Category: Driving

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.

 

Another year over – 31 December 2023

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Well, almost over.

The day started with a visit to Currys in Coatbridge to get photo paper and a chance to browse the shelves for a new toaster. The one we have must be about 20 years old and has worked well, but lately it’s been struggling to hold the bread carrier against the force of the spring. I reckon it’s an electromagnet that either has crumbs or dust on its contact, or the wiring in it is getting weak and cannot pull the full magnetic force. If it’s dust, the portable hoover might just manage to clear it. If it’s the coil in the electromagnet, it’s beyond my ability to repair. The prices Currys were asking for a fairly ordinary toaster were in places eye watering. Who pays £200 for a toaster? I got the photo paper, but the toaster will have to wait until Tuesday at least, when the shops re-open.

We drove home and Scamp encouraged me to go out and take some photos before the light started to fail. That would be a sensible thing to do. After all, this was the last day in 2023 and a decent photo for PoD was compulsory. It arrived in the shape of an old park bench in St Mo’s. The bench is made of recycled plastic, but it has lichen growing on it. It must be something that’s added to the plastic mix when bulk it up or maybe to strengthen it. Surely ordinary lichen wouldn’t grow on pure plastic. I must ask a scientist some time. The photo wasn’t impressive when I took it, but separating it into its constituent parts made it a lot easier to work with and I was happy with the result.

Spoke to Jamie and heard that the weather down south was much better than we’ve been having. Hope Vixen’s leg improves soon.

I think that’s all for 2023. I believe 2024 is approaching rapidly, so I should really draw this last blog of 2023 to a close. I wish you all a happy and healthy new year.

 

Off east to see the horses – 29 December 2023

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I’d promised Scamp an afternoon at the Kelpies and I hate to disappoint her.

So we drove over to Helix Park in Falkirk where the Kelpies live. It started off as a beautiful day, but by the time we got there, the clouds were rolling in. Paid for parking and walked over the canal bridge, then down the path beside the Forth & Clyde canal to admire the great beasts. I got a few photos as we were walking and we also passed the RE: Wild Thing which is an installation made from recycled bike parts made to represent the nature and wildflowers within the park. Very clever recycling (pun intended).

We crossed over the outfall of the canal and back to the main event, the Kelpies themselves. We both noticed that there were lights inside them today. I imagine they look quite impressive after nightfall. There was a small skating rink in the park, but I wasn’t intending going on the ice. I never did fancy ice skating. Thankfully there wasn’t much of a queue at the cafe and we could sit in relative comfort with our coffee and a scone, watching the folk taking selfies and group photos in front of the sculptures.

It was quite cold today and as the sky was clearing, it seemed to get even colder. Maybe that was because I knew the temperature was going to be sub zero tonight, or maybe the wind was stealing all the heat away.
We had one more walk round the horses and then walked back to the car, then drove home via Tesco for a couple of bags of messages. On the way back to the house I stopped at Fred’s house to hand in a Christmas/Birthday prezzy for him and a box of chocolates for Margo. Poor Fred’s birthday is on the 25th of December! He must have felt hard done by when he was younger, only getting one lot of prezzies!

We watched an entertaining Celebrity Masterchef. It’s not every day you’ll hear me saying that, but this one was special, because it was the food critics who were cooking for the previous winners of Masterchef. I don’t know how faked it was, but the celebs really did seem to be having a hard time getting things finished in the timescale. Worth looking for on iPlayer if only for the looks on the critics faces!

Dinner was a delicious Chicken Milanese. Chicken fillet battered flat with a rolling pin, coated in breadcrumbs and fried in the frying pan. Served with potatoes. A Scamp classic.

PoD was, of course The Kelpies, viewed from the other side of the canal from my usual place.

Tomorrow we might get some of the white stuff. Temperature is already -1ºc, right in the middle of the danger zone. Need to find our snow shovels perhaps.

Dancin’ – 21 December 2023

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We were back to a tea dance today after a long lay off.

First, earlier in the morning I went for a walk in St Mo’s to get a photo or two while Storm Pia was still giving Scotland a severe buffeting. It was gradually powering down, but it was taking quite a while. I was glad I hadn’t been there when Pia was at full strength.

I saw a blackbird fly into a tree and I’m sure he saw me too, but he turned away and tried the “If I can’t see him, he can’t see me” trick. As I took a few steps towards him, he caught me and flew away, but not before I had one more shot. How can birds navigate through that maze of branches? That final shot gave me a PoD. One in the bag on a morning walk. That’s good.

By the time I walked home, I had just enough time for a quick lunch before getting dressed for dancing and then we headed off to Glenburn for the last tea dance of the year. Despite the weather, it was a fairly easy drive to Paisley. The hall wasn’t very busy when we arrived, but the dancers gradually trickled in and the dance started with a waltz. I stumbled through the first track, but by the second it was flowing better. We danced Waltz, Rumba, Cha-Cha and three or four sequence dances. Really, the only one I completely messed up was the Quickstep which I knew I could do. Just not today.

As usual we left a few minutes early to avoid the schools coming out. However, it appeared that the traffic was light on both the M80 and the M74, also, thankfully, the wind had reduced to a normal breeze.

We watched what I thought was a tedious Celebrity Sewing Bee tonight. It was probably the worst of the ‘Christmas’ specials foisted on us these days in the name of entertainment. It’s just a bunch of has-been and never-was ‘celebrities’ getting their faces on the TV again. Bah Humbug!

Tomorrow I believe we need some shopping and there’s a chance we may have a pub lunch later.

Chatelherault – 19 December 2023

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Out on a photo walk with Alex.

I was due to pick Alex up at his house around 11am, but after getting up at about 4.30am to take some paracetamol to numb the pain from toothache, I wasn’t sure I’d be meeting him any time today. However, when the 8.30am alarm chimed out its merry tune there was no sign of toothache.

The early rise and the alarm were because we’d booked the man from Hannah and Howie to come and service the boiler. He was supposed to arrive between 9am and 1pm, and I was glad we’d set the alarm for 8.30, when he knocked on the door at 9.05. It only took him half an hour to do the service and report that nothing needed replaced this time, but maybe we’d need a gasket replaced at the next service, which should be in a year’s time. One thing done.

Scamp asked me to take her up to Tesco to get more messages, so I dropped her off and drove on to Motherwell, had a chat with Carol and Alex and I drove over to Chatelherault on the outskirts of Hamilton. While we were sitting in the car talking, an unusual bird swooped down not far from us. At first I thought it was a Shrike, but Alex though it might be a Jay, and when we got a good look at it, that’s what it was. Not very common this far north, but I think Hazy gets them in her garden.

It was a wild day with sunny skies one minute and torrential rain the next. We walked down past the Three Hard Men, the statues of David Livingston, William Wallace and Robert Owen cut from steel plate. I got a few shots, but wasn’t really struck on any of them. Alex, of course, got a cracker of a shot!

We walked further on to the old Avon Bridge where we saw a Kingfisher about a year ago, but the Avon Water was in spate, or probably more likely just running off a spate, but far too fast flowing for the kingfisher to show today. As we turned to climb the hill that would take us back to the Big House, we felt the first spits of rain. We’d both been watching the clouds rolling in and as there was no shelter, we just had to plod our weary way back through the rain. We got passed by about a dozen cyclists who must have been as wet as us, if not wetter. It was lovely and warm in the cafe though and we got a table without any problem.

I had just been given a tray with our two coffees and two scones when the woman at the till said the system had gone down. She took a note of our order and said she’d let us know when the system was back in business again. After our coffee and scone lunch, we sat and talked a while. People were being served again at the counter and it looked like the rain had stopped and the sun was shining again, so went back and paid for our lunch. The woman seemed surprised that I’d bothered to come back, but maybe it’s just auld guys like me who do that. Anyway, she gave me a wink and gave me a discount for being honest!

Alex suggested a walk to the Cadzow Oaks, the ancient oak trees that surround some earthworks. The oaks have been dated to the mid 15th Century. That kind of ancient. Some of the oldest living trees in Scotland. The earthworks are a mystery. Nobody seems to know their significance, and there is no clue to who built them. The oaks always make me think of the Ents that Tolkien wrote about. We both got a few photos of them, quite a few! One Ent photo made PoD. Then the rain threatened again and we walked back over the Duke’s Bridge to the car. I drove Alex home and we planned another outing between Christmas and New Year, probably to Glasgow if the weather behaves.

Scamp had been busy while I was away. There was mince cooking on the stove and a lovely smell of baked cakes from the oven. They were Dundee Cakes with a lovely mixture of fruit in them, as well as a measure of Black Bottle whisky. I’ve only had one, because although the paracetamol had done its job, I didn’t want to risk another early morning second dose.

Tomorrow, coincidentally, I’ve a dentist’s appointment to repair a broken filling, so I’ll maybe ask the lady dentist if she’ll have a look at my dodgy molar. Scamp is booked for lunch tomorrow at Calders. Hopefully I’ll be able to speak properly when she gets home, if my jag has worn off by then!

I saw blue sky! – 18 December 2023

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We drove up to Costa today to have coffee with Isobel.

We spent an hour in a cold barn of a place with a really high ceiling that means any hot air collects under the manky glass roof and doesn’t warm those seated below it. Although, I think the air con was blowing cool air around us. We sat in this dismal place for an hour. Isobel eventually put her coat on. An hour was enough in the cooler and we parted to go our separate ways.

Scamp and I were going to Tesco to get a trolley load of messages which tested the suspension of the blue car. It was just a Monday morning shopping expedition with little to differentiate it from any other Monday, except, the sun was breaking through and a big triangular chunk of blue sky was in evidence! Miracles do happen, even in Cumbersheugh.

We drove home and unpacked the bags and then stashed them in cupboards, fridge and freezer until the bags were empty. Scamp was going to have lunch, but I wasn’t going to let the blue sky and sun get away lightly. I changed into boots and drove down to Auchinstarry to get some real outside photos.

A couple of landscapes were first on the list, taken on a walk along the canal towpath, then as I was crossing into the Plantation, the light was just scraping down the side of the Campsie Fells. Just as I took the shot a deer ran across the path and into my field of view, except that the fraction of a second it takes for the shutter to fire allowed the deer to get into the trees. All I saw on the shot was the white of its tail. Never mind, it was the landscape I was photographing this time, not the wildlife.

I crossed the River Kelvin on the bridge and turned right to head back to the car park and found PoD. It’s a snail complete with shell, paddling across the waterlogged path that used to be a mineral railway line taking coal to Glasgow. A nice low angle and a slow moving subject gave me ideal image for the PoD.

Drove home after visiting Lidl in Kilsyth and wishing I’d walked through the wee park where a bloke told me he’d seen a kingfisher about a month ago, but the light was failing by then and I had to leave the kingfisher for another day. I drove home and had a late lunch of a piece ’n’ cold meat.

Dinner tonight was more of yesterday’s Carrot & Lentil Curry. It had matured since yesterday. Not as sweet and with some extra garam masala, it was a bit spicier.

Watched the final part of Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 where the winning artist painted Dr Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE for the National Portrait Gallery. It was so good to see a portrait that ended up looking like the sitter for a change.

Tomorrow a bloke is coming to service the boiler and I’m hoping to meet Alex for a photo walk.

Good news – 14 December 2023

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A phone call brightened my day today.

I had a morning phone consultation today giving the results of a “Stool Test”. That’s a euphemism for a ‘poo test’ which is also a euphemism, but I won’t drop down to that level! You know what I mean. I had the test done a just over a week ago because my red blood levels were low and today’s phone call from the doctor was to tell me that everything was normal again, apart from a slightly low iron level  reading, but that can be countered by eating more green veg and the occasional rusty nail. That was good because a Whisky and Drambuie mixture (which is called a Rusty Nail) is my favourite drink of the moment!  But seriously, that was a weight off my mind. Even better, the sun was shining!

First stop today was Tesco for some messages. I also deemed it appropriate to get a bag of Jam Doughnuts. I felt I’d earned it. I bumped into Fred who told me that Val seemed to be on the mend. That cheered me up too.

Back home, after lunch I got started making tonight’s dinner which was Minestrone soup which had lots of green cabbage in it, but no rusty nails. It’s a good workout for the arms, chopping onions, carrots, leeks, cabbage and half a lemon. they are all bunged into a very big pot with some water, salt and pepper. The whole mixture is brought to the boil, then left to simmer for an hour or so.

While it was simmering and Scamp had promised to keep an eye on it, I took a few odds and ends to the skips and tossed them in. I’d half intended to go for a drive to take some photos, but:

A. There was hardly any useful light by then.
B. I had a plan for a photo for later.

With that in mind, I drove home instead.

While I was out, Scamp had been wrapping parcels and filling Jiffy Bags with the contents. All very neatly done. I think I’m going to be taking them to the post office tomorrow, but I’ll keep you posted (Ha, ha ‘posted’ get it?).

For most of the remainder of the afternoon I fought with Microsoft 365 trying to work out what I was doing wrong and what was causing a ‘Trust Error’. Eventually I gave in and went online to Mickysoft chat line and was told it was probably the browser that was causing the error. Sure enough, I changed from Firefox to Chrome and everything went smoothly after that. Well, as smoothly as any Mickysoft program can work.

Just before dinner, Scamp got a garbled message from a woman at British Gas, attempting to explain how they were going to fix the problems with the Smart Meter not connecting to the billing system. It sounded like a load of waffle to me. She even said that if all else fails, they could return us to the old system where we would be have no on-line connection to the company.  A bit of a backward step?  Surely not!!!  This only came about after Scamp contacted the Ombudsman’s office again and asked what BG were doing, because we had had no response from them.  It’s amazing the power you have that you didn’t know you had!

The soup was a bit thick, but tasted remarkably good, given that there is no stock in it, just veg and water, basically. I’ve only just realised that I forgot to add crushed macaroni into the mix for an extra half hours cooking. I think that would have made it even thicker, so leaving it out was a worthwhile accident.

Today’s PoD was the photo I had planned for today. It’s the traditional Fairy Nuff on the tree. She doesn’t get out much, but when she does, she looks really regal.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending going to the final FitSteps class of the year. I might put another layer on my painting, or I might just go to Condorrat to post the parcels.

Wrong day – 13 December 2023

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I decided I’d go with Scamp to meet Isobel, but there was a problem.

We got a phone call from Hazy this morning. Just a quick call to see how things were. She also suggested we should contact the Ombudsman again since we had heard nothing from them for over fortnight now. It was a fairly short phone call, partly because the cats were misbehaving again.

Scamp and I drove up to Costa on a cold but clear winter day and I dropped her off outside, then went to find a place to squeeze the car into. When I walked in to Costa, Scamp was on the phone and Isobel was nowhere to be seen. It appears that she got her wires crossed and thought that Scamp had said it was Friday they were meeting, not Wednesday. After some discussion, they agreed to leave it until New Year. Probably best.

With that done, Scamp asked me to drop her at the train station and she’d get the train in to Glasgow instead because she had some important business to conduct. After I dropped her off, I drove over to Stirling because she wasn’t the only person with important business that needed sorting out. Unfortunately neither of my articles were available and I was just about to do a solo photo walk when my phone rang. It was Scamp asking for a run home from the station. I explained where I was and that I was on my way back to the car, so could pick her up a bit later. We agreed an hour would give me plenty time to get back to Cumbersheugh and give her enough time for a coffee and a cake. So that’s what we did. I stopped at Tesco on the way to get stuff for lunch, then picked her up at the station.

Lunch for me was half a Ginsters Christmas Special Chicken and Stuffing pasty thing. Not very substantial, but I wasn’t really all that hungry and Scamp had already had coffee and cake in Glasgow. The sun was still shining, so I took a camera over to St Mo’s hoping for something interesting to take. There wasn’t much of interest, but I stood watching a man and a boy flying drones. Amazing height they reach quite quickly, these tiny flying machines. Still, they wouldn’t make much of a picture. What did make the Picture Of the Day was a purple lost glove hanging on an artistic park bench painted pink. I thought the glove and the bench made a good colour combination, plus it was bright and cheerful. We need Bright and Cheerful these days.

Scamp built the Christmas tree today and started adding all the new and old decorations.  We’d brought some decorations back from our summer cruise to Croatia. They are now on the tree.  It’s looking quite delightful. I’m sitting her finishing the blog in the dark and the lights are lovely.
Dinner was fish ’n’ chips. Home made variety. Very nice indeed.

We were dancing at Kirsty’s class later. We thought we were going to start the Foxtrot or maybe reprise the Tango, Waltz Nioli and Quickstep, bit Kirsty had other ideas. It was three different sequence dances. Just good fun dances we did. Lots of folk in the class tonight and we were definitely kept busy. No more classes until next year!

We watched the semi-final of Portrait Artist later and wonder what is in the heads of the judges. They chose two awful paintings and one decent one. Heaven knows what they’ll paint for the final.

Early shout tomorrow because I’ve a morning telephone consultation with the doc about my review results. After that, maybe shopping.

 

 

In the Toon – 10 December 2023

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Just a flying visit today. It was dull, it was wet and it was miserable. It was Scotland!

I was taking a lens in to WEX to sell it on to some lucky girls or boys who really needed an 18mm f2.8 Samyang FE lens. I imagine they will be clamouring to be the first to get their hands on it, even with the mark-up WEX will put on it.

I took a crowded train in to Queen Street and walked up Bath Street and down the other side in the rain, handed in my boxed lens and got the paperwork, then I was back over the hill again to the city centre in the rain. I walked down Buchanan Street heading for George Square and on the way I took a few shots. Then I thought to myself, “Why bother. You’ve delivered the lens. Just go home.” Sometimes it’s sensible to listen to yourself. I turned in to Queen Street station and had 3 minutes to get through the crowds and on to the Edinburgh express. First stop Croy. I thought the train going in to Glasgow was busy, but this one was rammed!

Phoned home to see if Scamp wanted anything in Tesco, got a negative to that and then drove home to a lunch of bacon and egg washed down with a cup of coffee. I expect my jacket is still dripping!

Two days ago I photographed a poor wee rose bud clinging to its broken branch. It got PoD. Yesterday I cut it down, smashed the end of its stem to let the poor thing take in some water and carefully placed it in a rose vase on the kitchen window sill. It took about fifteen shots to get what I was looking for, but eventually I was happy with the result and today it got PoD for the second time.

Dinner tonight was an experimental Chicken Poached in Chicken Stock with Roast Potatoes, Baby Mushrooms and Multicoloured Veg. Served with a Chicken and Pea Jus. I think Scamp has been watching too much Masterchef the Professionals! It was delightful. I could almost hear that presenter’s breathy delivery with Gregg shouting in the background OH MATE!!!

We watched the sad end of one person’s journey in Strictly. The show is becoming a parody of itself. Not funny anymore, results predetermined. I give it one more season before it’s completely kaput.

Spoke to Jamie and thought he sounded more upbeat than of late, even if their wall might need repaired, but glad to hear that work can now begin again for a week or so.

No plans for tomorrow. I think it might rain!