Category: Fannyside

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.

A cold start to the day – 14 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

A temperature of 3ºc in the morning is just a little cool. We decided to read in bed for a while before facing the day. At least it was a Positive three degrees! We should be thankful for small mercies.

Eventually we did drag ourselves out of bed and I started by collecting the odds and ends of things that needed to be taken to the skips once the world had defrosted. After that it was the inevitable Wordle and Spelling Bee that took up my time and soon it was lunch time.

We both had the same thing for lunch, it was the remains of the leftover chicken from Saturday. It had lasted well and although, maybe a bit dry, had plenty of flavour. Scamp has boiled the carcass and made the basis of some stock with it. After lunch I had a look at a couple of recipe books to find the makings of Butternut Squash soup. Probably using the leftover chicken stock. As it happened, it’s still leftover, but in the fridge now.

I’d gathered up a big barrel shaped collapsible container full of the chopped up buddleia and teasel bushes yesterday and today they went into the boot of the blue car along with a big plastic basin full of old phones with some odds and ends. The old blue zip-up bag went onto the back seat and that just left room for me and my camera bag.

The skips were busy today, it being Monday. They’re always busy, but on a Monday it’s busier than normal. Folk are cutting down and trimming trees and bushes as the flowers fade and the leaves start falling. The garden waste skips were the busiest today. I got all the bags and basins emptied and then went for a run up to Fannyside.

Fannyside is such a quiet space and if there is just a gentle breeze like there was today, it’s the most peaceful place on earth. Only the birds calling from the trees and the occasional plane making very little noise, but drawing white con trails across a blue sky. A great place to watch the world go by. I took a few photos, but only two made it to Flickr and of the pair, only one got PoD. It’s a wee Flowerpot Man Jackie gave us many years ago. He lives on a ledge in the downstairs toilet and holds one of the Christmas Cacti. His face always brings a smile to mine.

Back home I was ready to start that Butternut Squash soup. This was a new recipe to me, from a Mary Berry book. One of the thousands she’s written. I did eventually get it made and although I thought it was a bit thin, Scamp disagreed. In the end I had two bowl of it and Scamp only had one, so it wasn’t that thin!

Today’s prompt asked for “Roam”. I couldn’t be bothered with another person walking up a hill with a rucksack on their back, so instead I rearranged the letters and turned it into “Roma” and sketched what might have been a grand building in Rome. Actually I drew the sketch yesterday and kept it on the back burner until today. Who’s to know?

The plan for tomorrow is to go to The Fort. Scamp is looking for elastic and I’m hoping to get a leather punch to make more holes in my belt. I must be losing more weight!

That was a hot one – 14 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We’d intended getting the train to Edinburgh today, but waking late put the skids under that plan.

Instead of Edinburgh, we went shopping in Tesco. I’d a pile of books to give to Fred, because I often meet him in Tesco, but today, when I was prepared, Fred wasn’t there. Still, we did get a few things we needed and I got a Ginsters, half of which would provide my lunch.

After lunch Scamp was pruning bits off the big rowan tree at the back of the garden. She was complaining that the branches were hanging down over the pedestrian path. Then she mentioned that a bush that separates our next door neighbour from us was also becoming a bit of a nuisance and should be trimmed. I said I’d do that one and used a block of Imperial Leather soap to lubricate my old trusty panel saw and had the offending trunks and branches cut down in no time. Then we stripped the branches from the big trunks and heavier branches and piled them into one of our expanding nylon bins before chopping up the trunks and heavy branches. I volunteered to take them over to the council skips and empty the bin there. This must be pruning time, because the enormous skips were full of tree branches.

One of the reasons I volunteered was to give me a chance to get some landscape photos up at Fannyside Moor, and that’s where I headed once the chopped up tree and bush branches had been disposed of. It really was a lovely day. Blue skies and fluffy clouds with just enough of a gentle breeze to keep me cool. I did get a few landscapes and also some macro shots too, although I didn’t have a true macro lens with me.

After I came home I wasn’t feeling too good. Too much sun without a hat to provide some shade and probably not enough water as well. Scamp is always telling me I don’t drink enough water and she’s probably right. A rest outside, reading WITH a hat on let the worst of it disappear.

Scamp was making a fish curry for dinner using a Spice Tailor mix or one of its offshoots and while it wasn’t all that spicy, it had good flavour and the fish was delicious in it.

Last night we watched the first Mastermind of the new season and tonight we watched the first University Challenge. Both great standbys and so much better than Eastenders or River City. One is depressing and the other is just a packet of fairytales.

PoD turned out to be thistles entangled in barbed wire with a nice sky.

Tomorrow I’m intending taking the car in to Glasgow for its MOT, meeting Alex and hopefully bringing the car back home tomorrow night. That’s the outline plan anyway.

 

Water – 3 June 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Today, for the first time this year, we watered the garden this evening.

Yes, we had splashed some water on the plants before, like when we had planted them out, but this was the first time the front and back gardens had been given a good soak.  For weeks we’ve been told to expect rain and none came.  Now that we’ve taken the bull by the horns and used the watering can on all the plants, it will probably rain tomorrow.  For today, though, it’s been watered.

In the afternoon I gathered a few bags of stuff that either wasn’t working or had been gathering dust and took it all up to the skips to be disposed of.  As always, there was a constant flow of folk bringing similar car loads of garden refuse, electrical equipment and what is generically known as “General Household” to these great big bins and the crushers were there working their magic to reduce what was once a carefully assembled chest of drawers to matchstick.  That must be a satisfying job.  I saw the delight in one woman’s face as she tipped a two layer glass TV stand into one empty General Household skip.  It made a lovely crashing sound as it disappears into thousands of little chips of broken safety glass.

I drove out of the council tip and up to Fannyside.  It was a lovely day until I opened the car door and it almost blew shut again.  Fannyside is quite exposed and the gusty west wind was stronger than I’d anticipated.  I was hoping to see some dragonflies, but not today, not in that wind.  I did see some swallows, though. I stopped to watch them and a Stonechat which I’d heard of but never seen before. Then I listened to a skylark singing as it rose, and there it was, watching me from the the field. A Fox. It just sat there on its haunches, in the long grass, looking at me.  Not fazed at all but the human with the big black tube pointed at it.  When I turned to walk away, it did too.  I had one last look at it, but it didn’t turn back, it just walked into the water weeds that surround a bog in the field. I did get half a dozen or so photos of it.  This is one of the best.  I’d been thinking of buying a longer lens for photographing wildlife and birds. Maybe this was the signal that it might be a good idea.

Back home Scamp was reading in the garden, so I brought a bottle of beer out with me and joined her.  For some reason the weather fairies didn’t like my interruption and clouds began to roll in and the wind became gustier until I was forced to go in to make the dinner.

I think we may be going out to lunch tomorrow with Shona. Her treat this time.

Sad News – 17 April 2024

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Hazel phoned this morning to say that Neil’s gran had died this morning. We had been expecting this news, because she had been in poor health for a few months. She was a lovely old lady and she will be missed by everyone who met her.

Alex phoned later in the morning to cancel today’s outing to Gouldings because the cough he has been struggling with for the past month or so is showing no signs of improving and he was hoping to get to speak to a doctor and have his chest sounded. That left the day free.

We drove to Tesco later in the morning just to get some essentials and for once what we got was the bare essentials.

After lunch Scamp fed the roses, did the ironing and planted some of her packet of fifteen Cerinthe seeds, also known as Honeywort and they were hopefully getting some sunshine in the front bedroom window sill. While she was working, I took an old lightweight Manfrotto tripod with a couple of cameras up to Fannyside in search of some interesting clouds to photograph. I was also carrying a couple of neutral density filters in an attempt to get some very slow shutter speed photos of the clouds scudding across the sky. I don’t know what I did wrong, but most of them ended up with circular reflections from the lens on them. Must investigate. I did get some normal exposure shots of some nosy sheep and a few landscapes, but PoD went to an old fencepost covered in moss and lichen.

Giovanni Rana tortellini for dinner. Today’s variety was Basil and Pine Nut. Then it was time for Kirsty’s class, the final section of the Tango. After a struggle remembering the last thing we did last week, we managed to bolt on the new ending and that was it done. Not quite as easily as that, but not the drama it might have been, although Drama is an integral part of Tango!

Tomorrow afternoon Scamp has an appointment with the dentist.

Watch for the tumbleweed – 27 February 2024

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This morning we were out to visit Our Man In Falkirk.

Andrew was looking very relaxed today. No fancy shirt, but he was just as sharp as usual. He talked us through the last half year and made his predictions for the next year. He explained that the new software they are using was designed in New Zealand of all places and that it was made in the same place as the hobbits live. You have to listen carefully to his stories because he is quite adept at slipping in the occasional joke like that just to see if you are listening. We were. Apparently our previous company were using version 1 of the software, but we have the most up to date version. We both like the way he speaks. He doesn’t water things down, nor does he talk down to you. A very clever man who inspires confidence. Just watch for the jokes. He’s even a photographer who used to do his own developing and printing!

Scamp and I went for a walk when the interview was over, after being warned by him that there were a lot of good opportunities for Street Photography near Asda. That said with a nod and a wink. As we were walking up to what used to be the main street. I noticed a few worthies who fell into the category he was describing, but I did’t take any photos, just in case.

Scamp went to Bonmarche looking for bargains in the clothes. I went to Waterstones to get a couple of books. We both came away empty handed. Maybe I’ll get the books on Thursday when I’m hoping to meet Alex.

Scamp and I were amazed how far Falkirk had slid down the slippery slope. What was a busy Main Street, was now a ghost town. It’s incredible the difference in about five years. I think M&S was the first to go and from there it’s been closure after closure. I’m guessing Waterstones won’t be long before it pulls the plug on Falkirk too.

We drove home via Torwood, but there was almost no room in the carpark and we assumed the cafe would be the same. We drove home and stopped for supplies in Tesco instead.

I went for a walk after lunch and drove to Fannyside which is a great place for skies and cloudscapes. It didn’t let me down today. Two lovely landscapes with impressive cloudscapes, one mono and one in colour. Mono won PoD.

Dinner was Baked Potato and Beans. Not amazing, but yesterday’s lunch was so good, it would be difficult to beat it.

Today’s prompt was Peach
I probably should have tried painting this soft fruit in pastels, but Old Dogs and New Tricks led me back to watercolour. So here is my interpretation of Peach. I must practise more with those expensive chalky sticks. I’ll dig them out some day and make a different kind of mess.

Tomorrow Scamp is going for lunch at Moira’s house. I’ve things to do at home.

Goodbye Snow – 19 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It’s gone. The snow returned this morning, only to be washed away by the rain and the above zero temperatures. Not much above zero, but enough to rid us of the white stuff.

In the morning we went shopping. It was a big shop. What we used to do on a Monday until Tesco seemed to have fewer staff working on a Monday than on any other day of the week. Friday was quite different. Much more like what used to be a normal shopping day. They even had rolls! We loaded the car and drove home.

After lunch Scamp wanted to reorganise the front bedroom which has become a storage room. I wanted to go out and take photos somewhere other than St Mo’s, so while she was checking what we did and didn’t have and moving things around the various cupboards, I drove up to Fannyside to see how the wild moorland was surviving this tough winter weather. This was my first visit this year. There was a cold west wind blowing and that was making the cloudscape quite interesting. Probably this was the first real test for the new lens, just taking photos of anything and everything that interested me. Not being too particular about aperture or shutter speed, just enjoying the experience. The lens coped admirably with the scenes. Not one rejection, but I’m still not sure it’s the lens for me. Only time and a few hundred photos will tell.

Drove home and after checking the photos, started to make the dinner which was an old favourite, Fennel with Haddock and Prawns. Dead easy to make as long as you are organised, and for once I was.

According to the weather fairies, we’ve some wild weather to look forward to next week with strong winds and heavy rain. It never seems to stop this winter. Wind, rain, snow and sleet with the occasional half a day of sunshine mixed in. Weather was much more fun when I was wee.

PoD turned out to be a wide angle shot of the moorland at Fannyside and its amazing cloudscapes that looked much better live than my poor representation of them. A couple of other photos are keeping it company on Flickr.

Tomorrow we’re intending dancing in the morning.

Another cold day – 30 November 2023

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It was only just above zero when we woke, and then it cooled down!

Scamp was going out for lunch with her pal and I had a plan for some photos. I wanted to get out and find somewhere nearby that wasn’t St Mo’s. I gave Scamp a lift up to the cafe at Calders where they were meeting up and then I drove over to Fannyside after I’d bought an almost daylight bulb for my new lamp. It’s slightly warmer than my real one, but it’s got an Edison Screw fitting and the old one is bayonet, so at least it fits the lamp.

There wasn’t much to see at Fannyside. All the leaves have been blown away from the beech trees now and they just look bare. Five sheep, four ewes and a ram had a look at me and questioned what I was doing in their territory. The ladies were unsure whether or not to approach the man with the metal tube, but the ram was giving me the side eye and they all stayed away. I took their photo anyway, which was quite good, because that became PoD.

Not long after I came home and dumped the photos, Scamp phoned to say she was ready to come home too. I drove over to the village and picked her up then we went home via Tesco to get some veg and stuff to make a veggie chilli. We were driving out of Tesco when I saw a sunset building up. I drove round to the car park at the rear of the building and grabbed five shots before the sun completely disappeared. My favourite of the five is on Flickr. A Tesco Sunset.

I made the chilli in the Magic Pot and it turned out quite well, except it was meant to serve 4. It’s more like 400. I think most of it is going in the freezer for a quick meal some day.

We watched Masterchef tonight and I hate to say this, but I’m actually enjoying it. We also watched another Portrait Artist. The numbering of the individual episodes is chaotic. None of the numbers are correct as far as we can see.

Tomorrow Scamp is planning to go to FitSteps or I may drive her if the roads are dodgy. Hoping to get to Brodens for lunch. Steak pie for me, hopefully. Don’t know what Scamp will have.

Glorious Light! – 30 October 2023

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Today was a much brighter and much colder day than yesterday.

We watched the Mexican GP and it was a fairly lively affair with the home boy, Perez going off at the first bend after attempting an overtaking manoeuvre that was always going to end in tears for somebody. After bouncing his car around on the run-off area, he took it back to the garage and said “It’s Broke!” In Mexican I presume. Of course the golden boy won the race as Scamp had predicted he would.

Today was Monday and Monday is a day for doing shopping. Nothing fancy, just the messages. The boring stuff like bread and cauliflower, rice and coffee, fruit and onions, essentials. Plus a bag of jam doughnuts and a couple of bottles of wine. Because man cannot live by bread alone, and neither can woman! Tesco shopping it was today. We talked about going to Morrisons or Waitrose, but neither of us were interested in travelling far afield. Sometimes it’s better to stay local.

When we got back it was lunch time and that meant the rest of the soup I made yesterday. It was thicker today and the taste was stronger. Just the thing with a slice of bread ‘dooked’ in it. When that was done I waited long enough to see what the weather was going to do later in the week. Then got my boots on and my jacket with the inner sleeve still damp from yesterday’s soaking and drove over to Fannyside where I thought I’d get some autumn colour from the trees. While I was off in the country, Scamp was brushing up the leaves in the garden, in the sunshine.

The light was nothing short of amazing today. After yesterday’s rain had cleared the air, you could see for miles. I was heading for the old ruin of Jawhill Farm. The farm wasn’t really the centre of attention today, it was the trees that were the stars. They were that lovely rusty gold colour that leaves get just before they fall and the sun was getting low in the sky picking out the textures in the farmers’ fields. Blue sky overhead with just enough broken clouds to give a bit of interest to the scene. These days don’t come often, so we have to make the most of them. It’s a pity the cold east wind was really cutting. I was glad I’d picked the heavy Bergy jacket, rather than my fleece.

On the way back to the car I passed three cattle, two cows and one bullock in a field. I just had to have a picture of the bullock. Its coat was almost the same colour as the leaves I’d been photographing and it only had one horn. I don’t know what the story was there. The farm house made PoD, but the bullock got second place.

Today the penultimate prompt for Inktober 2023 was Rush. I duplicated it and it became Rushes, Bull Rushes. I’ve been reading some comments about the prompts this year being a bit too obscure and I have to agree. There have to be better prompts than the ones we’ve been given recently. For the past few years these one word prompts stump a lot of people who then give up on the whole thing. Anyway, today’s sketch was done in fountain pen and a water wash to get some shading.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but the weather looks good, but cold again.

Country Roads – 18 August 2023

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Scamp was out in the morning, going to the dentist to see if the new crown would pass muster with the dentist.

Thankfully it passed with flying colours and although it won’t be seen in her pearly shine because it’s a back tooth, it will make eating much more pleasurable, I’m sure. We had to wait a while for the anaesthetic to wear off before we made plans for the day.

It was quite windy and there was the threat of heavy rain overnight and Scamp was desperate to get the back garden grass cut. I was going shopping instead. Grass cutting doesn’t enthral me, but eating does and I was making dinner tonight. Another traybake, this time a Chicken, Red Onion and Tomato one. We needed a lot of stuff for it and as I wanted to visit the phone shop in the town centre Tesco, I thought I could combine both expeditions in the one place. The food shopping was not a problem, but the tiny wee booth they have for the phone shop was busy when I went, so I dumped the dinner ingredients in the car and went back where, thankfully it was quiet. Got myself a trial 30 days sim to test the ability of the Samsung to work with the O2 masts that Tesco runs on.

Instead of going straight home I drove up to Fannyside and found my usual space. Luckily I’d brought an old rainproof jacket with me because it was blowing a hoolie up there on the moor. The wind was from the east and there was nothing to stop in for miles. I took a couple of photos of buttercups blowing at the side of the single track road, but they didn’t appeal to me, besides, with the sun behind me I was casting a shadow over my subjects. I tried the other side and found that was where the bright yellow Hawkbit grew. A much more interesting shot and my shadow was slightly left of centre, so if I moved further left to wouldn’t be in the shot at all! Success!

Further on I took a few shots of the old ruined farm about half a mile away across the fields. It looked good with the lens at 35mm, but the dramatic sky above just looked ordinary. But if I set the lens to its ultra wide setting of 16mm the sky looked great, but the farm was a tiny wee dot in the distance. Then I decided to take two photos, one of the farm and one of the sky and blend them together on the computer.

That wind was really strengthening now and drawing all the heat out of the sun, so I turned around and headed for the car. Another car, a nice shiny one, was heading up the road towards me and I stepped to the side to let him pass, me being used to single track roads, but he wasn’t. He drove past me and on for a few metres and met a farmer coming the other way in what an old friend of mine in Australia called a ‘Ute’. A four wheel drive utility vehicle. Two won’t go into one on this road, so Mr Shiny Car had to reverse right back to where I was parked and the farmer passed glaring at both of us. Mr Shiny Car decided he’d had enough of Country Roads and did a 7 point turn and headed back the way he’d come. So did I.

Back home, I started the prep for the dinner. I think it was seven different spices, herbs and liquids went into a big resealable bag and then the chicken legs went in. The bag was sealed and it went into the fridge to marinade. I had a look at today’s photos and only rejected one out of the dozen or so I’d taken, and despite the time I took to get the clouds and the landscape just right, it was the five minute job on the Hawkbit ( a bit like a thin dandelion) that got PoD.

After the chicken had been soaking in it’s manky brown but interestingly smelling marinade for about an hour, everything went into baking tray and that slid into a pre-heated oven @ gas 6 for 15mins which seemed an awfully short time. As it happened, it was indeed far too short. In all, the roasting took just over half an hour, and it was fine. The chicken was fine, but the onions, oh the red onions!! They were the stars of the show. Deliciously crunchy and soaking up most of the flavour from the marinade. We’ll make it again, but give it twice the time the recipe says.

It appears that Storm Betty will be visiting us overnight. Heavy rain and high winds with the chance of thunder too. Oh what fun. I think we may be going to a dance class too.