Category: Family

The Day That Never Dawned – 23 December 2016

Posted on by Zogman

It just seemed to get darker today.  From the time we woke until around 2pm, the clouds seemed to be massing and compacting to the extent that they successfully prevented any light from reaching earth.

When we realised that there was little chance of any decent light and Scamp had been for her physio appointment, we went for lunch to Vecchia Bologna.  We had toyed with the idea of booking a table as it was Christmas Eve Eve, ie. the day before the day before Christmas, but when we got to the restaurant there was only one other couple there.  Admittedly, we were early, arriving just before 1pm.  However, the place soon got busy with a big table arriving halfway through our meal.  It was a Christmas Lunch menu and we made good use of it.  Scamp had:

  • Starter   Tortino mediterraneo di riso with warm grilled vegetables
  • Main      Fillet of Seabass pan cooked, with fresh chopped tomatoes, garlic and basil
  • Dessert  Traditional Christmas pudding served with Warm brandy sauce.

I had:

  • Starter    Scottish smoked salmon with tiger prawns, mixed crispy salad leaves & home made chilli ginger jam
  • Main       Tagliatelle pasta with a ragú of Italian seasoned pork sausage garden peas & cream
  • Dessert   Traditional Italian Tiramisú.

Delicious.

This was our eat-out Christmas Lunch.

After lunch we stopped off at Waitrose on our way home to stock up on the essentials for Sunday that we hadn’t already bought at Tesco.  While we were walking back to the car the sky started to clear and the clouds finally parted to allow some blue sky to shine through all courtesy of Storm Barbara.  I got some shots of the trees behind the carpark, but I must say they were uninspiring and as a result the photo is uninspired.  I just missed a photo of a grey squirrel running across the toes of my shoes!  That would have been a good one to get.

While we drove along the M80 motorway heading due west, we were treated to a beautiful sunset with the sun setting into the clouds just above the horizon.  So clean, so clear it reminded me of the sunsets on the cruise in June, and then it was gone.  So the sun did rise this morning, it was only the clouds that obscured it.  Obscured by Clouds – Pink Floyd.  That could have been the theme song for today.

Notice that all the references to the time of year today sarted with a capital ‘C’, not an ‘X’.  That’s because there was very little or no commercialism attached.

Storm Barbara scooted over us this morning with a few gusty winds and I could feel the sideswipes on the motorway, but for most of the afternoon it was quite calm.  It’s getting windy again tonight as was forecast.  Hoping it’s on its way north east now.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  Hoping to go in to Glasgow on the bus and enjoy a pizza at Paesano.

Glad to hear that N D’Ag was back home and feeling a lot better.  Hope there isn’t any snoring tonight Hazy!

JIC and Sim Homeward Bound – 20 November 2016

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20-nov

This morning we drove JIC and Sim to the airport for their flight back down south.  We stopped in Glasgow on our way back for some shopping and a coffee and then returned to an empty house.  It was good to have a busy house for a while, but they had to go back to their own life and Vixen.  Oh yes, and back to work too.  We really did enjoy the visit and Friday was a brilliant day, one we’ll remember for a while.

Back in the land of computers, I finally got the photos backed up on to the new external drive and the battery rallied for a while on the Mac, but it was a temporary respite before it dropped again to 37%, currently 31%.

Salsa in the Garage tonight was uplifting to say the least and we left feeling a lot better than when we went in.

Tomorrow?  Well, tomorrow’s Monday with all that a Monday entails.  Busy, busy, busy.

What a grey day – 19 November 2016

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After such a lovely bright, cheerful day yesterday, today dawned dull and uninspiring.  After we dropped JIC and Sim off to meet their old friends, we headed into Glasgow.  J&S were heading there too, but by train, luckily.  When we got on to the M80 the CITRAC lit up with the joyful news that there was congestion after Junction 4.  At 1.30 on a Saturday afternoon, congestion on the M80 can only mean football traffic.  We never did find out what had caused the holdup because we cut our journey short and left at the Robroyston turnoff just after the queue had started.  After a wander around the limited variety of shops and a coffee, we headed back.  By this time the football fanatics were all safely ensconced in their seats in the rain watching 22 men chasing a ball while one man, dressed in black, tries to control them.  What fun.

When I opened the Macbook Pro this morning it just sat there.  As far as I could remember, when I’d closed the lid last night there was about 40% in the tank.  Where had it gone, or had it gone and was it just joshing me?  When it finally loaded, it proudly displayed 0%.  So where had it gone?  I looked all round the table where the MBP sits and I couldn’t find any juice lying around.  Then I checked Coconut Battery 3, my go-to app for the truth about the battery.  First thing to notice that the design capacity bar was red, not good.  It read 25.6%.  Not good at all.  I tried charging it up to 100% and completely discharging it, before charging it up to 100% again and discharging it again.  Nope, it sticks resolutely to 25.6% capacity.  I’ll overcharge it now and see what it’s like after that.  If it doesn’t work, then it’s time to call in the Weemen (Should that be WeeXY now?  Naw, it’s Weemen) Repair Team to fit a new battery.  That’s why I gave them the opportunity to hone their skill before I need to call them in for the big job.

Meanwhile I’m filling up the new external HDD.  It looks like it’ll take more time than I expected, but hopefully it will mean the photos will be more secure for a while longer.

Rough looking weather forecast for our visitors to fly into tomorrow, but it looks like the worst will be past long before they land.

Scraping the car – 18 November 2016

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18-nov

Yes, it’s that time of year again when you need to scrape the car in the morning.  No heated screen or heated seats luxury here JIC!

Scamp was going to the dentist this morning, so I helped her defrost her car while I ran the engine on mine and turned the heater up full speed, full heat and air-con on.  Mine was soon defrosting nicely while we scraped away at Scamp’s.  That’s where the pic of the frozen leaf came from that.  When Scamp left to get her filling done, I headed back in to have porridge for breakfast.  First time for ages, and it worked its warm magic again.

With Scamp’s tooth fixed, we all headed off to Loch Leven to have a walk in the cold, fresh air under a clear blue sky.  Perfect conditions to test the F707’s infra-red capabilities. Well, the F707 and a furry monkey. The furry monkey which usually sticks to our fridge has magnets in his/her hands and feet.  The magnets are fairly strong and are the only ones that have been able to overpower the spring in the solenoid.  For that reason, the furry monkey came with us today to Loch Leven.  He/she … Let’s fix this ridiculous he/she thing now.

In a book I’m reading (and eking out the pages to make it last) his/her references are solved by making it ‘XYr’.  The ‘XY‘ stands for the unknown chromosome balance so ‘XYr’ can be male, female or indeterminate gender.  That seems an elegant solution, especially these days with LGBTIQ.  Life used to be simpler with just  LGBT and it made sense.  I think the ‘I’ is for ‘Isnae Sure’.  I have no idea what ‘Q’ stands for.  It could be ‘Questioning the Magic Donkey’ for all I know.  Anyway, thank you Becky Chambers for solving that problem.  I hope I got that right Hazy!

Soooo, getting back to the monkey, remember the monkey?  XY seemed to enjoy the trip and is now happily back in place in XYr place on the fridge.

The selection at the top came from the 70 odd photos from the day, plus the one from the frozen car.  The IR images took a fair bit of post-processing to get the effect I was looking for and although the quality isn’t great, the effect is.  I’m not sure if I prefer the false colour version or the monochrome.  Mono looks cleaner, but the false colour is more interesting and alien.  Further experimentation is required if the furry monkey is up for it.

Lunch was excellent as usual in Loch Leven’s Larder although the shop seems to get posher and more twee every time we go there, which is a pity, but I suppose is inevitable.  After that we drove back home via the Forth Road Bridge to get an updated view of the new cable-stay bridge.  Dinner was a carry-out from Bombay Dreams.

A good day, most enjoyable.  Cold tonight.  Temperature just touching zero.  Hoping for another sunny day tomorrow.

A Full House – 17 November 2016

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Tonight we would have a busier house as JIC and Sim were coming up for a flying visit.

Scamp was out this morning meeting one of her in-laws for coffee and I was charged with clearing up the painting room ready for JIC and Sim.  Of course, I didn’t do that, there were more interesting things to do like format one of the borked drives and test copy files to it to make sure it was working properly.  It was.  I also worked out how to get my Sony F707 camera working in IR mode again, more of which later.  Eventually I did get round to clearing up the room at least so that it looked like a room again.

When Scamp came back I drove in to Glasgow to see if Staples had a decent price for the 3TB backup drive I’d picked on the net.  They didn’t, but it looked like Argos in Cumbernauld of all places did have it, so it was back in the car then back to Cumbersheugh in the driving rain, only to find that the drive I’d earmarked had been sold.  Blast – well, I did actually say a different word which also started with ‘B’ but finished with a ‘D’ and had the letters ‘A,S,T,A,R’ and ‘D’ in the middle.  You’ve probably heard it, and maybe even used it before.  Not you Scamp, not you.  Anyway, I settled for the slightly cheaper 2TB version and payment made, new toy collected, headed back to the car through the rain.  That’s when I saw today’s PoD.  Cumbersheugh isn’t a pretty town, but it does a really good gloomy.  I instantly liked the shot with the little silhouette of an out of focus ‘wee wummin’ (remember ‘wee wummin’ from a couple of weeks ago?) in the middle distance.  It looked good in colour, but I guessed it would look even better in mono.

Right, this Sony F707 IR thing needs a bit of explanation.  If you look here, you’ll understand what it’s all about, maybe.  I’d forgotten all about it and the magnet trick, but today, again in the seridipity of the Internet, I chanced upon a more up to date post about exactly the same thing.  That got me started again, sticking an Infra-red filter on the F707.  A 720nm filter is virtually black to the naked eye, but  allows a narrow band of Infra-red light through and virtually none of the visible spectrum.  The Sony just pretended it wasn’t there, except for making everything have a red tint.  I think I prefer the results from the crossed pola filters.  There’s a bit better range of colour to them.  I’m intending to try it out tomorrow with some hoped for sunshine.

Popped in to the airport to pick up the travellers and then back past CITRAC signs warning of ice tomorrow.  Ice in Scotland in November?  Surely not.

Hoping for sun tomorrow.  Always!

Just an ordinary Scottish day – 16 November 2016

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16-nov

Windy, wet, sun and cold.  Four seasons, sort of Scottish.

Today was Scamp’s turn to have needles stuck in her and lasers fired into her too.  She had to go to the physio to get some treatment for her ankle.  Something to do with her Achilles Tendon, or Archimedes Tendon as I got it wrong.  Like me she wasn’t really all that bothered with the acupuncture needles or the laser and she’s got exercises to do to.  Only five reps, three times a day not ten, three times a day like I had.  That’s a bit unfair, I think.  Sexist or ageist or shoulderist or something.

When we got back, I went for a walk over to St Mo’s in the sun, but ten minutes later the sun disappeared.  I managed a couple of shots before the gloom and rain arrived again.

Spent some more time consolidating my photo collection and being side tracked just looking at the photos.  Attempted to use File Juggler which is supposed to be a filing assistant on the PC.  The best one apparently.  Filing on a computer pivots on the use of folders, as anyone who has work with Windows, OS X or Linux will know only too well.  Unfortunately after trying unsuccessfully for half an hour to move folders using File Juggler, I discovered this on the company website :

Question – Can File Juggler manage folders?

Answer – No, unfortunately not. File Juggler handles only files.
I plan to add this feature later.

This was followed by a link to a page that had nothing at all to do with File Juggler or the author’s apparent abortive attempt to implement this feature, which he seems to feel is not really all that important.  I’m guessing he’s never worked with Hazel on a Mac.  I got all my folders nested exactly as I wanted them in ten minutes flat using a script I’d written in Hazel.  Sometime you just have to leave the PC to do what it does and get the work done on a Mac.

Salsa tonight.  Helping in a beginner’s class at 6.30 then an advanced class at 7.30.  Great fun as always.

Weather to get colder tomorrow.  Pack wooly jumpers, wooly hats, warm gloves and snowshoes JIC and Sim!

A much more sedate day – 28 August 2016

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28 AugAfter yesterday’s frantic here and there, non-stop, things to do, today was a little respite. After a relaxing morning we watched the Belgian GP from Spa. Plenty of action in the first half, then the new Sky Sports channel seemed to get stuck and we had to go back to the C4 version with laconic David Coultard and the over-excited Ben Edwards to tell us just how exciting it was.

The rest of the afternoon was spent tweaking the gallery feature on the new theme of my blog. What Scamp christened The Summer Look. After getting frustrated with some things working and others not, I took myself off to St Mo’s for a look around. Scamp had meantime driven in to Glasgow to pick up her sister. I didn’t find any deer today and only got decent photos of some insects. Couldn’t get the camera to focus at first, and then realised that it was set on single point focus which is notoriously difficult to fix focus with, but once focus is set, it is really accurate. When I switched to a wider field of view, focusing worked a lot quicker. Hoping for some exercise tomorrow, either in the gym or on the bike, we’ll see which one wins. Like Scamp always says, it all depends on the weather.

Kes – 23 July 2016

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23 July bOur visitors arrived much later last night than we expected, just before 11pm, in fact.  Drink was taken, tales were told, jokes were laughed at and much later than normal, we got to bed.

This morning they were up fairly early and we were up soon after although my head felt a bit thick.  That was when our other visitor dropped in.  Scamp said there was a bird sitting outside the front door, not a little bird, she thought it was a pigeon and it wasn’t looking too well.  Murd said two big black birds had ‘had a word with it’ and it perked up a bit after that.  He said he thought they must have been doctors 🙂

When I opened the front door I saw, not a dead pigeon as I expected, but an apparently live but unmoving kestrel.  It was a bit battered and its eyes were closed, so I feared the worst.  Then its head moved, so it was probably just dazed.  Maybe after hitting the bedroom window and falling on to the grass in the front garden.  I put on a pair of Scamp’s gardening gloves because that beak looked sharp, and gently lifted it up.  Some of the feathers on one wing were splayed out, but other than that it looked ok.  I pulled out a bit of dried grass from its wing feathers and smoothed the wing down. That was when it opened its eyes.  Wow!  Such beautiful, bright yellow eyes.  It looked at me, shook itself staggered a bit then flew off across the road and landed in a tree.  I think it must have been a young bird.  Lovely chestnut coloured plumage, and oh, those eyes.  A great start to the day, and my thick head had gone.

Scamp drove us in to Stirling today and we went for a curry in the usual restaurant, we both had our usual starters and mains too.  Creatures of habit.  Afterwards I went to the bookshop and was intrigued by the title of one book:
“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman.
I wonder why that one caught my eye.  Managed to download it when I got home and will add it to my Kindle booklist tonight.  We both wandered round BHS which was closing today, looking for bargains, but there were none, just junk nobody wanted.

After that we went to Waitrose and I got a big lump of ribeye which I cut into five steaks when I got home.  That should keep the carnivore in me occupied for the next few weeks.

Went out this evening to get some photos in the rain at St Mo’s, being careful to stick to the path.  Don’t want any more ticks.  Surprised to see that NLC have created an avenue of trees and reseeded the wild flower areas.  They must have cut out one of the councillors junkets to pay for that.  Light was terrible with ISOs in the thousands.  Last week I was struggling to keep the shutter speeds fast enough not to overexpose at ISO 100.  That’s the difference in being down south and up north.

More rain forecast tomorrow, so I doubt if we’ll be going far.

I can still see those yellow eyes.  Wish I’d thought to take a photo.

The Hottest Day of the Year – 19 July 2016

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19 JulyYesterday was hot, but today, oh today was even hotter.  Over 33ºc in some places.  Heavens, even Scotland had over 25ºc.  What is the world coming to?

Scamp had decided that she was going to sit in the garden all day.  A sensible decision given that the sun was going mad.  We sat in the garden for a while watching movement in the pond.  We couldn’t decide whether it was frogs or newts.  We settled on ‘Frewts’ as the most likely suspects.

After lunch we went for a walk along past the golf course and had a couple of drinks at the clubhouse.  It doesn’t seem as if you have to be a member, just as long as you’ve got money.  We had money and I sampled another of these English IPAs which are very nice.

After we got back, Scamp went for more sunbathing in the garden while I went back to the wild woods to try to photograph some butterflies.  I managed to get a Small Heath and a Comma.  We don’t get Commas in Scotland, but apparently they are moving further north as a result of global warming.  I saw a deer, but it was too fast for me and was away into the tall grass before I could get the camera ready.  Also saw the pale blue dragonfly that I saw earlier in the week, but again, it wasn’t landing, just cruising, looking for a mate.

Canute and Delia came over for dinner which was an Indian take-away.  Very entertaining evening.  Just hope I can get to sleep in this really hot night.

Back North tomorrow.  Heavy rain forecast!

You don’t scare me M25 – 14 July 2016

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14 JulySet off today after a fairly decent breakfast at the services next to our overnight accommodation and slipped back on to the M6 heading south and trusting in the satnav to get us to Hazy & N D’Ag’s house.

All went swimmingly as we traversed the M6, the M42 and then the notorious M25. It wasn’t as bad as we expected … for us. On the other side, the clockwise carriageway, things weren’t quite as good with what looked like a 3 mile tailback due to an accident on the outside lane. A burned out car and a fire engine in attendance, but thankfully no ambulance.

The satnav on the iPhone got us almost to Chessington when the bloody thing switched off because it was overheating! Just when I needed it most. Things like that don’t happen in the temperate climate of Scotland, but apparently it does in tropical London. Unplugged it and let it cool for a few minutes while I overheated and drove on. It finally came back on just in time to tell me to take the next turnoff. After that I was on home ground and recognised some landmarks so I could self navigate.

Spent the afternoon with Hazy and N D’Ag before he left to go on his trip to Barcelona. Made paella for dinner, after walking to the Sainsburys at the railway station because it was soooo much quicker than taking the car. Anyway, the Megane was tired since it too had survived the scary M25.

Today’s pics come from the garden in Chessington. Lots to see here including a little mouse mopping up the fallen seeds from the birdfeeder and parakeets flying overhead when I was coming back from the shops. Did I just say Tropical London?

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. I thought Kingston, but Scamp says maybe Hampton Court. We’ll see.