I was told.) Today’s result was 2.5 ng/ml. Anything below 5 is considered good for my age group and everyone’s results increase over time. The doc was satisfied with that result and put me on a six month rolling program to tests.

Satisfied with that, I drove over to Boots to pick up my set of drops. I got Gort, the grumpiest of the assistants who grudgingly gave me the two boxes of drops and signed me in for two-monthly repeats. Drove home after buying some stuff for lunch from Tesco, next door.

Scamp had a meeting with a consultant about her tremor. It went quite well and the woman doing the test picked up on a few things we’d not noticed. She’s now booked in for a brain scan, some time in the next four months, to rule out the possibility of Parkinson’s. That might mean we won’t get a summer cruise in the early summer. Not a great problem, as we were thinking about having a couple of mid-week short stays at home, or at least in the UK. They could probably be slotted in somewhere without causing any problem.

Instead of driving straight home we went via The Fort. I was trying to get a photo on this disjointed day and Scamp was intending to get some chicken for tonight’s paella dinner. After a very short bit of prompting, she accepted my suggestion of a dragonfly charm for her nominations bracelet. Except … they didn’t have any in the Nominations shop, so we may go in to Glasgow tomorrow and hopefully get one there.

My photo (one of only three I took!) was the new frontage of a couple of renovated shops. After dunking it into a couple of baths of Photoshop, it came up looking interesting. That was PoD.

Dinner was indeed a paella. Afterwards we watched a less than inspiring The Apprentice, way less inspiring. It needs put to bed.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to take the bus in to Glasgow, for a dragonfly.

What a day! – 28 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Grab a cup of coffee or anything else and listen to the story of our day!

The day started with me driving down to Jim Dickson’s garage.

I was getting a rough estimate for a couple of bits that were needed for the car and he gave me a reassurance that after a quick look underneath, apart from those bits, the car was fine. That was my mind set at rest for a while. It goes in to get the work done on Monday. It would have been sooner, but Storm Éowyn had driven a cart and horses through everyone’s plans it seemed.

Next stop was Tesco because we needed milk, except they only had the more expensive Cravendale filtered milk, but since it was ‘on special’ it was worth buying. They had absolutely no bread. None! The reason that there was no ‘Tesco’ brand milk and no bread was that Storm Éowyn had driven a cart and …! I’m beginning to think that poor Éowyn is getting the blame for everything including Donald Trump’s bald patch!

Picked up Scamp at the house and we drove down to Croy station car park hoping against hope that there would be an empty space. There wasn’t. However while I was driving back to the exit, I clocked a woman pushing a pram. Maybe, just maybe she was going back to her car and we could pinch her space when she left. Scamp was my lookout and she reported that the lady was reversing out of her space. I managed to get there first before any other vultures arrived and she signalled that she was leaving.

As it turned out she had one young child and a baby and was trying to keep them amused while she bolted them into their car seats. As she got more and more frustrated, Scamp offered to hold the baby while she worked at the car seat for the boy. Finally she go the boy secured and the baby was next, but she couldn’t work out how to get the pram folded and into the boot of her car. She explained that she was ‘the granny’ and that the car was new. Her daughter had dropped the children off at the car park and said it was easy to fold the pram. Actually it looked easy, once you saw how it was designed to fold in both the body of the pram and the wheels. The problem was the big Tesco bag full of baby clothes that was stuffed into the pram. After removing that, everything slipped into place.

After loads of “than-you’s” she reversed out and drove off while I signalled to the three vultures who had been circling that the space was mine. KEEP WELL CLEAR. The look on my face must have been enough. They gave me space and we were parked.

We had just enough time (7mins) to literally, run across the car park just as the train was approaching, buy the tickets, run over the footbridge and jump into the first open carriage before the train departed. I think we might have reached Falkirk before our breathing had returned to normal and our heart rate was no longer in the RED area. The journey to Edinburgh was uneventful by comparison. Did I mention that we were going to Edinburgh to see the Turner watercolours?

We walked from Waverley station to Royal Scottish Academy and joined the queue that was at the bottom of the stairs into the building itself. We were told it would take an hour to an hour and a half to get to the room with the exhibition. Well, we’d come this far and been Good Samaritans for on harassed lady, and run across the carpark then jumped into a train that we were sure would leave without us. Sure, we could handle an hour and a half walking into the gallery.

In the end it took a little more than two hours to follow the snaking line of art lovers to reach our goal. It was a bit like the queue at the airport, without the security check. It was also good humoured and I actually enjoyed most of it. Folding stools were available for those who couldn’t or didn’t want to stand for two and a bit hours. Eventually we reached the exhibition room. At first the paintings were underwhelming, but then, when you saw the vast amounts of detail in the sketches and the lack of detail in the watercolours, you realised just what a genius this man was. People in the paintings were just tiny little brush strokes, but they were obviously people. We were allowed to photograph any and all we wanted. I just chose a selection of my favourites, then we were gone. Out into the cold of Edinburgh. I was reassured when I saw that the queue was just as long as it had been when we had joined.

We had dinner in the posh restaurant below the gallery. Simple Fish ’n’ Chips. Then a cup of take-away coffee before getting the train home.

PoD was a wee asian man taking a photos of two members of his family. I liked his stance!

Well, that was a long story, and I’m sure I’ve missed out some details. I’ll sleep on it tonight and write myself a bullet point list of things to remember. I may post it, but it would probably mean nothing to anyone other than Scamp and me, and maybe a ‘granny’ who was getting flustered trying to fold a pram into the boot of a car while the baby bawled it’s head off!

Tomorrow I may meet Alex for a photo walk.

Dancin’ – 27 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Out fairly early to speak to Mr Dickson.

As usual on a Monday, Jim Dickson’s garage was mobbed. Not with people today, but with cars all waiting for their time slot to get up onto the jack and have their innards examined. I guessed the Blue car wouldn’t be getting worked on today. The place was just far too busy, especially after the stormy Friday we’d just had when folk were told not to travel. That meant there would be a backlog of work to be done today, because Dickson’s doesn’t open at weekends. I did manage to buttonhole Jim D and explain what I wanted looked at. He agreed to do it on Wednesday. That would be a problem for Alex.

I just arrived home when Alex’s WhatsApp arrived asking if I was free this week. I phoned him to tell him it was unlikely I’d be able to go for a photo-walk this week. Every day is booked except Friday and I knew that Alex is always busy with grandkids on Fridays. After I’d explained the situation, we had a blether and compared Éowyn stories.

Scamp and I drove over to Tesco to get a trolley load of veg and fruit and the usual assortment of odds and ends. It also gave us a chance to have a look around the area and see just how lucky we had been not to have any serious problems with the wind.

Scamp had a phone call booked with Jackie for the afternoon, so I put on my boots and went for a walk over St Mo’s. I didn’t expect to see much and I wasn’t disappointed. Nobody was walking around the paths today, nobody but me, that is. I did see a Treecreeper going from tree to tree. They seem to climb around the tree in a helical direction looking for insects in crevices. When they get to the top, they fly down to another tree and start again. I hadn’t seen any of these secretive wee birds for a couple of years and I thought I could maybe get a photo of this one. Unfortunately I slid on my bum down the steep banking and by the time I’d righted myself the bird was long gone. Thankfully there was nobody to see me!

Back home it was almost time to get changed to go dancing with Kirsty’s class. Tonight started with a reprise of last week’s waltz, followed with a short introduction to the Foxtrot. It wasn’t really an intro to it, because we’d all danced it last year. This year’s routine was a bit different and was slightly more difficult too. We both enjoyed it, but sometimes we didn’t agree on the finer points.

We drove home in a dark, gloomy winter’s night. Scamp made Haggis Neeps and Tatties, but although Scamp thought the veggie haggis was ok, if dry, I thought it was like eating cardboard. Now I haven’t eaten cardboard recently, but I imagine it tastes better than the haggis. No taste and no spice.

PoD should have been a treecreeper, but it ended up being some Cladonia growing out of a carpet of sphagnum moss.

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere.

Winds have gone – 25 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

We should have been driving to Brookfield this morning, but I didn’t fancy the drive in the conditions and thankfully, Scamp didn’t argue.

The ‘conditions’ were that I had to get from Brookfield to East Kilbride after the dance class on a day when the weather didn’t seem to want to “play nice”. As it happened, although the snow did come as predicted, I’d have had plenty of time to drive over to EK. My fault. My bad. I regret it now, but as Scamp says, it’s over, it’s in the past, leave it.

We drove up to Hairmyres about an hour earlier than we needed to, but it was snowing and EK has a reputation to uphold for snow forgetting to turn off once it’s been turned on, so an hour in our pocket seemed like a good idea. And it was.

It was hard driving into the sun after most of the snow had disappeared. Even wearing sunglasses didn’t really help, but we made it out to the edge of Hamilton and up the hill to the Whirlies roundabout. Brilliant name for a roundabout. It was just after that we saw the red lights ahead of us, hundreds of them. After driving in first gear for a few metres, waiting a few minutes and crawling further along what’s really just a mile or two long straight, half an eye on the car in front and half an eye on the clock we saw the blue and red lights of either an ambulance or a polis car. We never did find out which, because it was long gone before we reached the next roundabout where a car was parked half on the road, half on the 200mm high verge of the entrance to the roundabout. That’s the worst parking I’ve ever seen.

After that long crawl, it was a fairly easy drive to the hospital. We were still a bit early, but that was just luck. I got taken right away and the two nurses who did the pressure check on my eyes were impressed with my results.

Then we had a long wait to see the doctor, about an hour I’d reckon. Last time we were there it was football was on the tv. Today it was horse racing. Almost as boring as football, but not quite. Eventually my name was called and Mr Sharma was not quite as dismissive as last time. He even answered some of my questions after he told me that the drops had worked and the pressure in my eye had reduced by a half. I’d still have to keep using the drops for a while, but for now he didn’t want to see me for three weeks or three months, I can’t quite remember which. All I heard was the the pressure in my eye was down by a half.

We drove home, parked the car and did nothing for the rest of the day. Dinner was an omelette for Scamp and a couple of lamb burgers for me with a baked potato each and shared a tin of beans. Great relaxation food.

PoD is a Rhododendron bud in the back garden.

Tomorrow we may go shopping after I do my drops!

Dentist and Dancin’ – 23 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

But not at the same time!

A couple of days ago I had a pain in one of my wisdom teeth at the very back of my mouth. A few moments later I had a horrible taste in my mouth too. I thought it might be an abscess and drove up to the dentist’s surgery. The girl there is very good and squeezed me in to an appointment for this morning – It’s a really busy surgery practice.

The dentist had a look, but couldn’t see any sign of infection, but she took an X-ray just to be sure and although the photo came out clear, she said she’d give me a course of penicillin just in case there was something there. Two tablets, four times a day when my stomach is empty. An hour before food or two hours after food. Far too complicated for a bear with little brain! Worse, they taste awful!

Back home we decided to go to the first Tea Dance of the season. The fact that we were promised home-made Tea Loaf had nothing to do with our decision. Awful weather and a host of potholes made for something less than the best journey we’ve had, except for the train journey home after Christmas!

We arrived late and were met with Stewart’s favourite comment: “Don’t think you can just Waltz in here!” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that old joke. Anyway, we were seated far away from our usual table and we were directly under the speaker. Maybe that’s why we were on the dance floor most of the day – to keep away from that speaker. I think we must have been up for every dance except the Scottish selection. Traditional if the Tea Dance is nearly at Burns Night. The tea loaf was excellent. Home made as promised by Jane.

Most of the second half was a collection of Sequence Dances and although Scamp was as sure footed as usual, I must admit to being a bit rusty and needing a prod in the right directions sometimes.

As usual, we left early to avoid the worst of the schools coming out. The weather had deteriorated by then and it was an uncomfortable drive home. I think I may have damaged a shock absorber on one or two of the potholes which seemed to be everywhere today. I may take the car down to Jim Dickson to have it looked at next week.

No outside photos today because of the atrocious weather. Drizzling rain is not conducive to taking photos, unless you want to have your camera ruined. I didn’t. So, PoD was a bunch of violet and white Lisianthus cut flowers that Crawford and Nancy had brought yesterday.

We’ve been given a RED weather warning for wind tomorrow. It has gradually climbed up the scale from Yellow to Amber to Red in the past few days with winds in excess of 100mph on the west coast and over 60mph inland. No trains, schools closed, no GPs, no buses. We’ve been told to be prepared for possible power cuts too. The danger of life warning blared out at about 5pm, scaring the living daylights out of me.

Hopefully it won’t be quite as bad as they are predicting, but we have to be ready for it anyway.

An early shout – 20 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Out just after 9am (early for me!) to go see the bloodsuckers. Those darling ladies who take away some of my high quality blood for their own nefarious purposes. I think they use it to make black pudding!

After the blood letting, I was free to enjoy the rest of the day. It was a gloomy prospect. Poor light in an overcast sky and nothing to look forward to. Even lost my 36 day run on Wordle. First one I’d tried on the new phone. I hope that’s not an indication of what’s coming next.

After a reviving cup of coffee, Scamp set out her plans for the remainder of the day which involve driving to Falkirk to look for a bedside lamp, a coffee table, maybe a new fridge and just the chance of a new rug for the lighting room.

  • None of the many bedside lamps ticked her boxes.
  • Of coffee tables there were no signs.
  • Fridges were also thin on the ground. There were cheap ones and there were expensive ones, but virtually nothing in between.
  • We did find a rug which was almost the same size as our present one and we took a chance on it.

At least we did get the rug and then we went shopping in Morrisons for … well, shopping mainly; – also known as ‘Messages’. We were almost as unlucky there too. It being Monday, a lot of the shelves were empty. I’m beginning to wonder about Morrisons. Over Christmas they were in dire straits when they couldn’t produce the Christmas goodies folk had been saving up for. It wasn’t a good sign. No doubt we’ll hear about it sooner rather than later if the shops begin to close.

Drove home and I took a chance on being able to get some decent landscape shots. Luckily for me I did find a likely sky scape that reflected on the water of the pond at St Mo’s. I took that as a basis for a PoD.

Drove up to Kirsty’s new dance class. The class had started last week, but neither Scamp nor I was really ready for it, but today we were. The hall she had found was a decent size an brightly lit. Much, much better than the dingy pocket handkerchief we’d been working I for the past year. This was a whole new possibility. Tonight’s dance was the first two parts of a waltz routine and it worked well. We had a new couple just joined us last week too. I hope Kirsty’s enthusiasm starts to bring in more ballroom and latin dancers.

Tomorrow, I think we may be practising some food ideas for two friends on Wednesday, all being well.

Dance Class – 18 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

First one this year and first one for about a month too.

Drove to Brookfield to find that the room was almost full. Neither of us had seen such a busy dance class in a long time, if not ever!

Just as we were driving over to Brookfield, my phone buzzed. By the time I got there the message was long gone and anyway it was just a message to say that NHS Hairmyres Hospital had called and it wasn’t possible to reply to this message. What sort of way is that to run a railroad, or a hospital, for that matter. I phoned the hospital and spoke to a human who told the message was about an appointment I had. By the sound of her, I wasn’t the first to have one of these calls. In fact I’d had one last week and knew what was coming.

Back at dance class, we recognised a few faces from years ago, in for a refresher course. Stewart asked us how many of us could remember the October Waltz. Most of us couldn’t remember how to tie our shoe laces, far less how to dance! That didn’t sway Stewart and Jane and we were soon remembering ‘Back Cortés’ and ‘Spin Turns’. It also gave me a chance to do take some video footage on my new phone. The October Waltz took up most of our time and we may still be perfecting next October if we’re spared.

A wee bit of sequence dancing gave our knotted leg muscles a chance to recover after the waltz, and we were in to the Tango. A new version of the X-Line Tango that we started with a few years ago, but which has been altered an improved in the last year or so. Actually, it feels like a completely new dance now. With Scamp and Jane’s help I did put the steps in the correct place and my feet followed suit. In the end, the tango wasn’t as daunting as I’d feared.

A Midnight Jive or two brought proceedings to a suitable finale and we were still able to walk back to the car. One of the dancers had brought eggs, laid by a neighbour’s hens and was giving them away. Scamp collected half a dozen in a box filled with straw and they survived the journey home. I took a risk and went the Kingston Bridge way home, it being quicker, especially if you claim a space in the outside lane quickly enough. I did.

Back home despondency hung over me because of the complications of the iPhone 15 again. However, a severe talking to by Scamp and the promise of a Golden Bowl supper made me forget.

A walk over to Condorrat to collect the supper gave me my first serious shot with the phone of cars on the motorway. I was quite impressed. Not camera quality, but not bad. That was the PoD in the bag.

Remember the phone call that you cannot reply to? We got another one tonight when we were watching last year’s prom on iPlayer. The same message I got last week, so I knew what to expect. Automatic recorded voice which, thankfully wasn’t american, talked me through the procedure an I was booked in.

Scamp was enthralled by Barber’s Adagio and I was similarly fascinated by Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Absolutely fascinating. How can these folk remember all those piano pieces.

In a much better frame of mind tonight. I’m more settled with the phone and with the next appointment at the hospital. It looks like it’s going to be a busy week. Only one free day for a walk with Alex.

Hoping for a bit better day tomorrow, even just a bit of light, even if it’s raining will do.

Dull, Dull, Dull – 17 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Where did those lovely blue skies go.

They were there yesterday, complete with Lenticular Clouds. Today it’s just heavy grey skies 🙁

Scamp was away early in the morning to go to FitSteps and I had the run of the house for a good couple of hours or more, because she was meeting Isobel for coffee after the class. I stayed at home and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

I read for a while, considered going out for a walk, but the dull grey sky didn’t do much to encourage me, so I stumbled through more tweaks to the amazingly complicated iPhone 15. Many moons ago when I got my first MacBook Pro, you could take it in to the Apple shop in Glasgow and they would talk you through alll the things you could do with it and answer your questions as you went. I think things have changed a lot since then, judging from my last foray into Apple Glasgow.

After Scamp returned, and we had lunch, I drove up to Kenilworth to speak to a doctor. It was a routine appointment to get myself a PSA test to make sure my ‘waterworks’ were behaving properly. Before Covid, I’d had six monthly checkups, but Covid changed so many things. I just thought I should be getting back into that routine again. The doc gave me a once over and declared that there were no major problems, but suggested I should cut down on my caffein intake which meant less tea and coffee. That would be a hardship for me, as you can imagine, but I’d been gradually reducing my coffee intake recently, so I guess it was no great surprise. Blood test is set for Monday, so coffee and tea might not be the only things I’ll be reducing.

As I was driving home I saw a break in the clouds appearing and thought I might catch a shot or five with my new camera, but as I got closer to home, I realised I couldn’t outrun that golden disk and it would have dipped below the horizon before I could get to a suitable vantage point. Instead, I drove home and picked up a tiny wee stick with two green leaves sprouting from it. It was a cutting of a Honeysuckle from the garden, but it didn’t seem to ‘take’ and eventually appeared to be dead. We were going to dump it in the compost bin when I noticed what looked like white rootlets at the base. Scamp re-potted it and sure enough, two little green leaves appeared. To give you a sense of scale, the leaf on the left is just a tiny bit less than 5mm long. The twig will eventually be cut back if the leaves continue to grow. PoD in the bag!

Scamp had Bubble ’n’ Squeak for dinner and I had Mince ’n’ Tatties. Delicious, because Scamp made them, not me!

Tomorrow I think we might be going to dance class. First time this year and first time in about a month!

Sunny and cold today – 15 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

A lazy morning for Scamp, and for me a successful hour or so of working out how to put my Gmail accounts into the iPhone. These may be famous last words, but I think I’m getting the hang of the iPhone at last. It’s far more complicated and security conscious than the old SE model I had a hundred years ago!

In the afternoon I took a break from technology and drove Scamp up to the fairly new Westway retail park, in what used to be Wardpark, for lunch with the Witches. A few shops, a Home Bargains, a Halfords and a B&Q. Fantastic.

I wasn’t invited nor did I want to be. Instead I drove up to Fannyside on a beautiful cold day with wall to wall blue sky. I only came, as I said, for a break from fighting with an iPhone that wanted my password every few seconds. I parked at a corner by the side of a field full of sheep (The Girls) and went for a walk, heading north-east for about a mile along the single track road and got a few photos, then retraced my steps, back to the car.

I had two cameras and three lenses with me, so I changed cameras and lenses and walked south-east for another three-quarters of a mile before heading back to the car again with very few shots in the bag. Then I noticed that a few of The Girls were wondering what was going on and coming over for a better look. That’s when I got the PoD. I could drive home quite happily now there was something decent in the bag.

Back home I was just making a cup of tea (herbal tea) when Scamp arrived home from lunch with tales of cakes and coffee bought for just a few quid. Who would have thought you’d get decent coffee and a cake at Home Bargains for less than a fiver?

Scamp made dinner tonight and it was Prawn & Pea Risotto. A lovely combination she makes so well. Washed down with a half a bottle of red. Well, it is ‘Hump’ day. Midweek!

Later we watched The Great Scottish Book Club. Always worth a watch, just to make sure you’re not missing anything worthwhile putting on your ‘watch list’.

Tomorrow the plan is to take the bus to Dunfermline over in Fife for a walk in the park and possibly some lunch.