Category: Driving

Shopping – 10 September 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Not Tesco shopping, but looking for books, trainers and prezzies!

We drove to The Fort in the outskirts of Glasgow. A vast array of shops selling almost everything imaginable, but mainly clothes, shoes and jewellery. I was looking for a specific book, ‘Wild Houses’, but didn’t end up buying it. I applied three rules I got from the English teacher I had at college more than forty years ago. She told us to:

  • Read the entire first page, because it provides the ‘Hook’ that keeps you wanting to read more. If the book fails that test, reject it.
  • If it passes the first test, select a page from around the middle of the book and read about half of that page. If you’re still interested, the book is worth buying.
  • If it fails the second test, don’t reject it out of hand. Take a note of the title and author and test it again in six months or so.

My book fell at the first fence. It just wasn’t for me.

Scamp and I were both looking for a comfortable pair of trainers. My old ones are worn right down and no longer waterproof. I tried in three different shops and didn’t find anything I was willing to pay good money for. Scamp had the same problem.

That meant Books and Trainers were a waste of time and money. Thankfully she did find the prezzies she was looking for, so we didn’t go home empty handed. When we arrived at The Fort around 11am, there were spaces on every row in the carpark. When we left, just after midday, there seemed to be none. People were prowling around actively searching for parking spaces. This was on a Wednesday, usually a quiet shopping day. I dread to think what it’s like on a Saturday afternoon!

We drove home and I admit I was being a grump. Maybe because I’d a near miss with a less than interesting book or a pair of too expensive trainers, or maybe it was just the mood I was in, but the drive home was in silence.

I went for a walk in the afternoon. I got halfway round one of my usual walks when the rain started. I didn’t mind, really. I had my Famous Blue Raincoat on and despite its tears and patches, it kept me dry. Dry enough to get a few shots of a little wee hoverfly that sat patiently for me. That became the PoD.

Dinner tonight was the best fish ’n’ chips I’ve had for ages. Scamp made it and it was way better than any food from a chip shop. Thanks, Scamp.

We’ve no plans yet for tomorrow, but it looks like it will be wet.

 

 

Out and about – 8 September 2025

Posted on by Zogman

An early rise this morning to see Jamie and Simonne safely on their way back home.

It was a flying visit, but it was great to see them for a couple of days. Good to hear that the boys (and the girls) were all well and grown up now. I don’t think we would recognise them after all this time.

We wandered around the house feeling like lost threads. Scamp put the fold-down bed away and I put all the glasses away. Still there was a whole day ahead and no real plans for it. I suggested we go to the Kelpies and use them to recharge our energy. Scamp agreed. Also, we could take a look in at Klondyke Garden Centre when we were there anyway. That sealed it. We were going to Helix Park where the Kelpies live.

Drove over almost to Grangemouth and paid our £4.50 to park, then as we were walking on to the beasts themselves, I saw a new view of these mighty magical horses. Two heads were rising above a grassy bank that made the statues look even bigger than they usually do. I took a couple of shots anyway and we walked over to see the Kelpies.

The park was mobbed, quite the busiest we’ve seen it in years. We did the usual walk round and between these metal creatures. Unfortunately the wind was from the west today and the smell from the sewage works was almost overpowering. We didn’t tarry long and walked back to the wee restaurant for a cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit each. We agreed there was just too big a crowd today and drove over to Klondyke to search out a bargain or two among the plants. Once Scamp had chosen her selection of bulbs from the vast selection, and I had picked up a fairly healthy looking Acer at a knock down price, they all went into the boot of the blue car and we went to search out some food.

I’m not usually impressed with garden centre food, but today’s Steak Burger was an eye opener. Best one I’ve had in ages. Scamp had a Mushroom Quiche and I had that brilliant burger.

We drove home and I planted the Acer while Scamp was going round dead-heading some of the fading flowers.

Kirsty’s class today was Cha-Cha. I wasn’t impressed. I used to say Cha-Cha was my most hated dance. I thought I was over it, but today, with the noise from the ghetto blaster and Kirsty shouting over the top of it, none of the instructions were going in to my head. She (Kirsty) wants to do another session next week. That gives me almost seven days to make up an excuse not to go.

When we got home there was a message from Jamie & Simonne to say they had arrived safely after a fairly easy drive. Glad they had an easy day for a change.

PoD went to the picture of the Kelpies looking over that grassy bank.

No plans for tomorrow … yet!

In all their finery – 6 September 2025

Posted on by Zogman

The youngsters were up about 6am and busying themselves getting breakfast and choosing what to wear to the wedding.

We pretended we were still sleeping, but knew we were just kidding ourselves. We too got dressed and made sure they had had breakfast and had all the accoutrements you need for going to a wedding. Just to be sure, I went over the basics of the camera again and could see that she was confident with using it. It’s a fair step up from her old Nikon as I’m sure she realised.

Suddenly, the car was packed and they were dressed and ready for a final curtain call at the front door to show off their finery, then they were off to the wilds of North West Scotland where a church was waiting for them.

We didn’t go back to bed. Instead we had breakfast and sat and did what we usually to, ie Wordle, Spelling Bee and Strands … Then we made plans for the day. We’d intended going to Edinburgh, but somehow that got put on the back burner and the burner was turned off. We settled instead for a visit to Stirling. Both of us were still looking for a pair of trainers and possibly a new pair of trousers for me. I’ve been promising myself those trousers for months now, if not years. I didn’t get them, but I saw two pairs of trainers that would work for me and a couple of pairs of trousers that would do the job too. Scamp didn’t get anything either, but did express an interest in a dance skirt. We but all of the above into that same back burner and vowed to come back and look at them.

I did get a book I was interested in and got the bloke in Waterstones to tell me about another one that I’d forgotten the name of. I didn’t have the name, but I recognised the title from his desk display. Unfortunately it wasn’t in stock, but I’ll call back and order it soon. The name was Wild Houses by Colin Barrett.

Lunch was two toasties in Caffè Nero. Both the same, although one was supposed to be a Ham & Brie toast, but it was a Tuna Melt that arrived. Scamp’s order was a Tuna Melt. I suppose I could have had the Tuna Melt magically transformed into the H&B, but I was hungry and in this case the TM would do fine.

We did a bit of shopping in Waitrose to pay them for allowing us to park in their store for a couple of hours and then we drove home. I went for a walk and came back with a couple of decent photos. PoD turned out to be a Bird’s-foot Trefoil flower, viewed through a chain-link fence. I thought it made a neat frame for the wild flower!

Tomorrow we’re expecting the Photographer and her assistant to return from the North West before going out again with friends later. That’s the plan for now.

Just tidying up – 3 September 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Or at least, my version of tidying up, which just means doing it on the computer, not in real life.

After we’d worked out the twisted games of Wordle, Spelling Bee and all the other assorted puzzles we play in the morning, Scamp was off to meet the rest of the witches and I was going to Tesco to get the messages. I’d a little list already made up under Scamp’s careful instructions. It was one of those days that looked as if it was just about to rain, but never did. At least, it didn’t do it until later. I’d some computer stuff to get my head round first.

<Technospeak>
Last week I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best when I removed one of my the old iMacs from the safety of the Adobe corral. Adobe allows you to have three Macs open at the same time. However, you can only use two of those three at the same time. The other one can not use Adobe software until you choose to remove one of the other two first. Confused? Yes, so was I, but them’s the rules apparently. I wanted to check to see if it was the old computer I’d removed and it was. That meant that the new iMac and my MacBook were now able to work together. I’ve more or less stopped using the old iMac now. It is getting slower than frozen treacle and crashes if you look at it the wrong way.
</Technospeak>

By the time I’d struggled through all that, Scamp was back from her meeting with the witches and just as I was heading into the garden to take some photos, the rain started. I managed to get four shots before I gave up. Out of those four shots, I kept two. The PoD was a couple of white Cosmos flowers. Not great, but done and posted.

I made dinner tonight which was Cod & Prawns with Fennel & White Wine. It’s an old recipe we’ve used a fair amount, but not for a long time. It still works, though.

I got an email from one of the Flickr managers asking if I was going to run Inktober again this year. I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to do it this year. I’d too many thing to do this October, so had to bow out. I may participate for some of the time, but not for the whole month. Pity.

Tomorrow I’m intending to meet Alex. We may go for a walk around Paisley.

Looking for a bin – 1 September 2025

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A bread bin, for the kitchen. More difficult to find than you’d imagine!

We drove to Falkirk in the morning because there is a large retail park. We knew we’d be able to pick up a decent bread bin there. Or would we? The first stopping point was The Range. They didn’t have a great selection of bread bins, but they did have a load of ghosts and ghouls and that horrible candy floss looking hanging stuff that every shop seems to drag out when it’s getting near Halloween. Yes, loads of that, but only two or three bread bins.

We tried another retailer further in to the retail park. They had a few wonky looking bins that just didn’t look right. I think they had been dropped a few times before they were put on the shelf and £40 for a bread bin is a bit extortionate. So, reluctantly we drove home and on the way, dropped in to Home Bargains, but there were hardly any there too. Maybe folk just don’t want bread bins these days.

Back home, Scamp started measuring the actual space we had and realised that one of the smaller bins would suit us much better than the large, overpriced ones. Of course Amazon had loads, but sometimes it’s hard to imagine the actual size of things on the Amazon pages, but I can see us biting the bullet and getting a bread bin from Mr Bezos.

I’d intended to go out for a walk, but instead, I found myself sitting at the dining table with a dozen or so cables connecting the new iMac to the laptop and the two of them connected to an SSD and an external Hard Drive. Just to extract two month’s worth of photos from the SD cards on the cameras. Thankfully the experiment worked!

We drove up to The Link to go to Kirsty’s dance class, only to find that we hadn’t brought our dance shoe bag with us. So I drove back to the house while Scamp sent Kirsty a message to say that we WERE coming, but would be a bit late. Eventually we had about a 45 minute class that was very useful for getting the right steps at the right time!

Back home we watched what has become our trilogy on a Monday. Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge. We’re brainboxes, us!!!!

Pod was a view of The New Town Hall with some ominous clouds above it . I liked it, Scamp didn’t. You can’t please all of the people, all of the time!

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere that doesn’t have bread bins.

Dancin’ – 30 August 2025

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Back to dancing on a Saturday morning. At last!

We drove through fairly heavy traffic for a Saturday morning and found a very busy dance floor in Brookfield. Lots of faces I’d seen at Evening Socials as well as the occasional Tea Dance.

Today’s recipe was Dancing Tango to Shivers, just to warm us up, then the despicable House of Bamboo which I can now stagger round the floor at, then it was into Real Dancin’. That means Waltz. I admit I have difficulty seeing the actual Waltz in these compositions of Jane’s. This one floored me until I started listening to Scamp’s descriptions, then it began to filter through my head enough for me to direct my feet to, if not the sunny side of the street, at least the right place on the dance floor. With that said, I don’t think I’ll be adding that ‘waltz’ to my dance repertoire any time soon.

I think it was a wee bit of fluff next before we headed into the second serious dance of the morning, the Cha-Cha. I did almost manage to catch up with moves, most of which I could remember from previous Cha-Cha sessions. It was a middle range dance. By which I mean it wasn’t as embarrassing as the House of Bamboo, nor as difficult as the Waltz. It wasn’t all that fast, certainly not as fast as I’ve seen it danced. After all, it was a Latin dance and most of them are fast. A couple of short sequence dances and we were done for the day. No dance next week because the teachers are off on a week’s holiday.

Drove home through three lanes of crawling traffic cursing my change of direction until we saw the length of the queue for the Kingston Bridge, then I didn’t feel so foolish, because I’d chosen the M74/M73 as my chosen route.

Stopped at M&S for lunch supplies and then parked the car and watched the rain falling. The later it was, the heavier the rain. I gave up on the idea of taking an outside photo, then decided that if I wrapped the A6500 in cling wrap, I could get a few photos of the apple tree in the garden without getting it wet. Me? Yes, I was wet, but as someone said, we have waterproof skin!

Watched the Dutch qualification for tomorrow’s GP. Nice to see some crazy driving again.

PoD was one of the photos from the cling wrapped A6500, with some raindrops on the fruit.

May go out somewhere tomorrow if the weather plays nice which is unlikely according to the weather fairies.

Out early again – 29 August 2025

Posted on by Zogman

I’m getting fed up with having to get up and out, and it looks like the dance teachers are home again and we need to go to class tomorrow morning too. It’s just too much. We older folk need out sleep too.

It was a dry morning as most mornings are just now, but by afternoon the rain clouds came rolling in and the day deteriorated.

What I did do today was drive Scamp to her FitSteps class, then I drove to the health centre to pick up some bits and pieces the doctor had left for me. After that I drove back home, filled the test bottle with smelly pee and took it back to the health centre for the nurses to analyse, the second time I’ve had to do it, recently. Maybe they just like the smell of pee!

Back home, and after I’d washed my hands a few times, just to be sure, I made a cup of coffee and settled down to solve the New York Times puzzle selection. We’ve both paid our dues an paid for the puzzles for a year. It’s not something I thought I’d be doing, paying for the right to solve a puzzle, but it has become quite popular with Scamp and me this year.

Scamp made Chick Pea and Spinach Curry from the Mowgli book and it was almost as good as mine. A few things were different, but the main part of it was really good, just not as good as mine (Hopefully Scamp won’t read that)

Today’s PoD was a bunch of pale pink flowers called ‘Daboecia’ or Irish Heath that are sitting on the back step. Another of my wife’s acquisitions, although I admit I had a hand in the choosing of them. They reminded me of Lily of the Valley. Fourteen photos taken and only one saved. The rest went in the bin, or will do soon, I think.

Another problem with the new iMac was put to bed tonight when I successfully sent half a dozen photos to Alex for him to crit. We don’t tear each other’s photos to pieces in a crit, It’s just a gentle nudge to say “I’m not really jealous … Honest)

Tomorrow, as I’ve said we are intending to go to dance class in the morning. Maybe we will stop off at IKEA on the way home. We need a new bread bin and Ikea is probably one of the cheapest places. Scamp also wants to buy a bed sheet. In a clever bit of marketing, Ikea make nice wide beds, but not to standard sizes which means you have to buy an Ikea sheet to fit your Ikea bed. Clever!

Another mixed up day – 28 August 2025

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But a day that got results too.

I was out just after 8am today to take the Blue car for a service at a garage in the other end of town. Delivered it and was told I’d get a call when it was ready to collect. Got a taxi back to the house and settled down to wait. I hadn’t dealt with this garage before, but knew one of the owners and was sure he was genuine, Besides, I knew where he lived!

My phone rang at 10.30am to say the car was fine and the service was complete, I could pick it up any time. Scamp had some business to do in the town, so we took a taxi to the garage, paid for the service, picked up the keys and drove back to the town centre. An hour and a bit later we came out with smiles on our faces, a brochure in our hands and the promise that we would go on holiday this year, DV.

Next stop was Tesco for some food and veg to fill up our depleted stock in the fridge and freezer and a bottle or two of beer and wine. When we came out, the sparkling of the roads was evidence of another rain shower we’d just missed.

Back home, we discussed our options and agreed we’d made the correct choice. While Scamp checked the details, I took a camera over to Condorrat where I bought us two small fish suppers. On the way there I got a few photos of bees on the Scabious flowers. I always feel that scabious gets a raw deal. It sound so like Scabby, and these are pretty blue balls on a stem and not at all scabby! One of the photos got PoD.

Tonight we watched another episode of Masterchef that was less than riveting and that is where we are now.

The new computer is working out well. Most things are behaving as they should and the speed of processing photos in Lightroom is quite astounding. My external hard drive is almost full, so I may need a new one soon to become another storage device for this year’s photos.

Tomorrow we may go out to lunch, if the weather sorts itself out. I’ve a few odds and ends to do at the health centre first, but I can probably get them done in the morning, once Scamp is off to FitSteps.

  • 28 August 2025

The Rain Came – 26 August 2025

Posted on by Zogman

At last, the long awaited rain came during the early hours of this morning.

I almost believe the flowers and plants in the garden were cheering when those first splashes hit. We’ve had the odd shower or two over the summer months, but today it was a deluge for a while. After that the clouds disappeared and the sun shone, then everything dulled down and a second downpour started. After that there were more showers, but not as heavy nor as long as those first two. The weather fairies are now predicting further showers, some heavy and some light in the coming weeks. Hope you down south folk get your share of the rain.

We drove over to Tesco after the first shower because Scamp wanted more compost to fill those green tubs we bought yesterday. The good thing about buying the compost from Tesco as opposed to garden centres is that Tesco stores their compost bags under the glass shelter at the front of the shop, at least that’s what happens in our Tesco shops. That means the compost bags are much lighter than those in the garden centres where the bags are stacked outside in the rain. I often think that in rainy, wintry weather, some of the goodness is washed out of the bags stacked outside.

I was due a telephone appointment with a doctor from the health centre this afternoon, some time after 2pm, I’d been told. My phone rang just after 6pm. The sister at my recent annual checkup had noted that my iron levels were a bit low and passed the message over to one of the doctors. I’d been given a course of Folic Acid and Ferrous Fumarate. Both seem to bolster the amount of red blood cells in the body. One pill in the morning and another in the evening. That’s in addition to the other pills I’m taking.
I’ve been taking both for about a month now and despite everything being normal in my results, the doc wants me to do the same test again in a month, just to make sure everything is normal. It was my turn to cook tonight and I added some spinach to the pasta to give us both some extra iron. If it’s good enough for Popeye, it’s good enough for me!

PoD was a photo of our latest addition to our garden furniture. ‘Crazy Chicken’ seems happy enough in the back garden, even in the rain!

Tomorrow Scamp is intending meeting Shona for a blether, but I’ve got to get more pills and I’ve even more tests to do.

Looking for plant pots – 25 August 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Out looking for plant pots and came home with a chicken.

We slept last night with just a duvet cover on top of us. Too warm for the actual duvet itself, so the cover provided all the warmth we needed. The weather is due to break in the next few days according to the weather fairies, hopefully that will mean that the weather will return to real Scottish weather. Cold and wet.

Scamp was looking for half a dozen plant pots for the back garden, so we drove to Torwood Garden Centre to source some. A lot of the plant pots we have have suffered in the recent weather. The pots being plastic are easily damaged by bright light. It makes them brittle and it won’t be the first time I’ve picked up a pot and had the bottom fall out of it and be left with just the rim in my hands. Like everything, plastic doesn’t last for ever.

We found exactly the pots Scamp wanted almost right away, so I volunteered to get a trolley because I just knew by the look in her eye that more things would be going into that trolley before the day was through, and I was right. A raspberry bush, pansies, wallflowers some black kale plants, a pot of heather and a chicken. All went into the trolley along with lots of other things.

Once we got them all into places in the boot and the back seat of the car, we went for cup of coffee for me and peppermint tea for Scamp. Then we shared a tipsy cake, tipsy in name only I think because this was a No Alcohol tipsy cake. I’m sure tipsy cakes used to have a distinct whiff of alcohol about them, or maybe I was dreaming.

Drove home via a narrow road just outside Haggs. I wanted to get some photos of the Forth & Clyde canal from one of the locks. I got the shot, but the real interest was a red tractor in a field next to the canal being loaded up with hay bales, presumably for silage. The bloke who was driving the tractor, was also carting the bales onto a low loader with a forklift attachment to the tractor. The light was constantly changing and I duly took around twenty shots from different angles and in different lights. That gave me some photos to turn into a PoD. I was really quite taken with them.

Back home and with the pots, flowers and of course the chicken safely unloaded, it was nearly time for Kirsty’s dance class.

Today was part 4, the final part of the rumba routine. This was the most complicated part so far, but by the end of the hour I was beginning to see how it hung together with parts 1 – 3.

Tomorrow I have a phone consultation with a doctor from the health centre to see how I’m getting on with my two lots of iron tablets.

The chicken has been named Crazy Chicken and is 100% ceramic! It lives in the back garden under some bushes.