Category: Flowers

Smelling Sweetly – 27 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off to a hotel in Glasgow to learn how to make perfume. I stayed well away!

Scamp met Annette on the bus in to Glasgow. I’d walked over to Condorrat with her and was quite pleased that I did, because it was there I found today’s PoD. While the two friends went in to Glasgow, I walked back home and, having my camera with me took to opportunity to get some photos of the Honeysuckle flower that was to be PoD. Back home I sat down to read another chapter or two of The Brass Verdict. I did a bit more clearing out in the back bedroom and also considered putting some air into the Kona’s tyres, but didn’t quite get round to that.

I checked the recipe for tonight’s Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto – one of the easy ones that you bake in the oven and don’t have to stand for half an hour stirring. We needed a few things and I grabbed a bag and walked down to the shops. It wasn’t a heavy load to carry back, but I had bought more than I really required for dinner. I don’t think the recipe had mentioned Crunchy Ice Lollies or Jam Donuts, but for some reason both of those items had found their way into the message bag. How strange.

On the way back I found a strange looking object on a wall. It looked like the broken lid of a Jerry Can and had a flower growing out of the top. It looked a bit like an alternative flowerpot and was interesting enough for a photo or two. Try as I might I just couldn’t get a good shot of it. Eventually I decided I’d taken enough photos and spent enough time on it and walked up the rest of the way home.

It took about five minutes to process the honeysuckle flower. It took about an hour and a half to piece together two photos of the alternative flowerpot. In the end they both went in to Flickr, but the honeysuckle won PoD hands down.

I was just finishing the flowerpot when Scamp texted me to say she was on the bus home. I said I’d meet her at her stop and walk home with her because it’s a lonely path over the motorway and although it wasn’t that late, it’s always better to have somebody to walk with.

It seemed from her description that the perfume making was quite an interesting experience. Not just a cobbled together talk with a Powerpoint presentation and a bottle of smelly stuff to take away. There were 24 different ‘notes’ divided into three categories of Base notes, Middle notes and Top notes. All the participants could blend them any way they chose. Everything measured by drops, or even ‘half drops’. It sounded fascinating, but not really for me, I think! I did sample some of the testers and ‘Wood’ definitely did smell woody. Similarly, Passionfruit had that sharp sweet scent that only passionfruit has. But the one that stood out for me was ‘Rose’. I immediately smelled Turkish Delight which, of course is made from rose water. It sounded an interesting afternoon for Scamp and Annette and I don’t suppose the two glasses each of Prosecco did any harm too!

Watched a crazy Dutch GP with drivers splashing through rain, driving in the sun and finally back to torrential rain which resulted in the race being stopped until the clouds rolled away and the track dried out. An interesting race for once.

The Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto was delicious, but that was more down to fresh smoked haddock than to my skill. We might make arancini with the leftover risotto tomorrow.

No plans for tomorrow.

Dancin’ Saturday – 26 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Driving through the roadworks. Roadworks that will last until the end of September!

We drove over to Brookfield for a reasonably successful dance class, and ignoring the roadworks, it was a pleasant enough drive. Two new members, two girls. One just likes to dance and the other one wore a Fit Steps tee shirt and thought she could do it all. Oh dear, wrong thing to say.

While Jane and Stewart took them aside and explained what we were doing in class, we practised our Joy’s Waltz. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a great improvement on last week. We did actually manage once through the entire routine without a mistake, well, almost without a mistake. Then it went to pieces again as it often, but not always, does! I am improving and when I get things like the Outside Spin right, I can feel that I’m getting it right.

A couple of easy sequence dances to ease the new starts in to this strange old fashioned way of dancing, where everyone does the same moves at the same time. After that we hurtled in to the new Cha-Cha with the terrifying Cross Basic. I don’t know if it is really basic, but it certainly has the ability to make us both cross. For once, Stewart agreed with me about who was moving clockwise and who wasn’t. I’m glad someone agrees with me sometimes. By the end of that part of the lesson, things were making much more sense.

Another sequence dance and then a chance to practise the Quickstep. If there is a great stumbling block in our dances it’s the Quickstep. It really is well named. The steps come at you so quickly it’s almost impossible sometimes to stop and find out where you are in the routine.

All things considered, it was a worthwhile class where we learned a few things and got a chance to practise lots more things in a big dance hall.

We took the M8 – M74 – M73 – M80 route home and stopped at Tesco on the way to pick up lunch. We’d already decided tonight’s dinner was coming from Golden Bowl.

Rain showers all afternoon, but I braved them to take a walk in St Mo’s where PoD was a ladybird hiding under a knapweed flower.

Watched the qualifying for the Dutch GP. Interesting but not as enthralling as the World Athletics Championships, especially the pole vault where the Swedish vaulter Mondo Duplantis cleared an incredible 6.1m.

Tomorrow Scamp is heading to Glasgow for a perfume making class. Thankfully I wasn’t invited!

Waltzing around – 24 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

This morning we had a quick practise of the waltz. I needed it.

We spent so long yesterday arguing about whether we were going clockwise or anti-clockwise when we were doing the Cross Basic, I forgot all the stuff I’d learned about the Outside Spin. So this morning we concentrated on the Outside Spin. After a couple of mistakes I got back to the basics of it, and this next section is for my benefit. It will make no sense to anyone reading it, except me and perhaps Scamp:

After the Drag Hesitation, and the backward steps turn right and plant my right foot, then spin clockwise on it around Scamp. After that it’s a Back Lock and we’re nearly finished.

I think that’s it. It seemed to work yesterday and this morning.

That was this morning. This afternoon we drove to Glenburn to a very small group of dancers. First dance of course was a waltz. That’s when I realised I’d left the Outside Spin in the house, I must have, because I certainly didn’t have it with me! I just couldn’t remember how to get my feet to complete that simple couple of sentences in italics I’ve just written. It just wouldn’t come. Disaster! Thank goodness for sequence dances Stewart interleaves between the ballroom and latin dances. They repeat and repeat short ‘sequences’ of moves. That’s where they get their name from and also why they are so popular. After you’ve danced them for a while, they become embedded in muscle memory. I haven’t repeated the Outside Spin enough times yet to embed it.

After the halfway point of the tea dance, after the actual tea and coffee had been served and cleared away, the first dance of the second half is a waltz again and this time I stumbled through the waltz again, but this time it was a bit clearer and I remembered some of Stewart’s prompts and also Scamp’s hints. It was better, but not very elegant.

Barry and Cath, two long serving salsa dancers, and excellent tango dancers joined us after tea time for a blether. Also another dancer lady, Margaret McIver, sat and talked to us at tea time, but the two teachers sat in their little cliques and hardly spoke to us at all. That is not my idea of what teachers should do. They should encourage folk to join in the dance community and mingle. Maybe it’s just me, that I always find fault with teachers!

We left as usual just after 3pm to avoid the worst of the school transport, and we had a fairly easy run home.

I grabbed the opportunity of a few shots of our Japanese Anemone in flower in the garden and that became PoD.

Not the best dancing day, but maybe I’ve finally solved the problem of the Outside Spin and all it needs is practise now.

I think we both felt the temperature dropping a bit today. That seems to be the way the weather is going for next week according to the Weather Fairies.

No real plans for tomorrow, but we may go out to lunch.

A day among the beasties – 22 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The beasties in question were damselflies, dragonflies, butterflies and a single little caterpillar with a face that only its mother would love!

In the morning we did little except Wordle and Spelling Bee. Then Hazy phoned and we had a good half hour chat about the Wales holiday with the Welsh side of the family. Pity the house wasn’t quite up to the Cumbrian one, but you always have to take estate agent’s descriptions and photos with a pinch of salt. Glad that everyone took their turn at cooking, and it’s alway good when everyone sits down to a meal together.

Lunchtime arrived much quicker than I expected and after we were fed and watered, we walked down to the shops to get some messages. It was on the way back home that I thought I might just manage to get some more butterfly or dragonfly photos in St Mo’s

So on with the boots and out I went to see what I would find today. It was actually quite warm in the sun and I made the right decision for once and left my raincoat at home and wore a hoodie instead. There were hosts of dragonflies about, but they were too busy dive bombing each other and flying dogfights among the rushes. Mostly they were common darters, with the males outnumbering the females about 2:1. I gave them up as a subject for today. The days are getting shorter as we move into the last quarter of August, so the dragonflies had other things on their mind.

I did find a couple of peacock butterflies sunning themselves on the flowers, but they were too far into the bushes and I knew they’d fly off as soon as they saw me coming. Also, it’s prime tick weather just now and I don’t want any more of these black devils on me. Neither them nor the inevitable clegs which you may know as horse flies. So, no butterflies either. I was busy photographing two hoverflies on a lovely pink knapweed when a common blue damsels dropped in and sat quite comfortably watching me at work before it too became a subject. I kept expecting it to fly off, but it seemed happy and obviously saw that I wasn’t a danger to it. With a couple of dozen photos taken, I headed for home for dinner which was cauliflower and potatoes with a cheese sauce.

It wasn’t until I was processing the photos that I noticed the cheeky green insect (don’t know what it was) poking its head up from the knapweed flower. Photobombed by a tiny green insect. That shot became PoD!

A quick practise tonight of Joy’s Waltz, especially the Outside Spin. Then a run through for Scamp of the new Cross Basic in the cha-cha which is really just another of Jane’s add-ons that are designed to look elegant, but cause a lot of grief! Most of the problems were ironed out … eventually.

I’m planning on meeting Alex from the train tomorrow and we’re heading to Auchinstarry to get some photos of the barges at the marina.  Scamp might be having coffee with Isobel.

Gardening and wildflowers – 20 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A lazy day, with little to recommend it.

We did a bit of gardening in the late morning, just pruning the Buddleia in the hope that it would encourage more flowers, but I really think it’s past now and needs a serious haircut before the winter winds arrive. Scamp was busy moving some Honesty plants from the nursery pots to the pots they will hopefully live in until they flower next year. She can be quite ruthless with plants, ripping them out if she thinks they are ‘going over’, ie not producing the flowers they should be. I was also chopping down as much of the Aquilegia I could get away with. It’s well past first flush of flowering and there’s just the chance that it might flower again before the end of the year. More work needing done:

  • Sunflowers need staked.
  • I think we need to think about some winter colour.
  • We need to remove this year’s flowers from the Rhododendrons. This one is contentious. Some folk think we shouldn’t remove the old floret stems and some think we should.

Basically the garden is doing well. The few veg I have are coming along nicely, especially the leeks and the kale. Maybe we should plant some tatties soon for a Christmas crop.

In the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got a few interesting wildflower photos, there being very little insect life about apart from the usual skittish Common Darters. It was a very green photo of a Pineapple Plant that got PoD. I remember when I was wee, being amazed that they did actually taste like pineapples! They smell like them too. As they are low growing, it’s probably best to just smell them rather than eat them as you don’t know what has been ‘watering’ them!

Dinner tonight was a Chicken Milanese we got from the butchers a week or so ago. Scamp was not impressed and I have to agree her version is better. Dessert was Apricot and Brioche Pudding. A bit like Bread and Butter Pudding, but posher!

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard about his posh dinner on Friday. Sounded lovely. We must go look for The Unruly Pig. That’s the name of the restaurant, by the way.  We think our garden is growing well until we hear about their garden and then ours pales a bit in comparison.  However, ours is easier to maintain.

No real plans for tomorrow. It depends on the weather.

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.

Driving and Cooking – 17 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today we’d thought about travelling over to Edinburgh, but the clouds simply wouldn’t lift and the weather was going to be worse in the east.

Instead, we spent most of the morning deciding what we were going to have for dinner.  We were going through an old recipe book “Home by Seven Dinner by Eight” that we used to use all the time.  We found a few recipes that would work for today and finally settled on “Salmon, Asparagus, Pancetta, Tomatoes and Potatoes Traybake” as today’s dinner.  So we needed Salmon, Asparagus and Pancetta, the rest we had.  Off we went to get the fish at a new stall that had opened up recently in the grounds of the garden centre.  Two big slabs of salmon, some smoked haddock, some unsmoked haddock and an Arbroath Smokie.  A bit more expensive than Tesco, but the fish looked good.

On the way home we did drop in at Tesco for some odds and ends, but forgot to get the asparagus and the pancetta.  That didn’t matter, because I was intending going out again after lunch and I would get the remaining ingredients then.

Back home and after lunch and after I’d been to Tesco for the second time today, we settled in the garden. Me to take photos initally and Scamp to read. I got a PoD in the garden. It was one of Scamp’s plants grown from seeds we got down south in April.  It’s called Cerinthe and has blue/green leaves and purple flowers almost hidden from view by the leaves.  Almost hidden, but the bees find them no problem. A beer and a book afterwards to relax in a cloudy, but just warm enough temperature before dinner.

Because the dinner was a traybake, it was dead easy to make.  It only took about 20mins in the oven and it tasted as good as it looked in the book.

Despite the driving here and there, it was a fairly relaxing day. Tomorrow Scamp is hoping that her crown will be ready and that it will fit this time!

Tidying up – 14 August 2023

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Not my room this time, but the car.

Tomorrow is MoT day for the wee blue car and there were some things that needed fixing before it went in for its first checkup. I watched a few YouTube videos about replacing the rear wiper. I never knew there were so many variations of rear wiper blades for one model of car. It took a while, but I eventually found our model, or near enough our model and it seemed really simple, except the old blade refused to come off until I coaxed some WD40 into the pivot and then everything went like clockwork. Drove up to Halfords and found the correct blade. It cost £5.95 for the blade and it would have cost another £5 to get them to fit it! Thank goodness for WD40. It saved the day again.

The car got a wash a couple of days ago but today it was the inside that needed cleaned. Crushed leaves and the sticky covering of buds from the trees, with the addition of the usual collection of parking receipts and sweetie papers all had to be hoovered up. I drained the battery of the portable Dyson and put it back on charge while I decanted the mats from the footwells and brought them in to the house to be hoovered with the big plug in Dyson. The boot too was emptied, everything hoovered and put back in place.

Dusters were flying around the dashboard too to make everything look sparkling, or as sparkling as it can be if I’m doing it. Filled up the washer bottle and cleaned more detritus from the wiper sockets and we were ready to go.

Time for a relaxing walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see and the rain clouds were rolling in, so it was just once round the pond. PoD turned out to be a stem of Purple Loosestrife which has rings of purple flower at intervals up its height. Allegedly it is an invasive species, but so are humans, they say, and we’re still here!! I had a fallback photo that I took in the morning, a Peacock butterfly on our Buddleia bush in the garden.  I now have proof that our buddleia does indeed attract butterflies!

I lost track of time when I was out and that meant the dinner was about an hour late, but it was penne pasta in a vegetarian sauce with “what’s left in the fridge” contributing to its richness, plus some of our home grown herbs bolstering basil from the pot on the window ledge. That was Scamp’s idea and it’s a good one.

She is intending to go to meet one of her friends from work tomorrow after she gets her nail polish professionally removed. I’m driving the blue car in to Glasgow to get its first MoT done, hopefully, successfully!

At the Carwash – 11 August 2023

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I actually took it to the carwash earlier in the week, but it was closed for maintenance.

Scamp was out in the morning to FitSteps and when she came home she looked exhausted, but happy. A sign of a good workout, or so I’m told, never having driven myself that close to the edge for a looooong while.

We also got a text from Hazy to say they were on their way home from their holiday in Wales. A change is as good as a rest, they say. I’m not so sure there was much of a rest for them with three children running round their feet!

I’d volunteered to make Chicken Ramen for dinner tonight. Basically a stir fry with soup added. For that we needed Chicken, of course and maybe some veg. That meant a trip to Tesco, because I already knew that M&S didn’t have Pak Choi. Unfortunately, although Tesco had pak choi, the only spring onions they had (another essential ingredient) were absolutely manky and Scamp rejected them out of hand. A few other things went in the trolley and a box of beer for me too. Cheap ‘holiday beer’ as Scamp calls it. Beer for drinking, sitting in the sun in the garden. The weather wasn’t really settled into sitting in the sun weather yet, but we always live in the hope that it might just change its mind.

We drove home and after a spot of lunch, I decided I’d wash the car, a sort of cheapo home carwash. We’d just got fed up with the car feeling like sandpaper. Sap from the trees we park under drips on the car and becomes semi solid just making everything, metal and glass feel rough. It also attracts wasps that love the sweet sap. It took me longer than I’d anticipated to get the car cleaned of all the sticky stuff and I even cleaned the inside of the boot and decanted some of the detritus that lives in there. It will find its way back in, I’m sure, after MOT on Tuesday.

Before I knew it, it was dinner time. The chicken ramen didn’t generate too many negative comments from Scamp which was surprising because I know she doesn’t really like noodles and there were loads of them in this recipe. Maybe a decent bottle of red to help wash it down helped.

The clouds began gathering in the late afternoon and then the first raindrops hit the window. No, I don’t think we were going to be sitting outside with a beer or a Pimms today. The PoD was taken just as the rain started in earnest. It’s a hanging basket of pink and white fuchsias from the garden. I thought that since Barbie is everywhere this summer, a little pink and white border would be appropriate!

Jamie had asked me for a recipe for pizza dough. I hope it works or worked out well for you and that the pizzas rise to the occasion!

Tomorrow we may go to Glasgow to see the Under 23 Men’s Race. Rain is forecast, so let’s hope they all get through unscathed.

 

Dancin’ – 10 August 2023

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We were off today to Glenburn to do some dancin’.

I’d been doing a bit of studying this morning. It was mainly centred on the latest iteration of Joy’s Waltz. We had a half hour or so of practise last night that went over the waltz and a bit of cha-cha. Today I knew that Scamp would want to put that practise to good use. Even after a bit of last minute revision, I wasn’t sure that practise would make perfect. Getting round the floor without doing too much damage and without crashing into anyone would be a win for me.

I don’t know what the Paisley council have been doing with their spending plans, but they must have found some extra money in a biscuit tin in a cupboard because that’s the only way they could manage finance the roadworks around Glenburn where we were going for dancing. I lost count of the number of diversion signs and roads being dug up as we drove out there. Worst of all, the road we usually drive home was closed off with a lorry and a few dozen traffic cones. How were we going to navigate round that? The only way I could think of was driving through Paisley itself and that’s a nightmare journey I didn’t want to make. The best thing to do was to put it behind us for now and enjoy the dancing.

The weather today was humid, very humid. I think we got up to 25ºc on the car thermometer and the temperature in the hall must have been similar. Again, we were lucky in whose table we sat at. Chatted away with David & Carol, John & Madge until we had enough folk to make the floor look busy. Waltz, of course, was first and for the first dance I was quite pleased that I managed to achieve my two goals. After that, it was two sequence dances followed with two ballroom or latin dances. We managed to navigate the sequence dances, but my skill level at ballroom and latin dances went gradually downhill. Even muscle memory wasn’t working towards the end. Plus, as Ella Fitzgerald sang, It was “Too Darn Hot!”

We drove away from Glenburn and decided to go back the way we always would and see what happened. Worst comes to the worst, we’d follow the diversion signs until we got lost and then rely on the sat nav. However as we were coming down the hill to the Hurlet roundabout where the road had been closed, it had magically been opened again and we simply drove home by our usual M77, M8, M74, M73 route.

Scamp decided that the sun was going to shine when we got back and took her folding chair out to soak up some of its rays. I took the A6500 out for a walk in St Mo’s and got a PoD of a lazy dragonfly sitting on the stones that provide grip on the boardwalk. Being cold blooded, I imagine they get a fair bit of heat from the stones which warm up in the sun. I extended my walk down to the shops and came home with some fruit and some flowers, because, well, it was Thursday. When I came back I joined Scamp in the garden with a can of Brewdog stout (Try it Jamie, it works) and a Pimms for Scamp.

Dinner tonight was sausage, egg, beans and chips which was a bit unusual, but worked quite well.

Tomorrow we’ve no real plans, but a change may be afoot. Heavy rain predicted to mark the end of the hot clammy weather.