Category: Driving

Dropping in on the Kelpies – 6 November 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Not a lot to do today, so a visit to the big horses was a good idea.

It all started when Scamp broke two clasps on two separate necklaces, one ancient one over fifty years old. The other one had been repaired at least once before, but not very well. She trusts a jeweller in Falkirk and that’s why we were going there today.

Once we’d dropped off the jewellery we drove down to Helix park to see the Kelpies. There was a thin mist forming in the valley and I was hoping I would get some atmospheric photos of the great beast rising above the mist, but it wasn’t to be. The nearer we came to them, the clearer the mist was, but we went for a walk anyway, but first we had lunch in the cafe. We had a window seat which was just luck, because the cafe was really busy. Nobody wanted to sit outside today on such a chilly afternoon. The food was cheap and mainly warming, although Scamp’s Mac ’n’ Cheese was a bit cooler than she’d have liked. My lentil soup was hot! But the slice of pizza I had was tepid. Foodies expect the best all the time.

We walked around the Kelpies. You can’t really call them structures or statues, they are so much more than that. I took a lot of photos, but my favourite and PoD was taken from inside the cafe looking out and it was of a tray with two cups and a jug of milk with everything else being just slightly out of focus … intentionally this time and in monochrome.

We drove home and I spent nearly an hour on the phone talking to Val. He seemed in much better spirits today. The last time we spoke he sounded a bit down. It was good to hear him almost back to his usual self. We’ve arranged to have coffee some time soon. Either at his house or at Costa.

It appears, from what Scamp can glean from Kirsty, that we may be moving the Wednesday dance class from the British Legion to a council run centre on a Tuesday. Most folk seem to be perfectly happy with the arrangement. It would make a great difference to be able to dance on a real floor, much bigger than the postage stamp we have at present.
Tonight’s class was a bit of a disaster. I still haven’t got the hang of the Paso La Paz. Too many changes of direction and too fast. I’ll be glad when we leave it behind.

I’m intending to meet Alex tomorrow. I’d suggested we revisit Paisley, but he wants to try for some photos of the trees and cloisters of Glasgow Uni. That might work quite well, because we will lose those leaves soon, and we can do Paisley another time.

An improving prospect – 5 November 2024

Posted on by Zogman

A much nicer day than we’ve had of late. I think the sunshine helped greatly.

After a lazy morning, again, we went out for a walk in Drumpellier woods. We had to drive there first, of course, but it’s not far and if you ignore the obvious walk round the loch, the woods are lovely.

The sun had been bright in the morning, but by the time we got to the park it was dulling down a lot. It didn’t stop us, because we were out for a walk. Just five minutes into the walk I got PoD which was a wide shot of a swan hustling for food near the seated area where lots of folk feed them. I apologised to the swan because I’d nothing it would want to eat, but I took a couple of photos of it anyway. I was shooting into the sun, but although out of the camera the photo was a bit rough, some gentle persuasion brought out the colours in the water and the distant trees. We walked on.

I was hoping to see some deer, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen any in the park and I was disappointed today.. Drumpellier’s woodlands are a marvellous place to walk through. So many different paths to try out. We didn’t actually choose any of them, but have earmarked one at least for a day with more time on our hands. Instead, we walked round behind the biggest woodland and the sun returned to light our way. Eventually we came to one of the tarmacked roads and as we walked round the loch and back to the car the sun started to sink towards the trees. The days are feeling a lot shorter since the clocks went back.

Back home I joined battle with MacOS Ventura again. There was a large chunk of storage space just sitting there with no reason for its existence, so I tried to remove it, but it was outside my knowledge, so I formatted the entire SSD and started again. After about three hours and umpteen password insertions later the system was working again and had plenty empty storage space again. Hopefully it will run sweeter for a few months now.

Working my way through the intricacies of Ventura was difficult today with all the Woooshes and Bangs from Guy Fawkes Night. I must be getting old, because I have no time for these noise makers anymore. The rapid bangs of the explosions sound like machine gun fire. Folk with PTSD must have a terrible time during November.

Dinner was a pair of old favourites.Scamp had Bubble & Squeak and I had Cabbage, Bacon and Potatoes. Very nice.

Watched Bake Off and were not surprised by the person who left.

I’m intending to phone Val tomorrow to arrange a coffee day. Scamp has the dreaded Dentist!

The Last Dance – 3 November 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Saying goodbye to The Salutation and Perth for a while.

Breakfast in the morning and then the inevitable final hour of dancing with about half of yesterday’s contingent. It was like a Tea Dance without the Tea. Fairly gentle workout after yesterday’s marathon. I remember watching a film, years ago, called They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?. The plot revolved round a marathon dance competition in Depression era America. In retrospect, that’s what yesterday felt like after a while. Today’s hour passed quite quickly and was a combination of all the dances we learned over the weekend.

We drove home, managing to avoid most of the roadworks this time and I was feeling just a little bit down, a bit flat after leaving all those other dancers. I’m sure a lot of them felt exactly the same. Arrived back home to drizzly rain. What a welcome!

The bags were emptied and dinner was discussed. At least, our dessert of rhubarb and custard wouldn’t taste of onions.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which looked from a distance to be yellow flowers beside St Mo’s pond, but which was actually bright yellow leaves.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and learned that their week had been uneventful and totally different from ours.

An early bed.

Hoping to sort out a computer update tomorrow.

 

 

FitSteps to DanceSteps – 1 November 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Dance Steps on a Friday?

Scamp went to FitSteps in the morning and I started selecting my clothes and shoes for the dance weekend.

Today we drove to Perth for the three day extravaganza. The destination was The Salutation Hotel. It opened in 1699 and has the original floorboards judging by the squeaks and creaks every time you walk across one of the rooms. We were in a second floor room which had a shower. A couple of years ago we were in the top floor which had a shower, but no running water. Maybe that’s too critical, it did have running water in the shower if you didn’t mind waiting for half an hour for it to build up a sufficient head of steam to get the water up to the third floor. It’s a listed building and lots of the corridors had a list too. Some even listed in two directions along their length. I’ll leave it there. We weren’t really bothered about the rooms, we were there for dancing, Three days of dancing.

Arrived and parked after innumerable roadworks and diversions on the way. We picked a road that looked like it was going our way, and let the sat nav do the difficult stuff. With Scamp’s help, it took us right to the entrance to the car park. Parked the car and carried our dresses, shoes, suits, changes of clothes and a bottle of gin round to the hotel.

A condensed list of the day:
Got the key and found the room.
Dumped the bags and went out for lunch in Nero.
A dull, wet day, so we didn’t hang about.
Dinner served in the restaurant of the hotel
Dancing started around 7pm …
… and went on until just before midnight.

Absolutely exhausted.

By the way, the photo is the view from our room. Putting the “B” in Brutalist.

Tomorrow, more of the same.

Dancing, Dancing all the day – 31 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Yesterday we were at dance class and today we were dancing at a Tea Dance.

I struggled in the morning to find something to photograph, because I knew we were going dancing in the afternoon. There is so little time in the morning and by the time the tea dance finishes, these dark days approaching winter, there is no light worth talking about, so it was going to be an inside photo, which is always a get-out, but!

I already had a subject, an inside subject. All I needed was a display. A cardboard box and an old CD container covered with a scrap of velvet to disguise their angular shapes into smooth curves gave me a pedestal for the bow tie I made yesterday. Anyone who has tried to tie a bow tie will know how devilishly difficult it is to do, even standing in front of a mirror. Especially when standing in front of a mirror! Try doing it with a cup as a ‘neck’ and tying it from behind the cup. It’s utterly impossible … almost. I did manage it at my third attempt, only because I found the hidden loophole you have to thread the part made tie through. That is what you have here. Today’s PoD is the Star Wars Stormtrooper Bow Tie.

The dance was quite well attended, but for some reason, Stewart had decided to concentrate on Sequence dances. They are a bit too repetative for my liking. They are useful, it’s true because they are repetitive. They generate muscle memory and you can almost dance them in autopilot, almost, but not quite. We did dance one freestyle waltz, Waltz Nioli which is fairly simple but with some more advanced steps. We also dance a decent Cha-Cha without getting it too wrong or missing out the occasional couple of steps. The second half of the tea dance was devoted almost entirely to Sequence, but we joined in anyway.

Today was the final of this year’s Inktober. The prompt was Landmark. It just had to be The Kelpies. Anyone who has seen them and walked round them, knows they are special and you feel as if the are moving with you. They are massive, dwarfing any visitors to Helix Park in Falkirk, but not in a bad way. Yes, The Kelpies are a great closing image for Inktober 2024.

This was probably the worst and least imaginative collection of prompts I’ve seen. Also the increase in AI ’sketches’ and ‘drawings’ done on iPads has been exponential this year.
</Rant>

Tomorrow Scamp may be going to FitSteps and I might try to get a photo or five in the morning.

Shorn – 28 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

My last haircut was back in August. It was time for another one.

First I had some stuff to do on the computer. I was struggling to work out how I managed to get the upgrade from Big Sur to my present operating system, Monterey. I’d made cryptic notes on how to do it, but they lacked the fine detail I now needed. It took me until evening to work out what I needed to do. Eventually I gave up for the night and am writing the blog before I get sucked into that rabbit hole again.

Today was dull again and with lots of things to do and no interest in doing any of them, we both completed Wordle and Spelling Bee and then decided it was lunch time. After that, there was no reason not to, so I did the decent thing and spent a tenner and got my hair cut. It’s not until you do it, that you realise how cold that wind is blowing through your Number 4 on top and Number 3 on the sides. Worse, I didn’t have my woolly hat with me.

Next, after the shearing, I was heading to Jim Dickson’s to get a price for the repairs that were needed to the car … except there was a big delivery van blocking the entrance and anyway there was no room at the inn, even for a wee blue car, so I pencilled it in for tomorrow and drove over to Fannyside to get some photos over the loch an into the hills. By the time I got to the loch, the visibility was low because on a dull day like today, the evening comes quickly. Two shots and I was done. Headlights came on when I was driving home.

Pasta Carbonara for dinner tonight, made the proper Italian way with eggs, cheese, bacon and fusilli. NO CREAM. I’d been well warned by Val. I’d used Pecorino cheese and maybe that was what made it taste very salty, or maybe it was the bacon. I don’t know, but I ate it anyway, as did Scamp.

That was about it for today. PoD went to a massively altered view of the wind farm beyond the loch at Fannyside. Who says there’s anything wrong with AI?

Today’s prompt was Jumbo and this is Jumbo, a Nellyfunk. Another photo found on the Interweb and sketched, simply because there aren’t too many Nellyfunks wandering around Scotland, these days. I blame the cold weather, the rain and Keir Starmer.

Tomorrow we may go out for a run somewhere and I’m not forgetting the pencilled reminder to speak to Mr Dickson.

Everything is upside down – 27 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It’s changeover day from BST to GMT. It’s happened since 1916! It must have been a greater pain back then!

Once we’d changed all the manual clocks, apart from one which I realise I forgot to turn back, we could settle down for a while, well, Scamp could settle down. I was heading up to the health centre for my annual booster jags. One arm for Flu and one arm for Covid, then I could go home to relax after I’d done some shopping.

Then we could relax for a while because Scamp was going to an exhibition by a local dance troupe hoping to fund a visit to take part in the Easter Day march through New York. All the witches were going and I was picking two of them up when they were ready to come home.

I spent a lot of the afternoon working out the best way to upgrade the old SSD that runs macOS Monterey to macOS Ventura. I’m still not entirely sure it is possible, although I’ve done a similar update a couple of years ago. I think I’m ready for the challenge which may start tomorrow. The other thing I did was make the stew for my dinner tonight. It looked a bit bland after it had been cooking gently for an hour and a half, When Scamp returned later in the afternoon, she took one look and said three words Too Much Water. Now I’ll know for the future. The third thing was to walk to the shops to get replacement CR 2025 for my loupe magnifier. The shop had plenty CR 2032 batteries, but no 2025s. Maybe tomorrow.

On the way to the shops I noticed a child’s wooden train wagon lying in some leaves. It looked as if it had been run over a few times, but it was still recognisable for what it was. A couple of shots secured its image for posterity. That toy made PoD.

Then came the message from Scamp to say they were ready to come home. By now it was around 6pm, dark and raining. It took me more than the half hour I’d allowed to find the restaurant the exhibition was in, and only then after I’d phoned Scamp to say I was lost. As it turned out I was right next to the restaurant and must have looked a proper fool!

The stew was a lot better than it looked and I’ve got the other half of it to make lunch for me tomorrow. Too much water and too much flour on the meat. Those were my take-aways from today’s cookery class.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about his week. Which was a difficult one, reading the eulogy for a person he worked with. I didn’t envy him that task and was glad that I never had to do that when I was working.

Today’s prompt was “Road”. Quite open ended and I enjoyed drawing cars running round a figure of eight track. Nothing amazing, but it covered the prompt.

As far as I know we have no plans for tomorrow.

Dancin’ – 26 October 2024

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Off to Brookfield on a sunny morning in October wondering what the torturers oops, teachers would have in store for us today.

We didn’t have to wait long. The menu started with a Queen of Hearts Rumba we thought we knew, but obviously didn’t. After the second one we more or less had it.

Next was the October Waltz which was new to about half the class and nearly caused a fist fight between me and Scamp. As it happened, for one I was right. It was all about one back step which Scamp said I didn’t have to do, but on review later, I did have to do or I’d end up starting on the wrong foot. It was a simple wee dance with figures we already knew, just not in the order we were to do them in.

To cool things down, we did a Midnight Jive. Not my favourite by a long way, but at least we didn’t argue about the steps, because they are burned indelibly in to our brains.

The next dance was a Cha-Cha which deteriorated into a free-style Cha-Cha and one we stumbled through, or to be more correct, I stumbled through.

One more sequence dance and we were free to go. Can’t remember its name, but that’s no loss.

Drove home over the Kingston Bridge which allowed us to travel at 40mph all the way over. The easiest drive home from Brookfield we’ve ever had, I think.

The sunshine we’d had in the morning stayed with us well into the afternoon, but later everything dulled down and it felt like the sky was preparing for evening. PoD was a photo of a strawberry flower growing in the garden. I don’t believe it will ever produce fruit that will ripen, but the deep red flower held my interest.

Today’s sketch was Camera. I didn’t try anything fancy, like the camera obscura I was going to draw and instead just drew a fair representation of my A7iii with the kit lens that lives on it these days.
Half of the time I had one eye on the sketch and one eye on the progress of the dancers on Strictly, but, it being Halloween week, the antics of Craig Revel-Horwood and Anton Du Beke as two evil twin sisters really stole the limelight from the other two.

Up and out fairly early tomorrow because I’m booked for my combined Flu and Covid Jags. Oh what fun. At least I get an extra hour in bed because the clocks go back at 2am tomorrow. Scamp had her jags last week.

 

New Shoes – 25 October 2024

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Scamp was off to FitSteps in the morning which left me with the opportunity to finish my book, but as usual that didn’t happen.

Instead I doodled with some sketches and took a longer view of yesterday’s photos. It’s amazing the difference it makes to go on a photo walk with someone who’s seeing the views for the first time. Alex hadn’t been to Edinburg for about 30 years, he reckons, and a lot has changed in that time. Looking through his eyes, opened my eyes to subjects I’d ignored. We must try it again sometime.

After Scamp returned, we talked about where to go and what to do with the day. Her idea was to go back the dance shop and have another look for shoes for me. I wasn’t so keen, although there was one pair I didn’t dislike, let’s put it that way. It might have been something I said, or more likely something she said, but I made the decision to try those shoes again. We drove to Rutherglen by a different route that took longer than the one given by the satnav. I hate it when it gets it right. I tried on about five different shoes and settled, after some discussion with self, on a lovely soft pair of Black ’n’ Whites. Of course Scamp found a cheaper pair in the sales stock. So both of us came home with new shoes.

We went for a coffee and a cake in Tesco, just along the road from the dance shop which gave us a chance to discuss our purchases and to test for Buyers Remorse, but there was none to be found, so we’d done the right thing for once. Drove home by the satnav’s instructions, just to show that there were no hard feelings.

By the time we were getting home the light was failing and there was a mist beginning to reduce the visibility. I might have managed to get a photo, but I decided not to. Instead, I photographed my new shoes as a still life, almost in black and white.

The prompt for today was a fairly easy one, Scarecrow. This was almost a 15 minute sketch, because it just flowed out. Not all of them have been like that this year, in fact very few have been and I’ve read a load of comments about the lack of interesting prompts.

I had a glass of 0% Guinness tonight. Barry, on of the dancers we meet at socials recommended it to me and said it’s difficult to tell if it’s alcoholic Guinness or zero percent you’re drinking and I agree totally with him, even the creamy head is there. Worth a try.

We’re intending to go dancing tomorrow, but the new shoes will be staying in the box until their memory banks are fully charged and the data has been transferred.

Nearly New Shoes – 23 October 2024

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The weather is just dragging its heels this October. Grey skies seem to be the order of the day. However, it wasn’t really cold and we did what I suggested in yesterday’s blog and went out.

We drove to Rutherglen, to look for a pair of dance shoes for me, but there wasn’t a great selection to choose from and I eventually left the shop empty handed, so did Scamp, which surprised me!

After navigating by following my nose and the occasional glance at the moving map in the car, we did head for home, then decided we’d go local for lunch and drove to Craigend Nursery which also has a big cafe bolted on to it. It’s all glass on two sides and the noise of all the folk talking just rebounds round the room, but we did have a lunch that was a bit overpriced for what it was, just two paninis a tea and a coffee. Oh yes, and the ubiquitous side salad and crisps. Didn’t ask for them, but got them anyway.

It used to be a decent garden centre too, but some of the plant labels were so old, neither of us could read the prices. Maybe that was just as well when we did read some of them. Scamp was shocked at the price for tiny wee Christmas Roses.

Just for fun, we drove home from Craigend by a quite circuitous route to see if we could find where the dance teacher’s new house was. I was amazed at the number of houses that were in a tiny little space that used to be a travellers camp, maybe still is. It gave me a chance to drive round roads I used to cycle on.

Dancing tonight was the amalgamation of parts one and two of the foxtrot we seem to have been learning for months. It wasn’t a great improvement from the last time we learned it. We seemed to spend three quarters of the allotted time re-learning part one, which we now knew, more by muscle memory than anything else. The remaining fifteen minutes were spent on part two and then on joining them together. Only four couples on the floor tonight and they were getting in each other’s way. Just imagine what it would be like if all six couples turned up one night. Carnage, that’s what.

Next week we are going to be treated to Paso La Paz which is fast, fiery and Spanish! That should be fun!

Today’s PoD was taken this morning before we went out and is of the Schoolgirl rose, now fully out and spreading its petals everywhere. Still a beautiful flower.

Today’s prompt was “Rust”. To my mind Rust should be red, orange or brown. If I’d drawing with a black pen, that makes life difficult. What I ended up by doing was changing the prompt to “Rusty”, sketched a whisky glass with a rusty nail and what looks suspiciously like whisky in it. Maybe there is a little spot of Drambuie in there too to make it a Rusty Nail! It’s simple if you just apply some lateral thinking.
Tomorrow’s prompt is Expedition. I’ll need to get my thinking cap on.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet Alex at the bus station to get a bus to Edinburgh to see the sights of the exotic Far East!