Family – Page 53 – My Photo Blog

Drive to the end of the road and turn left – 6 April 2017

Posted on April 6, 2017 by Zogman

As usual, on the first day of our stay on Skye, we drove round the top end of the island. Up to Uig and then round to Portree.

Stopped off at Duntulm to take what is an iconic photo of the telephone box there. After that, I walked out to the ruin of Duntulm Castle. It’s a ruin and there’s a warning at the padlocked gate to say “We advise you not to come any closer”. It’s a bit like the warning on iPlayer that asks you “Do you have a TV licence?” Easy to lie, easy to ignore. Just do it. I’d walked for 15-20 minutes in a bitterly cold wind to reach this ridiculous sign, so I just turned around and went back to the car. AYE RIGHT! It’s an interesting place, really remote on this finger of land that sticks out into the Minch. Although the castle is a ruin now, the solid walls really protect you from the worst of the wind that blows in from the sea. Took a few photos and then went back to the warmth of the car.

We drove in to Uig, but there was nothing interesting to see, so we headed on to Portree. Lunch was in Jan’s Vans which is, for want of a better description, a gigantic hardware store. Scamp browsed the ‘toys off the rack’ and eventually settled on a plant for the garden, but I’m pretty sure she has a list of things that we’ll be bringing back with us.

We tried to park in Portree itself, but all the carparks were full, so we drove back to Staffin and sat and watched the waves for a while. After that I drove Scamp back to the house and I went to take some more photos. Initially up to the wee lochan up at Floddigarry and then back down the slip again. Saw the wee Captain model firmly glued to a boathouse there. Went for a walk along the rocks and when I got back it was time for dinner, and a wee dram. A fine way to end a fine day.

Tomorrow? Probably more of the same!

Visitors – 14 March 2017

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Zogman

So, what of today then? Jackie was coming down from Skye to stay for a night before going to Embra tomorrow for a meeting, so the painting room/sewing room/back bedroom had to be cleared of extraneous junk, so that would take up most of my morning.

Got stuck in and was doing quite well until Hazy phoned and then I just had to talk to her, so the clearing up was put on the back burner for a short while, but only for a short while, then I decided to hang some of my recent paintings, so that meant some of the older ones had to be removed into storage, ie hidden behind painting board or anything else I could find. After a few hours work with extra time for phone calls and gallery reconstruction, it was done. Well, not so much done as there was now room for anyone to walk into the room, find the sofa bed and possibly, only possibly make it to the window without tripping over some essential piece of tech. That’s when I found that the steam iron had still had some water in its reservoir when I put it down on my PC laptop which was sitting on my printer. Now both had dripping pools of water. Oh dear. The main thing was it was a PC and therefore expendable. If it had been the MBP it would have been a totally different matter and I wouldn’t have been sitting here typing this. With the aid of a few cloths and some kitchen paper the disaster was averted – I think. It still works, but the fan is making some strange noises now. I’ll leave it to dry out properly before I investigate further.

After lunch which was soup from a Tesco recipe, good, but not great, I floated around waiting for decent weather to arrive and entice me out to St Mo’s to grab some photos. I did get a couple of shots of bluetits on the bird feeder, but they were little more than grab shots. There was a blustery wind and fleeting sun splashes with heavy rain showers in between. Finally, I decided to brave it and just go out into the wild weather and do it. As you would expect with such blustery conditions, there wasn’t a lot to photograph. Some ducks and swans on the pond and a couple of deer – too far away to be any use – there was little of interest. I did get a shot of some trees against an interesting sunset sky, but that was it. What I did do was a stupid thing. I ran out of shots on the SD card, so had to delete some of yesterday’s frog pictures. In doing that, I accidentally deleted the bluetit pictures from lunchtime. Unfortunately the D7000 does not have and ‘undo’ function. Thankfully when I got home I found a demo of a data retrieval prog – Diskdrill – that allowed me to retrieve the JPG versions of the shots and save them to disk. You really need the full version of the app, not the demo, to do it properly, but I still managed it. Thankfully because they were high resolution images I got some editing done.

Jackie and June arrived and we had Trinni stewed chicken and Scamp’s Pineapple Snow for pudding with chilli sauce. Delicious again.

A good night after a wild day. No plans for tomorrow.

Dorothy – 25 February 2017

Posted on February 25, 2017February 26, 2017 by Zogman

Today we drove down to see Dorothy. She was looking well, although her leg seemed to be giving her bother and her hand looked as if she was suffering a bit from rheumatics. Still, she was sharp as a tack and quick to tell Colin off if he strayed too far in his stories. A pleasant wee hour although I felt bad that we hadn’t been to see her for a long while, but there was nothing we could do about it, either Colin was busy or we were. A case of life getting in the way again.

Stopped at Waitrose on the way home to buy a chicken and ended up with two bags full of other stuff as well as the chicken. We were shocked that Waitrose, in addition to allowing Neds into their stores are now stooping to this gutter humour to advertise their mugs. What is the retail sector coming to. (No, it wasn’t me who did it, I just photographed it.)

When we got home, the daylight was still there, so I grabbed the chance of an hour in St Mo’s. Startled a couple of deer, but chose not to pursue them because they were on the motorway side of the fence and I didn’t want to be the reason for them running across the carriageway and causing an accident. Other than the deer and the ever present buzzards, there wasn’t much of interest. The overnight rain had increased the water level in the pond and part of the boardwalk was under water, so that, at least, made an interesting shot with the 9mm lens.

A curry from Bombay Dreams provided dinner because neither of us could be bothered cooking and today’s sketch was a disappointing pencil drawing of my mouse. I like the curves and lines of the mouse and felt the pencil rendered it well, but it’s a bit of a stopgap really. Not the most interesting drawing I’ve done in the month. Only three more sketches to go in the 28 Drawings Later challenge. Like the Inktober challenge, I’ll miss it when it’s finished.

Tomorrow looks wet. At least we had some sun and blue skies today.

Programming for Nerds – 21 February 2017

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Zogman

Nothing to do with Elton John. Keyboard Maestro is a very powerful programming tool for the Mac. I’ve been struggling with it on and off for over a year now and have to tell you that with great power comes great complexity. I’ve programmed interesting stuff in Basic and Assembly Language along with simple stuff in C and in Pascal, and even used Visual Basic to write macros in Excel, but the programming syntax in Keyboard Maestro is back to the stone age. It makes assembly language look slick by comparison. All I wanted to do was add two numbers together. It shouldn’t be difficult, should it? It was. Mainly because of an almost total lack of tutorials using variables with this behemoth of an app. I eventually found a wiki for it and all became (almost) clear. I don’t think I’ll be coding very much in Keyboard Maestro, but my macro now works and I’m happy about that. Actually I’ve been using it in the background while I type this blog. I’ve got it set up to alter a few of my typos and also, if I type * KM without the space, it changes it to Keyboard Maestro – See? It did it there and you never even noticed. I know, lots of other apps do the same thing, but this is an app for nerds! I’m not afraid to say it: I AM A NERD!!

Scamp went to visit her Auntie, well, her dad’s cousin [that’s close enough to be an Auntie (or Uncle, depending on the version) in Larky]. Anyway, she was going for coffee with Isobel this morning and I was looking for something to do, so I copied yesterday’s sketch onto watercolour paper and made it into a painting. I was quite pleased with the result. I know it’s a bit gloomy, but the real thing is gloomy too. The house sits back among trees and there can’t be a lot of light getting in those windows.

When Scamp came home and after we had lunch we went searching for food in Waitrose which is where I found the group of Neds you see above. Who would have thought that Neds would be allowed in Waitrose. Either they’ve cleaned up their act or that supermarket is allowing its standard to slip.

It was such a dull day, we just drove home afterwards with our spoils. Lamb chops with potatoes and mushrooms for me. Salmon and potatoes for Scamp. Still on our self enforced diet, we didn’t even have a pudding! We did have a crayfish salad to start with though, but you can’t consider that, because it was healthy!

Played a game of my new addiction Upwords tonight, but I don’t think Scamp was impressed with this Scrabble look alike. I think it might be going in the next but one charity bag.

Nothing planned as yet for tomorrow because the weather may be taking a turn for the worse.

Oh, yes. If you’re in the need of someone to add two numbers together, I’m your man. Just give me a couple of hours to write the code and debug it and I should have it done!

Carrigan’s – 18 February 2017

Posted on February 18, 2017February 19, 2017 by Zogman

I went out for a walk along the railway in the afternoon. A dull day with little prospect of any photos, and that’s how it turned out. I took one photo before I went out and that was my PoD. It was of a plantlet on the spider plant that lives in the downstairs toilet. It reminded me of the Trinidad jungles!

On the way back along the railway, I stopped to sketch the house beside the canal with it’s extensions and odd angles. It was a better viewpoint from the one I’d done a few months ago and it was looking quite good until the rain came on. As I was closing the sketch book I realised that I was blotting the ink, but by then it was too late. When I got back to the car and took a look at the damage, it actually looked quite good. The rain had added texture to what would have been an empty page!

We were meeting Margaret and Billy Kent for dinner tonight in Carrigan’s in Hamilton. It was a great night. Just nattering and eating all night. Right now, I’m feeling pretty full. I may never eat again after a heavy three course meal, the star being the tablet ice cream! Peppermint tea to settle my stomach then bed, I think.

Flying Home, Going Home – 13 February 2017

Posted on February 13, 2017February 16, 2017 by Zogman

It was really one of those ‘all good things must come to an end’ days when nobody wants to actually mention the departure, but you can see it’s uppermost in everybody’s mind. So here I am sitting in a chair in a metal tube travelling at 592mph 39,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve just finished watching the confusing Dr Strange and the still funny Monty Python and the Holy Grail after rejecting the reworked Ghostbusters. Why do they think they can improve on the classics? In TT (that’s Trini TIme) it’s just gone midnight, so I’m really writing this the next day, but this is my blog and I’ll call it the 13th.

The holiday is done now, but what a holiday it was. We saw amazing things, we did amazing things, things we would never have dreamed of a few years ago. Now it’s just the long slog home.

Earlier today M&J took us to a shopping mall, and it was interesting seeing the variety of shops there, but to be honest, shops in malls are shops in malls wherever you are in the world.

The traffic was really heavy for our drive to the airport and I wondered for a while if the polis had set up a roadblock where they checked a random selection of cars, but it turned out to be just a slow day on the freeway and we made good time once the volume of traffic reduced further out of Port of Spain.

I got today’s sketch done at the airport, Piarco. It’s a mixture of perspective

and a couple of folk. I must try to sketch more folk. I keep falling back on perspective and buildings to get me out of trouble, but if I don’t start pushing the envelope, I won’t progress. Must try harder. Will post the pictures when I have time.

Is this your minky? – 11 February 2017

Posted on February 11, 2017February 13, 2017 by Zogman

Today we set off after breakfast for Chaguaramas to walk into the Bamboo Cathedral.

I don’t know what I expected, but I wasn’t ready for the sign warning us to

Walk in groups
Don’t display cell phones or jewellery
Stay in well lit areas

I thought we were going for a leisurely walk. I forgot to pack the AK47 and stab proof vest. Bummer. However, once we walked past the entrance gate, I forgot all about that. This was jungle! Well, jungle with a wide tarmac road through it. The trees round us were enormous and there was some bamboo too, but nothing ‘cathedral-like’. Then we turned a corner and there was the bamboo. Not one or two clumps, but hundreds – everywhere. Now I could see the ‘cathedral’ reference. The bamboo arched over our heads from both sides and met in the middle making it look and feel as if we were walking through a green tunnel. We walked the length of the bamboo tunnel and then started climbing the hill at the end. As far as we could see, the bamboo was finished. We turned to go back and Madeleine stopped to ‘rescue’ a piece of vine from the depredations of some weeds. Jaime managed to wrap some banana leaf round it and tie it off with a bit of creeper to keep the roots damp until we got it home and could replant it. It was a rescue vine. We walked back through the Bamboo Cathedral and just before we got to the high trees, Madeleine notices movement in the bushes at the side of the road. I started mentally ticking off the warnings on that sign, then we all saw the monkeys.

Madeleine said they were Capuchin monkeys. I was too busy trying to get a decent shot of them in the low light that filtered through the canopy. Eventually, I gave up, switched on fast continuous shooting and fired off seven or eight shots at a time, gave the camera time to deal with them then fired off another seven or eight. I tried a video, but the Oly 10 isn’t really up to that kind of task, and when I checked later, there was nothing useable on either video. Everyone had a great time looking for new groups who seemed to appear from nowhere, climb high into the branches above our heads and jump the gap across to the other side Adult and babies all made the journey without injury although some were better at jumping than they were at catching the branches on the other side and there were a few almost tumbles. Once they were all over, they started feeding and it was time for us to move on. Great fun for all. All the time we were watching the monkeys, people were passing by, all saying “Good Morning” and none really batting an eyelid at the monkey gymnastics. I’m guessing this is a normal occurrence here.

When we got back to the car, we drove on to Macqueripe Bay where we descended the stairs, under the screaming people on the Zip Wire above us, down to the beach. Lovely little beach with what might have been a harbour at one end and a sort of short promenade above the sand. The water looked lovely and clear and I wished I’d brought swimming stuff. The whole place had a strange 1950s look to it and reminded me of the Lido at Bothwell Bridge near Hamilton. Lots of folk swimming and just enjoying the sun, but then it was Saturday after all. I got photos of some crabs before they dived down their holes. They were well back from the sea and I wondered if they sneaked down the steps onto the beach at night. From the promenade you could look out past an island to just see Venezuela in the distance.

After the short visit to the beach, we walked back up to the car and Madeleine drove us home via the supermarket which seemed to stock a lot of Waitrose goods. Which made me wonder if it’s an offshoot of that business. We saw all the usual supermarket stuff and then some things you don’t get back home, like Chicken’s Feet again. Scamp even took a photo of the aforementioned delicacy to show to the disbelieving ones back home. On that subject, I did spot a cafe on the road advertising Cow Heel Soup. Apparently it’s a local delicacy and the soup is really good. I just hope they wash the cow’s heels well before making the soup, having seen the stuff that cows walk through!

Lunch was stewed chicken with fried plantain and salad, followed by coconut ice cream. Maybe a notch down from the ice cream we got in Karawak, but still better than anything we get at home.

Today’s sketch is of the house across the street with a bit of M&J’s house added in to set the scene. Actually, after I was finished, I preferred the lightness of M&J’s house to the lumpy looking other house. The perspective is much more pronounced with the viewpoint closer to the small house. Worth another go, I think. Maybe tomorrow.

A Jump, Skip and a Hop – 10 February 2017

Posted on February 10, 2017February 11, 2017 by Zogman

Today we said goodbye to Tobago and caught the plane to Trinidad. Madeleine and Scamp weren’t very impressed with the pilot’s driving skills and I have to say it was a bit of a bumpy ride at times. What I did wonder about was the fact that before it landed in Tobago, it hadn’t appeared on Flight 24 on my phone and there was no airline insignia on the fuselage. A pirate of the skies perhaps? Anyway it got us to Piarco airport on Trinidad and from there Madeleine drove us home, stopping on the way to pick up some Roti which are Indian flatbread wraps holding the main course which for three of us was chicken and for Scamp was veg. Possibly my best favourite of these lunch wraps so far.

When we were at the airport on Tobago, Madeleine showed us the bright yellow fruit she’d picked from the hedgerow along with its delicate wee yellow flower. I think it was a Carailie Vine, but I may be misspelling that. I’ll check tomorrow. It tasted good. Just another of the fruits available on these islands. Even better, this one is free as it grows wild in the hedgerows.

Ori was pleased to see us and after being fed, fussed over and having a run round the garden at top speed a couple of times, lay exhausted in the livingroom. Such a relaxed dog.

While Madeleine was watering the garden earlier on, Jaime picked a Guava from one of the trees in the garden and we all had a piece. Beautiful green colour with soft pink flesh inside. They really do have an amazing selection of fruits here. Unfortunately, one he was trying to harvest looks like it’s been invaded by ants. It’s a Sour Sop. It is a big dark green fruit covered in spikes and is supposed to have a sweet white flesh, but I doubt if we will taste it because the ants have been there first.

Today’s sketch is of a wee sea urchin shell that Scamp found yesterday on the beach at Pigeon Point. It’s a bit rough, but at least it’s done and on time. Maybe I’ll find something more interesting to draw tomorrow. It won’t be the little beastie that Madeleine showed me today, asking what I thought it was. I took a photo and it looked for all the world like a caddis fly larva, but it was much, much smaller. I searched on Google for it giving as much info as I could and it turned out to be a Household Casebearer and it turns into a moth after pupating. Nasty looking little thing. Now gone along with it compatriots under a spray of bug killer. Oh, yes, one more thing. Out of the corner of my eye tonight I thought I saw a bright green light flying around the room, turning on and off. Couldn’t quite catch it though, then I did and it was a Firefly! First time I’ve seen one. It looked like a wee moth with an LED on its bum! And with that thought, I’ll say goodnight.

A Grand Day Out – 08 February 2017

Posted on February 8, 2017February 9, 2017 by Zogman

This will be a rushed post. It’s been a long day and we’ve crammed a lot into it, although it might not seem so with this compressed or condensed description.

The day started well and we left the apartment with the intention of visiting Scarborough and then heading to a beach, but that’s not how it turned out. Firstly we made a stop at the Magdalena Grand Hotel to see how the other half live. The hotel, which is quite grand and quite magnificent is surrounded by a golf course which has the usual water hazards. However, the water hazards on most golf courses don’t have warning signs saying ‘This lake contains caimans’. Thankfully we didn’t stop near the water. We did continue on to see the hotel and to walk the grounds as if we were staying there. It’s a technique I must learn some time. We were both impressed with the size and look of the building, but there weren’t very may folk staying there, so we did wonder how profitable it was. While we were there I got my first decent shots of Frigatebirds.

As we were leaving the weather seemed to take a turn for the worse with squally rain appearing. It had been threatening while we were trespassing on the hotel grounds, but now it was doing more than threatening. We carried on to Scarborough, and it did remind me of the English seaside town with the steep hills around it. Madeleine drove us to Fort King George and old stronghold, now open as a museum. Loads of interesting stuff to be seen and most of it was open to the public. That’s where we saw the cockerels and the hens. They seemed to have the run of the place. Jaime bought us some Tamarind Balls which are made from Tamarind paste with added pepper made into balls then covered in sugar. A strange sweet/sour/salty taste. Hard to define. Great place to visit. It was there too we found all these lovely butterflies. Butterflies in January? Who would have thought it? Aha, but this isn’t Scotland.

By the time we were leaving here the rain had started for real. No longer squally, but a proper downpour. After an attempt to outrun it, we gave up and headed with our sandwiches and juice back to the apartment where we had a picnic on the balcony. Not quite what we’d intended, but at least we were dry for a time. Then the rain started again and we took shelter inside. These showers continued all afternoon. I got fed up after a while and went out to walk along the beach. Unfortunately, the beach had disappeared under the heavy breakers of high tide, so I sat down and sketched a concrete seat as a possible subject. It rained again and I had to give up. At that point Jaime appeared wondering where I’d got to. We walked back and he showed me the fruits on one of the trees in the hotel grounds. I must remember to ask him what it was called. Before we got ready to go out to the restaurant Scamp wanted to dip her feet in one of the hot tubs. We sat in it for about half an hour while the rain made little soldiers on the surface of the water around us. What a strange feeling that was. When we finally gave up the hot tub, we went for a swim in the pool. The water was remarkably warm.

After our swim we went back to the room and Scamp went to shower and wash her hair. I grabbed my sketchbook and drew the view from the balcony. It’s not technically perfect, but it’s a better, and more interesting, drawing than the concrete seat. IMO.

Dinner was in Karawak restaurant and it was fabulous. Callaloo soup followed by Tomato, Basil and Olive salad then a main of steak or shrimp with rice, pumpkin and a sort of ratatouille served in a hollowed out half aubergine. Dessert was coconut cream cake with ice cream, sorbet or ice cream. It’s hard not to compare that with what we had on our first night here at the steak and lobster grill and it’s hard to see now how the S&L Grill survives against competition like this. The waitress worked the table with a great sense of humour that you couldn’t help but appreciate. The only fly in the ointment was the owner or manager, it wasn’t clear which, who only seemed to be interested in her regular customers and only gave us a cursory glance. She needs to take a lesson from our waitress. Nobody it that high and mighty that they don’t need to cultivate new custom.

Well, that was meant to be a condensed description of the day. I missed out the Karaoke because it was so bad, it wasn’t even funny, and no we didn’t take part.

Just another Sunday – 05 February 2017

Posted on February 5, 2017February 6, 2017 by Zogman

Scamp went to church with M&J in the morning and I stayed home to clean up the blog and hopefully get some photos, but the rain came on. In fact, the rain came straight down. Ori (the dog) and I looked at one another and the silent message passed between us “I’m not going out in that!” So we waited and eventually the rain abated and became a drizzle, a warm drizzle that dried on you almost immediately. Also, the rain that had fallen had dried up too. Five minutes later the sun came out, but didn’t stay long because more heavy clouds came in. I gave up and sat watching the birds having their early morning bath. We really must get a bird bath for the garden at home.

When the promised rain failed to appear I changed into swimming trunks (they dry quicker than shorts) and went for a walk in the garden. Found an empty shell of a wasp’s nest and marvelled at the construction. Entrance / exit tunnel and all those little identical hexagonal cells, and all made from something as thin as paper. Amazing. I found a shield bug on a leaf looking like it was guarding its eggs. Even saw a little orange dragonfly, but it was far too quick for me. Gardens are wonderful places if you just have time to look.

Scamp returned with M&J bearing Doubles. Doubles are two squares of thin fried dough, wrapping up a paste of chickpeas, onions, pepper and spices. Apparently it used to be considered poor man’s food, but we all agreed it was delicious. By then the sun had come out and it was hot, so it was time to get some serious sketching done. So I put on my sketching hat, some sun cream and some insect repellent and went in search of a suitable subject. I finally settled on some plant pots hiding away at the back of the garden. I had a reasonable rendering of them when Scamp came to tell me it was lunch time. Lunch was a pork chop for the carnivores and salmon for Scamp the pescatarian with cassava root. We’d never had cassava before, but it was really tasty. Scamp described it well, as a nutty potato. We must search it out and try cooking it some time soon. Definitely on our to-do list. With lunch out of the way, I found a new subject. One that could be drawn from the comfort of the veranda. I chose Next Door’s Utility room with its big square plant pots on the roof. Both pots overflowing with roses. It was basically architectural with strong perspective, a happy marriage for me. I even added a wee touch of colour to add a wee bit of brightness. I liked it. Still do.

Remembered to take the photos of the wasp’s nest and got it done along with the flower photos before it got totally dark. Haven’t posted them on Flickr because it went into one of its ‘Bad Panda’ strunts again. Why do these things always happen on weekends? Because Yahoo don’t employ enough people to fix it. They want rid of Flickr which is becoming a money pit for them.

The remainder of the day was spent packing. Off on our travels again tomorrow with a bit of luck.