Category: Flowers

The Far East – 23 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

The weather seemed to be set fair so we drove out into it.

Pointed the Blue Micra in the general direction of Edinburgh and stopped driving at Cramond which was our destination for the day. The day started under a disappointing milky white sky, but as we travelled east the clouds lifted and thinned so that by the time we were parking at Cramond there was definite form to the clouds which were breaking to allow the sun through. We went for a walk.

We walked along the esplanade, again in the general direction of Edinburgh. There wasn’t much choice here, with the Forth estuary to the north, the way we’d come to the south and the River Almond cutting off our walk to the west. If we’d been there earlier we could have walked over the causeway to Cramond Island, but it looked as if the tide was on the turn, so that would have been a dangerous and wet direction to take. Maybe another day.

On the walk we found a community wildflower garden. It was carefully cordoned off and two ladies were carrying metre square grids to help them in taking serious measurements or counts of something scientific. We just liked the colour combinations of the red poppies, blue cornflower and something like a big daisy, but bright yellow. They almost made PoD, but as it happened they only played a supporting role. PoD went to a Small Copper butterfly on a fading cone flower.

I’d hoped we’d get a coffee in the wee café, but Scamp had remembered that it’s only open at weekends, so we walked on. We passed my favourite trees. I don’t know what they are. I must ask someone who knows, but they look so elegant. Tall straight trunks with little bunches of leaves at the top looking like a bad haircut. That’s when Scamp noticed someone hadn’t poop scooped and she’d walked through it. For once I played the good Samaritan and offered to take her shoe down to the sea and wash it clean. Of course, in the process I managed to confirm that the tide was indeed coming in. In to my trainers, that is! That was far enough we decided and walked back to the ice cream van that’s always parked at the roundabout that marks the west end of the esplanade. Two cones by the sea. What’s not to like?

We walked up the path beside the river as far as the falls at the old ruined mill. Again I’d been hoping that a wee cafe that used to be there would be open, but it was under reconstruction, so no coffee today. There’s a great old tree next to the path. It sits on a steep slope and over the years the rain washing down that slope has removed most of the soil from its roots and they are now exposed to the air and covered in colourful fungi. Unfortunately it now has a white “X” painted on its trunk, so it may not have much longer to be climbed on by decades of children.

Back home I made a sort of salmon and pea tagliatelle which was less than successful. Maybe it’s worth another try.

Tomorrow looks like another dry day. Scamp has a hair appointment in the morning, but the afternoon might be free.

Just another Sunday – 15 August 2021

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Sunday is a lazy day. That about summed it up.

In the morning, Scamp cut some of her sweet peas which have not been nearly as prolific as in previous years. If I was to hazard a guess at the reason, I’d say it was the container that was the problem. Scamp used to plant her sweet peas in an old orange box. That wasn’t the colour of the box (it was painted blue) it was previous use of the container. It was a wooden box that used to hold oranges. As you can imagine, it was fairly old, dating from a time before cardboard boxes. It was falling apart and she made up her mind last year to take it apart and replace it with a plastic trough. I think the sweet peas prefer the traditional orange box. I have no proof of this, it’s just my opinion, based on a life eating oranges.

While she was gathering the flowers I started making a loaf, just an ordinary loaf, nothing fancy. Left that to prove after messing up the proportions of water to flour. You’d think by this time I’d have a better idea of how much water to use, but my excuse is that I haven’t made a loaf for a long while.

After I’d tidied up the kitchen and Scamp had arranged the flowers in a vase with an extra bloom from her rose, Troika, I offered to photograph it. An old piece of crushed velvet became the backdrop and the whole thing sat on the draining board of the kitchen sink. One of the images became PoD. We went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon and I collected a few more photos, but nothing as good as the flowers. I did get a dragon or two, but they weren’t really all that successful.

Back home I got busy preparing my dinner main course which was going to be Lamb Tagine, using two lamb neck fillets. Pan fried the lamb with spices, dates and a chopped onion. Added orange juice and water and transferred the lot to the slow cooker to chug away do its work for a couple of hours. Then it was time to get the bread ready for its second prove, which I did and then went for a second walk in St Mo’s looking for beasties this time. I found a grasshopper and a shield bug that was striding out along the kerb of the boardwalk. The grasshopper almost beat the flowers to first place, but I liked the colour combinations of the flowers.

Bread baked well and tasted fine. Tagine was great, but needed three hours slow cooking, not the two in the recipe. Scamp had a piece of trout and we shared calabrese and some of our potatoes. All were deemed good.

Tomorrow we may go out for a spin somewhere scenic!

Out early again – 11 August 2021

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Another fairly early rise, but not for photography this time.

Scamp had had an uncomfortable night with what seemed like the beginnings of a urine infection. She phoned the surgery just after 8am and they referred her to the pharmacist. We drove up there after it opened and when she had discussed things with the pharmacist, they recommended a course of antibiotics. I’m sure the ten minute wait for them must have felt like ten hours. Back home she was feeling better by lunchtime and I made some soup for lunch, well, I opened the tin and heated the soup. That’s the same thing as making some soup! It must have been good soup because she looked and sounded better after that.

I had intended going out this morning to test run the new camera, but the foregoing put paid to that and now that the patient was on the mend, the rain started. The weather fairies suggested that it might go off around 4pm. It was fairly thumping down. Not quite a thunderstorm, but not just light rain. I had found some repair patches that would fix the tear in my raincoat, so I spent an hour or so cutting them to the right shape and ironing them on. Since I had the iron on anyway, I ironed the elbow patches on to my old ‘Dennis’ rugby shirt. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages and now it’s half done. I’ve just to stitch them on and I’ll be happy with the repair.

About 5pm the rain did turn off and after checking that the patient had everything she needed I went for that walk in St Mo’s. I think I must have been the only person to risk a walk today. There was very little activity out in the park, but I did see a little snail hanging upside down from some wild flowers, choosing the best ones to eat. That was done with the Big Dog and got PoD, but the Little Dog got a quite good shot of fallen leaves. That was a strong contender. Both are on Flickr.

Scamp seems a lot better tonight and she’s already gone to bed to catch up on the sleep she missed last night.

Tomorrow we will see how the land lies before deciding what we’re doing. It looks like another wet day.

Recording Studio – 4 August 2021

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Scamp did the clever music stuff, I was just the techy.

First there were messages to do, but I wasn’t needed for that, so I kept a low profile and allowed Scamp to do the donkey work. Just to show that I wasn’t shirking the work entirely, I removed the fairy lights from the back fence. I could just have cut the wires and ripped them all down, but I wanted to find out what was causing them to fail. I think it might be bird damage. The wee birds trot happily along the fence looking for beasties to eat. I think one or more of them have pecked through the wire. I was just finishing when Scamp appeared with the shopping.

Just before lunch we started to look at setting up the recording studio. Scamp had been asked if she could play a piece of music on her piano and put it onto CD, so Veronica could play the CD and sing to it at her daughter’s wedding. We could do this between us, we’ve done it before, but first we’d to work out how we managed it the last time. We started off with Scamp’s Windows laptop. I got Audacity, an excellent free music editing app, downloaded and running. As far as I could remember the procedure was to get a line out from the piano, plug it in to the headphone socket of the laptop and fool the laptop into using it as an input. Windows didn’t like that and refused to work with us. I then tried my new Apple laptop, with the same lack of success. We adjourned for lunch and a think.

I tried doing the same thing with my old Apple laptop and got a bit further, but still no real success. Finally, after reading a couple of explanations on the Net I worked out how it was done, on a Mac at least. We managed to get the track recorded from the piano and into the computer, but there is a dodgy key on the piano which plays a rough note, that’s the only way I can describe it. It just sounds rough. I went for a walk! I got PoD which is a bunch of Forget Me Nots in a lovely little bit of sunshine. I came back with an elegant solution.

Could she, I asked Scamp, play the tune in a different key which wouldn’t use the dodgy piano key? Then we could record it and get a clean result and using Audacity, change the key to make it sound like a clean version of the original. “Yes” was the answer once she’d worked out what I had in my head. While she set about transposing the music in her head, I made the dinner which was Prawn & Pea Risotto with our own peas. Pods in the stock and peas in the pot! It was really quite good, augmented with some frozen peas.

Back in the studio we were good to go. We recoded the music without a problem. Re-transposed it electronically in the laptop and then looked around for the CD burner. We’re still looking! It must be in the house and I think we both looked everywhere it could be but it’s still hiding. My inelegant solution was to copy the MP3 Audacity created on to a memory stick and plug it into my old Toshiba laptop running Windows 7. After a struggle we finally got it to burn the CD using Windows Media Player. Ancient technology. We played the track on the CD player and it sounded perfect. So here’s the pathway to our success.

Fairly new HP laptop – couldn’t record
Almost new Apple laptop – couldn’t record
Old Apple laptop – could record, but couldn’t burn CD
Old Tosh laptop – managed to burn the CD.

I hope Veronica likes the track and doesn’t decide she’ll sing a different song. I don’t know how these bands manage to record albums. I’m presuming they have a few old Mac laptops lying around to record the tracks and a couple of 20 year old Tosh laptops to burn the demo CDs.

That was our day. Just a musical extravaganza. It looks like rain tomorrow, so I don’t expect we’ll be going far.

A busy morning after a late night – 31 July 2021

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Out and on the road to ballroom class in Johnston, just after 10am.

Drove out via the M73, then the M74 to avoid the M8 and Charing Cross where they, the ubiquitous ’they’ are still playing with their new pedestrian bridge which will be being lowered into place right about now (11.30pm on 31st of July). However, this morning the ground work would have been nearing completion and the M8 would have be a greater shambles than usual. The drive out was fairly easy and I only needed minimal prompt from the lady who lives inside the sat nav.

First dance was an easy sequence dance which got us all up on our feet. Next we did a reprise of the Foxtrot from last week. A few rough edges were cleaned up and by the end of that section we were agreed that it was flowing a lot better. Third dance was a Sweetheart Cha Cha. Cha Cha is not my favourite dance and neither of us knew this one although everyone else in the room knew it or had at least learned it some time in the past. However, Jane and Stewart after a couple of quick demos just dived straight into it and we were floundering. This is the first time I’ve criticised their teaching. Up until now, be it Zoom lessons or live lessons in a hall or even on a cruise, I’ve felt they took time to teach everyone. Today I felt that we were not given any real instruction at all. We are paying our money just like everyone else, so we should be given the same teaching as everyone else. I felt shortchanged. I’m sure Scamp will disagree, but this is my opinion.

Drove home by the M8 just to see if it was as bad as I’d thought it might be. It was slow, but not nearly as bad as the westbound lanes. I think it’s one of those occasions where both routes end up taking the same amount of time. M8 is shorter but with more stop and go traffic. M74 is longer, but the traffic flows much better. You pays your money and you takes your chance.

I went out in the afternoon to grab some photos and my favourite was a low level shot of a little yellow flower whose name escapes me. The last PoD of July 2021.

Watched Kubo and the Two Strings, a fairly interesting animation that kept us amused for the evening. Thank you Hazy and Neil D.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk down to Glasgow Green. Not been there in ages.

Coffee with Val – 29 July 2021

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Just Val and me today.

I don’t know if Val has fallen out with Fred, but he never mentioned whether he had invited him or not and I didn’t ask. I thought I’d show him my new Huawei watch, but surprise, surprise, Val had one too. Like a couple of school kids we compared watch faces. He pinched one of mine and I pinched one of his. An hour and a half seemed to fly past and for once we didn’t just talk ‘tech’. It was more about trying to get back to ‘normal’. Maybe not real normal, more like this new normal. Still, it was a step in the right direction.

Back home Scamp was just getting ready to go and dead head some flowers, so I took the opportunity to grab some pictures of some of her favourites. That’s why today’s PoD is a bunch of Osteospermum all vying for the best place in the photo. I was impressed with the way the Sony dealt with the red roses. The Oly was much quicker to focus, but it oversaturate the reds, the Sony gave a much more realistic rendition of the reds. Something to do with the bigger sensor perhaps?

I did go for a walk in St Mo’s later in the day and got a decent macro of a shieldbug apparently steeling itself for a leap into space. In reality it was fighting with a wolf spider. I don’t think the spider came out on top this time. Maybe it got sprayed by the shieldbug. They don’t call it a stinkbug for nothing.

Back home it was veg chilli for dinner and as usual I made too much. Oh well, we can eat if for lunch tomorrow.

And with that, you are all caught up.  Two week’s worth of blog written.  I’m glad it’s done.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow if the weather permits.

Cars on the rooftop – 19 July 2021

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Today we went to Broughton in Furness to see what was there.

We parked in the village square and walked down the Main Street. There wasn’t a lot to see, it looked like a sleepy little market town. One busy pub on a corner, as most pubs seem to be, especially old ones. It was earmarked for a visit later.

We walked further down the hill away from the retail centre and found a petrol station/garage with an interesting display of what looked like old pedal cars on its roof. Further still down the hill there was a sign pointing down an avenue of trees to a woodland walk and ponds. We agreed that we should investigate.

The path ran straight for as far as we could see with the back gardens of houses on both sides for the first 100m or so. The ones on the right were well manicured, while some of the ones on the left were a bit overgrown, but looked as if they had been well maintained in the past with vegetable plots laid out neatly below the weeds. Others, of course were pristine. Best of all, near the path was a community garden with a sign saying that everything was free to a good home. I suppose that’s what you expect in a small rural community.

We walked for a mile or so along the path and found the ponds, two of them. The first one was almost dried up with little sign of life, but further on was the second pond. This one had a bit more shelter from the sun and near the edge I could see what I think were dace feeding in the shallows. Also a few ducks, mallards, soaking up the rays on the pebbly shore.

The woodland walk and the ponds were part of Broughton Tower estate and private property, but with access allowed to the public. There was a large area of grassland with paths leading up to the Big House which we glimpsed through the trees, but didn’t investigate because we were walking back along the path and out into Broughton again.

We found a street running parallel to the Main Street with a neat little deli at the end where Scamp bought some lovely fat cherries and I got a pack of dates which I intend to eat this time, instead of keeping them in the fridge!

By this time it was definitely Beer o’ Clock, so we took a seat at the pub we’d noticed earlier and Scamp had a half pint of lager and I had a half pint of very dry stout. I wish I’d remembered the name of the stout, because it was just excellent. If we ever go back to this area again I’ll search it out.

Took a wrong turning heading out of the town and ended up on narrower and narrower roads, then the sat nav pulled us out of trouble again and got us on the right road. Halfway along the narrow wee road to the house we came on a traffic jam. A car and a van were blocking the road trying to do the “two into one won’t go” trick and neither were willing to give ground. Eventually the car driver who was at the front of our line of vehicles, reversed, down the wrong side of the road, ending up in a ditch. That allowed the van to wriggle through the gap and the rest of our line of cars and vans to pass. I don’t know when or how the car driver got out of the ditch, but nobody was stopping to help him/her.

Later in the day I went for a walk along our narrow road and got a few photos of flowers and landscapes in the low afternoon sun. The harebells got PoD.

JIC was chef tonight Turkey Parmagiano which was delicious and will be added to our own list of things to try. It was their standard Monday dinner, just as our Monday dinner is Pasta with either a Tomato or Carbonara sauce.

I attempted a Milky Way photoshoot when the sky looked dark enough, but it wasn’t a great success. I think Photopills may be right when it seemed to indicate that the Milky Way wasn’t visible from our global position at this time. Anyway, the midges were definitely visible and biting!

Tomorrow we may go sailing!

 

Another warm one – 11 July 2021

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The temperature has hovering around 20º at breakfast time, and the only way was up from there.

It was the usual lazy Sunday morning waiting for the sun to show its face and for the clouds to break. The window cleaner came and I had quite a long talk with him. He’s a former pupil and has been through the mill a lot with changing jobs, but it looks as if he’s going back to being a firefighter again after venturing into corporate firefighting. Poor bloke. Scamp went out to the shops and I washed the inside of the windows. It must have been my FP’s intervention that made me think of that.

After lunch and after watching Andrew Marr try to take apart the Vaccines Minister, Nadhim Zahawi. He did his best, but attempting to get a politician to answer “Yes” or “No” to any question is always a bit ask. Anyway, after that and after Scamp had scalped the roses, I went out for a walk in St Mo’s to see if there were any insects I hadn’t photographed yet. I did find on little moth, a Latticed Heath Moth. It’s a tiny little thing and one I’ve often seen as I wander round the rough ground behind the school, but this was the first time I’ve managed to get a photo of one.

In the Zoom dance class tonight the new routine was the 2020 Quarantine Quickstep and boy, it was quick. We’ve done quickstep before, but always with dance shoes on a wooden floor. Tonight it was heavy, well worn shoes for me and for both of us a carpeted floor. Not ideal, but we did make a fair fist of tonight’s first section. Part two to look forward to.

Spoke to JIC and heard about preparations down south and good to hear that everything is going well there.

What a shame, england lost out in the final of the Euros.

Tomorrow I need to get my hair cut.

Scamp fixes the kettle – 1 July 2021

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Scamp did some investigating and came up with a solution to the chemical smell from the kettle.

First, though we spoke to Hazy and I found out that there’s to be a new series of Good Omens. A sequel of sorts, but with Neil Gaiman in the writing team, it’s never going to be a simple sequel. Thank you Hazy for that heads up. It will be on Amazon Prime first, so bang goes my idea of cancelling Prime.

Scamp’s research led to an old fashioned solution to the smelly kettle, but it worked. Two tablespoons of Bicarbonate of Soda went in to the tank and then the tank was filled with tap water. It had to stand for an hour or so, so we left it while we went out to get some plants at Calders.

Today, Scamp chose a tray of Dahlias, a tray of Petunias (which always remind me of an old song “Don’t jump off the roof, Dad” Search for it on Spotify and you’ll find out why) and finally another Begonia. While she went to speak to Carol from Gems, I paid for the plants and sat cooling in the car. Isn’t air con the most wonderful invention, especially on days like today when the temperature is hovering around 25º?

With the gardening requirements met, we drove home via Tesco and got the ingredients for tonight’s dinner which was Chicken Salad, but will always be known as Neil’s Chicken Salad for the simple reason that he was the first one who made it for us.

Then it was time to wash out the kettle (it’s much easier calling it a kettle, rather than a water boiler). I gave it a good rinsing with about three changes of water. After that, to make sure the boiler part of it was rinsed too, we boiled one whole tank full of water, a cup at a time. Another rinse and we were good to go. It worked! It was as simple as that. That cleaning took all the chemical smell away. I must remember to ask a chemist how that worked 😏.

After lunch with a cup of normal tea smelling tea for me and White Tea for Scamp, she settled down to plant her new acquisitions. I grabbed the Oly this time and took it for a walk in St Mo’s and then out into the wild area that will soon become yet another Micky D’s. I got some really nice pictures of a Common Blue damselfly, but then I remembered I’d taken some photos of some roses in a vase on the coffee table after we’d spoken to Hazy. With a little jiggery pokery they shone on a dark background and became PoD.

We sat for a while in the garden before dinner, listening to John and Carlyn’s ‘’Ten Pence Mix wafting gently from their garden. Actually they played some decent music for a change (no Eagles). I had a beer and Scamp had a glass of her new best friend, Bramble & Raspberry Gin. Then it was time for Neil’s Chicken Salad.

This might have been the last of the really good weather. We’ve been warned by the weather fairies that rain is on the way, if not tomorrow, then Saturday and definitely by Sunday. We’ve had a good spell of warm sunny days, so we shouldn’t complain, but we will! Scamp’s leg is looking better today. The swelling is going down but it’s still itchy.

What we do tomorrow will depend on how near the rain clouds manage to get.

A walk, as predicted – 27 June 2021

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I bowed to the inevitable.

Just a short version of our Broadwood Boarkwalk walk she said, well that’s how it started out. Scamp’s fly that way. She suckers you in with the offer of a short walk, but then she adds an extension and when she thinks you’re not paying attention another half a mile is added. That’s more or less how it happened today.

We started off walking beside the road, then over the boardwalk and back towards the dam. That’s when she posed the question, “Will we just go over the dam and down the other side?” It was a lovely warm morning with barely a breath of wind so I agreed. After the dam, we could have headed back up the hill to the sports centre and home, but ’when she thinks you’re not paying attention …’ She neatly took us up past the exercise machines instead and on to the part where the path turns and twists so you hardly notice that it’s getting steeper, at least until your legs start aching. Finally we walked past the shops where she got her daily fix of pineapple. There were no fresh pineapple chunks to be had, so she had to make do with Mango, Melon and Pineapple strips which is a poor substitute for the real thing!

Lunch was a pizza we’d bought yesterday in Lidl. I think it was a sourdough base. It certainly felt like it. Sourdough is fairly tasty, but I find it quite tough. Maybe too tough for a pizza base. Anyway it was scoffed while we watched Andrew Marr who seemed appalled that the Covid 19 virus had the temerity to infect him, just as if he was an ordinary mortal. I think he was a bit lost now that Matt Hancock has had his Half Hour of fame and has resigned as Health minister after being caught in flagrante with one of his aides. Poor man.

I took the Sony out with an old Zenit Helios 58mm lens in the afternoon. It was an experiment to see how I’d manage with a fairly modern camera and a thirty year old lens. Totally manual. No auto exposure, no auto focus. Just me a camera and a lens. Actually it worked out quite well. I was impressed with the photos and one of them got PoD!  It was a battered and bruised Peacock butterfly.  I was amazed that those damaged wings could hold it in  the air, but they did as the butterfly demonstrated by flying away as soon as I took this shot.

Our dancing in tonight’s class was the best for a long time. I was impressed, but even better, Scamp was impressed. Hopefully we’l be able to build on this during the week and be able to take over teaching the class next week. That’s the long game we’ve been working towards.

Spoke to JIC and hear a bit more about Sim’s first half marathon. Scamp was really impressed with her time. Good to hear about someone doing well.

Tomorrow Scamp is off to a tea party with the witches I might be needed as a driver, but for now I’m on an empty. I might get the bike out or maybe I’ll paint.