Category: Driving

Calendars, Hips, Eggs and Mince – 18 January 2023

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Buying bags, guessing their size and getting it wrong.

Today I wanted to post the calendars out to Jamie and Jackie. Hazy already has her’s and Alex will hopefully get his tomorrow. The plastic sealable bags we had were far too big and clumsy. So we walked over to the shops in the sunshine, expecting to just pick some up. Not that easy though. We thought the bags we chose, those brown padded ones looked the right size. We also got a packet of foldback clips. Don’t worry J&J, you’ll see what they’re used for. The whole shebang was Hazy’s idea and it works much better than that perforation nonsense. Anyway, bags bought, wrong size. Just a smidgen too small. The ’smidgen’ in question was about 4mm. Time for lunch and a rethink.

Lunch for Scamp was French Toast or Eggy Bread, if you prefer. Mine was a throwback to something my mum made, it was mince with an egg poached in the middle. Sounds disgusting? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Even overdone, like mine was, it’s amazing. Every time I have it, I’m back in Larky instantly, aged about 8.

After lunch I drove up to the town centre and bought some ‘Goldilocks’ bags. Not too small, not too big, just right. Well, almost. They were a bit big, but not so big that you could get a piano and a pianist in them. Taped them up, addressed them and took them over to the post office then sent them on their way. They should be landing on your doormats soon, strikes permitting!

I walked through St Mo’s on the way back, but it was now mid afternoon and the sun had disappeared into the clouds, so there was very little worth clicking a shutter button at. That is, until I was almost home and remembered a bunch of Rose Hips that were a bit worse for wear, but looked very photogenic. I was just finishing with them when a dodgy looking guy asked me if I had a macro lens on the camera and I said “Yes”. Then he said “You’ll be able to get in close with that.” Never judge a book by its cover. That bloke obviously knew what he was talking about.

Talking about Books and Covers, I’m really enjoying Project Hail Mary. I can see how this could easily transfer to the big screen. I’m just about halfway through and managing to keep abreast of the physics, the centripetal/centrifugal stuff.

There were indeed very few photos worth keeping from my walk, but the Rose Hips won PoD easily.

Tomorrow I’m hoping Alex and I will manage a photowalk on the East Coast if the connections work.

Dancin’ – 14 January 2023

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Out for the first dance class of 2023.

It was an interesting drive out to Brookfield. We left Cumbersheugh in brilliant sunshine, but by the time we’d reached the outskirts of Glasgow it was obvious that wasn’t going to last. It wasn’t until we were almost at the airport that the heavens opened and we drove through rain all the way to the bowling club where our dance class was waiting.

We started with the Quickstep and we were both glad that we weren’t going to be learning a new dance. We really needed pointers on the ‘back end’ of the dance. There were a lot of things we weren’t sure of at the end of the routine. Thankfully the teachers were careful to show us ‘easy’ ways out of the tangle we found ourselves in, and by the end of almost an hour we were well on our way to completing this, our favourite dance of the moment.

Next a simple wee sequence dance then we were in to the Slow Foxtrot. That was another of our recent stumbling blocks and the word ‘Stumbling’ is not there by accident. We both did a fair bit of ‘stumbling’ on Thursday. Some of those problems got ironed out today, some are waiting to trip up the unwary! Another couple of sequence dances finished off a very useful morning.

The traffic was quite heavy driving home, but the nearer we got to Glasgow, the thinner the traffic became and I thought I’d risk taking the M74/M73 route which turned out to be a good decision. Almost no spaces in any of the car parks around the house. It later became clear that someone across from us was having a celebration of some kind and that explained the amount of cars. I found a space a fair bit away from the house and when a vacancy appeared nearer the house I drove down.

I did get out for a photo later in the afternoon and the best one was a shot of an old bunch of hawthorns growing on a wizened old tree in St Mo’s. That got PoD.

Dinner tonight came courtesy of Bombay Dreams. Pakora was the best I’ve had from there. My main was too greasy and lacked salt. I’ll fix that tomorrow hopefully. Scamp said her’s was much better than usual. You just can’t please all of the people all of the time.

I finally got round to writing to Alex and sending him some of my photos. I could hardly believe how long it’s been since we did a photo exchange. Nearly a month! Weather, Poor light and generally feeling Yuk were all contributing factors. Hopefully we are on the up and up now.

No plans for tomorrow yet.

Dancin’ … badly – 12 January 2023

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Today was the first Tea Dance of the year.

It was raining when we woke, which wasn’t surprising because it had been raining all night after a beautifully clear day yesterday. When I was opening the curtains this morning I was drawn to the distortion caused by raindrops running down the window. I thought the two geranium plants made a good foreground and trusting my new phone, I took some shots as ‘bankers’, just in case I didn’t get a chance to get some with my ‘real’ camera. That was a good move, as it turned out, because the rain just kept coming all day.

By midday we were almost ready to drive to Glenburn, south of Paisley for the tea dance. A much smaller group than normal today which was a double edged sword. More room to practise the moves we had sort of forgotten, but on the other hand, nowhere to hide when we made mistakes, and we did make mistakes, both of us. I was the worst though, I’ll admit it. Even dancing the two simple waltzes we know I still managed to make a load of mistakes. Sequence dances I could handle, but it’s the repetition that cements the steps and of course the ‘sequence’ of those steps. The other plus for sequence dances is that they are danced in a circle, so most of the time there’s someone in front of you to watch and learn from. Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep are a different kettle of fish. You’re out on a limb with them. If you do find yourself making mistakes or if you lose the sequence of the steps, your partner is going to give you THAT STARE! I know, I’ve been there. Having said all that, we had a great time. Almost two hours of dancing that passed in a flash. We sat with Barry and Cath and the conversation was good.

Drove home through more lashing rain and went the ‘long way’ down the M74 and the M73 and continued on to Tesco to post a birthday card to one of Scamp’s pals and get some Thursday stuff. You know what I mean. Thursday is still ‘Prize day’.

Dinner was a fall back, Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti (it has to be tinned spaghetti). The fish fingers went between two pieces of butter bread and became a Fish Finger Sandwich. Delicious.

Remember those photos I took in the morning? One of them became PoD. I’d shot them in RAW format. Very few phone cameras will record in RAW which is an uncompressed, unprocessed, literally raw image file. Usually it takes up a lot more space in the phone’s memory, but the excellent quality makes up for that. I dumped them into Lightroom and after half an hour of tweaking it looked presentable, so that’s what you see here.

Tomorrow is a busy day. Scamp’s intending to go out to FitSteps class in the morning and I’m hoping to start by making the dough for the night’s bread. John & Marion are coming to dinner. First time they’ve been here for ages. Looking forward to it.

Wet! – 10 January 2023

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It was raining when I went to make breakfast and it’s still raining tonight. It hasn’t stopped!

Scamp was feeling better this morning. Sometimes a bit dizzy, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. As the day progressed and it looked like we wouldn’t have been going anywhere anyway because of the weather we settled down to regroup and relax.

Lunch was scrambled eggs for Scamp which I messed up the first time. “How can you mess up scrambled eggs?” I hear you ask? I mean, the word ‘Scrambled’ in the name describes it perfectly. My excuse is that I added water to the eggs before I beat them, it should have been milk. Scamp corrected me and watched over me as I made this culinary delight, especially delightful if you’ve a dodgy stomach. I had the much more rustic piece ’n’ square sausage cooked medium rare, just the way I like it.

After lunch and after being assured that she was fighting fit, Scamp started the ironing and I parcelled up Hazy’s calendar then drove up to Tesco to post it. Drove back home in torrential rain again and not long after that, Hazy herself phoned. She’d read the blog and wanted to know how the patient was. I think she was relieved to hear the Scamp was feeling a lot better. We talked for a while about holidays to come and problems with planes, Neil’s surgery, which seems to be healing well and also cats with heart problems. All in all we covered a fair bit of ground.

Dinner was just a plate of the tomato soup we’d put in the freezer last week. It was ideal for today. Easy to thaw out and reheat, and gentle on the stomach. I do think that soup brightened the invalid up, because she was back to her old self after that.

I still hadn’t a photo of the day and it was a tube of Rowntrees Pastilles that gave me the idea, that and a torch I’d been playing with all afternoon. It’s a set of traffic lights made with the new Rowantrees Illuminated Pastilles which missed the Christmas shelves due to the train strike or the postal strike or any other strike you care to mention. It doesn’t matter, they’re fictitious anyway!

Tomorrow, Scamp is going for coffee with Isobel and June. I’m sure I could come too, but not when there are three women all talking at the same time. I don’t think I’d fit in, nor would I be able to get a word in. Anyway I have work to do at home that will keep me occupied for an hour or so. If possible I’d like a dry half hour some time before the sun sets.

Out to Lunch – 9 January 2023

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Today Scamp was out to lunch with an old friend she used to work with. I wasn’t invited.

It was a dull morning with rain. Not much to recommend it and because it was Monday, nobody seemed to want to move from the car park at the house.

Since Scamp was driving to Calders I thought it might be a good idea to change the windscreen wiper blades. I’d had two new blades sitting in the boot of the car since before Christmas and they weren’t going to be keeping the windscreen clear if they were languishing there. Five minutes later they were on and were keeping the screen much clearer than before. Scamp drove off about fifteen minutes later in a downpour.

Left to my own devices, I started another clean up of my room. It didn’t last long. I chucked out a couple of magazines and ditched two exhausted basil plants. The plants went into the compost bin and the pots went into storage in the wee greenhouse. The greenhouse was a mess. Inside the walls were running with condensation and all the plants that had been put in there before the snow and ice came were well and truly dead now. One of the problems with wee plastic greenhouses is that there is no air circulation. I think the greenhouse will need a good hose down, inside and out, on the first dry day – if such a day ever comes.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s later to get some photos. I wasn’t very hopeful, but I did come home with some interesting macro shots of a clump of Cladonia lichen I’d never seen before. The PoD was a photo of a Knapweed seed head, looking like it was covered in little spiders. Actually they are the seeds themselves.

When Scamp came home I started to make some soup in the Magic Pot. Just a variety of “Just Soup”. A mixture of veg with some lentils and a couple of Stock Pots to add some flavour. Ten minutes cooking time and there was a pot of soup. That was dinner sorted.

An hour or so after dinner Scamp began to feel a bit unwell. Feeling sick, and then actually being sick. We both immediately blamed the soup, although I didn’t seem to be affected. Even after she’d been sick, she wasn’t much better, feeling light headed and just not right. She went to lie down for a while and although that helped, she still felt queasy when she got up, so decided she’d have an early night. She and Denise had had sandwiches at Calders, Scamp’s being Tuna. I just wondered about what Jamie always said about not trusting mayonnaise in cafes and restaurants. Maybe that was the culprit and not the soup. Time scale was about right, at 7 hours. Maybe …

I decided I too would have an early night, so this is a catch-up. Scamp is feeling better this morning and is going to risk scrambled egg and toast. The soup went down the toilet this morning.

Today we’re having a lazy morning and probably a lazy day. It’s raining!

What a delightful day – 5 January 2023

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Yes, that was sarcasm!

Dry early in the morning, but after that the rain came and forgot to leave. Also the rain slid in quite quietly, but got stronger and heavier as the day progressed.

I suggested that we go to The Bothy near Stirling for lunch and Scamp readily agreed. It’s a nice wee cafe/restaurant at the foot of the Ochil Hills. We’d been there before and I had great memories of the Sri Lankan Lamb Curry. Maybe I’d have something different this time.

The place was busy when we arrived and they were handing out buzzers which isn’t really a good sign. We were told a wait time of about fifteen minutes. Half an hour later our buzzer buzzed and we were shown to our table for two. A quick glance at the menu while Scamp was looking for her glasses confirmed my choice. There it was on the menu Sri Lankan Lamb Curry. My day was going to be fine and hang the bad weather. Scamp chose Mac ’n’ Cheese, her second favourite on the menu. We weren’t disappointed.

After our I grabbed a few photos of the Ochils with the rain clouds misting them and a massive flock of geese in the field at the bottom. A panorama made in Lightroom from three of the frames got PoD. I had another try at photo of the Wallace Monument without the irritating electricity lines catching the eye, but it didn’t work, so I went with the geese on the grass at the foot of the hills. Then it was time to drive through Stirling because Scamp wanted to visit Dobbies. However, the shop was doing its Twelfth Night changeover from Christmas to Valentine’s Day, so it was, in a word, shambolic. We drove home.

For a three cylinder car the Micra fought its way through torrential rain and standing water to get us home safely and in good time. We stopped off at Tesco for a bunch of flowers for Scamp (it was Thursday, remember) and to see if the rum tanker had made it through. Flowers were bought, but no sign of the rum yet.

We watched the first episode of The Apprentice tonight, but it was more of an advert for Antigua than the usual contest, but the usual n-hopers were there and one of them got fired.

It’s a windy night tonight, but it might be a dry afternoon tomorrow.

Glasgow in the rain … and sun – 29 December 2022

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Four seasons in one day? Why stop at four? Scotland can deliver four seasons in as many seconds, but it doesn’t always choose to do so.

We drove up to Tesco today, then headed in to Glasgow and the sun was shining … for a while. Then the rain came. After that the sun came out and dried up all the rain just like in Incy Wincy Spider. We got parked on level 4 of Buchanan Galleries and walked down Buchanan Street. It was raining again and the rain continued all the way down Bucky Street. I spotted a potential PoD outside the Apple shop with its resident sandwich board hopeful. Almost did a “Bad Thing” when I accidentally unscrewed the lens on the A7. Luckily none of the wet stuff got into the lens or the camera. Locked it securely on and continued taking photos as if nothing had happened. Dropped in at Tiso to get some waterproofer for our Bergy jackets which are absorbing more water than they are shrugging off. Thankfully the Goretex is doing its job properly and that water shall not pass!

First stop was Argento to get the Nominations charm she should have got from Santa. Thanks to a helpful sales assistant we got it, and another one she’d bought before Christmas, installed into the bracelet in the shop.

We walked further down the road, but there was a fire alarm in Frazer’s department store and the place had been evacuated which meant that there were people everywhere, almost blocking the pedestrian precinct. We were ready to go home, so we walked along Argyle Street and up Queen Street. Had a browse in Cass Art, but I don’t need any materials, I just need to take time to produce some paintings or drawings.

The carnival was still in almost full flow in George Square and I got a photo I had missed when Alex and I had visited a few weeks ago. It was a trio of carousel horses, but have a look on Flickr and check the names. Can you still get away with that? Apparently you can. Show folk are obviously not as PC as some!

Scamp had a voucher to use up in JL, so she treated us both to tea and a cake. I ordered coffee instead of tea. I’m not sure what I got, but it wasn’t my kind of coffee. The cakes were just lovely. Scamp’s was and Orange Grove and mine was a Red Velvet. That was our high calorie lunch.

I’d been looking at a ‘returned’ pair of binoculars before Christmas. JL doesn’t do ‘used’, or heaven forbid, ‘second hand’ items. Luckily they were still there. I tried them out in the shop and they were just what as good as they looked. I took them. Scamp demanded that she pay for them as they were a late Christmas present for me. I started to argue, but a wagged finger told me to just say “thank you”, which I did.

We drove home via Curry’s in Coatbridge because I wanted photo paper. I found the paper I wanted and bought two boxes because they would come in handy. I got a surprise at the till because there was money off if you bought two! Bingo!

Back home I had one more thing to buy, a bottle of Dark Matter rum. A spicy hot rum. Unfortunately Tesco weren’t stocking it, but what I noticed was a bottle of Langs Banana Rum. It had been discontinued many years ago and I thought it was dead and gone forever. I sampled some tonight and although it’s more a banana flavour than a rum distilled with actual bananas, there is a hint of the old rum there.

Last night I roasted some tomatoes and red peppers with a couple of small onions. Today I made soup from the veg, all by myself … well, almost. With helpful suggestions from Scamp and also following the soup recipe from the Instant Pot, I made a pot of Tomato and Red Pepper soup. It’s a bit thinner than my last batch, but a lot easier.

PoD turned out to be the bloke with the advertising sigh outside the Apple Store in Buchanan Street. He looked totally ‘drookit’.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending going for coffee with Shona, but I might pass on that. I’ve a letter I need to write. One I should have written a year ago.

Shopping and old tech – 28 December 2022

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We took the took the blue car out for a short run today to Tesco.

I hadn’t really noticed how dull and dark it was until I saw that the automatic headlights had turned on. It was just after 11am.

We had intended getting Scamp’s meds, but the queue at the chemist told us it would be a good idea to come back another day. We bought milk and bread and porridge oats. Real Scotts Porridge Oats. These new fangled big flakes of oats that don’t break down when you cook them are more bother than they’re worth. Back to real porridge tomorrow.

We had thought about going for a walk today, but the drizzly rain just got heavier and heavier until it was pointless going out just to get wet. There was no enjoyment in that, so we each had a roll ’n’ banana for lunch and dreamed of better days.

Dinner tonight was paella which turned out really good for once then settled down to watch a film that Scamp had recorded called The Good Liar. An enjoyable story with just enough twists and turns in it to make it worth watching without being confusing. I commend it to you.

PoD was the poor wee flower on the poor wee poinsettia plant we’ve had in the living room and now in the kitchen. We’ve kept it cool, kept it warm, kept it dry and finally soaked the roots in water. Nothing seems to help it. Scamp has tried everything imaginable to perk it up, but I think it’s beyond recovery now. It must have been going over when we bought it from M&S. The motto is buy your poinsettias from Tesco like we usually do, not from M&S.

I took the PoD with an old Olympus E-PL5 camera and a neat Panasonic 30mm lens. It’s a really old camera now as is the lens, but as you can see it produces good images still.

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere just to say we’ve been out and hopefully in between the rain showers there will be the hint of a blue sky. No promises though.

 

 

Christmas Eve – 24 December 2022

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Seemingly going against all the things I complained about yesterday, we drove to Tesco today.

However, we weren’t going to fill our trolley with loads of unnecessary foodstuffs, we were going to find out if some kind soul had handed in a purple leather glove that Scamp had dropped in the store a couple of days ago. Luckily some kind soul had indeed handed it in and along came a smiling Scamp to show off that very glove. We restricted ourselves to a few veggies and a jug of filtered milk, then drove home. More madcap driving as we were leaving the car park with cars abandoned in every space that looked as if you could get at least one of your tyres on to it. Apparently the shop is going to be closed tomorrow for a full day! We’ll all going to starve to death if we don’t but everything we can get our hands on NOW!

After we got home and found places for the veg and stuff to go, we went for a walk in St Mo’s because the weather was reasonable for the time of year, it was dry and there was only a light wind. A good day for a gentle walk into the woods and back along the boardwalk. Not into the deep woods, you realise, because we weren’t kitted out with walking boots, just a gentle walk round the pond. I did think of taking a second circuit and allowing Scamp to go home alone, but I’d got a few photos of weeds dripping wet from the overnight rain, so we went home together.

After lunch I post processed the photos and found I had two worth posting on Flickr. Also, for this last week and a bit in 2022, I tidied up an image I’d processed, but hadn’t previously posted and it’s on Flickr now too. A weed picture got PoD.

By 3.15pm the house lights had come on and it was looking like early evening. Dinner was discussed and we decided to have Pasta Carbonara using fresh pasta we bought in Waitrose. It only takes minutes to make with the fresh pasta but it takes well over fifteen minutes with the dried stuff.

Tonight I wrapped up Scamp’s parcels for tomorrow and they are sitting next to the tree. I’m supposed to be making the dessert for tomorrow’s dinner if I remember to get organised in the morning.

All four of our invalids seem to be recovering from their respective ailments, which is good to hear and Hazy has organised a three way Zoom link-up for tomorrow. It will be good to see and hear from everyone. We’re looking forward to it.

Happy Christmas to all my readers!

 

 

Postman and Driving Mayhem – 22 December 2022

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Off to hand deliver a Christmas card and then driving to the Fort.

I’d left it too late for Elizabeth Gough’s card to be delivered by Christmas, but as I was going to be passing her house on my way to the last purchases at The Fort, I dropped it through her letter box. I was caught in the act by her daughter and then all three of us had a blether at her front door. I was invited in for coffee, but I declined as I knew it would be difficult to park at the Fort and if I’d accepted, I would have been there for an hour at least. It must be well over a year since I’ve met the pair of them and we had a lot to catch up on. Eventually I took my leave and headed back on the road to Easterhouse.

The parking was worse than I’d anticipated, much worse. There must have been about a hundred cars circling the gigantic parking areas and nobody was finding any spaces. I eventually had to give up and I thought I’d head out towards Drumpellier park and from there to Currys at Coatbridge to get some photo paper for the calendars. When I got near Drumpellier I could see there was low lying mist over the loch and, as I did have a camera with me today I drove in to the park. The light was lovely and the mist gave a great backdrop. Even better still, the car park was running at about a quarter capacity. I got a few photos and then headed back to see if Scamp wanted to go fro a walk. I wasn’t in a rush to get the photo paper anyway.

Instead of a walk we had lunch. Scamp wasn’t feeling too good and thought she had a wee infection. She had phoned the doc’s and was waiting for a call back from the nurse. The call eventually came about 5pm and the nurse said she’d leave a prescription at the surgery reception. I drove over there, picked it up and got it filled at the chemist, next door to the surgery. Then came drove home. It was getting cold by the time I was leaving the house and colder on the way home. I’m expecting the temperature will be below zero tonight, although it’s just about 4ºc just now.

I made celeriac soup for dinner. Thick and warming, but not getting much of the celeriac taste from it. Anyway that and some toast with a half a pizza later was a substantial mid-week dinner.

Good to hear that you’ve got your heating fixed, even if it is only short time, Hazel. Good advice from your mum to get a few local quotes too. Remember that the firms like our Scottish Gas like to put doubts in your head, saying that it’s difficult to get the parts now for older boilers. Sometimes that’s just to scare you.

PoD was a photo of four gulls sitting on the ‘Whale Tail’ in Drumpellier park. The sculpture was created in 1989 by artist Neil McLeod and entitled ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’.

No plans to go anywhere special tomorrow and definitely no driving to shops if today’s experience is anything to go by. We’ll probably do some local shopping.