Category: Flowers

Dancing – 8 May 2019

Posted on by Zogman

A dull, day with a cutting cold wind. If this is May, what will December bring?

I’d say Winter is Coming, but I haven’t a clue what that’s all about. Something to do with Games About Thrones, I believe.

We drove in to Glasgow today and danced Jive quite well. Learned The Bumps which were fun once you got the steps in your head. Got my Spin 5 sorted out properly and went over Kicksie which is mind bogglingly difficult for my feet to comprehend. In Quickstep I passed the test for Fishtails and the bit after Sway-Sway (I don’t know its name). All this was done under the tutelage of Anne Marie whose style was so much more relaxed than Michael’s

Came home in that cold wind again and started on a sketch for tonight’s EDiM topic which was “Broken Glass/Ice”. I’d downloaded a picture of a broken glass from a royalty-free site on the net and it looked like it would work. I’ll leave you to decide. At this point in proceedings I didn’t have a PoD and was running out of time (and light) to get one. After a bit of discussion with Scamp we decided not to go to Salsa tonight to allow me time to get everything completed on time. That took the pressure off and I grabbed some pics of flowers in the garden in the fading light. The Azalea at the top of the page is the result.

Finished the sketch and quite liked it. Used two thicknesses of pen for the lifework.

Tomorrow Scamp is booked to have her hair cut and I may go somewhere scenic and hopefully sunny to grab some photos.

Another lazy day – 6 May 2019

Posted on by Zogman

This is getting boring. Tomorrow we must try to break out of Cumbersheugh!

The furthest we got today was the mighty Tesco. We needed milk and some veg for tonight’s dinner (Aloo Saag). We got it, we came back, we had the last of Scamp’s soup for lunch and then Scamp went out gardening.

I went upstairs to tackle today’s challenge which was the unlikely subject for me “Your daily work/office”. That’s a tricky one for someone who’s retired. I don’t actually have a “work” and certainly not an “office”. I thought of all the places I have worked, some of which could be called “offices”, but none of them impinge on my life now. Upstairs in the back bedroom is the closest I’m going to get to an office and I suppose you could call my daily photograph or my daily sketch this month a “daily work”. So that was that. It was either a sketch of a camera or of the bedroom. I settled on drawing what was in front of me, the drawing board with a couple of paintboxes an assortment of brushes and a pencil, plus odd bits and pieces. I drew it in pencil first and then outlined the result in pen, before laying down some watercolour washes. It looks ok and some people even “liked” it on FB. I’m surprised and delighted in equal measure. Tomorrows topic is “Something that makes you sad”. Hmm, that could be work itself!

I didn’t do much gardening today, I generally leave the ‘getting your hands dirty’ stuff to Scamp. She’s better at it than me. However I did put up a frame for her sweet peas at the front of the house, then she put up a bit of netting on the fence at the back for a second batch. Now she’s talking about putting netting on to the rowan tree and training yet more sweet peas up that. We’ll be overrun soon with pretty perfumed flowers. Later when I was bringing some of our most recent sowings from the greenhouse so they could get the benefit of the rain, because it was a rainy-shiny kind of day, I noticed that my leek seeds are sprouting. That’s good to know. Hopefully they will provide the basis for some soup one day. The leeks I planted last year seem to have survived the winter and are beginning to show signs of fattening up.

Today’s PoD was taken in the garden too. It’s a strawberry plant has been sitting on high in a hanging basket all winter and now it’s starting to flower again. It really deserves to be replanted and given some decent compost. Perhaps tomorrow.

Tomorrow, apart from the proposed bit of gardening we have no plans, but we really need to get away from the house, somewhere scenic perhaps.

May the Fourth be with you – 4 May 2019

Posted on by Zogman

The weather fairies warned us that today would be cold with a wind from the Arctic bringing the possibility of sleet and snow. It did feel cold when we woke and despite the blue sky and sunny spells, the temperature didn’t rise much. Since we had nowhere in particular to go, we just had a day at home. Sometimes it’s better to stay home at weekends and do your travelling on weekdays when other folk are working.

Scamp was about to throw out some tulip flowers when I saw the beautiful texture and colour of their petals glowing in the sunshine. I set a camera on the table and taped a bit of tracing paper behind the flowers to allow light through, but soften the view of the living room. It took a few shots and a lot of changes to settings before I got the shot I wanted.

<Technospeak>
I finally decided that one shot wouldn’t do the job. It needed too much depth of field and the only way I was going to get it was by taking at least five shots of the subject. One at the very front petal, one at the extreme back petal and at least three in between. Actually it took seven shots. The technique is called Focus Stacking and takes ages to post-process. The more shots you take, the more accurate your final shot will be, but the more time you’ll be stuck in the computer deleting bits of the different layers. Luckily ON1 2019 has focus stacking built in and the hard work is done for you. Like all AI things, it does need some human intervention to get it exactly right. That’s what I did … for about two hours, but I think the final image was worth the effort.
</Technospeak>

Scamp made her version of Minestrone soup for dinner and I made a lovely Tear ’n’ Share bread to go with it. It was a bit like a focaccia but with tomatoes in it and less oil. It should have had mozzarella in it too, but we only had green and blue mozzarella with a Use By date of the middle of March, so we decided not to use it. The dough was really sloppy but the bread was lovely and so was the soup.

Today’s challenge on EDiM was Star Wars Day. The closest I could get to it was the heads of four Lego Troopies. Just pen for a change and a challenge.

Tomorrow we may go dancing at the Record Factory.

MOT Day – 2 May 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Up and out to take Scamp’s Micra to the garage for MOT.

Back for breakfast and a plan for the day. I’d thought of going to Hamilton for a curry and maybe a visit to the art shop. Scamp had other ideas. She’d found a shop in Falkirk that had the rotary clothes airer (Whirly) she wanted. No problem, there’s a shop called The Range that sells cheap art materials. So, off we went to Falkirk.

The satnav found the shop even after disagreeing with my initial change of route. Scamp found the whirly and we were soon trying to inveigle it into the Juke. Finally it fitted, but only after we dropped both the back seats and Scamp moved her seat a notch forward. I had a look in The Range, but the paints I was looking for weren’t really all that cheap, just cheap looking. I had a look in Boots and Argos for a new electric razor, but couldn’t decide which one. So back we went to Cumbersheugh.

Scamp wanted a new planter (or two) for here sweet peas and also for anything that would fit into the other one. She also picked up this week’s plant which has blue flowers and an unpronounceable name. Next stop was B&Q to find out if they had any Impatiens, pink ones. They did, which brought another smile to her face. While we were plant shopping I got the phone call from the garage that the car would fail because of a broken front spring. Agreed to the price and told them to go ahead.

We were passing the new(ish) Milano cafe and stopped there for lunch. Lunch was a pizza each. Initial thoughts were that it was little more than a transport cafe, but one look at the pizza was enough to convince us otherwise. Very nice pizzas. Worth another visit.

Back home we chose a place for the new whirly and with a spade I decided ‘X’ marked the spot and started to hammer the 400mm long galvanised steel holder into the back garden grass. It wasn’t as difficult as it first appeared, but a lot more difficult than the instructions implied. Wish I’d brought that big lump hammer back from school over four years ago. It would have made short work things. We assembled the dryer and it’s still standing after having helped dry some sheets. It isn’t exactly vertical, but it hasn’t fallen down yet which the clothes pole is about to do. That could be my next task, to hacksaw down the clothes pole. But that’s for another day.

I thought I had enough time to go for a walk before we went for the car, but I was wrong. I’d only been out for about 15 minutes when the call came in. Rushed back and drove Scamp down to the garage to pick up her wee car.

Gave up on the walk to take photos and settled for a shot of the American Cowslip I got in Skye last year about this time. It completely died away last year and I was sure it was gone, but then Scamp announced a few weeks ago that she thought it was growing. It’s now flowering and we may have to re-pot it once its flowers have gone. Such a pretty and strange wee flower. That became PoD.

The topic for today’s EDiM sketch/painting was “An insect you would miss” and my insect was a Ladybird. It’s ok. It could have been better if I hadn’t left it so long to start working on it. Tomorrow will be better.

Found out that my old electric razor still had a charge in it. Even better I found the charger too. It still works but is a bit rough on the skin. I found a label on it that told me I should change the cutter and foil every 18 months. I though it was every 18 years!

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go for a curry in Hamilton.

Stirling – 27 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Went to Stirling today to get nothing in particular and we were successful.

It was a lovely day when we started out, but we could see that things were a bit more changeable in the Stirling direction. Parked in our usual place and discovered that in May the charges go up by 40%!! That may seem like an outrage, but it still means that we can park for a whole day for £2. You’d be pushed to get an hour’s parking for that in Glasgow. Paid up and walked through a steadily increasing drizzle to the Thistle Centre. Went to Waterstones and picked up a likely looking book. A ‘real’ book with pages and a cover and everything. First ‘real’ book I’ve bought in ages. Scamp found the trousers she’d been looking for in M&S, so we both got something.

Talked for a while to Mhairi who had a stall in the centre this weekend. Had coffee in the usual Nero and came home. Drove through more April showers on the motorway and decided we’d eat from the remainder of yesterday’s dinner. ‘Rats’ for Scamp, Tagine for me. Before that, I just had time for a quick walk over St Mo’s before the rain came on heavy. Got today’s PoD which is a rapidly forming pine cone. It’s only just over a month since they looked like this, a little pineapple. Enjoyed the walk, but there was definitely the hint of rain on the wind, so I curtailed the walk and came home. On the way home I found a bunch of flowering Cowslips. I’d just been reading a year ago’s blog post about finding a bunch of these flowers blooming at the same time of year, despite 2017/2018’s terrible winter. They had a much easier time of it this winter, but still flowered in the same week.

Watched a scary Baku GP qualifying. Two drivers crashing at exactly the same place. Both unhurt, but badly damaged cars.

That was it for today. Nothing exciting and no real cooking either.

Tomorrow we may go dancing at Mango if it’s on.

A day in the kitchen – 26 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Started about 9.30am and just kept going.

First thing to do was get the Lamb Tagine on the go. After chopping and frying the onions, then adding all the spices and the lamb it all got bunged into a slow cooker with the dates and apricots. Got it up to temperature and took it up to the back bedroom to do its work. That’s the benefit of a slow cooker, it can be working away anywhere with a mains socket.

<Technospeak>
Time for a bit of relaxation playing with some old photographs I’d backed up yesterday to a new USB-C drive. First time I’d used this supposedly revolutionary system. Allegedly capable of 10Mbps compared with the 5Mbps of USB 3. I can’t say I noticed the difference, but the big benefit is the connector to the computer. It’s reversible, unlike the normal male USB connector that only goes one way round. How long has it taken someone to realise how annoying that has been? Anyway, it was great editing those 10 year old D70 photos in new software. So easy to over-process, though.
</Technospeak>

Back in the kitchen it was the pakora. One lot of cauliflower and one lot of onion and potato. Both both lots fried and then stored to cool with some retained for lunch. They tasted fine, with a nice crunchy batter.

Meanwhile Scamp was beating the living daylights out of some cream for a cake that was baking in the oven while an ice-cream maker was churning away in a corner of the living room. Another time-saving machine that can be plugged in anywhere.

By now it was well into the afternoon an I was just about to go out to get some photos when I remembered the bread. It wasn’t bread yet, it was still flour in the cupboard, yeast in another cupboard, butter in the fridge, salt on the work surface and water in the tap. Soon, however they were all in the bowl of the mixer being battered into a bread dough. I kept the dough in the bowl, parked the bowl next to the slow cooker to keep it warm and finally got out for that walk. Halfway through the walk it started to rain. It’d been predicted all morning, but I’d been too busy. Got very few photos, but the PoD was the little pink flowers. Haven’t found out exactly what they are yet, but hopefully someone on Flickr can ID them.

The visitors arrived about 8pm. The pakora had been heating in a too-warm oven for too long, they were frazzled! Luckily Scamp had made some of her “Just Soup” which she served with some bacon on top and it was much, much better than my pakora. The lamb tagine was excellent, even although I say it myself. Scamp’s signature dish of Pears in a Red Wine Sauce served with Yoghurt Ice-cream was even better. Finally the cake was a moist sponge with lemon curd cream. Didn’t like the cream, but the sponge was lovely.

After a long night and an even longer day we dragged ourselves off to bed just after midnight. It was a good night. Not great, just good.

Tomorrow a relaxing day with minimal cooking.

Reunited with an old friend – 25 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Start of the prep for tomorrow and the rains came.

Out fairly early this morning, certainly before 10am to get some meat for tomorrow’s Lamb Tagine. Of course, when I was there I also got some sausages and the beef short ribs looked very nice, so I got a couple of them too. The carnivore then drove home.

After that, we got in the Juke and went to Falkirk, stopping on the way to get a couple of bedding plants for Scamp. Not the ones she wanted, but one bee attracter with bright orange flowers and some highly scented sweet peas. Next stop was Falkirk itself and the ring. It had caused the lady some problems soldering in the gold extension piece, and when I tried it on it was just a little bit too big. That didn’t seem to be a problem, because she could take it down just a half size and that fitted perfectly. It was a beautifully shiny, but as Scamp said, I would soon get it looking worn again. It’s already beginning to look better and it doesn’t squeeze my finger like it did before the fall. It became PoD.

Stopped at Morrison’s on the way home for even more food then lunch. Roll ’n’ Sausage for me and a plate of Chips for Scamp. Morrison’s do good cheap no-frills lunches and the coffee is quite drinkable too. When we came out it was raining and it rained on and off all day after that. The garden needs the rain, the first for about three weeks.

Back home I realised I hadn’t picked up my pills, so went for them and also Scamp added more things to the shopping list. I wanted to get another removable hard drive to back up the oldest of my digital photos. These ones date from 2000 up to 2009. In total those nine years of photos take up a measly 160GB. The photos from last year, 2018, used up 226GB! Moore’s Law is a computing term which originated around 1970. The simplified version of this law states that overall processing power for computers will double every two years. It looks like the storage for photos follows that same rule. I drove to Currys in Bishopbriggs to get the one I wanted which has a cable to utilise the USB-C port in the back of the iMac.

When I got home from my visit to Currys Technology Toy Shop, I noticed what looked like a flower head on the path. It wasn’t just the head, it was not one, but two tiny little violas growing in the mossy soil round a manhole cover at the front door. I carefully dug them up and we replanted them in a pot and its soaking up some rain on the back step as I write. I presume the plants came from a self seeding viola in the garden.

It appears that my website is stable and working as anticipated. With that in mind, today I took the decisive step of deleting everything on the old server and after that I cancelled my contract with A Small Orange. It was good fun when it started, but after the previous annual increase of 70% in the bill for my webspace, I felt it was time to look for somewhere new. Basically that’s the reason I gave them for moving on. The deed is done. ASO is no more.

While I was out, Scamp was busy with prep for tomorrow. Tomorrow it’s my turn. Lamb Tagine in the morning and pakora in the afternoon with a break somewhere for some foties, hopefully.

A well filled day – 23 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Driving to Falkirk, and back, lunch out (for some), coffee (for some), broken website – now repaired. Just your usual Tuesday.

Very warm during the night, but the temperature was dropping all morning and, when we got out of the car in Falkirk, I was glad I had worn my fleece. Dropped my ring off in the jeweller’s to have it repaired after having it cut from my finger back in March. We will be reunited on Thursday, hopefully. Went to Morrison’s while we were there to buy muesli, hand wash and milk. That, with a few other things, came to just over £70. That’s the way the money goes.

When we came home, Scamp just had time to change before she went out for lunch with her pal Mags. I had an hour to rearrange the mess in the art room before I too went out. No lunch for me just coffee and setting the world to rights with Fred and Val.

By the time I got home, Scamp was too and there was just enough of the day left to wander over to St Mo’s to get some photos. PoD went to a branch with what looks like Wild Cherry blossom. The competitor for the PoD was this shot of a new memorial seat in St Mo’s park. The name on it is Deone, who I think is Deone MacRae who died of cancer in 2013 aged 15. The family put a memorial bench beside Broadwood Loch, but some people didn’t like it and burned it to ashes. You really wonder about the mentality of some people. The new butterfly seat is cut and welded from 6mm steel. I don’t think that will be quite so easy to burn.

After dinner which was a joint effort at a paella, I noticed all the email from the new server was offline, and so was my site. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it to clear itself. I tried a website checker and it showed the site as open. Asked Hazy to check and she got access. Eventually used the chat facility on the new server’s webpage and after some checking on their side I was told that my IP address had been blocked after too many attempts to log in to an email address using different passwords. Actually it was me who was attempting to log in and get Mac Mail to accept the new password. Good to know they are on the ball, but will have to be more careful in future when changing passwords.

That was my busy day. Tomorrow will be equally busy, I’m sure. Hoping to go dancing in the afternoon and maybe in the evening too. The weather fairies say it’s going to get colder and wetter. Oh what fun. Summer’s over for another year perhaps.

Just a walk – 15 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

No photos, just a walk.

Lunch today was yesterday’s Pakora and Onion Bhajis reheated and they tasted better than they did yesterday. Crunchier anyway. Ten minutes @ 180º if you’re asking. After that Scamp went out to get herd Gems and bring them by to use the shepherd’s terms. Just before they arrived a racket started in No 38. It sounded to me like an orbital sander being used on the floor. That was strange, because on Friday night the exact same noise was coming from No36. We are being surrounded by sanders! I’d had enough. After a quick catchup with Margie who had done more painting than me in the last fortnight, I grabbed the Oly bag and drove down to Auchinstarry.

Walked along the canal and though the plantation from there back to Auchinstarry. I took two photos, but only record shots of red flowers on a bush to try to find the name of them. It was simply a walk and nothing else. It’s ages since I’ve walked along the canal and although nothing had changed much, it was very enjoyable. I didn’t need to take any photos, because I’d grabbed a few shots of a young blackbird. I’d had a look at them earlier and they looked fine, so the cameras were with me just in case I saw anything that the ever ready iPhone couldn’t manage.

Back home, dinner tonight was Spaghetti and Tuna in a Tomato sauce. A staple.

Drove in to Glasgow and helped the beginners get their heads round Setenta y Cinco. They picked it up quite quickly. Much quicker than I picked up the advanced class’s new move, called surprisingly, New Move. We also reprised one from last week now called York because it looks like The Grand Old Duke of York. Good fun, but almost undanceable in a rueda.

Just getting ready now to go and pick up JIC who’s flying in for a quick visit.

Tomorrow our day if fairly well marked out. Will explain tomorrow, DV.

Up and Running – 12 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Well, it wasn’t quite so clever this morning, but by this evening it was indeed Up and Running.

This morning was marred by some swearing because the website still wasn’t behaving properly. Then I got the idea of getting Hazy to check it out from her end. Just before we left to go and see what Leonardo had been up to since he left Mr Belkevitz art class in Cumby High, I got a message from Hazy to say she could access the new website from her end down in Londinium. This was a relief because it meant that I could tick those damned nameservers off as DONE! It was also a pain because it meant the problem was at my end. Never mind, we’d drive in to Kelvingrove, see Dippy the diplodocus and also catch Leonardo’s exhibition of drawings. I didn’t actually expect to see him there, because he’s quite a famous artist now, but it would be good to see what JB had taught him.

When we got there, everyone else in Glasgow and the surroundings was there too. We drove round for a while, but the only place we could find wanted 40p to park for 30 mins. We were so far away it would take us a good 20 mins to reach the Art Galleries. That would leave us in deficit of 10 mins just to get back to the car if we just turned on our heels and walked back. What in the name of the wee man is in the heads of the people who make up these ridiculous parking charges. It’s not as if the parking places were in the middle of shops, just bays at the side of a road through playing fields. “Sorry, it can only be five a side today. That’s five MINUTES a side. Now off you go and play, your time starts now!”

Gave up. Did try to park within the Art Gallery carpark, but judging by the number of people cruising round, there weren’t many places to be had. It looked like musical chairs. When the music stops, try to find an empty chair. Drove home. Stopped at Costa for a coffee and a roll ’n’ sausage or a tuna wrap for Scamp.

When we got home I struggled for another hour or so with words and symbols I’d never seen before while Scamp went to Condorrat, partly to get out of the road, I think. Finally I too had had enough and I walked over to get dinner. Tonight’s dinner would be a large fish supper between us. On the way over I got the picture of the cherry blossom. As I saw it fluttering in the breeze I realised the first time I took a photo of that tree was around the year 2000 when the world was young, Brexit was a word that would be disallowed as not in the dictionary, in Scrabble and a 2 megapixel camera with an f2 lens was the marvel of the age. It was an Olympus DC-2000 Z. A beautiful camera that I sold to a colleague at school and which he still owns I think. Anyway this shot took PoD on a dull day using an Olympus E-PL5 with a 12-32mm lens and a much bigger 16 megapixel sensor. Sorry JIC just a little technospeak.

After the fish ’n’ chips we had a pineapple cake each, which actually had pineapple in it, but I don’t think the ‘cream’ had ever seen a cow. Then we watched another recorded episode of Portrait Artist of the Year, before I opened up my Linx 12 and got the surprise of the day when the website opened up in the new server. I won’t bore you with the details of how and why I knew it was the new server, JIC would just moan about no Technospeak warnings. It was working. Checked on the iMac and, yes, it was actually on the new server settings. In these days of instant results, you have to remember that Virgin Media takes at least 30 hours to realise that some settings have changed and refresh its lists or something. ‘Slow’ and ‘Treacle’ in the same sentence as ‘Virgin Media’ seems to be the name of the game.

Tomorrow, no computers until at least 12 noon. Maybe a trip to the countryside somewhere.