Category: Flowers

A quieter day – 26 October 2026

Posted on by Zogman

We took advantage of a much calmer day, and we took stock of the damage done to the garden.

There wasn’t much damage done, really. Our old battered and bruised plastic greenhouse had blown down and most of the contents were strewn across the garden. We took one look at the carnage and decided it wasn’t fit to be reused. Too much damage to the metal tubes that held it up and too much rust on them meant it was no longer worth repairing. It has lasted a long time, so it will be going in the Council Tip at the first opportunity.

Most, if not all of the plants survived the wind and rain from the last few days, although my potatoes in their plastic pots were ravaged by the wind and rain. I don’t know if they will be worth digging up. We’ll see once everything returns to normal

We watched the American F1 GP and weren’t surprised with the winner. He was always going to win, it was only a matter of time before it happened.

Later we wiped off the load of leaves and branches that the Blue car had collected over the last few days and drove to Tesco. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shop as busy as it was today. People wheeling trolleys everywhere and long queues at all the checkouts. All because of two days of heavy rain and strong winds. We only had a few things in our trolley and we got through the smaller checkout quite quickly.

No wind today, but a continuous drizzle kept us in the house most of the dull day, although I did get a few photos in the back garden of Scamp’s Cosmos flowers. They looked great even when they were soaking wet. Such cheerful blooms. The Cosmos flowers got PoD.

The weather tonight is beginning to get noisy again. The weather fairies say it will be more rain than wind this time, but we’ll wait and see what happens. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as the past few days. –

A really dull day – 23 October 2026

Posted on by Zogman

Thankfully we went to Tesco in the morning and missed most of the heavy rain.

Rain had been predicted for us, but after that early deluge, everything calmed down and we saw very little of named storm Austen. However we did have a continuous drizzle and that’s almost as annoying as rain.

I restarted cutting the fabric for the reversible bow tie. I thought I had it sorted, but now I’m thinking I might try a different version. I don’t want to waste any more fabric and end up with nothing. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do a dummy run with some cheap fabric and photograph each step so I can always come back to it after I’ve got it the way I want it. Assuming that I get it right this time around!

Hazy: I bought a packet of clips (Clover Wonder Clips) that seem to be easy to use for holding fabric layers while you stitch them. Much easier than using pins and less likely to draw blood!

I did manage to get just three photos taken today. The best of a bad lot went to a shot of some red flowers that were hanging from a pot that itself was hanging on the fence in the back garden. It was drizzling and I wasn’t hanging around. That was PoD covered.

Scamp was clearing out the fridge yesterday and found a plastic tub of home made tomato soup. That, and a Fish Finger Sandwich was dinner. The soup was excellent, but I would say that, because I made it! So was the FFS!

It looks like we’re going to have a windy couple of days tomorrow and Sunday with the next named storm, Boelo. High winds and heavy rain. Oh what fun.

Schoolgirl – 20 October 2026

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Today Scamp was going to visit Shona for coffee and I was starting to make a bow tie.

I dropped Scamp off at her niece’s house and drove home to start on the bow tie construction.

I had brought back some interesting fabric from our visit to Jersey and thought it would look good for the bow tie. Scamp reckoned she would be out at Shona’s for a couple of hours and I was sure I could get a good start to the bow tie construction. Half an hour later I was still looking for the paper bag that held the fabric. Then I remembered that it should be in one of my cupboards. Once I’d found it, it was fairly plain sailing to pin down the paper pattern and cut round it. I remembered to arrange the fabric Wrong Sides Together and it all looked fine.

The bow tie was to be a reversible one with different patterns on each side. A year or so ago I worked out how that could be achieved. It’s too complicated to explain, but basically there is a lot of twisting and turning involved, but once you’ve worked that out, the rest is easy. It should have been, but it wasn’t until Scamp phoned to say “could she have a lift home” that I noticed one of the patterns was round the wrong way. Thankfully I think I might have just enough fabric left to make a new one. Either that or it’s a flying visit to Jersey to get more of the fabric!

I’d had enough of twisting and turning patterns for the day and left everything as it was and picked up Scamp and we drove home.

Dinner tonight was Potato Wedges and Veggie Sausages for Scamp and also Potato Wedges but with a Wagyu burger for men. Both served with a tin of beans. Yes, I was cooking!

Today’s PoD went to a photo of a Schoolgirl flower, cut from the climber rose in the afternoon. It was too wet and dull to get any decent outside photos, but the indoors version worked perfectly.

I think we might be visiting Isabel tomorrow.

Scrambling Plants – 19 October 2026

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We were out fairly early today, taking more unwanted stuff to the Council Tips. If this goes on much longer, we’ll be on first name terms with the men, (it’s only men work at the tip), who tell you where to put your black bag contents. Having said goodbye to today’s lot, we drove over to Stirling, and Waitrose.

We’d promised ourselves that we’d go to Waitrose Soon, but too many things got in the way and Soon just got forgotten. Today we made good on that promise. Monday turned out to be a good day to go to the shops. There weren’t too many shoppers to get in our way and the folk who restock the shelves had done a good job refilling them in time for us to fill our trolleys. With a bulging trolley’s worth of a host of food and a few drinks, we filled the boot of the Blue car.

Scamp reminded me that we had discussed dropping by Majestic Wines on our way home. We hadn’t been in that shop for years and we found that it was an interesting place to go. A host of bottles of every kind of wine were stacked in the shop. We were like two kids in a toy shop. We finally settled on four bottles, that should keep us going for the rest of the week, then, next week we’d do it all again. I think the poor wee Blue car wondered what was happening. First half of Waitrose ended up in the car, then, when it thought we were heading home, the Humans lobbed another case of wine into the boot!

Back home and after a late lunch, Scamp settled herself at the piano and I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was good to see Scamp playing again. The piano has been too quiet for too long. Good to see it producing music again.

I walked round St Mo’s, and by the time I was going home, the light was failing, it had started out as a dull day and it wasn’t getting any brighter now. At the start of my walk I got a few decent shots of Purple Vetch plants hauling themselves up an old branch and marvelled at their ability to seek out supports to use for climbing. The Purple Vetch made PoD.

Watched the usual trilogy of puzzle games on BBC tonight and I managed to get some of them right for a change. Quite pleased with myself.

No plans for tomorrow yet, but I’m sure something will need done!

Dancin’ – 17 October 2026

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Late getting out today, partly because it was cold. Ice on the car windscreen is never a welcome sight!

We drove to Brookfield to a busy class. The first dance, if you can call it that, was the Rhumbumbumba. I’d tried it last night and, with Scamp’s help, I could stumble through the routine. I knew the ‘real’ version was a lot faster, but I just couldn’t keep up with this manic monstrosity. Halfway through the routine I made my exit to the toilet and didn’t come out until the ‘music’ had stopped!

I put the Rhumbumbumba behind me and attempted the October Waltz. It was a lot more reserved and slower in places but quite twisting and turning. I managed to get through most of it with a lot of help from Scamp. I was beginning to think I’d lost this one too, but there was a glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel that gave me some confidence that all was not lost!

Jive was next and it was a combination of the Bowtie, Spanish Arms and the Mooch! No, I’ve never heard of these dances, either, but some of them were remarkably like Glasgow Jive routines we’d learned from a previous teacher an also there was a hint of Salsa in there too, so basically, I felt I was on safer ground.

The final routine was an X-Line Tango. We had learned it from the TV when we were in Lockdown, all those years ago. We used to be quite good at it, even if I say so myself. Of course the routine had been changed since then, but the basic dance was the same. By the end of the class I was feeling confident of two of the dances. That’s a pretty good average for me!

We drove home and after lunch, Scamp was hoping to get the front grass cut, but a heavy dew was taking a long time to dry out and eventually she gave up on it. I went for a walk over to St Mo’s and got a few decent photos on, what was a lovely day. My favourite, and PoD went to a Dogwood bush (Cornus alba) that just glowed in the sunshine. The brown seeds of the Yellow Flag Iris were coming into their proper weird shapes that looked like worms, so I took some photos of them too. The photos will become useful for those days when it’s raining or if I can’t see anything worth photographing. It’s always good to have a fall back.

We watched Strictly and although some of the dancers were worth watching, a lot of them seemed to have lost their interest. Maybe Christmas pantos and shows are dragging some of the contestants away.

No plans for tomorrow, but the grass will still be needing cut!

Keeping the wheels turning – 16 October 2026

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Some weeks the wee Blue car hardly turns a wheel, and then there’s this week when we found ourselves driving every day of the week!

Today we drove to over for lunch at John & Marion’s.

It was truly a wonderful day. Blue skies and good friends. Marion produced a lovely lunch that was worth the drive through quite heavy traffic. We also had a few rain showers too, but nothing too heavy. It’s nice to meet up for lunch, knowing that we’ll be driving in the light. Driving in the dark never used to faze me at all, but lately I’ve found it more and more a chore. Just getting older I suppose.

We spent most of the day discussing weddings and how much has changed from when we got married, a few years ago now! The up and coming wedding sounds like a good day and I think we’re both looking forward to it.

I couldn’t help but compare yesterday’s drag of a drive home from Glenburn with today’s easy run home from J&M’s. All the heavy traffic was heading the other way today and our lanes were quite calm by comparison.

I couldn’t decide what to use for today’s PoD, then Scamp suggested the knitted flower she’d laid claim to last week. It was an inspired choice. Just a drape from an old off cut from a piece of purple velvet and a bit of careful disguise of bits and pieces and we had a PoD.

Sometimes things create more difficulties than are really necessary and sometimes, like today, it just works!

Good Friends and Good Food. What’s not to like?

Hoping to go dancing tomorrow.

We went Dancin’ – 15 October 2026

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I had a few problems to work through in the morning, but between Scamp and me we got them fixed.

The problem solving meant that I had very little time to get ready to go to Glenburn for today’s Tea Dance. Scamp’s new haircut got a lot of positive comments from all the Tea Dancers. Why does she get all the praise? Nobody even notices it when I ‘waltz in’ with a new short back and sides! Actually they probably do notice, but turn away, hoping not to embarrass me.

It was the usual mix of dances. Waltz to start with, then a Cha-Cha, followed by a Rumba. With the occasional sequence dance thrown in to take us up to tea time. Lots of chatter because of Scamp’s haircut again and time for the guys in the room to have a blether.

We danced another mixed selection of dances in the second half. Scamp was being careful to keep a weather eye on the clock, but we’d forgotten that the children wouldn’t be at school this week, so we could be selective with our choice of dances.

We eventually exchanged our dance shoes for outdoor wear and drove out of Glenburn.

The traffic in the morning had been fairly heavy, but I made a bad choice of route home and got caught up in an even heavier collection of homeward bound workers. That meant about an extra half hour of driving in stop-go traffic. However we did eventually clear it and arrived home just a little bit late.

I went for a walk to the shops after we got home and that’s where I found today’s PoD which is Bindweed growing through some bushes. Pretty looking white flowers, but I wouldn’t want them in my garden. They are extremely invasive plants, and are difficult to eradicate.

Tomorrow we may go out for a run somewhere.

A lovely morning – 11 October 2026

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It was a beautiful morning today. The light was shining across the front garden lighting up the Rudbeckia flowers which have become a bit tatty these days, but still catch the light.

I managed to grab a few shots of the Rudbeckia while the good light lasted, but it didn’t stay for long. Big black clouds began to cover the sun and I took as many shots as I could before the sunshine was lost for the day. One of the decent shots became PoD along with some well worn Hydrangea Paniculata called ‘Switch Ophelia’. They start off pale pink and end up months later a light brown.
So, that was the photo shoot for the day. Nothing really wild, but it was a tick in a box.

Scamp spent most of the morning and early afternoon pruning the plants in the front garden. It’s really looking good, especially since we’re well into October now. It’s still cold in the morning and for a few days there, we had some light frost. Most mornings now there is the hint of frost. It’s hard to believe that last year at this time we were sailing around the Mediterranean!

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and heard that their ongoing fight about the problems whit the roof of the house have been settled. Maybe not as amicably as they’d have liked, but at least it’s finished.

No real plans for tomorrow, but we’ll make the most of the time, because it’s going to be a busy week for us.

Visiting the Kelpies – 6 October 2026

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The lighting was good today and it seemed a shame to waste it.

We drove over to Helix Parkwhere the Kelpies live. For once it was a lovely day, a little bit cool, but nothing my Rab jacket couldn’t cope with. We went in what Scamp calls the “wrong way round”. That means we crossed the Forth & Clyde canal and walked clockwise to reach the great beasts. It’s a totally different view you get from this direction. One worth trying if you’ve never been there before.

Unfortunately the wind was from the North West so the smell from the sewage works was just a wee bit overpowering. Typical Scotland. Design and build a beautiful pair of statues and position them right next to a sewage works and a line of pylons. That’s what the people want to see and smell apparently!

The tea shop was a bit overcrowded when we went there for a scone and a cup of coffee, but we did get a seat which was better than I thought it was going to be. Then we wandered round the ‘souvenirs’ on display in the shop. Most of it a bit overpriced, but lots to look at.

We drove from Helix Park across to Klondyke Garden Centre looking for some plants to brighten up the garden. There were lots on display and of course the inevitable Christmas toys and books. Well, at least it was October and the nights were drawing in! Scamp and I found a couple of plants that looked as if they would inject some much needed colour to the garden. I managed to find a Sarracenia (Pitcher Plant). I hadn’t seen one for ages. I think my last one didn’t like the hot weather we had during the summer. This one looked quite small, but fairly healthy.

Drove home and logged 40,000 on the way back.

Dinner was a baked potato with prawns in a Mary Rose dressing. I’d meant to make a pizza, but didn’t have the time by the time we got home.

PoD went to one of the Kelpies, backlit and with a tiny starburst shining through it.

No plans for tomorrow. Alex has his apron on and is looking after Carol while she recovers from a new knee op. So no photos for us.

Michaelmas Daisies – 4 October 2026

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It was a very dull day today. I didn’t see any signs of sunshine at all.

However I managed to get a photo of some Michaelmas Daisies by some sneaky date and time changes that we won’t talk about. It’s the final result that’s important.

After getting Wordle et al sorted, and after Scamp was finished watching Laura Kuenssberg scare the pants off most of the politicians, we settled down to watch the strangest F1 race where the Bahrain race was run on the Sepang Circuit in the rain. Lots of thrills and spills and a strange mixture of contestants vied for position. Weirdest race I’ve ever seen, but quite interesting too.

I think Scamp spent most of the day working out our travel problems without much success. I spent my afternoon trying to squeeze yesterday’s Michaelmas Daisy photos into today’s PoD. I managed it with help from “A Better Finder Attributes V6”. A wonderful piece of software that allows you to do things to photos that they were never meant to do. I may even purchase V7!

That was about it for today, other than that Scamp had bought a lovely slice of smoked Hake. Not a fish we get very often in Scotland, but it was delicious. Served with potatoes and peas.

Hoping for at least a little bit of sunshine tomorrow!