Category: Driving

Happy Birthday Scamp – 24 March 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A busy day, but a great one.

Today was Scamp’s birthday, a big birthday. It started with breakfast in bed as befitted the Birthday Girl. Then it was time to get dressed and face the day.

There were cards to open and parcels to unpack. I became doorman and brought in the parcels that delivery men asked me to sign for, lots of them. Most amazing being an enormous bouquet of flowers. I do believe the birthday girl was overwhelmed by it all. There was paper and cardboard boxes everywhere. Eventually everything calmed down and we went out to lunch.

It wasn’t a posh lunch, just a normal(ish) Friday afternoon outing to The Cotton House, or go-to Chinese/Thai restaurant a couple of miles down the road. Typically, we had our usual choices from the menu. Scamp had Thai Spring Rolls, followed by Chicken Chow Mein. I had Chicken Noodle Soup and Salt & Chilli Chicken with Noodles. No tea or coffee, just the bill, please. Food was just as lovely as usual.

Instead of driving home, we travelled on to Torwood Garden Centre to get some solar powered lights for the garden. Scamp had said a few weeks ago that she’d like garden lights as a birthday present, so today she got to choose them. We also got a new watering can and a peony rose for me.

Since we were only halfway to the Kelpies, it seemed like a good idea to just drive there so Scamp could tell them all about her birthday so far. We took a rather strange route to get there, but in the end we found Helix Park where the Kelpies live. As usual, I took loads of photos and one of them got PoD. It was a lovely day with blue skies, but later as we were just deciding to go to the cafe for a coffee, there was a sharp shower of rain. After coffee and more photos, we said cheerio to Baron and Duke and drove back home, just managing to avoid the worst of the rush hour.

There was a card on the mat when we got home to say that a parcel was waiting for Scamp at the Post Office. I checked the time it closed and I had just enough time to go there and collect the parcel. Of course it was another birthday parcel.

Later in the evening we had a three way Zoom call from Hazel, Jamie and Neil. Simonne had been in hospital to get her tonsils removed and Jamie was waiting to see if she would get out tonight or not. It was a good call, even if Simonne was absent. Lots of stuff talked about and plans were made for later in the year. Hey, but you know all this. We used up almost our whole hour of air time. Thank you all for organising that.

Tonight (or should I say yesterday night, since you’ll know this was a catch-up) we had an early night. Too much excitement and planning for two bears of little brain.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to dance in the morning and relax for the rest of the day.

 

Dancin’ – 23 March 2023

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We went dancin’ today.

Drove through torrential rain to get to the wee hall in the south of Paisley.

There was a good mix of music, as usual and dancing started as usual, with a Waltz. Actually we did quite well with it. I don’t know why, perhaps it was because we were relaxed and weren’t out to prove anything. Of course I made mistakes, but not too many. We danced a few sequence dances, it took me a while to get to grips with a couple of the less common ones, but Scamp was there whispering the next steps. We danced a Social Foxtrot a Cha-Cha a Line Dance and a couple of Quicksteps. We also managed to dance the quickstep for almost a full track.

As usual, we left fairly early, just after 3pm and it was an easy run home, taking the longer but easier M74 option. So nice to always be moving from entering the M77 to leaving the M73.

I dropped Scamp off and then drove to Tesco to try to get grapefruit for Scamp and get petrol for the blue car. I didn’t get the grapefruit and I was driving out of Tesco when I realised that I hadn’t got the petrol. Parking is getting tight again in our street and it was good to park the car and then get my camera and go for a walk. I walked round St Mo’s and took some boring shots of a fence post with nails hammered into it. Then I crossed the road and found out that M&S didn’t have grapefruit either. Luckily Aldi did and I got two then walked back home in the gathering gloom. That’s where I saw the daffodils. They made such a bright spot in a, now, dull day. It wasn’t until I started processing them that I noticed the amount of grit and dust on them. That’s what you get when you try to grow flowers beside a busy road.

We may go for lunch tomorrow.

Out on the town – 22 March 2023

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Scamp was out on the town with the rest of the witches. Ladies only!

Scamp went in to Glasgow on the bus. I offered to give her a run in, but she was determined to go alone. I stayed home until I was sure that she was on the bus, then I grabbed my camera bag and headed off to …

This section of the blog has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Friends and family will understand why this decision has been taken. It may be released at a future date.

So, since that didn’t work I had to try again somewhere else, so I drove to …

This section of the blog has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Friends and family will understand why this decision has been taken. It may be released at a future date.

With that done, I could return home although I did have to make one more stop at …

This section of the blog has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Friends and family will understand why this decision has been taken. It may be released at a future date.

Finally I got parked, and just outside the house for the first time this week. Had a quick coffee and a roll ’n’ cheese for a belated lunch then over to St Mo’s where I just missed the best of the good light, which I needed for a planned Cladonia photo. Instead I found a couple of sprigs of heather which filled the bill and the frame quite well. They became PoD.

Dinner for one tonight was mince ’n’ tatties, and since Scamp was off on a ‘jolly’ with the witches, I managed to make myself without any mistakes or burnt pots. When Scamp came home I checked that I had indeed followed the proper procedure and was rewarded with a backhanded compliment “It’s mince. You can’t go wrong with mince.”. I could. I’m sure I could go very wrong with mince, but I didn’t today and the mince ’n’ tatties was scoffed while Scamp told me about her day.

Glad she had a good day with good friends who look after each other.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancin’.

Colzium – 21 March 2023

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It was much better day than yesterday, a day to go for a walk.

Scamp suggested we walk around Colzium. I thought that was a good choice. It’s a circular path or to be more correct it’s a collection of intersecting circular paths that allow you to take as long or as short a walk as you see fit, or that you feel fit enough to walk!

The first problem was that the road we usually take was closed today so we had to weave our way through the traffic calming single lanes through Croy, but it did us to Colzium Estate.

Just for a change we didn’t aim for the big car park with the pot holes that are ‘going to be repaired’. The question is “When?”. Instead we parked in among the trees in a much smaller car park, but one without pot holes.

We set off up the hill and met a couple coming the other way. They warned us that if we were heading for the cafe, we were out of luck. A waitress had spilled hot soup down her leg, so they had closed the cafe for the day while the ambulance people dealt with the casualty. We had both been intending going to the cafe on our way back, but we were going to be disappointed. Instead we plodded on and up the long curving driveway that used to bring the posh folk to the Big House. We followed the road round the back of the estate and on to the path through the woodland and out at the bridge over the Colzium burn which was on the way to being a raging torrent today. A few photos later we started down the other side and I saw an opportunity in a view over a mossy dry-stane dyke to the farmlands over to the east. Nice framing from an old beech tree and I had the makings of a PoD. We followed the route of the burn down to the road then back to the car. A decent 2.5mile walk on a warm spring day. Not to be sniffed at.

We drove home by the old road that climbs through a narrow gorge in woodland then follows a burn to Dullatur. From there it’s a boring drive through half a dozen roundabouts to Tesco and the makings of lunch. Scrambled egg for Scamp and Cheese for me, served on a well fired roll.

I did think of taking a walk round St Mo’s, but instead inspected my photos and decided I had enough for a PoD which turned out to be that mossy dry-stane dyke. Besides, I knew that a parcel had been winging its way from Darn Sarf and would arrive between 3 and 4pm. Scamp was settled to do some ironing, so I got to the door when the DPD bloke knocked and the parcel was disappeared, as if by magic.

Jackie sent us a link to an MP4 file with all the photos of Wee Jaki’s wedding. Some lovely photos there. Thank you Jackie. Scamp has the file now too.

Dinner tonight was Pasta Amatriciana (bacon, tomatoes, shallot, spring onion and a pinch of chilli flakes). Afterwards we watched a quite entertaining Celebrity Bake Off. Don’t know what they will do when Matt Lucas leaves.

That was about it for today. Scamp is intending going to Glasgow tomorrow for a Witches Day. I’m intending painting, if I can get my backside in gear.

Dancin’ again – 18 March 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Back to the “bump and grind”. More of which later, but not what you think!

Drove through busy traffic to Brookfield and we started with the Catherine waltz. It looked more difficult than it was and by the end of the half hour we had it, more or less. “More or less” covers a multitude of sins. Next we went straight into a Jive routine. Technically it was a different jive from what we normally do. We learned “Glasgow Jive” which is based on six beats but they were teaching “Ballroom Jive” which is based on four beats. That doesn’t seem like much, but it made a big difference to us. Eventually we did work out what was going on and on the way home we realised that most of what we were being taught, we’d already done, and that includes the “Hip Bumps.” No grinds though, at least not yet!

We’d both forgotten just how exhausting jive can be, so we were relieved to find that the next item on the ‘menu’ was a much more sedate Slow Foxtrot. Still complicated, especially in what they call the ‘back end’ which we think of as the second half, but much slower than the jive.

A couple of tracks of sequence dance and we were done for the day. That was exhausting, but once we’d looked over the videos of the jive, it wasn’t really more difficult than the ones we’d done years ago in Blackfriars with Michael, just different.

Drove home through more traffic than a normal Saturday, but managed to take the M74 turn off and ended up arriving home in about 45mins which is good for the return journey on a Saturday.

After a quick lunch I chopped up some half price tomatoes, two onions and a red pepper, loaded them into a baking tray, sprinkle them with basil and roasted them in the oven (gas 6) for an hour. Decanted the lot into a pot, added a tin of tomatoes, a litre of hot water and a chicken stock pot and cooked it for 30mins. Blitzed the lot in two stages in the blitzy thing (liquidiser) and let it settle for a while.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s with the little A6000 and a 55-200mm lens. It’s not a brilliant lens, but it’s the longest one I’ve got that actually works on the Sonys. I got a few photos of the host of frogs that have now invaded the ponds. One of them made PoD. I liked the reflection of it in the murky pond.

Dinner tonight was tomato soup with a baked potato. Not elegant, but warm and filling. Watched the qualifying for the Saudi Arabian GP. I think Scamp was a bit disappointed when Verstappen’s car died on him and he was demoted to the back of the pack. It will be interesting to see how long it will take him to get back to the podium tomorrow.

The dancing, but especially the Jive took a lot out of us today. We had an early night, and that’s why this is the second catch-up in a row. Thank you Hazy for getting back to me. I hadn’t found that page before, although most of the links lead back to pages I’d already found. I think my plan is to let the SSL expire and then start a new one from Namecheap this time. At least that should be an easier way to go.

No plans for tomorrow which is Mother’s Day, of course.

A long day – 17 March 2023

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A day that would last until tomorrow.

In the morning, Scamp went to FitSteps class and I had promised myself a day painting, but that didn’t happen. Instead I spent most of the morning trying unsuccessfully to understand how to reissue my SSL certificate. Namecheap must have the most user unfriendly ‘help’ files I’ve ever come across. It feels as if it was designed as instructions for a professional programmer, which I am not. If any “Webmonkeys” out there hear this plea and can help, I’d appreciate it. I gave up not long before Scamp returned.

By then it was lunch time and after that I took the A7 with the 105mm macro lens out for a walk in St Mo’s to see if the four frogs from yesterday had managed to find any like minded amphibians to join their orgy. Where the had been four frogs yesterday, there must have been a hundred today. The water was literally boiling with ripples and the rafts of frogspawn now stretched right round the pond. I took a few photos and then the rain that had been threatening all day called a halt to photography for the day. One long shot of a pensive looking frog made PoD.

Back home, Scamp read while I did the post-processing of the frog photos, mainly to waste time until we got ready to drive over to Larky for dinner with Crawford & Nancy.

We had a great night, as we usually do. Good food, good company and lots of jokes. Crawford and I had a jam session with Crawford on ukulele and me on guitar. I won’t say the singing or my playing was world class, but we had a good time. We left just before midnight and drove through some torrential rain. I got to bed just before 1am although Scamp was there before me. PoD to post and lots of other folks photos to look through in Flickr. Of course, this is a catch-up. You knew that.

Tomorrow we’re off to Brookfield and I’m sure the morning will come too quickly.

Perth – 15 March 2023

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We’d decided on two possible destination for today if the weather was decent and one if it was raining.

The weather seemed set fine, so we drove up to Perth for the day. It suited Scamp and Jackie because there were lots of shops to investigate and it suited me because I could buy some decent tea and coffee.

Lovely run up with the sun shining on and off on the snowy hills. Midweek is definitely the time to go because apart from the lines of artics, the traffic is light. We parked in a new to us parking place just behind the Salutation Hotel. At least you can still use cash to park and not have to rely on a dodgy app that everyone seems to despise, but which the councils seem to love. Money is changing hands there I presume. After we parked we went our different ways. The ladies went clothes shopping and I went to get some much needed tea and coffee. Unfortunately The Bean Shop didn’t have any Cuban coffee, so I had to make do with Dominican which is almost as good.

We’d agreed to meet at Nero at 12.30pm and we did, for once. Real Nero coffee, not like the brown water I was subjected to last week. The roll ’n’ sausage was a different matter. It may have been veggie sausages pretending they were real ones, or they may have actually been stuffed with sawdust. It made no difference. They were almost inedible. But the coffee WAS good.

Once lunch was over we split up again because I told Scamp how to find Bon Marché and that needed some serious investigation. This time we agreed to meet back at the car. I went to take some photos and my prime target was the modern sculpture of two bloke leaning on a massive ring. It stand in the middle of the High Street. I’d already taken a couple of shots of padlocks hanging on a railing, but I reckoned the sculpture was better. A quick look in the Oxfam book shop and a visit to the health shop for a 200g bag of Coltsfoot rock and I met up with the happy shoppers.

Drove home through fairly light traffic. Thankful that we’d been limited to three hours parking because we didn’t have any more loose change. That meant we were hitting all the traffic hot spots well before they got too busy.

Dinner tonight was paella and it tasted good. I wasn’t too happy with the last paella I’d made, but this one was almost perfect. A glass of wine with it and a G&T for the ladies and a whisky for me afterwards sealed a good day out.

The statues did in fact get PoD but one of the padlock shots got a good second place.

Jackie goes home tomorrow. We don’t have any plans as yet.

A less hectic day – 13 March 2023

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With a carton of milk waiting on the step for us when we woke.

Our first milk delivery in who knows how many years. A 2 litre carton of semi skimmed.

Hazy phoned in the morning and we had a good half hour blether about what was happening in Epsom and here. She also told me about a TV adaptation of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I must look for that.

We went for the messages in the morning. Off to Tesco in the rain that followed us everywhere we went today. Came home with three big bags of essentials and by the time we’d put it all away, it was time for lunch. Sandwiches today, filled with Dairylea and Tomatoes for Scamp and Corned Beef for me. My what an exciting life we lead. While Jamie and Sim go to the beach, we get a shopping trip to Tesco.

I had decided not to take a camera for a walk in the rain, at least, not a long walk. Instead I cut a hole in a plastic bag, just big enough to poke a lens through and did some photography in the garden in the rain. The PoD turned out to be a Lupin leaf with a few water drops sitting on it. You can see how the shape of the leaf tends to hold some of the rainwater and channel it down to the roots, rather than allowing it to drip off the ends of the leaves, although some generally does that too.

Scamp was monitoring her sister’s progress down from Skye to Glasgow and we picked her up at the Concert Hall and drove home.

Lots to talk about and lots of question from both sisters as they caught up with what was happening in both families. I tried to keep out of it most of the time and made dinner which was Pasta Amatriciana, pasta with tomatoes, basil and bacon, with a pinch or two of chilli flakes.

Later in the evening I changed my role to Barman and we all had a Gin ’n’ Tonic. Still more blethering from both sisters.

Hoping for a good day tomorrow for a send off for Bobby Flavell.

 

 

… and then the lights went out – 10 March 2023

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Another bright and cold morning. The thermometer read -0.3ºc when we woke.

While Scamp went out to FitSteps I struggled with renewing the SSL on my website. I got the first part ok, I think and have the encrypted code for the SSL on the computer, but the next stage getting the CNAME registered is beyond me. I can’t understand the language and the video explanation of how to go about it is just so vague, it could be written in invisible ink. Eventually, after an hour of struggling I gave up and solved Wordle and Spelling Bee instead.

We’d talked about going in to Glasgow for a pizza lunch, so that’s what we did. We drove in to Glasgow. I couldn’t be bothered getting the bus and after all, that’s what we bought a car for, the convenience. Walked through JL and then along Buchanan Galleries then down to Miller Street to Paesano. Scamp had a variation on her usual and chose tomato and spinach – no cheese. I had a number 3: tomato, mozzarella, anchovies and olives. Both were great, just great, not excellent. PoD was the view of the Tron Church in Buchanan Street with some lovely reflections from the building opposite.

Wandered round the town afterwards and had coffee in Nero on Argyle Street. They claimed they had to use take-away cups because they were short of staff and refused to use the normal cups on the shelf behind them. Then they filled a large take-away cup almost to the brim with hot water and dropped my single shot into it. It was like drinking brown water. I thought I was in a Costa. They might have been short of staff, but they were definitely short of toilets too. The entrance to the downstairs toilets was blocked off and that left one toilet for the whole shop. I sensed an irate email coming on. We walked back up through the homeward bound office workers and drove home.

We sat and watched a recording of The Apprentice at night and were almost at the end of You’re Fired … and then the lights went out!

We thought at first it was a power cut, but housed across from us and next door had lights on, so just us then. Checked the fuse board and sure enough it was the something in the downstairs sockets that had tripped the switch. Went round with the torch on Scamp’s phone switching off all the sockets but still it tripped. Next we unplugged all the devices connected to the sockets. Still no go. That’s as much as I can do, so we phoned the electrician we usually use and he said he couldn’t come until Monday. This was Friday night. No heating, no power downstairs for two days wasn’t good. Then Scamp remembered Jamie using their emergency cover from their insurance. We phoned the number and the person I spoke to confirmed that ours was a valid claim, gave us a claim number and said that someone would phone in the morning to arrange a time to come and visit.

That’s where we are at present. We still have power upstairs and I’ve run an extension cable down from the landing to keep the freezer powered until we can get this fixed. I’ve brought a heater down from the back bedroom so we will get some heating although the central heating won’t work because there’s no way to power the boiler. Scamp says we can still use the cooker, so we won’t starve, but it’s unlikely we’ll be dancing tomorrow! I think we need to get the distribution board replaced and maybe we need the house rewired. That’s for the near future. For now we want to see what happened at the end of You’re Fired!

This blog comes courtesy of a mobile hotspot! No plans for tomorrow :-\

 

Dancing and Weather – 9 March 2023

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Today revolved around two topics: Dancing and Weather. Last night we had a couple of snow showers and by morning the cars in the car park had a decent covering. However, by the time we left for the Tea Dance, the sun had melted almost all of it away, thankfully.

Drove to Glenburn Community Centre in the southern outskirts of Paisley for the tea dance and didn’t see any hint of snow after we left Cumbersheugh. Even the Campsie Fells as we drove along had no snow. Just our luck then! I think the cold weather and the constant scare stories from the media about snow drifts and danger to life kept some folk at home. Not us, we’re made of sterner stuff, although it might have been the temptation of the tea loaf that drove us to travel today.

We struggled through the Quickstep, the Tango the Foxtrot and countless sequence dances but our biggest struggle was with the simple Waltz. We couldn’t put a foot right, at least I couldn’t. How could this simple dance cause so many problems? We used to be able to dance at least two variations of it, now we can do none. More practise required I think. Despite all that, we had a good laugh. We were sitting with Leslie and Gordon who are at about the same level as us, although I did not that they managed the waltz without a problem.

The drive home was just as easy as the drive there because we slide neatly from the M77 to the M74 to the M73 and finally to the M80. That means that we can avoid completely the notorious Kingston Bridge and its moving car park of vehicles.

I didn’t go out for a walk this morning and by the time we were getting home the light had all but disappeared, so today’s PoD had to be a tabletop. It’s just a pink flower from a bunch that is sitting on the book case beside me. I took it with the A7iii equipped with a LensBaby Sweet 35. I realise this means nothing to anyone but me, but it’s a good reminder. The Sweet 35 is a 35mm lens designed to produce a soft image and if you’re lucky enough to have some bright lights in the frame, you get some spectacular light blobs called Bokeh. I wasn’t looking for that today, just a soft focus effect and I was pleased with the result.

It’s snowing again as I write this blog, but I’m not sure it will lie until morning. I certainly hope it won’t. We might go in to Glasgow tomorrow for a walk and a pizza in Paesano. It depends on the weather.