Category: Flowers

Over 400 photos yesterday – 9 today – 7 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

That’s the way it goes with photography sometimes.

Scamp went out in the morning to get us milk and bread and I stayed in because a parcel was arriving and also to organise some photos to send to Alex. I’d meant to do it last week, but life got in the way. It was a pleasant enough day in between the rain showers.

Later we went down to Calders because Scamp wanted a bag of compost to replant some pots. She needed a bit strong boy to carry the bag and since we couldn’t find one, I was the labourer today. For once, we went looking for compost and that’s what we came home with. No extra flowers or plants and no other paraphernalia. Amazing. We’re both a bit prone to adding things that we don’t need when we go to garden centres. Later in the afternoon, I was still working on yesterday’s photos after I’d emailed Alex’s photos and Scamp had finished repotting the plants and had just decided to take a walk over to the park to get some photos when the rain came on. So instead of a walk to the park, I grabbed some photos in the garden and that’s where today’s PoD came from it’s an unknown fly on an Astrantia flower. It’s amazingly sharp given that the breeze and rain were moving things around, and of course the insect was moving too. The anti-shake on this camera works.

That was about it for the day. Just a normal Monday with a bit of sun, a bit of wind and some rain.

Hoping to go in to Glasgow tomorrow to get some photos from the Time Trial while Scamp is off meeting June for coffee.

 

Driving and dancing – 5 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

That’s all we seemed to do today.

Drove to Brookfield in the morning. It was a small group of only four couples, quite normal on a day with a dance in the evening. The floor in the room is still not quite right after a kids party with a bouncy castle inside about a month ago. My guess is that the bouncy castle scraped the floor and someone decide that polish or oil would repair the damage. It really won’t be properly fixed until footfall wears that skin off. So we had a shortened room again and also a shortened class time because the bowling club who use the hall were having an afternoon and needed time to set up. So a small class, a shortened floor space and fifteen minutes less time to dance.

We started with a sequence dance then went into the class proper with the new unnamed cha-cha routine which Scamp suggests should be the “Slippy Cha-Cha”! She should suggest it to the teachers. That was ok, but not wonderful, but much better than my attempt at Joy’s Waltz. Given that we hadn’t practised it since May, that wasn’t really surprising, and also, Jane did her usual and added in an extra feature, a Curved Feather. Were do they get these names from? Although they are much better than Michael’s dancing by numbers. At least Curved Feather give you a clue what shape you’re (supposed to be) making on the floor. I could hardly remember the start steps of the original waltz and had to rely on Scamp’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the dances. Even she was struggling with this one for a while. One more track of sequence and we handed the floor over to the eagerly waiting bowlers. They were like a well drilled army. Pulling out the tables and assembling them under the eagle eye of Mrs Sergeant Major who was in charge of the operation. We left them to it.

I made a bad decision on the way home and tried the route through the Clyde Tunnel, only to find, as many others did that there was NO THROUGH ROAD. Barriers and diversions everywhere. I eventually gave up and took the easy way out by driving back west along the M8 then the M77, took the first exit and joined the M77 again heading east this time. After that I just followed the car in front over the Kingston Bridge and home.

A roll ’n’ corned beef and another roll ’n’ fresh made bramble jam was lunch for us with Scamp substituting tomato for corned beef. While Scamp read, I took the A6500 out for a walk in St Mo’s and got PoD on the way home. It was a bunch of wild geranium flowers against the sky that caught my eye and my ultra-wide lens. Once the image had been dunked in Lightroom it looked quite the part!

Dinner was Chicken Milanese, then we sat and read for a short while before we got ready and headed off to the dance. Weather was the usual Scottish. Bright sunshine then immediately after that, torrential rain that changed back to sunshine again then the cycle repeated. I think the blue car now knows the way to Brookfield itself. Twice in one day is maybe too much, but there were extenuating circumstances today as there is no class next week because the hall will be being used for a village fete. Maybe the feet treading on the slippy floor will wear off the shine!

Sitting with Peter and Gillian, Naimat and Audrey and another couple whose names evade me as ours probably did to them. Good banter with Peter and Naimat, while Audrey, Gillian and Scamp did their best to add some decorum to the evening.
We danced all but one of the sequence dances and as many as we could, of the ballroom and latin dances. We really need to do more practise. We didn’t need to practise the salsa dances, they just came from muscle memory. We even got praise from Jane afterwards!

We stayed to the end and did a bit of cleaning up round our table then say our goodnights and drove home straight down the M8 to the M80 this time. No getting tangled up in Cycling World Championships that cause the earlier debacle. Even got parked right outside the house! A very good night.

Tomorrow we might go visit the cycling in Glasgow, but we’re hoping to get the train there. No road blocks on the railway we hope!

Coffee with Isobel – 2 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

We were out this morning to Costa to meet Isobel.

For once, I have to admit that the coffee I had tasted like real coffee. Usually it tastes of nothing, but on bad days it tastes and looks like dirty water. In answer to your unasked question, Yes I do know what dirty water tastes like. We sat for a while listening to Isobel’s account of her granddaughter, Teal’s graduation. She, Teal, is following in her mother’s footsteps into education, but into primary teaching, not secondary. Good luck to her, I hope she enjoys it. She showed us her photo book like any proud grandparent would.

Scamp showed her some of our photos from the cruise and elaborated on them with some stories. A usual with Isobel, she told stories too. That’s what makes her interesting to listen to. You think at first she’s making them up, then you realise she isn’t. Sharp as a tack is Isobel. She too had been dancing in the Tower Ballroom some years ago, but we all agreed that the dance floor was quite the best we’d seen and she would have seen a lot more than we had.

After an hour or so, she left to do her shopping and we drove home for lunch with rain threatening all the time. Scamp was making jam from brambles juice that had been in the freezer for about three years. When she was making it, we noticed that the jam thermometer we were using, which used to belong to my cousin in Ayrshire, seemed to have lost its red pigment and only a pale orange line remained. I think we might need to get a new one. However it was accurate enough to to get the jam to the right temperature. The jam is probably cooled by now and ready for its lids to go on. She got three jars worth of jam from the fruit juice.

I took a walk later in St Mo’s and brought back an assortment of photos, but none of them beat a shot I’d taken in the early afternoon of a Calla Lily which was sitting on a table in front of the TV. The unpowered TV provided a decent black background for the photo and a bit of jiggery pokery with Lightroom brought a black background that emphasised the colours of the lily. That was PoD, although it did look a bit like a multicoloured cormorant!  Scamp and I agreed on its similarity to a duck!

Dinner tonight was an old favourite.  Cabbage, Potatoes and Bacon.  It doesn’t sound very appetising, but it tastes great.  Scamp is the master at making it.

No plans for tomorrow, the weather looks like it might be dry, so we may get out somewhere.

The first day of the month – 1 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

This day is always busy.

However, I thought I’d be able to clear my feet today, because Scamp was going out to lunch with one of her friends … until the friend phoned to say that she’d been for a Chinese buffet a day or two ago and wasn’t feeling too well, so could she cancel. Bang goes the afternoon computer session clearing out the rubbish, putting stuff into the right folders and backing everything up. Instead we went shopping.

We drove to Waitrose and loaded a trolley with an amazing assortment of stuff, and not all of it was alcoholic either. Although I did see one man with a trolley full, and I do mean full on bottles of wine. That was going to be one interesting party!
It wasn’t a day for doing much else and as we really needed most of the stuff we bought, it wasn’t time, or money, wasted. We drove back under a leaden sky we thought we’d left behind at Cumbersheugh. I think it must have followed us to Stirling.

Back home Scamp started to defrost the freezer. It’s always a task we tend to avoid. It’s quite an old freezer now and difficult to get into the nooks and crannies that clog up with ice. I think we hit on what could be a possible solution today. Scamp filled up big stainless steel dishes with hot water, put them on a couple of shelves and with a basin and a towel to capture at least some of the water we closed the freezer door and let heat do its job. Of course there was still a bit of chipping away to do with an old screwdriver and a spatula, but it was easier this way, especially with both of us taking turns at the ice face.

<Technospeak>
Meanwhile I was doing the backups of July’s photos to external hard drive, then deleting all the rejected photos and finally moving the ‘keepers’ onto a new part of the SSD. It sounds complicated, only because it is, but it works for me and lets the iMac run a lot smoother for a while.
</Technospeak>

With that successfully completed I took the A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD of Yellow Toadflax (where do they get these names from?) in St Mo’s, then walked down to the shops to get mushrooms for tonight’s Mushroom Risotto. After working away at the risotto for about 45 mins, it was an unappetising grey lumpy thing that came out of the pot. But looks aren’t everything. I must say it did taste good. Maybe a bit dry, but creamy and buttery! Crunchie ice lolly for dessert.

We’re waiting to see what the weather is going to bring tomorrow before we make any rash decisions about were to go, or indeed, if we go anywhere.

One in – One out – 31 July 2023

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That was the rule we made. If one thing comes in, another one must go.

<Technospeak>
Last week the A6500 came in and today the A6000 had to go on a visit to Norwich to find a new owner. The A6000 was a decent camera, still is, but the a6500 was a big step up. The viewfinder is definitely clearer and the IBIS anti-shake is a boon with a small, fairly light camera. I’d had the A6000 for a couple of years and the one thing it taught me was that it was possible to go on holiday with one small camera and two lenses and not feel restricted. That combination weighed almost as much as my big A7iii alone. Admittedly the A6000 couldn’t produce the same quality as the A7iii, but for its size it punched above its weight, if you excuse the pun. I hope it teaches someone else that good things can come in small packages.
</Technospeak>

Spoke to Hazy after I came out of the shower this morning and we heard all about the preparations for the Welsh holiday with the family. Good to hear that Neil is coming out of ‘teacher mode’ and getting some ‘me time’, visiting galleries and wandering round London.

I drove up to Tesco in the town centre hoping to get a large sized plastic posting envelope. They didn’t have any plastic envelopes, just thin bubble wrap ones with a paper cover, you know the ones I mean. I went back to Tesco Craigmarloch and found a packet of them there. Sometimes the smaller stored trump the big ones. I wrecked the first bag trying to get the almost cubic box into it neatly. With Scamp’s help I did manage to get it in to the second bag and using her wrapping skills it was a neat package. That’s when she said “I thought you’d just use this one”, holding the brown cardboard box the A6500 came in. Of course! If the big box could hold the A6500, it would hold the slightly smaller A6000! Why didn’t I think of that. So the neatly wrapped up box went into the big box with its ‘sausage balloon’ cushions to keep it safe. I stuck down the labels and took it to the post office in Condorrat were it was scanned and went straight into the waiting post van with the other parcels, most of which were going to Amazon!

I walked back in the rain to St Mo’s and got PoD which was a Purple Vetch flower, a wild flower. Lots of it flowering beside the path. I also got a photo of a bent down grass stem, beaded with water. That was the extent of today’s photography.

Dinner tonight was Pasta Carbonara and was one of the best I’ve made for a while. Don’t know why, it just was.

Tomorrow Scamp is out for lunch with one of her ex workmates. If it’s good weather I may take some photos. If not I’ll do a bit of ‘open heart surgery’ on the iMac.

The day after the day before – 30 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

As predicted, today was a day for recovery.

The furthest I went today was St Mo’s for a wander round the pond.  I did find a PoD when I was out.  It’s a soldier beetle showing off its agility on a grass leaf.  Just like a pole dancer, I’m led to believe. I thought I should add that just in case of any repercussions. It was one of those days that promised rain, but didn’t seem to know where it had put it.  Big black clouds threatened downpours, then hurried off elsewhere without a single drop being dispensed.  It was windy, though and that made insect and flower photography difficult.

Before I went out, Scamp had gone for a walk to the shops while I wrote up yesterday’s blog.  We’d decided to have Cod and Paprika Chowder.  It’s a simple recipe as long as you prep things before you start and that’s what I did today.  For once I was organised.  I must have made a mistake somewhere, because it turned out much thicker than normal.  That was easily repaired with a dollop of milk stirred in.  Tasted fine.

Spoke to Jamie and talked yesterday’s Blackpool visit. We forgot to mention that  someone asked for a Gavotte! Even better, at least four couples were dancing it.   So strange after being taught the rudiments of this ancient dance while we were on this year’s cruise.

That was about it for this rest day.  Tomorrow, everything will get back to normal again, hopefully.

Lazy – 28 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today was the exact opposite of yesterday, thankfully.

Scamp was up and cleaning the pots and trays from last night’s dinner. I helped out and stacked away the plates. Then Scamp was off to FitSteps. The first class in more than a month. While she was away I scrubbed out the remaining pots and trays and then got on with yesterday’s blog which you regular readers will know happens a lot, especially after a late night.

After her exercise and my blogging we had pizza for lunch then some more reorganising, but gentle reorganising. I managed to find some of the stuff I stashed away yesterday. Some of it is still there and will be returned to the living room when I need it in an attempt to reduce the clutter.

All that done, the idea for today was to relax and I think we deserved it after yesterday’s cooking and baking. Dinner tonight ended up being Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti with a couple of fried potatoes on the side. A bit different from last night.

PoD was a shot of a bunch of pansies growing in the back garden. I managed to get just one of them in sharp focus. Unfortunately that was simply luck. I’d like to say I did it on purpose, but it wasn’t! Maybe it’s just me, but I always think pansies and violas have human-like faces. These ones look fierce.

Hoping for a similarly lazy day with a bit of dancing thrown in.

A busy day – 27 July 2023

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A day that started fairly slowly, then accelerated.

After Wordle and Spelling Bee and a cup of coffee in the morning, I finally posted some of my recent photos to Alex. I’d meant to send them on Monday, but didn’t have the time. Told him yesterday that I’d post them that night but left it too late, but today they flew into the ether in two batches. Found the box for the A6000 and checked that all (most) of the bits and pieces were there. Did some last minute shopping later in the morning. Stew in the Instant Pot was set to Low and allowed to cook in slow cooker mode. Scamp made the Coffee and Brandy Trifles and then it was lunch. After lunch Scamp made the starters Portobello Mushrooms with Parma Ham then started hoovering downstairs while I dusted shelves and window sills then carted all my accoutrements (rubbish) upstairs to where I hoped I’d be able to find them again when I needed them!

Simonne texted to say that she was finished a bit earlier than she’d expected and arrived in mid afternoon. That left lots of time for Scamp to interrogate here about what was happening down south and also to break the news that Crawford and Nancy would be joining us. That didn’t faze her at all, I never thought it would. We talked for quite a while before the other two arrived.

Lots more to catch up on with Crawford’s eye injury. Who knew a floater in your eye could tear away the retina or that it could be laser ‘stitched’ back in place! My part in the dinner was the stew that would have potatoes and cabbage as an accompaniment while Scamp had a lentil stew instead. Lots more stories to tell after dinner but Simonne had to leave to drive back to her hotel in Edinburgh for a couple of hours sleep before her early flight the next day. We said our goodbyes and she drove away with the agreement that she’d come and stay the next time business brought her up north.

Crawford and I had a whisky later because Nancy was driving today. They also left a bit earlier than usual because Nancy was driving down to Wales in the morning and Crawford was following later in the day.

The dishwasher did the heavy lifting later and the rest was left until morning.

PoD was one of Scamp’s alliums with the seed buds just opening.

Tomorrow, a more relaxing day would be good.

 

 

Lunch at the Bothy – 24 July 2023

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After Wordle and Spelling Bee were done, the day was our own.

But first, even before Wordle, there was a big cardboard box to open, and inside as … another big cardboard box. Inside that was the usual amount of bumf you get when you buy something fairly expensive. “READ ME FIRST” was on the first page, so that was put to the side to read later. Next the inevitable expanded polystyrene to unpack and crumble into the carpet, then more bumf to read at a later date and finally the food processor was revealed in all its shiny plastic glory. Oh yes, and we got a recipe book, not an app to download and install on our phone, but an honest to goodness recipe book and a hard back one to boot! We might read that later, mainly because it didn’t scream at us “READ ME FIRST”!

While Scamp went into the kitchen to wash all the bowls and the lethal looking cutters and slicers, I read through some of the paperwork and some of the recipes. It’s amazing the variety of breads, cakes and soups you can make in one of these clever devices. I may even attempt some of them sometime.

Satisfied that all the washable bits had been washed and dried and after reading the recipe book and completing Wordle and Spelling Bee, Scamp suggested we go out to lunch as we’d planned at The Bothy just outside Stirling. As usual these days we were handed a buzzer and told to browse round the shop. Not long afterwards our buzzer buzzed. I did quite fancy the Mushroom and Bacon Carbonara on the ‘specials’ board, but inevitably I ordered the Sri Lankan Lamb Curry and Scamp had Mac ’n’ Cheese as I suspected. Two coffees to wash it down and two ginormous Cream Donuts to take home in a box.

Scamp was looking for another rose, but not for us this time and she wanted a pot to replant “Harley” the Harlequin Berberis we thought we’d lost in the June heatwave. It’s not quite recovered its variegation yet, but maybe once it’s repotted it will regain its colour. We drove round the outskirts of Stirling to Dobbies, but they had none of the rose variety she was looking for. We did get a heather plant to replace one that had died in June, a pop-up bin for the garden and a packet of basil seeds for me to plant.

I thought there was just a chance that we’d find the rose in Calders in Cumbersheugh, so we went there on our way home. Scamp knows one of the gardeners and she asked him if he had any and thankfully he had. A bit of local knowledge goes a long way, and it’s a true saying “It’s now what you know, but who you know. A quick visit to Tesco on the way home and we were done, or nearly.

I hadn’t a photo of the day so far, so back home I got my boots out and took the A6500 out with the big clumsy 105mm macro lens and in about an hour I took 130 photos. Most were rubbish, but I did capture a male Common Darter dragonfly. I’ve been keeping a careful eye on the battery performance of the new camera and it’s actually almost within the parameters that are advertised for it, so not such a big problem as I initially thought.

That was a good day. Weather wasn’t all that good, but it stayed dry all day. Scamp’s off to get her nails done again. I’m hoping to do an Auld Guys coffee morning tomorrow with Val and Fred.

Slippin’ and a Slidin’ – 22 July 2023

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We were dancing in a restricted floor today. About a third of the floor was cordoned off because of the risk of sliding on a very slippery floor. Something to do with a kids party last week.

Only four couples and the teachers so the reduced dancing space wasn’t really much of a problem. Nobody seemed to know what had been applied to the floor, presumably to clean up after last week’s kids party, but it did make the floor quite slippy. Thankfully resourceful Jane had a solution. She poured some water in the corner of the area we were dancing in and encouraged everyone to dip their shoes in it and then wipe it off. It was supposed to make the suede soles more grippy, and it worked!

Two sequence dances to begin with then we launched into the nitty gritty of the Rumba routine we’ve been learning. We knew the figures in the rumba, but these were the little nuances, what Tom Paxton called “the John Wayne dance steps”, the details. If you don’t know who Tom Paxton is, Google him! We learned a lot, especially from Jayne’s instructions, but also from watching Stuart’s footwork. It brought the Rumba to life and made us feel we were ‘dancing’ it, not just going through the motions.

Another sequence dance to allow us to clear our heads, then a little Cha-Cha routine that was composed almost entirely from figures we already knew. I think this was a hastily ‘invented’ cha-cha to have something that could be danced within the reduced area we had available. We picked up most of it and Scamp filmed the demo and shared it on the class WhatsApp page, so we all have something to work on. Again there was an emphasis on the quality of the steps. This may be because we’re booked for a trip to the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool soon!

We drove home along a busy M8, but one without roadworks or 40mph restrictions. Oh Joy! We went to Tesco when we got home because I quite fancied a roll ’n’ sausage, but either the bakers were on strike or the ovens had packed in, but there were no rolls to be had, not real rolls, anyway. They had soft baps, but they’re not real rolls, not Scottish Roll! So it had to be a plain sliced loaf instead.

Dinner had been discussed on the drive home and we settled on Chicken & Pea Traybake. Simplicity itself unless you are scaling it up to feed six as we were a year or two ago in Cumbria. Thankfully it was only the two of us today and all the requirements were available in Tesco.

I was going to go for a walk in St Mo’s after lunch, but there was a soaking drizzle by then and I wasn’t interested in getting wet just to take some photos, so instead I took some photos in the garden instead. I still got wet, yes, but at least it wasn’t far to go to get into the dry again. PoD went to a bunch of daisies. I liked the fact that when I’d strimmed this area in the garden yesterday, I’d deliberately missed the daisies. I hate to chop them down, the are such survivors!

Tomorrow looks better than today, but there are no certainties about the weather these days.