Category: Driving

Just a dump – 29 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

No, not Cumbersheugh this time, just a bit of clearing out.

Things that had outlived their usefulness or that no longer worked. They were going on a one way trip to the council skips.

But first there was shopping to be done. A long rambling walk round the aisles of Tesco collecting some things we don’t really need, but a lot of things we can’t do without. A Monday shop is really a necessity shop. No frills, just food shopping, mainly.

With that done it was time for lunch, then a gathering together of all the bags and buckets of stuff referred to earlier. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of things that we can fit into the boot of the blue car. When we got to the council tip, most of it went straight into “General Household” the cover-all description of the miscellaneous detritus that isn’t wholly metal, wood or rubble. I did have one or two items that went into the “Metal” skip and one that would have gone into “Small Electrical” if that skip had been there. Instead it went into “General …”

Now I reckoned I had an hour or so to go and get some photos. I chose the Forth & Clyde canal between Haggs and Allandale as my destination. After a being stopped at a few roadworks (February is the month for councils to ‘get rid’ of their unused money. If they don’t do that, their grant for the next year will be reduced) where unnecessary work was being done quite slowly. Eventually I reached the canal and got a few shots on the A6500 then headed for home.

Dinner tonight was pasta with mushrooms, bacon and chilli flakes in a tomato sauce, plus one special ingredient, Hazy. Finely chopped up greenery from a single stem of spring onion growing in a pot of water on the kitchen window sill! That just finished the sauce off perfectly.

PoD was a shot looking west from one of the locks on the canal with a nice little reflection of the trees.

We have plans for tomorrow. Hopefully they will be revealed in tomorrow’s blog.

A day on my tod – 27 January 2024

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Out about 9am (that’s earlier than a ‘normal’ Saturday when we’re going dancing) to drop Scamp off at Ian’s – June’s weekend retreat!

Scamp and June were off to Glasgow Royal Concert Hall to sing the Verdi Requiem with a few other singers. Originally it was expected that there would be about 600 voices. The final total for today was 804!! That’s a lot of noise. I wasn’t involved at all. All I did was drive Scamp to meet June at Ian’s. After that, my work was done and I could rest for the remainder of the day.

As it was, I must have wasted a good half hour of the day attempting to find where they hide the crunchy peanut butter in the Town Centre Tesco. They have the strangest idea of a logical pattern to their shelves, but eventually I did find this addictive breakfast necessity. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to the ‘Pease Brose’ my mum used to make. It was made from ground up dried peas, not peanuts, but strangely the processing was similar.

With the crunchy peanut butter jar in my pocket I could have my breakfast and then struggled with Wordle and gave up on Spelling Bee, then read a bit more of my latest book set in Skye. I kept waiting for the weather to decide what it was going to do, so that I could decide what I was going to do. Eventually I made the decision to drive to The Fort for a couple of things. One is still in abeyance and the other, a white nylon round paintbrush I was hoping to find in Hobbycraft, but there were none of any size in the shop. Lots of white nylon flat brushes, but I’ve already got one of those. I use these nylon brushes to pick dust spots off the sensors of my cameras. If you activate them with a blower brush first the nylon fibres generate a static charge and attract the little dust motes in the camera. The big flat works perfectly for a quick sweep over the sensor, but the small rounds get into the corners. I’m not a tidy or house proud person until it comes to the innards of my cameras! Disappointed I went to see if Waterstones had anything interesting to offer, but even they let me down. I drove home.

I drove home in a different direction than normal, because the light was just right to grab a photo of an old farm that sits on a hill above the motorway and I knew where I could abandon the car for the few minutes it would take. Half a dozen photos later I was heading homeward again. Parked and then took a walk to the shops for a ready meal of Prawn Bhuna for my dinner.

By the time I was coming home, the light was fading but I extended my walk because I’d been sitting for most of the afternoon and needed to stretch my legs. I also wanted to try out my new photographer’s gloves that Scamp had bought me. They worked really well with the little finger cover that you can sneak off so you can accurately press the shutter and not one of the plethora of other buttons on a camera, then you can cover up the finger again so you don’t get frostbite. Brilliant idea. Thanks Scamp.

Just as I was fiddling with the finger guard I registered a movement off to my right as a young buck wandered across the path and off into the woods. Not running just ambling along. I was so entranced with this deer that I didn’t have time to photograph it. Someone once said it’s better to watch something happening in front of you that waste your time trying to photograph it. I agree … sometimes!

Scamp got back just before 10pm still pumped up from being part of such a big choir. I imagine June would be the same. I wished I’d been there to feel the sound of 800 odd voices, but I don’t think I’d have enjoyed the music, so probably best to hear about it once removed.

The picture of the old farm made PoD. I liked the finished article, although it wasn’t quite what I set out to capture.

We have no plans for tomorrow. We’ll see what the weather brings.

 

 

Colzium and Brodens – 26 January 2024

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It was a lovely morning, too good to waste. To make the most of it we went for a walk.

We drove to Colzium Estate just outside Kilsyth. Lots of snowdrops just coming in to flower and lots more to look forward to in a couple of weeks. We walked up the road through the trees and crossed the bridge over the Colzium burn. When we stopped in the middle a robin flew down to see what we were up to. I thought it would fly away immediately, but I took my camera out of its bag anyway and there was this wee robin looking like it was posing for the camera. Scamp said it was asking which was its best side! I took a few shots then realised two things. Firstly it had a damaged claw on on foot and secondly we were in its way, because it was heading for a pile of birdseed that someone had left on the parapet of the bridge. I apologised to it and we left it to have its lunch. One of those shots made PoD.

We walked on, along the steep road that circles the Big House and its gardens. It used to be the entrance drive when the house was in its heyday. At the top we turned right and then took the even steeper path to the left that led us through the woods to the wee bridge over the Colzium Burn just downstream from the Tak ma Doon road. We crossed the bridge and headed down the quite slippery path on the other side of the burn. Scamp started searching through the fallen branches for a suitable stick to give her some support for walking down the path.

Halfway down we found a big fallen tree that turned out to be half a tree, It looked as if the tree had split in two in the past and this one half had been torn from the other one during last week’s storms. You don’t realise just how big trees are until you see one lying down. We get so used to see trees standing above us. We met a woman who said she didn’t know if it was safe to walk in the trees when it was windy. I hadn’t thought of that. You wouldn’t stand much of a chance if a tree fell on you. Scamp was a bit saddened to see the broken tree lying there and I could see how she’d feel that. We walked on down to the bridge again, having done a complete circuit of this part of the estate. The robin that we’d seen the last time we’d passed was still there eating the seeds. It must have been the same one. There can’t be two robins with a damaged claw in the same place, could there? To end the walk we walked past the old curling pond, now a duck pond and from there back to the car.

So, should we drive to The Fort to have lunch at Wagamama or should we dine locally at Brodens? We settled on Brodens. Scamp had breaded fish ’n’ chips with a glass of Malbec and I had steak pie with mash washed down with a pint of Guinness. After that we walked home.

We watched a strange pair of girls selling manufactured diamonds on Dragons Den. If you watch it, you’ll understand what I mean by strange. It’s not really the people who are strange, but their devious dealing.

Scamp has now packed her sandwiches and fruit into separate boxes and is ready to meet June tomorrow and get a taxi to Glasgow to sing the Verdi Requiem with about 600 other singers in the Royal Concert Hall. I’m not going, because she says I wouldn’t like it. Probably right.

Dull and wet but dancin’ inside

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Today was a day for driving to Glenburn and dancing for a couple of hours.

For the second time in a row, we drove to Glenburn, just outside Paisley and danced almost everything the threw at us. We both made a mess of some of it, but there was a quiet confidence to us that wasn’t there before. I don’t know exactly what was happening, but I’ve a curious feeling that I was leading for a while! Usually I rely on Scamp to tell me what comes next, but for some of the dances, I knew what came after what. It’s hard to explain, but there was definitely a difference to our dancing.

The afternoon started with a waltz and that led on to cha-cha and then an interspersing of ballroom or latin with a sequence dance. I’ve complained here in the past about Stewart’s plan to have, let’s call it formal dancing, in the first half and sequence in the second half. I don’t think that works well for everyone, but the mixing he and Jane were doing today seemed to encourage everyone to get on the floor more often. We covered usual trilogy of waltz, cha-cha and quickstep with lots of sequence dances. We even attempted a Gay Gordons as well, but stayed well clear of the Canadian Barn Dance, the music for which seemed never ending. It was good to see that folk were taking to heart Stewart’s recommendation to wear something tartan for Burns Night. He even ‘accidentally’ played Donald Where’s Yer Troosers because he said I liked it! Cheeky get!

The two hours went quickly and then it was time to go home, have a cup of tea and a biscuit before getting ready to drive Scamp up to The Link to get her Shingles jag. That didn’t take long. Probably about 15 minutes maximum, then we were heading home again for Haggis Neeps and Tatties. Standard fare for a Burns Night. I don’t know why we call turnips ‘Neeps’. Burns was born and bred in Ayrshire, but Neeps is a north east coast word. How did it get inveigled into Ayrshire dialect? I blame the Aberdonians. Or better still, I blame Boris who was a bit of a turnip heid!

With the traditional Burns Supper meal and a wee dram to toast it, the excitement for the day was all but over. Today’s PoD was a photo of a bouquet of cut flowers, well, it was a Thursday. The flowers weren’t “arranged tastefully, in a vase” as D.P. Gumby used to demonstrate on Monty Python, but laid down on the kitchen worktop, but the little light that filtered in through the clouds lit them perfectly.

Tomorrow we may drive somewhere for lunch or we may walk somewhere local for it instead. As usual, it depends on the weather.

Coffee with Isobel – 23 January 2024

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We drove up to the town centre today and were entertained by Isobel for an hour and a bit in Costa. I risked an Americano that actually tasted of coffee. I was shocked!

Life is never dull with Isobel. She always has stories to tell and doesn’t care who she insults when she’s telling them. Today’s topics included falling church attendance, losing a church minister, gardening and a useless new cooker. She did give Scamp some instruction on pruning roses and rudbeckia. She was making arrangements to have the wax removed from her ears by going private. I’m beginning to think that I need it done too, because my hearing has been getting worse recently. Anyway, after we’d heard all her gossip and she had heard all of Scamp’s, we gave her a run home because the rain was torrential. She wouldn’t accept any help and toddled off pushing her walker once we’d dropped her off. When we were coming out of Costa

Back home it was tomato soup and toast for lunch from the never emptying soup pot. I did consider going out if the rain stopped, but it didn’t and I stayed in. PoD was a photo of my Window Ledge Garden with its green spike of ’back from the dead’ Spring Onion and a clove of garlic that has white spike and also roots that weren’t there when it went into the water pot a couple of days ago. Both plants are growing in nothing but water. The pot, with its little floating island that holds the plants, was a Christmas present from Hazy. It took me a week or so to find the time to read the instructions and test it out. Amazingly for me, it worked first time. I’m intending growing beetroot and leeks next. Thank you Hazy.

By the time I’d checked in with Alex and discussed tomorrow with him, then processed and posted the PoD, it was time for dinner and for the second time this week it was fish. This time it was Leek and Smoked Fish Risotto. Unfortunately I’d cut the bottom off the leek before I remembered that I could have coaxed it back to useful lift. The resulting risotto was a bit wetter than I’d intended it to be, but we ate almost all of it.

We watched University Challenge later and got the nominal two or three correct answers each. Feeling quite pleased with ourselves. Then we watched The Secret Genius of Modern Life on the history of microwave ovens which sounds a really boring program. But with a thoughtful approach to delivering this information, it was interesting and informative. Infotainment at its best. I commend it to you. Accessible from iPlayer.

I saw that Isobel had a pair of sheepskin mittens in her bag and said, without thinking: “Oh, pawkies!” One of my mum’s words for mittens. Funny how you remember these random words.

The wind is wheechin’ round the house again tonight, and I hope it calms down a bit before tomorrow, because I’ve got a possible appointment for a photo walk with Alex in Glasgow which I don’t want to miss because I called off last week when I wasn’t feeling well. A dry day would be nice, but that may be a wish too far.

 

Dancin’ – 20 January 2024

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Last Brookfield dancin’ class for three weeks at least.

Scamp doesn’t think she’ll be able to go to next Saturday’s class because she’s intending to sing the Verdi Requiem (with a few others) at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow and I certainly won’t be going there, or to the dance class in Brookfield if I can at all avoid it. Far too shouty in both venues.

For some reason, the road to Brookfield was quite busy today. Either everyone was heading to the Monster Truck show at the SEC or there was football somewhere, maybe even both! But we’d been out early and made good time after we left the city centre and got past the 50mph restriction. We had about ten minutes to collect ourselves while the little darlings in the ballet class were ushered out of the room with their ‘mummies’ – no ‘daddies’ were in sight. Smart daddies!

First track was Melody Foxtrot with Robbie Williams’ Go Gentle. I don’t like him, but I do like the song. The rhythm and timing go so well with this gentle song. I can’t remember what track two was, but it obviously wasn’t a patch on Go Gentle.

Next we were in to Waltz Time with what we’re going to call the Spring Waltz. Christmas is so last year. After a few fumbles of the feet, I was beginning to enjoy the dance. Stewart did steal Scamp away to explain something technical about the dance, but strangely Jane didn’t steal me away to do the same. Maybe I’m so good there’s nothing they can teach me. Maybe pigs do fly? Anyway, once she’d been returned, we danced a few tracks of the waltz. Actually I’d have been happy to spend the entire 90 minutes just going through that dance, but after another sequence dance we knew that the leisurely dancing was over and we were going to be forced into the Samba.

I really, really, REALLY don’t think I will ever get to like, far less love this dance although Stewart says I will. It is fast, confusing and furious at times and totally outside my comfort zone. I’m still at the second part of it, having successfully managed to make a decent fist of the basic steps at the start. This is after three weeks of teaching. Sometimes you just have to accept that this doesn’t fit in my head, apart from Jamie’s oft times quoted complaint that: “Scottish hips don’t move that way”. That, is an excellent get-out clause for not knowing what the hell you are doing, and I thank you for that, Jamie.

Eventually the Samba ground to a halt and another cool-down sequence dance finished off the torture. We were done for today and, hopefully for three glorious weeks.

We drove home, almost in silence, letting the music from Spotify’s random Discover Weekly guide us along the M8, M74, M73 and then home. Lunch for me was a roll ’n’ cheese and for Scamp, a roll ’n’ egg, with both of us having a dessert of roll ’n’ bramble jam.

It was a dull day. The sun had threatened to break through the clouds, but didn’t really have the energy, so the clouds covered it and tucked it in. I did manage a few shots in St Mo’s, but none of them were award winners. PoD was a sepia toned discarded swan’s feather.

Dinner tonight came from Bombay Dreams and it was quite poor by their standard. Probably would have been better walking down to M&S and bringing back a heat-in-the-oven curry. I think we’ll let Bombay Dreams rest for a while to see if they can improve their recipes.

It’s raining quite heavily as I’m writing this and it’s expected to rain all through the night. Strong winds forecast for tomorrow. I may go out early(ish) to avoid getting blown away.

 

 

Goodbye Snow – 19 January 2024

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It’s gone. The snow returned this morning, only to be washed away by the rain and the above zero temperatures. Not much above zero, but enough to rid us of the white stuff.

In the morning we went shopping. It was a big shop. What we used to do on a Monday until Tesco seemed to have fewer staff working on a Monday than on any other day of the week. Friday was quite different. Much more like what used to be a normal shopping day. They even had rolls! We loaded the car and drove home.

After lunch Scamp wanted to reorganise the front bedroom which has become a storage room. I wanted to go out and take photos somewhere other than St Mo’s, so while she was checking what we did and didn’t have and moving things around the various cupboards, I drove up to Fannyside to see how the wild moorland was surviving this tough winter weather. This was my first visit this year. There was a cold west wind blowing and that was making the cloudscape quite interesting. Probably this was the first real test for the new lens, just taking photos of anything and everything that interested me. Not being too particular about aperture or shutter speed, just enjoying the experience. The lens coped admirably with the scenes. Not one rejection, but I’m still not sure it’s the lens for me. Only time and a few hundred photos will tell.

Drove home and after checking the photos, started to make the dinner which was an old favourite, Fennel with Haddock and Prawns. Dead easy to make as long as you are organised, and for once I was.

According to the weather fairies, we’ve some wild weather to look forward to next week with strong winds and heavy rain. It never seems to stop this winter. Wind, rain, snow and sleet with the occasional half a day of sunshine mixed in. Weather was much more fun when I was wee.

PoD turned out to be a wide angle shot of the moorland at Fannyside and its amazing cloudscapes that looked much better live than my poor representation of them. A couple of other photos are keeping it company on Flickr.

Tomorrow we’re intending dancing in the morning.

Going over old ground – 15 January 2024

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It was a crisp morning, sub-zero, but we were going out. It had been snowing during the night, just a light covering, and then a hard frost had made the place look quite, well, … frosty!

Scamp needed either to get her glasses repaired, or a new frame, so we were driving over to Larky to see what the optician or his glamorous assistants could do. Terrible driving conditions, with the low sun shining right into our faces and the road salt on the windscreen having to be washed away every few minutes, but we made good time.

When we got to Larky, Scamp told me to meet her at the Co-op in half an hour or so. I didn’t need to be asked twice. I drove down to Millheugh to grab some photos. First place I looked was again looking straight into the sun, but with a great view of ‘The Boards’. That’s another name for a dam that created a sluice to power a waterwheel in the old bleachfield long before my time. The sluice, which we always called the Lade, is still there, but the bleachfield has gone long ago. Took a few photos there, then knowing I’d lose track of time, I set a 15 minute timer on my watch and went for a walk through Morgan Glen.

It used to be a great walk on a bright summer’s day, along the banks of the Avon, but the whole glen is a bit run down these days. It’s years since I walked along there. Now that I think about it, it’s MANY years since I walked along it, but bits of it haven’t changed much and other bits are broken down and hidden in the undergrowth. I found some Hair Ice which, according to the Met Office “… is a rare type of ice formation where the presence of a particular fungus in rotting wood produces thin strands of ice which resemble hair or candy floss.” As you can see here, that’s a fairly accurate description.

Not long after I found and photographed it, my timer buzzed to tell me it was time to head back. Sometimes when you turn back, the view and the light is totally different from that you saw walking out. So it was today. I took ‘a few’ more photos on the way back. My total for the day was 42 photos, 38 of which were ‘keepers’. Not a bad percentage. Then I drove back up to meet Scamp at the Co-op with her new glasses! Then we drove home with the sun at our back this time for most of the way.

I did think of giving the blue car a wash when we got home, but the temperature was just above zero and I didn’t want my wash water to freeze and cause an accident for some poor soul driving up the hill, or even walking up the hill, after dark. There are warmer, or less cold days to come we’re told.

Scamp made her version of Minestrone soup for tonight’s dinner.  Her version and mine are completely different from each other.  Both of them are from old books and both of them over time have had additions and subtractions from the basic recipe.  Both are good warming soups with loads of veg in them.

PoD turned out to be the Hair Ice, but it was a close finish between it and a photo of a tree stump with ivy dangling from it, taken against the light.

The forecast is for more snow, lots more snow, they say, and down to sea level for all of Scotland. We may not be going far.

Shopping – 10 January 2024

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We were off to Waitrose today for some (for some, read a lot of) shopping.

I felt the wee blue car squeal when I put the message bags in the boot after we left Waitrose. There were a lot of bags in there and quite a few of them were full. Despite that, I challenged the wee car by driving up the back road from Stirling to the top of the Tak ma Doon road. It’s a long and sometimes quite steep climb, but before we reached that, I gave it a rest at the entrance to Loch Coulter where I wanted to take photos, not of the loch, but of the wee farm across to the north-west. It’s a favourite place of mine to photograph and today the mountains off behind the farm were covered with snow, which was even better. Two or three photos of the landscape were enough in the cold breeze that was coming in from the north, so we drove on past Carron Bridge and on to the Tak ma Doon road, the twisting single track road with few passing places and great craters where NLC can’t be bothered to fill them in. But at the summit it gives a great 180º uninterrupted view from the Forth estuary in the east all the way to Glasgow in the west. Except, not today. It was too cold to take advantage of the views, even if they were stunning. We had reached the highest point in the road and it was downhill all the way now and I’m sure I heard the wee blue car give a sigh of relief.

Dinner tonight was Haddock Chowder. It’s one of those recipes where you have to have everything prepared in advance because once you start you’ve just got to keep going until you serve it in bowls after about 45 minutes of constant stirring and mixing. It wasn’t my best today, I admit that. Too much flour in the roux we think. However, as Scamp said “It’ll stick to yer ribs”. Very Scottish!

We were going dancing to the first dance class with Kirsty this year. After everyone had quietened down, Kirsty announced that today’s dance was to be a Foxtrot. As usual, she demonstrated the men’s part then the women’s part and after that we were pitched into the dance. I admit that I was flummoxed at first, but then realised I’d done all this, or something very like it with Stewart & Jane. After that, when things were baffling me, I just let muscle memory take over and while it wasn’t perfect, it was near enough.

Later we watched the first Landscape Artist of the Year with Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeenshire being the subject. For once, Scamp and I were in agreement about today’s winner.

PoD was a photo of that wee farm.

Tomorrow we might be going dancing. First tea dance of the year.

Dancin’ – 6 January 2024

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Scamp was out first to defrost the car. We were driving to Brookfield for the first dance classs of 2024.

The temperature was hovering around zero when we drove out to Brookfield, but the sun was almost blinding, shining from a bright blue sky. Thankfully we got there without any roadworks apart from the usual 40mph drag through central Glasgow.

First surprise was that the tiny dancers, who usually take ages to leave the hall, had already gone! Maybe someone had complained. I should have asked Jane if it was her. Only four couples ready and waiting to go dancing. Last in were Peter and Gillian who travel almost the same distance as us.

First dance was the Blue Angel Rumba which we’ve almost mastered and was the gentle entry into this years dances. Next was the, new to us, Christmas Waltz. It looked complicated, but taken in bite sized pieces it wasn’t so bad, although there were a few unpronounceable and complicated bits to it. In retrospect, I think we managed not too bad in it, but it will need some practise during the week to cement it into my head. Finally a fast and frantic Samba with Samba Walks, Botafogos and Voltas. Voltas were described by Jane as “Like kids pretending to ride a horse”. A sort of “John Wayne dance step.” Google it and you’ll see what I mean. By then, my little brain was full to bursting and I was glad to change my dance shoes for clumpy black street shoes and drive us home.

Lunch was two bits of bread with a slice of square sausage between them. Scamp had similar with an egg substituting for the square sausage.

I struggled for a while trying to work out what was going wrong with the 2024 catalog on Lightroom. Eventually I gave up and as the sun was still shining I went for a walk in St Mo’s. The road and paths were quite slippery, but the boots coped with it. The sun was low by the time I was walking along the path behind the woods and I got a few decent shots of the trees and the shadows they were casting. One of them became PoD.

Dinner came from a cold walk over to Condorrat to Golden Bowl. As I was coming back I could see the mist lying about a metre above the grass. Quite creepy looking. I tried to photograph it, but failed to get the impression I was looking for.

Later in the evening I tried again and almost managed to repair the damage to the catalog. I gave up and left it until tomorrow when hopefully a night’s sleep will make things clearer

Temperatures around zero predicted for tomorrow. That will decide what we do.