Category: Driving

Driving, Walking and Raining – 12 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

With a few sunny spells too.

We’ve promised John and Marion that we’ll be at her dad’s funeral tomorrow in High Blantyre at 10am. We were up fairly early today, so we left the house at 9.30am to do a trial run to the crematorium to check out the traffic at about the time we’d leave tomorrow. We arrived almost at 10am, so our intended leaving time of 9.15 tomorrow looked ok.

Instead of coming straight home, Scamp suggested we go to Drumpellier for a walk round the loch. She hasn’t really been out of the house since Monday, so a walk in the park would do her some good, and do me some good too. This is the last week of the school holidays with teachers going back to work today and tomorrow and those lovely children (yes, that was sarcasm!) going back on Monday. There were quite a lot of children making the most of their last few days of freedom accompanied by mums, dads, grans and grandpas, all glad to see them going back to school. Add in the usual pensioners getting in their daily exercise and you can imagine, it was a busy place.

We walked the usual “travelator” circuit for a bit and then took one of the paths into the woods just to get out of the crowds. We walked through the Peace Garden which was looking a bit sorry for itself with long grass, weeds and overgrown bushes. Such a shame that the council doesn’t do more to keep these places tidy. Yes, I know they are strapped for cash, but it isn’t until you work for a council that you see the money that’s wasted every year. I guarantee there are ways the council could redirect some of that wasted money to make these places look better. However, in doing that, they’d be admitting that the money was wasted in the first place, so it’s never going to happen.

We left Drumpellier to the mums, dads, grans and grandpas, plus the weans, of course and headed for Morrisons at The Fort. Just messages today. No time for essentials like gin or whisky, so no fun either. From there it was back home.

After lunch I spoke to Fred on the phone for about an hour and heard his news.

Up until then it had been a fairly pleasant day although the clouds were gathering now. I was just putting my jacket on to go for a walk in St Mo’s when the rain started and it was heavy rain. The shower lasted about half an hour before it dwindled away to just the occasional spits and spots. I took that as a sign that I’d get a second walk of the day. I was walking over to St Mo’s when I saw a woman waking her dog on the footpath through the trees. Once I’d retrieved the Wee Dog from my rucksack and focused I had a chance to get three decent shots. In one of them the woman was standing in a patch of sunlight. That became PoD. A bit of ‘shopping’ to get it from the raw image to the one you see here.

Some recipes are fickle. You make one mistake and the whole thing turns to a tasteless mush, or a bitter inedible mess. Carrot and Lentil Curry isn’t like that. I used the wrong seeds. Should have been fennel and I used cumin. I used double the amount of lentils. I missed out the garlic that should have gone in. I even allowed it to burn dry. However, it turned out really alright! In fact it tasted better than alright and that wasn’t just my description, Scamp agreed. That’s a good standby recipe, one you can work with.

Quick dance practise tonight because I really need to concentrate a lot more on steps and frame and a hundred and one other things. Tina Tango was looking better after some help from dance maestro Scamp.

Tomorrow a funeral in the morning and then the rest of the day will, hopefully, be our own.

Going to the dancing – 7 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

At 10.45am!

Ballroom dancing class in Johnstone, the posh end of Paisley. The class started with a fairly relaxed Tina Tango just to get us going, then we segued into the Foxtrot which we made a decent enough job of, we thought. We got round the floor without too many mistakes and increased our confidence in dancing around people. I picked up a couple of tips from Stewart about posture and its benefits and also how to better direct my partner by using my hand on her shoulder blade. Jane ironed out a flaw in Scamp’s Heel Turn that had been bothering her. Finished off with a Rumba One.

Next was the Sweetheart Cha Cha, the one we’ve been trying to get to grips with this week. It was much better than last week’s disaster. We’ve managed the first part of it (the Front End). The Back End is still a mystery to me, but Scamp will sort it out. We also filmed some of the demos the teachers did and we can work with them once we slow them down and cut them into manageable chunks.

We had a bit of rain going to the class and a heavier bit coming home. The road was really busy coming home. We just dumped our stuff and headed off again, this time to Stirling to go to Waitrose. We got a fair amount of things. Mainly things you can’t get in Tesco or Morrisons. I got a couple of lamb chops that are earmarked for dinner tomorrow and Scamp got some fish, also probably for tomorrow. Didn’t go in to Stirling proper, just came home because it looked as if the town was busy.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s, in the rain. PoD came from there. Dandelion clocks are a bit of a cliché, but if they get wet they hold little beads of rainwater and become a bit bedraggled too which makes them more interesting, I think. There wasn’t much else that came from the walk.

Dinner tonight was a Charlie Bigham Thai Green Curry which was plenty hot and really good. Expensive, but worth it, because it is Saturday and neither of us wanted to cook.

I think I might have pulled a muscle in my arm. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I’ve been dosing myself up with paracetamol all day. I’ve also used some Ralgex tonight. I don’t think it does much good. I’m pretty sure the massaging it in does more to encourage blood flow, but it’s worth trying.

We had some thunder again today and a few heavy rain showers. More of the same predicted for tomorrow, so I doubt if we’ll be going far. Maybe a bit of dance practise.

Only available in silver – 6 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Not only that. Silver was twenty quid more than black.

We had a rather lazy morning with me reading Merlin Sheldrake’s book on fungi. I never knew they were so devious and also interesting. The section I was reading today was about lichen. Amazing things. I already knew about they really were a symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae, but I didn’t really understand what that meant. Now I do. I also found the word “mitochondria” and I wanted to shout out “Hey! My son knows about them!” This Merlin bloke treats this whole book like a thesis with all the references that entails. Heavy science for me, but absolutely absorbing in a literal sense. Who knew that lichen can absorb rocks!

Finally I had to leave the world of lichen, fungi and other things of that ilk and get up and face the day. We’d said we’d go in to Glasgow today and that’s what we did. As we were driving along the M80 in the general direction of Glasgow, we saw the CITRAC signs warning about surf water. Now the CITRAC is notorious for getting things wrong, so we ignored the warnings. Hmm, then we saw the spray on both carriageways ahead. A few seconds later the rain hit us, literally hit us. I did consider turning off and going back home, because the wipers weren’t really clearing the screen and cars on the outside lane were leaving wakes from the wheels. Then as quickly as it had come, it stopped.

Parked no problem in Buchanan Galleries and I walked into JL while Scamp went off to Boots. I was looking for a camera, but they only had it in silver. I wanted it in black, and I was going to take the black one when the bloke said that the silver one was twenty quid more expensive. Twenty quid just for a silver camera and lens? I think not. I ordered it and paid for it. It will be available for collection on Tuesday.

Met Scamp and we walked down to Paesano for a pizza lunch. She had Tomato sugo No garlic, oregano, Evoo (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) plus Spinach and Mushroom. I had a basic number 5 which is Prosciutto with mushrooms, tomato sugo, mozzarella and Evoo. Both were delivered double quick and mine had that lovely, slightly burnt crust. Delicious! The next time you are in Glasgow, you but go!

I walked round to Cass Art for a browse. Scamp found a dress shop to investigate. When I came out of the art shop it was bucketing down, absolutely hammering it. Scamp had texted me to say she was trying on a dress or two and I agreed to meet her there. That meant I’d to try to get into some shelter first before I got soaked. I found a lot of folk sheltering under an extended roof of an office building that gave me a good view of others sheltering under the portico of the GOMA. Instant photo that became PoD.

Found Scamp and we agreed the first dress was a possible but the second was a definite no-no. She wanted to leave it for a day or two to think about the ‘possible’ and I suggested she join me when I go to collect the camera on Tuesday, all being well. After that we found the quickest and shortest way from Queen Street to the Buchanan Galleries, but we were both still soaked by the time we got there.

By the time we were leaving the car park the rain was almost off, but traffic was jammed up everywhere. That’s when Scamp’s knowledge of Glasgow came to the rescue as she directed me back on to the motorway. I didn’t think we’d missed the rain. I was almost certain we were going to drive right into it again and I was right. A few miles out of Glasgow City we drove through it again, and again, by the time we arrived home it was almost dry. The rain did catch up with us again once we were in the house and we had some thunder too, but no lightning yet.

In what was left of the afternoon I found all the bits and pieces of the camera kit I’m going to sell to help pay for the new camera. We’d always agree that this was a ‘One in, One out’ deal and I’m happy to stick to that.

A short practise tonight, then a study of the video before another shorter but more useful practise almost prepared us for tomorrow. Hopefully we won’t look as if we’re totally lost this time.

Tomorrow’s weather looks much like today’s, so it will need to be another early rise to be there for 11am.

 

 

Out to lunch – 2 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Away into the country.

Drove out to The Smiddy near Blair Drummond and accepted the last table they had. Not really a table, more like a shelf with two high seats to sit on. We were lucky to get it because not long afterwards people were told there was a 20min wait for a table. Also, others seemed to waltz in, have a few words with the manager and jump the queue, no questions asked. I don’t think that’s a good way to run a restaurant. At least not if you want the jilted customers to come back.

Despite the poor managerial skills, the food was good. Scamp had her usual Mac ’n’ Cheese, but a much improved cheese sauce she said. I had the fishcakes and although they were a bit small, they tasted great with big chunks of fish and floury potato. Also, they were surprisingly filling, although that could have been down to the chips I snaffled from Scamp’s plate.
All in all, a good lunch if you can get a seat.

Instead of driving straight home we took a detour further out into the country on a road we’ve been on before we think, but couldn’t recall any of the scenery on it. Driving on ‘B’ roads in the lakes may have inspired my choice of narrow roads today, but the sun was out and we were away from the towns for a while. Our detour eventually took us through Thornhill and back to The Smiddy. We didn’t go in though. We’d been lucky once today, we didn’t want to have to wait 20mins for a table and then find some friends of the owner got seated before us. We drove home instead.

I’d taken some photos before we left the restaurant and today’s PoD is the result of eight of those frames being seamlessly joined into a panorama of the Carse of Forth. The ‘Carse’ being the name given to the low lying fertile land either side of the River Forth.

Watered the garden tonight and included our next door neighbours flowers in the deluge because he’d watered ours last night. Scamp watered the back garden. We may have another good, dry day tomorrow, but after the middle of the week, things will go downhill. With that in mind, we may go out somewhere tomorrow before the rains come.

A busy morning after a late night – 31 July 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Out and on the road to ballroom class in Johnston, just after 10am.

Drove out via the M73, then the M74 to avoid the M8 and Charing Cross where they, the ubiquitous ’they’ are still playing with their new pedestrian bridge which will be being lowered into place right about now (11.30pm on 31st of July). However, this morning the ground work would have been nearing completion and the M8 would have be a greater shambles than usual. The drive out was fairly easy and I only needed minimal prompt from the lady who lives inside the sat nav.

First dance was an easy sequence dance which got us all up on our feet. Next we did a reprise of the Foxtrot from last week. A few rough edges were cleaned up and by the end of that section we were agreed that it was flowing a lot better. Third dance was a Sweetheart Cha Cha. Cha Cha is not my favourite dance and neither of us knew this one although everyone else in the room knew it or had at least learned it some time in the past. However, Jane and Stewart after a couple of quick demos just dived straight into it and we were floundering. This is the first time I’ve criticised their teaching. Up until now, be it Zoom lessons or live lessons in a hall or even on a cruise, I’ve felt they took time to teach everyone. Today I felt that we were not given any real instruction at all. We are paying our money just like everyone else, so we should be given the same teaching as everyone else. I felt shortchanged. I’m sure Scamp will disagree, but this is my opinion.

Drove home by the M8 just to see if it was as bad as I’d thought it might be. It was slow, but not nearly as bad as the westbound lanes. I think it’s one of those occasions where both routes end up taking the same amount of time. M8 is shorter but with more stop and go traffic. M74 is longer, but the traffic flows much better. You pays your money and you takes your chance.

I went out in the afternoon to grab some photos and my favourite was a low level shot of a little yellow flower whose name escapes me. The last PoD of July 2021.

Watched Kubo and the Two Strings, a fairly interesting animation that kept us amused for the evening. Thank you Hazy and Neil D.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk down to Glasgow Green. Not been there in ages.

Batman comes to town – 30 July 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Glasgow was mobbed today. Was that because Batman was in town?

We drove in to Glasgow then I found a ‘black dog’. Things went downhill from there, and not just because we were walking down Bucky Street. Wandered in to Class Art and thought I’d walked into a time slip. All those nice cheap brushes they used to have had had their price tags updated to silly prices. It looked like they’d been increased by between 10 and 20 percent. Is this so they can bring them down by between 5 and 10 precent and call it a ‘Student Discount’ in September? Might be. I wasn’t buying today. I’ll go to Hobbycraft instead.

There were road closures all over the city centre. Presumably because the new Harrison Ford movie has just completed filming and the new Batman movie is presently filming. St Vincent Street was full of punters, all trying and vying to find an angle that would give them a glimpse of Batman himself or his Batbike. What an ugly beast of a thing, and the bike’s not much better. Two metre barriers were blocking everyone’s view of the action, but up the hill you could see red and blue flashers from, presumably, American police cars. If you really had telephoto vision you might just be able to see the Batbike at the front, but really it just looked like a dark grey dot on a lighter grey tarmac road. I took a few shots of the punters and with some jiggery pokery at home (after I’d lost the ‘black dog’) I got something I was happy enough to call a PoD.

We drove home under a cloud, both physical and otherwise. Both soon disappeared, but not before the physical cloud had dropped some rain on the garden. It didn’t last long, but hopefully it will do some good.

Out later to go to Crawford and Nancy’s for dinner and to meet Olly their new 9 month old Labrador. Possibly the most un-labrador looking dog I’ve ever seen. Long and lean and very clumsy, but great fun. It was a very good night. Lots to talk about with folk, like us, who love to talk. That’s what friends are for. Arrived home just after midnight, so this is a last minute completion of a blog I started around 5.30pm before we went out.

Tomorrow (today) we’re hoping to go to dance class and to refresh our memory of steps learned in Zoom class.

Electricity is wonderful – 26 July 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It was all over so quickly.

We’d expected to be without power for all morning and possibly for most of the day, however it took the electrician about half an hour to diagnose the problem and solve it. In the end it had been a fault between the old unused socket behind the washing machine and a wall socket near the sink. He still didn’t quite explain what he did, but all the sockets are now working and even the one behind the washing machine is safe although I don’t think we’ll ever use it again, just in case. There was one more problem to fix and that was getting money out of a cash machine to pay for the repair. Scamp had to try three different machines before she could get them to hand over the money, our money! That’s the thing about banks, they think because we give them our money to look after, that they get to keep it. That’s not how it works, they only get to play with it. They have to give it back when we need it. Anyway, she did, finally get the cash machine to give us some of our money and we gave it to the electrician. Paid in full and now we can use all the electricity we want.

After I’d put the washing machine and the dishwasher back in place and made sure they were working and the water had been switched on again, we had lunch. Then I grabbed the Sony and drove up to Fannyside and walked along the road to look for dragonflies, but found none. I did find a lot of white butterflies. Not Cabbage Whites as I thought, but Green Veined Whites apparently, according to Mr Google. They didn’t make PoD, a strip of moss fruiting bodies got that accolade. Actually it was growing vertically, but I turned it through 90º and it looked better.

While I was at Fannyside I was interrogated by an old bloke who was taking his equally old pal for a drive round the Arns/Fannyside circuit. He kept calling me “Son”, which I thought was quite funny as he wasn’t that much older than me!

Tomorrow we might just was some dishes in the dishwasher and wash some clothes in the washing machine, just because we can!

Put on your dancing shoes – 24 July 2021

Posted on by Zogman

First time dancing in among people for a long, long time.

Another day to get up fairly early, have breakfast and get things organised for our first face to face dance class since March 2020. We left the house at about 10.15 to drive the 30 miles to the village hall in Johnstone, near Paisley. It took all of the 45 minutes we’d allowed for the journey. Google said 34 minutes, but Mr Google wasn’t driving today, I was.

There were people inside the hall, lots of people, around 14 people and we only knew two of them, the teachers, Stewart and Jane. Oh dear, I thought. Am I going to make a fool of myself here by not knowing any of the routines. Not to worry though, I had my magic Dancing Shoes and when I lace them up and tie them it all comes flooding back. The panic, that is. That’s what comes flooding back. Aha, but we knew the first dance, it was an easy one, a Rumba One. That built my confidence. The next one was the Foxtrot and we’d practised it hard and for a long time. We’re not exactly perfect at it, but we can make it look like we are. For those who saw us dance it on Thursday and are shaking their heads, we can do it. And we did. One or two little technical points were missed, but the majority of the dance was there and we were keeping fairly well to the music too. That’s the difference with Stewart & Jane as teachers. If they see you have the basic form of the dance and are keeping up with the rest of the class, they forgive some of the errors, knowing they can go back to them later and fix them. Others are perfectionist and we’ve suffered under them before.

The third dance was a Cha-Cha and we’d covered it well on Zoom, so it was fairly easy for us. The class ended with a sort of Jive routine we’ve done loads of times and we mastered it on the second music track. All in all it was great. We’ve signed up for a ten week course that will take us into October! Strangely, I’m looking forward to the challenges we’ll face.

Drove back home and Scamp went out to buy Tesco. I stayed home and did some creative writing, converting a week’s worth of bullet points into a week’s worth of blog. When Scamp returned and she’d done two loads of washing, I went off to find a photo in St Mo’s. Returned with a few hopefuls, but today’s PoD was the hoverfly on ‘final’ to land on a cow parsley flower head.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the garden soaking up what might just be the last of this hot weather.

Did you know that 50 years ago on this date (also a Saturday) we got engaged!

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere after we’ve given a man some snot and some saliva!

Driving home – 23 July 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It always comes to this day.

We had packed last night. Really all that had to be done was to load the car and tidy up the house. That work took about an hour and a half with all four of us doing our bit. Then the hugs and goodbyes with the promise that we’d do it again soon. I hope we do.

Drove in convoy with Hazy and Neil D until they branched off to go past Broughton in Furness and we headed for the northbound M6. A fair few holdups on the road, but once we were on the motorway it was plain sailing. Stopped at Gretna to stretch our legs and window shop, although I did buy a new kitchen knife. Then it was back on the road and home.

All the plants needed a drink, it looked like they had not had any real rain either

I’d taken some shots of the mist covered Duddon Valley with sheep coming across the field for their morning drink. That was easily the PoD.

Tomorrow we may go dancing … in a hall … with a wooden floor … wearing dance shoes … and … WITH OTHER PEOPLE IN THE ROOM!!!

Stones – 22 July 2021

Posted on by Zogman

We were travelling into history today, our history.

Years ago we often drove down to the lakes for a long weekend when school permitted. Sometimes to Ambleside and sometimes Grasmere. Once when we were there we noticed an appeal for money to repair an old church in Grasmere that needed a new roof. If you paid a sum of money, can’t remember how much, you could have a paving stone engraved with your name laid on a path in a new garden near the church. We made the donation and got our stone laid, but when we went to see it, the path was only part completed. It seemed a shame to come all this way this year and not search for our stone in the garden in Grasmere. That’s where we headed today.

We knew it would be a long journey, but we hadn’t realised just how steep some of those climbs and descents would be. One descent in particular was 25%! We were just starting it when a girl on a road bike was cresting the rise, hardly out of breath. I admired her stamina getting up there. It wasn’t the most fun drive I’ve ever had and I’m sure Scamp wasn’t all that happy either, but we got there.

Grasmere was a lot busier than I remember it. Every car park seemed crammed full. However there was a notice on the exit of one that pointed to a new car park. We found it and it was nearly empty, I presume because it was on the far edge of the village. Didn’t matter, we were parked. There was a long queue to pay for a ticket, because everyone uses plastic these days and this machine didn’t seem to like that. It was rejecting cards right left and centre. I offered to try my luck with cash and four quid lighter I had my parking ticket for three hours. So, there was nothing wrong with the machine, it just didn’t like plastic!

We walked along a path beside the river and saw one of Mr Grey’s distant relatives fishing in one of the pools. The path came out just at the church and beside the church was the new garden, the Daffodil Garden, and the paving stones. The search was on.

Scamp was off like a shot and of course it was her who found the stone. Just as we remembered it. The entire path was finished now, all 3,000 of them. That’s a lot of money raised. After we’d photographed each other standing next to the stone, we left the garden to the others who were reading the names. The repairs to the church are still ongoing, but a lot has been done with the money.

We had lunch in a wee tearoom we used to sit in. Looked much the same as it did all those years ago. The couple who owned and ran it then have only recently sold it.

Scamp remembered another road home that didn’t involve climbing that 25% hill. I think it might have given the wee blue car a heart attack climbing it.

Back at the house it was an early dinner to allow JIC and Sim to get on the road. This was Neil D’s turn as chef again and it was Fried Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Beans. There was yet another group photo and a few tears when JIC and Sim took their leave.

I went for a last walk along the road and got a few landscape photos in the beautiful evening light. I think they are some of my favourite photos of the week. Back at the house I tried again for some shots of the moon, but none of them worked very well. One of the landscapes became PoD.

Tomorrow is the day we all dread. Packing up and going home.