Category: Flowers

Out walking – 16 April 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Firstly for food and later for exercise. Are you allowed to say “for enjoyment’? Or is that forbidden in this strange new world?

Went out this morning to go to the butcher’s and passed a line of Wild Cherry trees, Gean, we call them. Thin, almost bare branched with a bunch of fluffy white flowers on the end. They never cease to cheer me up, even on a dull day. Today was a dull day and with a cold wind too! Walking back I decided I had to have a photo of them and this was the best one. I’ve been photographing these trees for years now. Not every year, but almost. The first camera I remember using to photograph them was an Olympus C2000z back around the year 2000. Twenty years ago! I must dig out those photos if they’re still around. Anyway, that first walk was for essential provisions, which is perfectly legal.

The second walk was in the afternoon. Twice round St Mo’s pond and a chance for more photography. If asked why we were walking round a pond twice I’d have to say that it was for exercise. No officer we did not gain any enjoyment out of the walk at all it was a route march over hills and through woods, purely to breath fresh air into our lungs. There is a theory that walking in pine woods is good for the respiratory system. I read that once officer. Luckily no officers were there to interrogate us on the reasons we were out of our house. It seems that some of our constabulary are taking the new powers a bit seriously and laying down the letter of the law, rather than its spirit.  We’ve not been bothered, but some people have.

Dinner tonight was an attempt at a chicken stir fry and although neither of us was one hundred percent happy with the result, it was worth trying again and another recipe that needs just a bit of gentle tweaking.

Spoke to Hazy tonight and she pointed us in the direction of Quiz which is a dramatised version of the attempt to cheat at Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Watched episode 1 on the Amazon Fire Stick. Much quicker than trying to get the TV/Tivo combination to connect to it. Quite enjoyed it.

The other thing I watched was another instalment of Watercolour Artist on Sky Arts. I’d watched one episode before and it was fairly staid and “British”. That’s not a compliment. The second one was set near Edinburgh and involved three artists painting the Forth Bridges … two of them. Where was the other one, the Queensferry Crossing, the newest one? It wasn’t on any of the camera shots. Only at the end did it become clear. The film was made in 1999!! That’s even before my Oly C2000z! I believe “Scraping the bottom of the barrel” is the expression I’m looking for. That’s another thing about the Lockdown. There is a dearth of new drama, documentary (except Covid-19 related) and soaps. Once we return to ‘normal’ whatever normal will be then, there will probably be a hiatus while the filming backlog is filled in. And then there will be Brexit …

Tomorrow we have no plans. Maybe more walks and maybe some dance practise.

Early Start – 14 April 2020

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Good heavens, I was up before 8am today!

Haven’t been able to say that since, ooh, a long, long time ago.

The reason we were up so early, was to get the delivery from Reykjavík or to be more precise, Iceland. It actually arrived just after 9am right in the middle of the stated delivery window. Lots of bags of food and stuff, but mainly food and this time there were only three missing items. Wonderful, although not so wonderful for Scamp because two of them were her’s.

After lunch (leek and potato soup) I was tempted to go for a walk to take some more photos with the Nikon, but a walk to inspect the growth in the front garden was enough to tell me that although the sun was warm coming in through the front window, the cold north east wind was stealing all that heat away, outside. Back inside I sketched the second of the Lockdown Library for Instagram. A set of sketches that will hopefully see out April and prepare me for EDiM which is only a couple of weeks away. Today’s painting was the orange bowl. It’s a lovely shape and a sturdy piece of ceramic. Bought for a fiver at an art class sale in Glasgow a few years ago. A bargain at the price and worth an awful lot more. As often happens with sketches, the ‘rough’ was so much better than the redrawn and recoloured ‘finished’ painting. However, it’s done and posted and available for perusal on Instagram. Text me if you want my Instagram name, but I’m sure a few of you can guess it.

I finally settled on a photo of the wilting miniature daffodils that have been gracing the front step. I tried an outside one, but the wind was causing havoc with them and I finally attempted a ’studio’ shot inside. The Nikon just wouldn’t play the game and finally I gave up and went back to the E-M1 which produced the goods again. I think it may be time to part company with the Nikon soon. Don’t know if it will be replaced or not.

Well, that was a lazy day, despite being up early. Tomorrow the only thing we have planned is a bit of jive practise some time during the day and maybe a walk as the weather is to be a bit milder, so they say.

Another beautiful day in the sun – 11 April 2020

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Woke to grey skies and the threat of rain, but then the sun came out.

Lunch today was a reheat of yesterday’s Saag Aloo toned down a bit with some extra cream and a little water to reduce the effect of the salt and also to cool the chilli! Like most curries, it improved with age.

We needed milk today and it was my turn to go for the messages. I thought I could link it in with a walk in the park, but then decided it would be better for my step count if I did two separate walks. First one was to M&S for the essentials: Milk, cheese and tomatoes. Dumped the messages in the kitchen and took my camera for a walk in St Mo’s.

Beautiful day, bright sunshine and warm if you were out of the wind, which I made sure I was for most of the walk. Definitely saw few hoverflies and another couple of peacock butterflies. Didn’t get many photos, the spotted a couple walking along the boardwalk and grabbed the shot. I liked the way it was framed. Back home, Scamp was going out to sit in the back garden, so I joined her with a glass each of red wine. It was comfortably warm with just a little cooling breeze blowing in from the west, but the temperature was certainly high teens. It’s going to be much cooler (colder!) tomorrow with the wind swinging to the north. We stayed in the garden discussing possible rearrangements of plants and planting. Took a few shots of one of Scamp’s Christmas Rose plants. I used the Nikon with the 105mm macro lens and it did a really good job of the close up. That became PoD. Did a bit of gentle pruning and retired to the house when the sun went down. Take the chance of a seat in the sun while you can.

Scamp had found a YouTube channel with a full length stage version of JC Superstar filmed in Manchester arena. That was tonight’s entertainment. Very good interpretation of one of our favourite films. We’d actually intended watching the DVD of the film tomorrow night. Maybe we still will, or we may leave it until Monday.

It looks like the weather’s changing overnight, so we may not be sunning ourselves tomorrow!

Short and sweet – 9 April 2020

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Not a lot to say about today, so this will be short and sweet.

After the excitement of yesterday, today was a bit of a let down as far as the weather was concerned. I presume a lot of work went in to getting the weather just right for my birthday, so today was recompense for that. It started off dull and grey and eventually deteriorated into drizzly rain tonight.

In the afternoon I did manage to drag myself out to St Mo’s to get a few photos, but the PoD was taken earlier in the garden with a little bit of light, not actually very bright light, but light none the less and I’ll take that. The subject is Scamp’s Pieris, variety Forest Flame. It really lives up to its name with bright red leaves in the spring and the promise of its tiny little white bell flowers to come in late April and early May. It’s a real uplifting bush, especially on a dull day.

Yesterday both the usual park benches were in use and today nobody wanted to sit in the damp and decidedly cold east wind. I can’t blame them really. Lots of geese seem to have taken up squatter’s rights in the pond and the two swans are making a show of telling them who’s pond it is. Like two big white polis, they patrol the perimeter of the pond shouting “Move along there. Nothing to see.” In swan-speak, of course.

So that was it for today. Another two prezzies today, one from Neil-D’s mum and dad and another from Gems, well probably Margie really! Lovely lady.

Tomorrow we must a-foraging for milk, bread and possibly eggs. Just down to the local shops, because it’s unlikely there will be any slots for Tesco and we can’t understand the workings of the ASDA Click ’n’ Collect layout.

There you are. I told you it would be short and sweet, and it was.

A Tick – 6 April 2020

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How I hate these tiny invaders.

Found it last night as I was getting ready for bed. A tiny little black dot with a bright red surround and it was itchy. It was my first tick of 2020 and I’ve no idea how it came to be on me. I’m scrupulously careful these days when walking in long grass. Always have my jeans tucked into my socks. Never crouch down in the long grass. Rarely even put my knee on the ground. I don’t suppose it matters how, it was there and it had to be removed and the wound cleaned. Luckily Scamp had bought me a pair of needle pointed tweezers a year or two ago and they helped pull the tiny thing out. It was only about 1mm long, I had to use one of my old camera lenses as a magnifier to be sure it was a tick, although all the evidence pointed to it being one. It was. Just need to keep taking the antihistamines and using some Germoline for a few days. Covid-19 and ticks, what a wonderful world!

Hadn’t intended going anywhere today, even with the brilliant weather predicted and that’s what we did. We stayed Home. Made some soup in the afternoon and got a delivery from Tesco with about 75% of the stuff we’d ordered. Not bad really considering we didn’t have to traipse round what is now a One-Way store. That’s worse than IKEA. At least it just has arrows projected onto the floor which you can ignore. Ignore the one-way system in Tesco at your peril.

Finished painting the upstairs window sills. That’s all the sills now have at least two coats. Some have three and a couple of lucky ones have four, I think. But who’s counting. The paint has been put away for this year and the brush has been washed. I intend to do no more to it.

Today’s PoD is a couple of Forsythia flowers. Last autumn I pruned the forsythia too hard. I got a gentle lecture from Scamp about next year’s flowers growing on the old wood I’d just cut off. I don’t intend to make the same mistake this year. “Prune immediately after the flowers fall, not in the autumn” is the mantra.
We still had a few flowers, despite my hacking.

Poor Boris, or BoJo and Fred calls him seems to be in a bad way. He was admitted to Intensive Care tonight after being given oxygen in the afternoon. I don’t like him, but I feel he’s in over his head with the epidemic. He just looks shattered. Who would have that job?

That more or less summed it up for the day. Tomorrow we should go out for a walk, if only for the exercise.

The day that never really began – 2 April 2020

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Some days are full of things to do some are not. Today was in the latter group.

It was a cold day with strong winds in the morning and early afternoon. It didn’t lend itself to gardening or to photography, so Scamp resorted to dusting the bedroom furniture. I started tidying up the back bedroom, but soon tired of that. Spoke to Colin on the phone and found that he didn’t do “the what’s appy thing” so I didn’t go as far as trying to talk him through Zoom™. Did find out that his son-in-law is volunteering to deliver folk’s Click and Collect groceries in the surrounding villages. We agreed this was a very useful task, but only if you can actually get a C&C slot. The problem seems to be people block booking slots and the supermarkets are unable (or unwilling) to do anything about it. Still, an admirable use of time and labour.

After lunch, Scamp wanted a loaf, so I offered to make one, rather than wait in a long queue to get one loaf and feel foolish, having waited all that time with just a loaf to show for it. I knew I’d end up buying a basket of stuff we didn’t need. We have loads of flour, some of it getting close to its Use By date, so this was an ideal way to do something useful with it. Made the dough and left it to prove then went out for a walk just in case there was anything interesting out in the Coronavirus world, because although there were scattered clouds, the wind had died down. I did get a few pictures of some dogwood branches with the buds just opened and the leaves caught in the transmitted light of centre-jour (backlighting). Interesting, but not brilliant. It was only when I got home I saw a wee daisy just starting to shut down for the night because the sun was dipping down behind some houses. That became PoD.

Scamp made a lovely Chicken Stir Fry for dinner. No sticky chilli sauce, just veg, rice, chicken and a great deal of skill. A little soy sauce just as extra seasoning and it was perfect.

We had a dance practise tonight. Foxtrot, Quickstep and New Waltz with some jive routines we hadn’t practised in too long a time. Really enjoyed it. Sometimes it’s the practise at home that burns the routines into your memory. At least it’s that way for me. I won’t claim that I got it all right, but the majority of it worked … eventually. Before that we joined a straggling few at 8pm to clap for the NHS. Not nearly as many as last week.

Watched the national news tonight and oh my they are so depressing. Such a difference from the Scottish news who are quite upbeat by comparison. Scamp thinks it’s because the geography is so different in Scotland in that we have a lot of open space around us, unlike London where everyone lives in each other’s pockets. Whatever way it finally turns out, we can only look after ourselves and try our best to keep healthy.

Tomorrow, getting colder according to the weather folk. Maybe even snow.  Probably stay in and eat the bread I made.

Shopping, the new way – 31 March 2020

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New day, new rules.

Drove to Tesco today with Scamp, only to be told that the rules had changed:

  • One trolley per household.
  • One person per trolley.

Scamp had the shopping list in her head. She hadn’t committed it to her phone or a notepad, so she got to be the one to enter the golden portal to do the shopping. I went back to sit in the car and enjoy the sunshine, because the sun was shining quite brightly this morning. When she arrived back at the car, her trolley was brimming with stuff. All useful and mostly edible stuff too. Biggest shop she’s done in a long time, she said. Given that there was a bottle of whisky, another of gin and three bottles of wine, plus the groceries, I’d say we did not too badly from our big spend. Lots of folk were spending much more. Those were the ones with the extra large trolleys. I’m sure some of them had a forklift truck parked in the carpark to get their stuff home.

After all the stuff was put away, and after lunch, Scamp went out to ‘clear out the bin shed’. The bin shed is where lots of the gardening stuff is kept and it occasionally deserves a good clean out. By the time I’d changed into my painting togs, she had everything out of the shed and on the path. It was probably getting in poor Bobby Flavel’s way. He lives at the corner house and is never happier than when he’s got something to do. He’d already dug his garden, swept the path and then swept the road outside. No kidding! Now he was cutting the grass for Angela (next door) who is off work and self isolating. Not only cutting the grass, but also edging it too and doing a great job. Me, I had already scraped the front sill and started painting it. The external acrylic paint is great stuff, especially when painting on warm concrete. It dries almost instantly. So, it was like the old story about the Forth Bridge. When they’d finished painting it, the went back to the start and did it all again. Once I’d finished the 2.5m length of the front sill, the bit I’d started at was dry and ready for a second coat. Two coats should do. Next the back window that I did yesterday, but wasn’t satisfied with. I’d already scraped it too and gave it a fresh coat. Maybe one more coat for it will do, maybe tomorrow.

Would I? Wouldn’t I? Eventually I did go out for a walk in St Mo’s. Walking through the woods is perfect for isolation. Usually nobody and nothing there to bother me. Today was different. Turned a corner and less than 20m away was a Roe deer, a doe, happily grazing. Luckily I had the right lens on for once and got one shot. Then its head went up and away it ran. Took another shot, but I knew it was too soft. First one looked good though. I think it was the sound of the shutter that startled it. Next time I’ll remember to use silent (electronic) shutter. If there is a next time. This is the first time for months I’ve actually managed to get a decent shot of a St Mo’s deer, or any deer for that matter.

Walked back and took some shots of strange wee flower things on a little larch. They didn’t work, but I’m hoping to go back tomorrow and have another go, weather permitting, because we’re due some gales on Thursday. Possibly snow on Friday.

I did get one more shot and it became the PoD. A little clump of Coltsfoot Daisies growing beside the footpath on the way home. Lovely flowers, they bloom just around Easter every year. They always remind me of my dad for some reason. That’s not a bad thing at all.

I’d made stew for dinner tonight and it was lovely. Of course it was under the strict tutelage of Scamp, the number one stew chef in this house. I stewed a couple of sausages in it for good measure and they were the stars of the show. Left just enough to have for lunch tomorrow.

Practised our dancing routines tonight. We’re probably building in a lot of mistakes and short cuts I realise, but Kirsty’s not the perfectionist that Michael was, so it will be ok. What Michael did do, and did well, we both agree was teach us how to Jive and those moves are hard wired into our heads now. We reprised them too. Actually we remembered a lot of them we haven’t danced since about November last year. He might have been was a pain in the backside, but he did know his jive steps.

Tomorrow we have no real plans. Must get the upstairs sills cleaned down and maybe a coat of paint on them too. Must also get something done about staking the apple tree. Depends if we can get some wood from B&Q.

Painting – 30 March 2020

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Another day painting, this time with acrylic paint.

Preparation is vitally important with painting. Today’s prep required a stiff wired brush and an old pot scrubber. No, this wasn’t to texture the canvas, it was to scrape the bubbled paint from the back window ledges. No fancy-pants flats and no filberts, just a nice clean 3” brush and a big tub of exterior acrylic paint. It took ages to scrape the old paint off one window ledge and no time at all to clean the other one of moss. Then after mixing the acrylic paint up it was time to slap on the paint. It wasn’t the most artistic painting, but it did look better after than before. I’m not sure I scraped off enough of the old paint from the living room sill, so that may need redone tomorrow if it’s dry, but the kitchen sill looks good. Front downstairs windows tomorrow.

While I was painting, Scamp was shopping in the local shops. She wasn’t overloading herself, just buying the essentials. We might do a ‘proper shop’ tomorrow. I need to give the car a run anyway, if nothing else than to charge the battery

Went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon, still looking for that fungus, still not finding it. Eventually made a dogwood bud the PoD. When I came home I Scamp started telling me what SHE wanted me to photograph, so, just to please her I took the photo you see here. She was right, of course, the crocuses were a great subject. Bright colours and strong patterns. Simple and effective. That’s why we have so many around the garden in the spring. They lift the spirits, so this photo is just for her.

I’d been working on a photo of Mr Grey from last week. I knew it would make something decent if I just approached it the right way, then I read an article on ON1 an found a way. It might not be the right way, but it seems to suit this subject. It’s a radial blur that gives that ‘zoom’ effect, then a mask to remove the effect on the bird itself. I like the inferred sharpness on the bird and the extra blur in the background almost as if it’s the draft from its wings blurring the trees and grasses.

Spoke to JIC and Scamp was complaining about her bottle of peppermint Milk of Magnesia she’s been given as a substitute for Zantac which is under a cloud of suspicion at the moment. He recommended Nexium which she’s now ordered from Boots. We’ll see how that works. We have to pay for it, but it’s not that expensive. Much better than a bottle of emulsion paint. The other thing JIC suggested was to try to get groceries delivered. We tried. Nowhere had any slots available for the next 14 days. Maybe I should try just after midnight, see if slots appear then!

Shopping probably tomorrow and I’m hoping to make a steak pie if I remember to take the stew out of the freezer tonight.

With the Trolley Dollies – 26 March 2020

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Scamp’s prescription was ready to collect. An excuse for us to go for a drive as far as the chemist and Tesco.  Scamp offered to drive and I accepted.

When we got there she went to the pharmacy queue and I went to the Tesco queue, agreeing to meet at the car. Both queues were equally long, in fact mine was probably longer, but more efficiently managed. Everyone was being careful to keep the required 2m from the person in front. It wasn’t until I was in the queue that I realised I didn’t have any bags with me, neither did I have a hat or gloves. The bags would be in the car, but not my car, Scamp’s. I could have walked along and borrowed her car keys, got the bags and taken the keys back, but when I looked behind me, the queue was even longer than when I’d joined it. So I just pulled up my hood, plugged in some music from my phone and waited, occasionally shuffling along while maintaining that 2m distance. Then I noticed everyone else, apart from me, seemed to have a trolley. I’d missed a trick there too. Not to worry, there wouldn’t be much in the store and I had only a small shopping list.

Finally got into the store, grabbed a basket and sanitised it. Compulsory it seemed. First check the pasta shelves. Glory be, they had pasta. Loads of it. Grab a bag, maybe two? No, that’s greedy, one will do. Looked behind and they had rice too! Loads of it in a couple of versions. Rice was on my mental list, so two bags of Basmati. Now, they wouldn’t have toilet rolls, would they. THEY HAD TOILET ROLLS!!! I took just one pack of nine rolls, don’t want to look like a stockpiler. Eager to get out of the store with my ill gotten gains, I forgot to get a tin of tomatoes or beans to put in the Food Bank box. Just get these essentials, and also some flowers for Scamp and go.

Then I realised I didn’t have the car key. Went looking for Scamp but I couldn’t see her in the queue. Looked inside and there was the red wooly hat. There aren’t two hats like that in the world. Walked back to the car and waited. Eventually she arrived carrying a bit bottle of medicine. We drove home and I unloaded my goodies. Oh, the excitement of unpacking, not only macaroni and rice, but also Toilet Rolls. How our lives have changed in a mere three weeks.

Tesco seem to be on top of the rationing and their systems are beginning to respond to the excessive demands of the greedy few. It’s good to see that at least someone is taking charge of things.

Toyed with the idea of going out to St Mo’s for a walk and to grab a photo, but PoD had already been taken with today’s shot I’d got of the of trolley dollies queueing outside Tesco. Instead of walking and photographing, I pinned a piece of Galleria Acrylic quality paper to my drawing board, mounted the board on my easel and proceeded to slap some acrylic paint on it in a representation of a landscape I shot at the start of January, when the world was still young. Tomorrow, when it’s dry I may slap some oil paint on top in a method recommended by the portrait artists of the year hopefuls. It won’t be a beautiful picture (it might), but it will make me think of other things than self isolating and social distancing.

While I was painting, Scamp was writing out the moves for seven sequence dances, one for every day of the week. That’s her substitute for painting. Whatever get you through the day. Spoke to my cousin Margaret in Lesmahagow tonight. She and Billy are also self isolating, but she said we’d all meet up again, probably next year “when this has all blown by”. That will be something else to look forward to.

At 8pm, on the dot the clapping started from somewhere in our square.  I think it was  the bloke who lives along the road at the corner, Wullie.  I’d forgotten that someone had decided we should all go outside at 8pm and applaud the nurses, doctors and in fact anyone in the NHS who works so hard to keep us safe and healthy.  So that’s what we did, we added our applause to the folk that were making their thanks heard.  There were even some fireworks too.  It was a sign of solidarity I suppose.

Tomorrow, beside a possible day in the art room, we may do a bit of dancing.

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl – 24 March 2020

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Today is Scamp’s birthday, but because of Covid 19 we stayed at home.

Breakfast in bed for her, and for me. Actually that’s nothing unusual for us. One thing that retirement has taught me is that there’s no need to rush anymore. If it needs done, it will get done. If it didn’t get done, then it wasn’t needing done in the first place. After Scamp opened her parcels and almost choked at the antics of her ‘Dancing Cat’, we both finished the chapters of the books we were reading and got on with the day.

I sewed a torn seam on two of my shirt pockets, caused by stuffing my phone and my glasses in there. After finishing one shirt and starting another I promptly lost the needle and panicked because a lost needle can be a really dangerous thing in a house. You’ve heard the expression “Turned the house upside down” when looking for something? We turned the three seater sofa upside down … and then shook it, but no needle. We hoovered, we tentatively searched between the cushions. Finally, I went upstairs to carefully strip off all the clothes I was wearing to see if the needle had become lodged in them, and that’s when Scamp shouted that she’d found it. It was still tacked into the shirt I had finished repairing. We’d both looked and looked at that shirt without finding it, but there it was. Thank goodness.

By then it was coffee time and after calming down and some discussion we chose to stay at home today. Nobody, but nobody was moving their cars out. Maybe we stayed at home, but that didn’t mean we didn’t go out. Scamp planted out her two boxes of pansies in the front garden. She also did a bit of weeding and some feeding of her plants. She did a bit more pruning of bushes and plants in the back garden too.

<Technospeak>
I must admit I was tempted to go out for a walk, but I thought I’d better obey Boris’s Rules and stay home. So I took the Benbo out to the garden and set up the E-M1 and macro lens on it, turned on ‘focus stacking’ and took some 15 shots of a crocus flower. The focus stacking allows you to take a rapid number of shots, all at slightly incasing focus distances. My aim was to get a set of shots with focus settings from the very front of the nearest petal to the furthest back petal. Eventually I worked out it should be about 9 shots, not 15. Focus stacking works best with a totally still subject, and just as I pressed the shutter button each time, a tiny wee breeze would blow and start to make the crocus nod its head. I finally got the sequence I wanted without the breeze and could pack up and go inside. There I squirted the shots into the piece of software that does the magic and merges the 9 shots into one. The result you see here is what it looks like. It was done using Affinity Photo. Thanks again Hazy!
</Technospeak>

I became so engrossed in this process I forgot that I was making dinner tonight. Carrot & Lentil Curry. A long time favourite of ours. Got it made and left it to keep warm just in time to go and speak to Hazy, Neil-D, JIC, Sim and Vixen. We didn’t actually speak to Tilly and Penny, but we knew they were there too. All through the magic of Zoom™. We were very impressed with the software. Scamp was desperate to show off the Dancing Cat. I think Hazy & Neil-D thought it was funny. JIC & Sim not so much. I could just see JIC mouthing “What the hell is that” or something similar. It didn’t matter, the main thing is Scamp thought it was brilliant!

That was a good day. Curry was good. Flat bread was better and even better still was the orange and rhubarb jelly, which was superb! Best of all was the look on Scamp’s face when the Dancing Cat started his routine this morning!!

Tomorrow? Possibly more of the same, but without Zoom™.