Category: Flowers

Isn’t it nice when a plan comes together – 2 April 2019

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Drove in to Glasgow this morning and dropped Scamp off so she could go on a shopping trip, then went to see the nice man at JL about an Un-Fitbit.

The nice young man at JL had a good look at my faulty Fitbit and, after checking the receipt, immediately pounced on the fact that the screen was cracked in a few places, suggesting that the cracks could be the cause of the screen failure. I was ready for this and told him that it was a well documented fault on the Fitbit2 caused by differential expansion between the metal body and the acrylic screen. He said he’d have to go and check with ‘the techies’ to see what they’d say. When he returned he agreed that it was indeed a manufacturing fault and was nothing to do with the pretty black and white pattern adorning the screen of the now defunct Fitbit. Unfortunately JL didn’t have any Fitbit2s in stock now, only the more expensive Fitbit3, but if I was willing to pay the £20 difference, I’d get a new Fitbit3 with a new two year warranty. I paid the money, said thank you very much and walked out of the shop with a new fitness tracker complete with warranty.

Drove home, grabbed some photos off the iMac and stuck them on the Samsung Note to show to Val and Fred. Met Fred in the car park and we walked in through the rain to meet Val. Strangely, Fred was very generous to Morag when I told him about her retirement and agreed that she had had a raw deal. For once it was me who did all the talking, but both Fred and Val admired the statues and sculptures I showed them from the tablet.

Got home just after Scamp had returned from the shopping expedition. Quick lunch and then unwrapped the Fitbit, charged it up and got it sync’d to the iPhone. Seems to be working fine. Long may it continue. I was just thinking about taking it out for a walk in St Mo’s when the hail storm put an end to that idea. The hail lasted for about an hour and the white layer that looks exactly like snow is still there. I did manage an hour in St Mo’s later and got the PoD at the top of the page of the daisies pushing their heads through the hail into beautiful sunshine.

Gave Scamp a quick look at the potential of Lighthroom as a replacement for the deplorable ‘Photos’ app on Windows 10. It’s even worse than its twin on the Mac. Not sure if she is totally happy with it yet, only time will tell.

Tomorrow it’s “Put on your dancing shoes” time again.

April Fool’s Day – 1 April 2019

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No time for fooling around. It’s a Monday and that means Gems then Salsa.

It was a dull day and when Gems arrived around midday I chose to do some painting rather than go out walking in the rain. I’d been wanting to copy a painting I saw at Eilean Donan castle last month. It turned out ok, although Scamp turned her nose up at it.

I did manage to get a few photos in the afternoon after the singers had left. Just some flower shots in the garden and some raindrops on leaves. The PoD turned out to be the little white bell shaped flowers from the Piers.

Salsa tonight was the first night of the Rueda Club which is the Advanced class under a new name. Some returning advanced salseros, but nothing like the numbers we need to keep the class going. Two new totally forgettable moves whose names evade me at present. I don’t know how long it will continue in its present state. Managed to survive two hours of dancing without too many aches and pains.

Tomorrow a trip in to Glasgow to JL to see if I can claim a replacement Fit Bit under guarantee. Just within the two year guarantee which runs out in two weeks!

Lovely day, didn’t go past the door – 31 March 2019

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Such a shame to waste a lovely day, but needs must when the blog drives.

I was determined to get the blog up to date and that’s about all I did today. I feel I’ve been typing all day and that’s because I have. Now I’ve finished all the backlog and am doing today’s blog, today. Now, there’s a novelty.

Skyped with Hazy in the morning and spoke to JIC in the evening and caught up with all their news. In between I took the PoD and we watched a GP. Other than that it was blogging all day long.

Today’s PoD is a photo of one of Scamp’s geranium cuttings. She took the cuttings in the autumn last year and now one of them had decided it’s big enough and strong enough to produce flowers. She asked me to take its picture and here it is.

Watched the Bahrain GP and for once it was quite exciting and incident packed as the overexcited commentators would say. It was ok.

Dinner was a Top Rump Steak for me which I overcooked and Mushrooms Stuffed with Cheese and Spinach for Scamp which didn’t have enough cheese.

That was today. Tomorrow is Gems day so I’ll make myself scarce. I think I’m fit enough to go dancing tomorrow night, but I’ll leave the final decision until tomorrow.

Phew! Finished.

Just another Sunday

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No breakfast in bed this morning. There was an F1 GP to be watched.

Up and having breakfast in the living room just after 8am. Interesting GP, slightly spoiled by the fact that Leclerc wasn’t allowed to race against Vettel. Come on Ferrari, it’s called a ‘Race’. If you keep protecting spoilt child Vettel, he’ll actually believe he’s number 1 driver. Be afraid Seb, the Russians are coming in the shape of Kvyat. I’m pretty sure he’ll have you in his sights and team orders won’t mean much then. Still a pretty good race.

Spent most of the afternoon making preparations for the mid-week, then got fed up and went for a walk in the sunshine in St Mo’s. Got a glimpse of three deer, but not before they saw me. I got a few shots of them, but nothing worth PoD. That went to a shot of the male and female flowers on a larch. Such a pretty thing and I only noticed it for the first time last year.

We went to the last ever Sunday Social at La Rambla in Paisley. Great food again. Black Pudding with Chorizo in a Red Wine Sauce was the star. Second was the Patatas Gradtinatas. Like I said yesterday, I’ll miss the food, but not the service. Really, four people working the bar with only one customer. One person took the order, passed it over to another who worked the till (after a long consultation with the menu). Meanwhile the first person poured the drinks and the second person took the money. What were the other two doing? It was anyone’s guess. It’s closing soon, no surprise to us.

Salsa was well run as usual by Shannon. I must say that for her, she works hard at providing social salsa dancing in and around Glasgow. It wasn’t as busy as we thought it would be, but we did manage a couple of hours dancing which was fine for us.

Gems day tomorrow, so I’ll get out of the way.

Lunch, Linx and Linux – 15 March 2019

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We were up and about early this morning to make sure Jackie got her taxi on time to take her in to Glasgow.

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After our visitor had left I settled down to a relaxing hour of Sudoku wrangling while Scamp played Spider on her tablet. While I was sudoku solving I got the idea that I should maybe try putting Linux into the old Linx tablet. Maybe that would stop the continuous annoying demands that I update Windows 10 on it. I needed to download the Linux file on a PC, which was when I discovered that the modem driver on the Linux was screwed. In fact it was so seriously screwed that Windows couldn’t fix it. What it did tell me was to go online and search for a solution there. That would be difficult with no internet connection because of the fault. Eventually I gave up and just restored the entire OS from a backup. Long story – short, I wasted the entire morning fixing Windows problems and didn’t even get the Linux installed. Maybe tomorrow?!
</Just_a_little_bit_of_Technospeak>

Drove out to The Smiddy for lunch. Mac ’n’ Cheese for Scamp and Chicken, Chorizo, Tomato and Beans for me. Bought a chump chop (lamb) which might possibly be tomorrow’s dinner for me and also a chunk of Blue Murder cheese which is a very nice blue cheese. Didn’t buy the aptly named “Minger” cheese which tasted just as it’s name would suggest. Drove home through the wild winds, driving sleet and blinding sunshine! Welcome to Scotland!

When we got home the rain and sleet halted, but the winds and the sunshine persisted, so I grabbed my boots and went for a walk in St Mo’s looking for a decent picture. I think I got one and that’s it at the top of the page. The tree that was swaying dangerously in the wind the other day was still there, still swaying. Bumped into Susan Greenshields on my way home and she was as grumpy as ever. Nice to see that some things and some people never change.

Made some more pakora in the evening and it tasted quite good again, but still needed something else. Don’t know what. Had another half hearted try at the Linux thing later and eventually found that it can’t be done. Something about a 64 bit processor and a 32bit BIOS that isn’t really a BIOS, but an EFI. It’s an EFFING pain in the arse if you ask me.

Tomorrow snow is forecast, so we won’t be going far.

Gareth blows in – 12 March 2019

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Storm Gareth has been rumbling around all day.

The highlight of the day was going for the ’messages’. We only went as far as Tesco, but it was far enough with the high winds and the driving rain. Thankfully there wasn’t any snow, just some sleet.

I did a bit of painting using the Inktense sticks to get some interesting colours in the sky. Also, because the sticks are actually solid ink, it’s possible to layer colours without disrupting the original layers. That’s something you can’t do with watercolour paints. It’s still been a bit messy and will take a while to get to grips with.

After lunch I thought I should go out and get some photos in the spells of sunshine we were having. I walked over to St Mo’s and got a shot of some daffys growing on the banking at the side of the M80 slip road. The daffodils are one of the few things that the Development Corporation got right in Cumbersheugh. However NLC undid all the good work when they dug up the flowers on Central Way to leave the banking clear for the £0.5m ‘waves’ that now grace the dual carriageway.
I stood for a while just in the treeline at St Mo’s listening to and watching the big Scots Pines bending in the wind. One of them was bending so much that you could see the roots rising out of the peat. I didn’t stay there too long. I must check tomorrow to see if it’s still standing.

Came home and made Butternut Squash soup and Scamp made Potatoes and Cabbage with the addition of bacon for me. An ideal meal for such a cold windy day.

Tomorrow we may be dancing. It depends on what Gareth says.

Minimal driving day – 11 March 2019

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It was agreed that we wouldn’t be driving far today.

In fact we did very little today. Spoke to Hazy for a while and compared blue skies. Discussed gardens and Christmas plans, yes, Christmas plans already!

Started a wee bit of painting from Skye and in the style of one of the paintings I’d seen in the “Biscuit Tin”. Never quite got it finished because, as you’ve probably guessed today was the day for writing up the blog posts and posting the photos on Flickr. Put a pair of headphones on to drown out Gems and just got on with it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get round to finishing the painting and restarting the Apple Gallery.

Also grabbed a shot of one of Scamp’s sweet pea plants which is just forming its first ‘real’ leaves and that became PoD. That’s the result of being too lazy to go out. Tomorrow I must gee myself.

Salsa tonight was good fun as usual. Six thirty class has now moved on to level 2 and are Improvers. They were doing Enchufé tonight. In the advance class at 7.30 the ‘new’ old move was Swish along with the others we’d been doing last week.

That’s about it. Tomorrow we’re going for the ‘messages’. Wild weather forecast.

A better dancing day – 6 March 2019

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At least for me.

The day started with Scamp visiting Tesco and me attempting an apple portrait in pastel. That didn’t work, so I tried again in watercolour. That wasn’t much better, so I left it, hoping to complete it after we came back from Blackfriars.

Drove in to Glasgow through torrential rain and then when we walked out of the multi-storey carpark, the sun came out. In the jive class, for most of the time I was doing well. Certainly a good deal better than last week, but that wouldn’t be difficult. Today it was Scamp who was making a few mistakes. A most unusual situation for her. In quickstep we both made bloomers, but I think I made the most. As usual, our first dance was great. We even managed to complete the fishtails without tripping over one another and then it all went to pieces. Waltz was just one disaster after another. Yes, in retrospect Jive was the highlight of the ballroom day.

Came home and planted the chestnuts that I’d gathered up in the autumn. Planted them in some papier mache egg boxes and put them in the little greenhouse. Hopefully they’ll sprout and I’ll be able to plant them out in their little biodegradable pots in St Mo’s. Back where most of them came from. While I was in the garden I grabbed today’s PoD. It’s one of a host of crocuses that have taken over one of Scamps containers. Yes, I’ve changed my mind. Croci sounds too arty farty. I think Crocuses is more down to earth.

I attempted to repair this morning’s apple portrait, but it just wasn’t working so I left it and went to tend to my beef olives which were to be my dinner with some potatoes. Scamp was having ‘Rats’ with potatoes instead. My olives were really tasty, but Scamp complained that her Rats were too salty. That’s when I remembered that I’d completely forgotten to salt my beef olives. Still, it didn’t seem to spoil the taste at all.

Salsa at night was fun and furious in the first class and dull in the second. I think this was mainly because the second class was so small and the participants were not all that bright, apart from Scamp and myself of course! Anyway, the class is closing soon and I think most of them are going to merge into the 6.30 class.

While we were watching ‘Shetland’ tonight I picked up an apple and started to eat it. Scamp asked me if I had sketched it first and when I said I’d started a drawing upstairs in the morning she looked very disapproving, so I grabbed a sketch book and drew the offending article. Tried painting it too, but the warm room lighting made colour evaluation too difficult, so I gave that up. The sketch got Scamp’s approval and I got to eat the remainder of the apple.

Tomorrow up early for a change.

Angry old man – 3 March 2019

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Scamp wanted some messages. Didn’t know it would turn into WW3.

The messages were bought and loaded into the Juke. Was reversing out of the space when I noticed in my parking camera display that somebody else across the road was doing the same. Braked and started to drive back into my space, only just not fast enough for the other driver and his bumper gave mine a little kiss. Drove in to the space properly and got out to have a look. That’s when the other driver shouted “Did you just reverse into me?” I just laughed and said, “No you reversed into me, I was trying to get out of your way.” I looked at the damage and it was almost invisible on the Juke and nothing at all on his. Then he went absolutely ballistic! Shouting and bawling that he had started reversing first and I was an <expletives deleted> idiot. All the while walking backwards to get back into his car. Mr Angry indeed. I was a bit worried that he’d turn green, burst out of his shirt and start throwing the cars about, but he didn’t. He just got back in and I allowed him to be first and to reverse out. I did give him a warning blast on the Juke Horn as he as getting near. He was very careful after that. I bet he would have fun parking at Cumbersheugh Theatre!

After that excitement, we had lunch. That curry last night had given me heartburn during the night and I was careful not to have too much fatty stuff today. No black pudding, no bacon. Just sausages and an egg. Very restrained. After that I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a couple of gorse flowers. Definite signs of spring are appearing although the weather fairies are predicting possible snow showers this week.

We decided we’d try out Shannon’s new Sunday Social venue which is the Record Factory at the bottom of Byres Road. I was a bit concerned about parking in the West End as it is usually expensive, even on a Sunday after 6pm whereas in the centre of town it is free. I needn’t have worried. All the parking spaces, and there were lots of them, were free on a Sunday. We actually got there early and found a seat no problem. It was a fairly large dance floor, but only half of it was wooden, the other half was tiled concrete. Once the music started the floor filled up quite quickly and time flew by. We left about 8pm because we still hadn’t had dinner. Quite impressed with the new venue. Let’s hope it becomes a regular twice monthly event. It felt like the old venues we’ve had for Sunday Socials and there were lots of folk we hadn’t seen in years.

Tomorrow Scamp has a Gems gig, but doesn’t need a roadie, so I may go for a run in to Glasgow to look at a tripod.

Apprentice Drivers – 2 March 2019

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Scamp was out this afternoon with Isobel and June (a girls afternoon out) at Cumbersheugh Theatre to see Sister Act. I volunteered to be driver. I’ve tried to park at the theatre many times before and know just how stupid people are. Today the stupid ones stayed at home it was the apprentice stupids who were out driving. As if it wasn’t bad enough having to manoeuvre around a bus, an actual bus in this tiny excuse for a carpark, there were holes with a crowd of potholers complete with ropes and crash helmets waiting to investigate them. As if this wasn’t bad enough, one woman decided it would be good to go round the one way system the wrong way. When she was eventually discouraged from this suicidal move, the bus driver decided it was time to get back out, so we had to wait while he drove down the single track road avoiding more potholes and drivers coming the opposite way. Actually, the bus was a godsend because it cleared a path for the rest of us to get out of this disaster waiting to happen.

I just went home and painted a couple of apples, read a few pages in my latest book and browsed the InterWeb for holidays somewhere warm and dry without potholes. All too soon it was time to pick the ladies up. Thankfully Scamp suggested I wait five or ten minutes for the majority of the dodgem drivers to get out before I made my bid. Before I left the house I ordered a curry from Bombay Dreams, intending to pick it up when we were on our way home after dropping off the others.

Bombay Dreams usually produces lovely food. Today was an exception. The curries were ready and waiting for us when we arrived, but were cooling considerably sitting next to the front door. Naan bread was dead by the time we got to it and although the pakora tasted fresh, the curries were disappointing. It was maybe just a bad day or a new chef, but you’re only as good as your last meal in this game.

PoD was cut flowers. Not the most inspiring photo I’ve ever taken, but it was ok.

We watched Zootropolis to brighten our evening. It was a film Scamp had recorded at Christmas and was head and shoulders away from the junk that was being offered on a Saturday night by any of the terrestrial channels.

Hoping to go dancing to a new venue tomorrow.