Category: Driving

Ur ye dancin’? Naw! – 17 January 2018

Posted on by Zogman

When we woke today, everything was white. Deeper and deeper snow.

Thankfully, it didn’t last. By the time we were leaving to drive in to Glasgow, the snow was rapidly disappearing. In fact as we drove along the motorway, it was rain not snow that was slapping the windscreen. We parked and walked down to Blackfriars pub where today’s ballroom and jive dance classes were to be … or not to be as it turned out. The barman told us that the class had been cancelled because of bad weather. Bummer. However, we were in a pub and it seemed a shame not to have a drink, so that’s what we did. Scamp had a G&T and I had a Heineken 00, which must be the best low/no alcohol beer I’ve tasted. Certainly better than Becks Blue and the bog awful St Peter’s. We wandered round the Toon a bit after that. Scamp got the makings of Paella for dinner and I got some paint. This is where CassArt wins. I got a 250ml tub of standard W&N Titanium White:
CassArt £5.50
Millers £10.50
Same tub, same paint, ridiculously different price. Where Millers wins is when you want one black pen, or one pencil or one of anything really, except white acrylic paint. CassArt do good deals on bulk lots, they also, obviously, also do good deals on white acrylic paint.

We went for a coffee before we came home and Scamp had an interesting conversation with a wee baby with great big eyes who was sitting having his lunch next to us. He seemed more interested in Scamp than in his pot of dinner! We, that is Scamp and I, decided that we wouldn’t go out to Salsa tonight. There were two classes on, a beginner’s and a class just starting level 3. Neither of them would give us much chance to dance and more snow was forecast, so it made sense to stay in. Walking back to the car, the sky lightened enough to give me a chance of a PoD and that’s what you see above. It’s a reflection of chimney pots in the big mirrored building in Queen Street.

The snow hasn’t come, in fact with the temperature rising slightly, I think the thaw is continuing.

Scamp has a hospital appointment tomorrow and I think we may be looking for a new microwave as the one we have at present won’t switch off, which is a bit of a nuisance to say the least. That forms our plans for tomorrow.

Snow and Snowballs – 16 January 2018

Posted on by Zogman

During the night, the snow fairy had visited us.

It was deep, not very crisp, but even when we woke. I went down to drag enough snow off the car, to let me drive it up to our parking area, yes, I know that’s not exactly legal, but needs must. Once it was near the house I could get it uncovered properly with brushes and stuff. With the car cleared of snow we drove down to Auchinstarry to go for a morning walk. Just my usual walk, along the canal, over the plantation and back along the railway walk … in a blizzard part of the way, then in sunshine, then in another snow shower. It was a good walk. Probably the best bit was walking across the plantation on untrodden snow and making that crunching, almost squeaking sound that snow makes when it’s fresh.

Got a decent set of photos on the walk. Five of them are above. PoD was the one of the lady in the orange jacket walking along beside the canal. It was really nice of her to position herself there in exactly the right place. I also liked the pic of Scamp unconsciously posing behind the wooden gate.

That’s the snow dealt with. Next the snowballs. I was making Butternut Squash Soup for dinner tonight so we went to Lidl to get some Butternut Squash and it was there Scamp saw the snowballs. Snowballs for the uninitiated are two hemispheres of sponge joined into a sphere with jam or icing, covered in thin icing and rolled in desiccated coconut. Correctly made they are delicious. These ones were correctly made!

I had to forego my snowball until after I’d been to the dentist this afternoon, but it tasted all the better for that. The dentist Chair of Torture was broken, so the condemned had to climb on a small stool to get on to it! Still, it was a “No fillings today mum” kind of day, so I didn’t care.

It has snowed on and off all day and as Scamp was heading for bed she reported that the snow was on again. It’s good not having to care about it or going to work in it!

Tomorrow, hopefully dancin’.

Went out early got some photos – 15 January 2018

Posted on by Zogman

It was grey and dark when we woke and didn’t improve much for a few hours.

After the dull start, the sun broke through and I decided to go out and get some photos. Just because it’s a Monday, a Gemsday, doesn’t mean I have to follow the usual pattern and do things in order. The sun was out and so was I. The mosaic above shows that the sun did actually shine for a while. The weather forecasters were going crazy telling us there would be snow for hours tonight with compromised travel arrangements tomorrow morning. I didn’t care. The sun was out and so was I. It wasn’t really cold either. Not exactly shorts and tee shirt weather, but decidedly not cold.

When I got home, the house was sparkling as it usually is on a Gemsday. Not that it’s ever dirty, but it gets that extra little burnish on a Gemsday. I’d started a painting this morning before I went out, when the sun was still hiding, so while the singers were assembling downstairs I put another layer of paint on it. Strangely I’d messed around with this method a few months ago and hadn’t really settled down to finish any of the paintings. Maybe I should dig them out from where they’re hiding and finish them off. Anyway, once I’d reached a point where the paint needed to dry, I left it on the easel and headed for the gym.

I did 15 mins on the recumbent bike and then 10 reps on three of the machines then a final 10 minutes on the walking treadmill. That was enough. Got changed and went for a swim then a soak in the steam room before heading home.

Salsa tonight was centred on the twisty, turny Gorila (one ‘L’) from last week. It’s not getting any easier, especially when we try to dance it. I think I managed it twice out of the six or seven attempts tonight. Maybe we’ll practise tomorrow.

Couldn’t get parked tonight. Everywhere was full in the carparks. When I came in and reported that, Scamp said airily “Oh, there are spaced further down the road.” Did she offer to go and park the Juke? Don’t be silly.  I went back out in the sleet and parked it on a different street, something I don’t like doing. Hopefully it will still be there in the morning.  Not in a good mood now.

PoD was the moss macro top left.

Dentist tomorrow. 🙁

Perf – 13 January 2018

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Today we went to the fair city of Perth.

Up and out early so we made the most of this dull day. I was going to Perf for coffee and lunch, in that order. I also got a pair of shoes, but that was purely accidental, and also pure luck.

Last week we went dancing in Arta and the floor was like an ice rink. Everyone agreed it was slippery. Today I noticed it again when I was walking through the St John’s shopping centre in Perf. At first I thought it was just me, but then I noticed that the security guards were slipping on the tiles too. Why do architects insist on style over function? Yes, they look pretty in all their pastel colours. Yes they shine nicely in the sunshine. No they are not safe when you’re walking on them. Hmm. Maybe if one of the architects had worn shoes like mine with almost no grip in the soles, or like the leather soled shoes the security guard was wearing, then they might have rethought the use of shiny tiles for the flooring of the shopping centre. Right, I’ll stop grumping now. Anyway, I walked into Clarks and found a pair of size 7 ‘H’ width brown shoes that actually fitted, and in the sale too! I think it was because I said to Scamp before I went in that: “I never find a pair of shoes that I like and that fit me in the sale.” Maybe I did today. Only time and a fair amount of wearing them in the house will decide.

Went to the coffee shop and got, you guessed it, coffee (and tea). In fact, quite a lot of coffee. I also found out how to order Cuban coffee beans online. Thanks for screwing up Obama’s good conciliation work there DT. (When I was a teenager, DT meant Delirium Tremens – a severe psychotic condition associated with chronic alcoholism. Now it stands for Donald Trump – a severe psychotic.)

Lunch was going to be in Howie’s restaurant, but the fact that it was closed “due to unforeseen circumstances” meant that we were forced to go the Café Tabou instead. “Oh dear what a shame”, I said!! Scamp had starter of Mussels and a main of Seared Tuna Steak (and what a steak it was!). I had Risotto with Smoked Mozzarella and Sun-dried Tomatoes and then Pan Fried Duck Breast with lots of stuff. Absolutely fantastic. Service was slow, but we didn’t care when the food arrived.

Wandered around Perf for a bit and then came home. We should have been going to a birthday bash for Johnny (Jesus) Batchelor in Ad Lib tonight, but decided not to go because it had been such a dull day we couldn’t be bothered going out again after getting back from Perf.

Today’s PoD was ‘flooers’, but not the usual shot. A bit of a macro and an abstract one at that. I quite like it.

Nothing planned for tomorrow, but I fancy a walk down the Green, probably not in my new shoes, not yet anyway.

Fog – 11 January 2018

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We had considered two options for today. Go to Perth or go to lunch. Lunch won.

It was foggy when I woke around 5.15 this morning. I went back to bed and when I finally broke the bounds of sleep the fog had gone. However, about half an hour later it started to sneak back around us again. We decided to go to lunch and defer the Perth trip until the weekend.

We went to the Cotton House in Longcroft and saw almost no fog, in fact there was blue sky up there. The Cotton House a Chinese and Thai restaurant and we always have the same main: Chicken Chow Mein. It’s only our starters that change.

After lunch we drove in to Dunipace and then up the Carron Valley road then over on to the Tak Ma Doon road and just had to stop because although there had been no fog all the way on the climb to the hilltop, there in front of us was a sea of fog stretching right across the valley. It was thickest over Glasgow to the right (west) and thinned out over to Grangemouth and the Forth Bridges on the left (east). This had to be PoD. I got about twenty shots of the scene before we drove down the other side and into that sea of fog. The view from the top of the hill reminded me of the fog we saw from the top of Box Hill when we were visiting H&N away back in 2007!!! Can it really be that long ago? The EXIF data rarely lies.

When I started to process the shots, that’s when the work really started. Contrast was very low and it took me quite some time to tease out the details in the images without increasing the digital noise too much. You can see the three best images above. Final decision was that bottom left was PoD.

One last thing before I close and it’s for you JIC. Have a look at this shot I saw on Flickr tonight (I don’t think it will mean much to you Hazy):

Outside Newton Stewart

If you click on it you can read the description and my comment and it will all become clear. That should take you back about forty years! It did for me.

Tomorrow it’s coffee with Val, Fred and Colin. Looking forward to it.

Chasing the Sunset – 9 January 2018

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A bit of a nothing day. Not a lot to report other than the frost had all melted by about 10.30 this morning, but it was dull.

Finished off The Book of Dust. “A good read. A bit Boys Own Paper with some sweaty words”, sums it up for me.

Finally got round to posting the last calendar, JIC. Should slide through your letterbox in a day or two. Printed out another two last night and that will be the end of the calendar print for another year, unless I go the whole hog and print one for myself. Unlikely.

Driving back from Tesco I say the sky turn a golden pink colour from an already setting sun. It was just after 3pm, but that’s about the extent of the daylight at this time of the year up north. Drove round trying to find a suitable foreground for the sunset, but couldn’t find one. Eventually gave in and took a shot from behind Moodiesburn looking towards Muirhead. The resulting image that loaded into Lightroom wasn’t really what I saw, so I changed it a wee bit, and that’s what you see above as PoD.

<Technospeak>
Hazy, I had a problem with WordPress last night. The editing was restricted to text input and no Visual option was available. I got the blog written and posted, but knew this was some kind of screw-up. Slept on it and this morning investigated and found it could be caused by an update of themes and plugins. Since I’d upgraded both the theme and a few plugins yesterday morning, I suspected that was the culprit. So, this afternoon I deactivated all the plugins and tested with a new post. Yes, the input screen was normal with the text and visual tabs available again. Long story short, I found the culprit to be the upgraded Wordrpress(!) Markdown plugin. I’ve deactivated it and activated all the rest, then found another Markdown plugin that did the same job without the side effects. I hope you’re impressed, and thankful that I didn’t just automatically phone the ‘helpline’. I’m guessing you would have told me to do exactly what I found on the ‘net.
</Technospeak>

That about sums up the day. Dull and dank, but with a reasonable sunset thanks to Lightroom and Picktorial. A sort of Software Sunset.

Don’t have any plans for tomorrow. May take a trip to Perf, or may leave that until Thursday.

Hogmanay – 31 December 2017

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The last day of 2017.

I suppose I should do a review of our year, but there have been so many ups and downs and they have all been recorded in these pages along with some photos to give a bit of perspective and also some colour to the day. Some dull days have contributed very little to the overall and some have produces a surprising amount. I’ve tried to write up these notes on the actual day, but sometimes I’ve left it to the next day to do the writing. Often I’ve gone just over the midnight cut-off and had to fake the publishing day. That’s as much review as I’m going to write.

Today was windy to start with. Storm Dylan visited us overnight and was on its way out when we woke, but was still gusting around until midday. After lunch of not one, but two rolls ’n’ sausage, flat sausage, I did think about going out for a walk, but then H&N arrived and the walk had to be put on hold. Next it was time to pick up Auntie June and bring her over to meet them. I managed a few minutes then to make a PoD which I’d been considering anyway. It’s the flower from the Christmas cactus. It just missed Christmas, but I don’t mind. I’ll forgive it this time because it’s had a tough year, as have we all.

June stayed for dinner tonight which was Broccoli Soup, Chicken and Mushroom pie and Lavender Panna Cotta. Various coffees followed Decaf and Caf and also one flavoured with Amaretto for June. We sat and talked for a while after that to allow the dinner to slide down, then I took June home and H&N left soon after.

It was good to have everyone round on Hogmanay. Plenty of good humoured talk and laughing a plenty. That’s what an old fashioned Hogmanay was all about.

While Scamp and I sat and watched the Christmas Lectures, I did a wee sketch. The last one of Ink ’17. Number 52. 52 sketches in 52 weeks.

Tomorrow? Tomorrow will be a new year with new challenges and new photos to take. Maybe even more sketches to draw, definitely more sketches to draw and improve on.

I’m moving back – 21 December 2017

Posted on by Zogman

Not that anyone here will notice, but I’m writing this in Day One again. I’ve tried Journey and it’s ‘ok’, but only ‘ok’. Until it stops working completely, I’ll be using Day One and synching the ‘old school’ way.

Now, as to the day. It started out a bit misty and then the mist got thicker and thicker until it was officially fog. We were going to have lunch at The Smiddy just past the Blair Drummond turn off on the Callander road. After consideration, we decided that the fog probably really only extended to the outskirts of Cumbersheugh and we’d drive out of the fog into sunshine by the time we reached Haggs. Well, maybe not sunshine, but certainly out of the fog. Nope, that didn’t happen. It just got thicker, the closer we got to Stirling. I couldn’t believe the number of folk driving with no lights. I don’t mean fog lights, I mean any lights at all. Some had the DRL (Daytime Running Lights) on, but they come on automatically on most modern cars, but some had no lights of any kind. Yes, they could see perfectly well, but if you’re driving a grey car in fog you are kind of invisible. My cousin John told me years ago when I first got a motorbike to always drive with dipped headlights everywhere. Don’t use sidelights he told me, use headlights. They don’t cost anything more to run and one day they’ll save your life. Sensible instructions.

Anyway, we reached The Smiddy without incident and had lunch there:

  • Macaroni and Cheese with lovely chips for Scamp
  • Vegetarian (!!) Chilli for me. Quite spicy and with an extra side of Jalapeño Peppers, and they were hot!!

Afterwards I got some sausages, a Denver steak, Ham trimmings and some Venison because their on-site butcher’s shop is good quality.

Got today’s PoD there. While we were having lunch I watched the fog lift quite a bit and thought my chance of a shot of a tree lined farm track was gone. I’d taken my small tripod with me because I guessed the light would be fairly low and if the fog was lingering in the low lying areas around the restaurant then I’d need some support. It’s just a light weight tripod, not as stable as the big Manfrotto 055, but it’s great for holding the Olys. The fog was just beginning to come down again when we were leaving the restaurant and I took my chance to grab my shot before the fog became too thick and obscured everything. I think, not, that I could have waited a little longer, but I didn’t want to waste too much time before we drove home.

One more sketch to add for last week’s ink ’17.  This one, like last week’s was done on my mousemat / blotter / notepad, call it what you will.  It’s basically a doodle that evolved over a few days.  It’s in oblique projection (Aargh!  I hated oblique projection at school, both as a receiver and a giver of drawing skills), possibly the crudest form of projection, but also the easiest to learn.  It’s in ink and it’s done.  The maxim for Ink ’17.

No great plans for tomorrow. Maybe a swim. Maybe a trip into Glasgow. Depends as always on the weather.

Fish and Monkey Glands – 19 December 2017

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Out early and drove to Linlithgow to get some fish to fill the freezer.

We had to go early because my coffee mountain was being delivered in the afternoon. Got the fish and also got some gin that John had recommended at Aldi in the town. Also got a couple of steaks, one of which will do for Christmas dinner.

Came home and after lunch went to dump some empties in the bottle bank, but not before photographing them! Discovered I didn’t have my phone with me. I’d intended getting more photos when I was out, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Came home to find Scamp dressed ready to go out. Her aunt was stranded at Monkey Glands (Monklands) hospital in Airdrie. As it was getting dark now, I offered to drive there with her. Came home and dropped Isobel at her house and drove home. Still no more photos, so the old bottles would have to do as PoD.

That’s about it. We now have some parcels under the tree, at last.

Tomorrow it’s coffee with the boys.

Ice is not nice – 14 December 2017

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An icy morning. Jac’s taxi didn’t come, so I volunteered to drive her to the station.

It wasn’t all that cold, but it had snowed during the night and the snow had melted, then frozen again and now that ice was melting, on the surface at least and that meant it was treacherous. The Juke performed perfectly, I couldn’t fault it. Unfortunately there was a queue of traffic heading along towards St Mo’s taking the children who can’t walk if it’s cold, or windy, or wet, or dry, or too hot, or too tired, or .. well, you get the picture. I turned at the roundabout and took the longer, but much quicker way round the back of Blackwood and then through the new estates to the station. Got there with plenty of time for Jac to catch the train (the next train, that is). Came home the same way because, although the queue was shorter, it was still there and resolutely not moving. Walked back from the car and that was when I found out just how slippery the surface was. Slid all the way down the short slope to the house. Didn’t fall, luckily, but Scamp decided it would help other folk if I spread some chippings on the path. Such a simple solution and it worked.

After lunch Scamp parceled up the Christmas parcels for JIC and Sim and I took them to be posted at Tesco. Got that completed and stopped off at St Mo’s to take some foties. Liked the shot through the trees also liked the shot of the swan attempting a tricky landing on ice, but decided the trees won PoD. The rest were good, but not great. I was better prepared for the ice this time with a pair of walking boots, real ones, not Clarks flashy looking, but ultimately useless Goretex ones. The ice was melting in the areas the late sun was reaching, but as I was leaving I could see thin icy fingers stretching out across the puddles. (Oh dear, I came over all ‘Nigella’ there!)

Later in the afternoon I finished last week’s Zentangle doodle. I thought these things were beneath me, but they are more difficult than they look. You need a good eye and a steady hand to produce the accurate linework.

That was about it for the day. The highlight of the day was going to Tesco. Some days are like that.

Tomorrow, I may be joining Scamp for a coffee with Shona!