Category: Driving

Wet! – 10 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

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

Posted on by Zogman

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

Posted on by Zogman

 

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

Posted on by Zogman

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

Posted on by Zogman

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

Posted on by Zogman

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

Posted on by Zogman

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.

Shopping – 19 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Today we were going out in the wide world, maybe even as far as Stirling.

The rain that started last night had continued all night and into this morning. It had done a good job of removing most of the ice that had held us in its grip for the last week. Today we were driving to Stirling to get some messages, but as Waitrose is posh, we’ll have to call it “Shopping”.

Waitrose was utter madness. There were cars circling the parking area just hoping to get lucky and find a space. I dropped Scamp off near the door and told her I’d pay to park at the council car park just along the road and bring the car round when we were ready to go home. That was the plan, but instead of leaving, I found a space just being exited right in front of me. I took it and said “thank you” to the crazy driver who had reversed out of it at speed and nearly “tee boned” the bloke in front of me. I let Crazy Driver go and slipped into his space.

After almost an hour of wandering round the shop and with a full trolley we loaded everything into the boot of the blue car and drove home. Lunch was the remainder of yesterday’s quiches and they tasted better today, well, mine did anyway. Scamp made no disparaging comments about her’s, so I guess she agreed. By about 2pm it felt like the sun was setting, so it was boots on and out to St Mo’s for a photo before the little photons disappeared entirely. PoD became two Dogwood branches with their very wet berries. The bright red stems do a lot to brighten the landscape.

Back home I got a phone call from what looked like Margaret Kent, but it was her husband, Bill who spoke. Margaret had passed away at the end of June and he was apologising for not telling me about it at the time. The poor man sounded devastated and I felt so sorry for him. Margaret was my second cousin. Her mother and my mum were cousins, but I always knew her as my cousin. Then Billy told me that Maureen, another second cousin had died in September. Both of them had been seriously ill for a couple of years, but we occasionally bumped into each other. That put a bit of a damper on the day.

The snow has now all gone and most of the ice too. We might go in to Glasgow on the bus tomorrow, all being well.

Dancin’ times two – 10 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

I think the wee car thought we’d gone mad today.

We drove in to Brookfield this morning. It was snowing a bit when we left the house. Not heavy snowfall, but those light fluffy snowflakes that always make you think there is more to come. It didn’t happen though, in fact by the time we reached Glasgow it had stopped and the temperature was rising. Then it changed as we got to Brookfield and we had to navigate an icy car park.

Inside and after the warm-up sequence dance, it was into the Quickstep which were are definitely getting to grips with. Not quite perfect yet, but we’re on our way. I thought we might have to put up with the Christmas Pudding Rock with “I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas” as the ear worm, but thankfully we were saved from that. Instead we did the Charnwood Cha-cha which is a sequence ballroom dance. Next it was the Jetlag Waltz which is not one of my favourites, but we worked our way through it.

Drove home through the crowds of folk heading to Glasgow, because it is Xmas and you simply have to worship at the alter of mammon. After switching lanes and taking short cuts that were never short and rarely cut any time we ended up on the north end of the Kingston Bridge and into a traffic jam that was ostensibly caused by one broken down car, but was really caused by shutting down two lanes of a four lane motorway because the council hadn’t the resources to repair a bridge. That’s the honest truth of it. Bridges these days, like buildings are built to have a 50 year lifespan and this one is reaching that fifty year limit. They will say that work is progressing to repair the bridges, but as anyone who travels this route frequently will tell you, nothing is being done, nor has been done for years. Anyway, we did get through eventually and arrived home to a slight covering of the white stuff.

After lunch and after a really dull afternoon with cloudy skies and and a temperature that barely reached above zero, I chose not to go out into the dreary world to take today’s photo, but decided that a bright pink flower on the Christmas Cactus was far more interesting. That was PoD sorted, post-processed and posted online. With that done we had to decide on dinner and Scamp’s suggestion of Fish Fingers, and Spaghetti was the winner. We were, after all, going out to the Christmas Ball afterwards and didn’t want to spoil our appetite.

We were heading off to Brookfield for the second time today. Better dressed this time. We had an allocated table and were sitting with one couple we see quite often at tea dances and another couple who we’ve seen before in Perth Ball. We managed to circle the floor with a waltz and a social foxtrot and even had a fair go at the quickstep. Just after the intermission we got a chance to show off our salsa moves to the surprise of quite a few others. However, the weather was closing in and we wanted to be home before the white stuff fell again. With that in mind, we left just after 10pm and drove home via the M74 because the M8 was closed just before the Kingston Bridge. Traffic was much quieter at 10.30pm than it had been at 1pm, and despite the slightly longer route, we got home and parked just after 11pm.

A quick G ’n’ T and a Rum ’n’ Coke brought a busy day to an end.

No great plans for me tomorrow as I’m waiting in for parcel, but Scamp is heading to Glasgow with the Witches for lunch and a concert in the Concert Hall.

Dancin’ – 26 November 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Drove through the rain to Brookfield to find an enormous marquee sitting in the car park.

Thought for a minute the class had been cancelled, or that the marquee was for us to dance in. Neither was the case. It appeared that the marquee was for an event later in the day and unfortunately the class hadn’t been cancelled. We filed into the hall to find tables arranged round the hall. More obstacles for us to dance round or collide with, depending on our dancing skill. The class started with a Melody Foxtrot, two tracks of it. Then it was full pelt into the Cameron Quickstep and almost all of the practise we’d done last night went clear out of my head. Gradually it returned after I listened to Scamp’s whispered directions, but it wasn’t the resounding success I’d hoped for. Although, neither was it the disaster that it could have been, so we’ll take that as a positive.

Midnight Jive was next just to give us a chance to clear our heads before the teachers decided to throw in the Jetlag Waltz, which we’ve only danced once or twice, but like most of these dances, consists of dance ‘units’ that are bolted together to form a complete dance. It’s knowing what order the units are in that makes for the level of difficulty. According to Scamp we have that one on video and so should be able to make more sense of it by next week, all being well.

I thought we were going to be forced into the Christmas Pudding Rock to finish with, but instead we did a round of the Sally Anne Cha Cha. I don’t know who Sally Anne was, but this wasn’t a cha-cha. Again it was a series of dance units bolted together in what seemed like random patterns. Noisy and energetic and fairly good fun. Got our blood flowing ready for the drive home.

The actual drive home wasn’t too bad although the weather wasn’t too clever. Still raining and I really need to replace the wiper blades soon. The way they rattle across the windscreen sets my teeth on edge. We stopped at the shops on the way home to get milk and donuts and cakes, because we’d been good and not made a total mess of the morning’s dances.

I took a walk over to St Mo’s in the late afternoon because the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing for a warm looking sunset. Warm looking, yes, but it was getting cold, so only one circuit of the pond. PoD was a shot of a woman walking her dog along the boardwalk with some early evening light.

Dinner tonight came courtesy of Golden Bowl. Chicken Chop Suey and Fried rice for Scamp and Chicken Chow Mein for me. Very nice, if a bit dry.

We watched Hidden Figures on TV. It’s based on the true story of three women of colour in America attempting, and succeeding in working for NASA to make a success of the first American in space. Yes, we’ve seen it before, but the message was still there and the fact that we’d both lived through such ridiculous bigotry shocked both of us, just as it had on our first viewing.

Tomorrow looks a lot better than today according to the weather fairies. I hope they have it right.