Category: Flowers

More Food – 9 June 2024

Posted on by Zogman

No, that’s not a hungry mouth you’re looking at! It’s just that Scamp has been doing a grand job of cooking this weekend and it continued today.

Breakfast was just breakfast, but even then Scamp was the one who made it. Two Weetabix with Rasps and Blueberries for me and Bran Flakes and Rasps for Scamp. No milk for either of us.
Just kidding, of course we had milk!

Lunch was Healthy Shakshuka which is basically “What you’ve got in the fridge” with a tin of tomatoes and sweet and smoky paprika with a couple of eggs cooked in the mix. I’d seen the recipes for it many times, but never quite got round to making it. I can assure you I missed a trick there! It was absolutely brilliant. We ate it watching Laura Kuenssberg getting ripped into politicians of various stripes. A fearsome lady is Laura.

We spent most of the afternoon trying to get OneDrive to share a folder between Scamp and me. According to the cartoons on the Mickeysoft site it was simplicity itself, but unfortunately it didn’t work. I thought it might be because one of us was using a PC and the other was using a Mac, but I don’t think that was the root of the problem. I think it’s just that Mickysoft just doesn’t know how to play nice. Eventually we did get it working, but the road to success was a rough one with may potholes and dead ends.

By ’… most of the afternoon …’ I meant a couple of hours, although it felt like more than that. To give me a break from all the tech stuff, I took a walk in the garden and took a few close-up photos of the Foxglove flowers that are in full bloom just now. One of them got PoD. I thought it looked like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, or maybe it was Laura Kuenssberg! I also potted up some chilli plants I’ve been growing from the seeds of last year’s or maybe two years ago’s chillies. They’ve been a bit mollycoddled, living in the warmth of the south facing window of the spare room. Tonight they are in the, not so warm, plastic covered greenhouse. I’m sure they’ll be tough enough for it.

While I was pottering and potting, Scamp was cutting away dead flower heads and then pruning back the overgrown vegetation in the back garden. When she was finished it just looked like the plants had been given a really neat haircut. She’s getting good at this sort of thing.

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard all about their holiday on the coast.  Sounds like a lovely place to relax for a week.  He put us right on how to share folders and told us that the method we were using was almost the same as his at work.  Good to know that we’re on the right track with some things!

For dinner tonight, Scamp took charge again and made a stir-fry. I feel like a ‘kept man’ tonight! I’ve done little or nothing all weekend apart from drive us to and from dancing class yesterday and then moan about it.

Tomorrow we may go out some where and I’m hoping to make dinner. I’m the pasta cook and Monday is Pasta Day!

 

 

Dancin’ – 8 June 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Driving Brookfield in the morning for a dance class.

The class had three couples logged in yesterday. This morning there were seven. A busy class

Mambo Marina to start with and then straight into a quickstep we don’t remember seeing, but apparently it started as a Covid dance-in your-living-room lesson. Neither of us had seen it before, so I assume it was for the more advanced class. Broken into bite sized chunks it was easy, but put together in Quickstep tempo is was difficult. Let’s just say we survived it.

A Mayfair Quickstep which is nothing like a real Quickstep and then we were in to the new shortened version of our Foxtrot routine.

It’s not as fluid or as flowing as the full Foxtrot, but after listening to the teachers, I realised it’s designed to be danced in a busy dance floor, because overall it’s a short routine with shortened units. I understand the reasoning, but I don’t think it works very well. However, that was what we were doing today because most of the participants this morning were going to Perth next week, so this was mainly for them. We weren’t going. My fault, blame me, but one Gala Ball per year is quite sufficient for me and as the June one was screwed up from the start I suggested we wait for the November gala and go to that instead. I felt bad about it afterwards, but for once, I stuck to my guns.

Once we’d got the short foxtrot out of the way, it was nearly time to call it a day. Just one sequence dance left and someone voted for the Square Tango. Unfortunately the person who asked for it couldn’t dance it and so we had to do a walk through first for him. There’s always one, isn’t there. With that very simple dance completed we were free to go.

Drove home through some lengthy roadworks just after entering the dual carriageway after Brookfield. We were lucky, we were only in the roadworks for about a mile. It seemed to stretch behind us for much longer.

My back was aching when we got home. I don’t thing the car seat is at the correct height yet since it went in for its recall. I must get it sorted for longer runs.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got a couple of decent photos, but was really cold by the time I got home. It was lovely and warm in the sunshine, but that cold wind just sucked all the heat out of the day. PoD went to a wild Dog Rose growing in a hedge in St Mo’s. I really need to get out of Cumbersheugh to take more photos.

Scamp made Prawn, Chorizo & Courgette Baked Rice for dinner and it was really very nice. After so many lunches this week, it was good to sit down to a home cooked meal.

We have no plans for tomorrow, but I think we might go for a walk somewhere scenic.

Computers, Bah! – 5 June 2024

Posted on by Zogman

This morning and some of the afternoon was spent wrestling with Outlook and Windows 11. Now I know why Alex rejected Outlook in favour of Yahoo.com.

It was a simple thing to do. Create a set of photos of the garden, reduce their size in Lightroom and link them to some descriptions, but Outlook didn’t seem to know what to do with the fourteen images. The old Window 10 mail app could do it and I’m sure Alex’s Yahoo could do it too, but I couldn’t find a way to get Outlook to download the photos into a folder. Eventually I found a clumsy solution. I did the resizing in Lightroom on my MacBook Pro and then copied the photos onto an SSD. Sneakernetted it (physically took the SSD) to Scamp’s new Windows 11 machine and plugged it in there, then dumped the folder of files into the on-board storage, avoiding OneDrive like the plague that it is. From there Scamp was able to link the text to the photos and send the file to Hazy, where it just worked! Hooray! We did it …eventually. Maybe some clever person can now explain what went wrong with saving fourteen photos that Outlook couldn’t separate, only download them as a fourteen photos chunk. The instructions said to find the down pointing arrow and click on it, but there wasn’t any $%&*@ arrow!!

Ahem. Now for the rest of the news.

We drove to Tesco to get some stuff for tonight’s dinner which was to be Cabbage, Bacon and Potatoes. Sounds boring, tastes great. Drove home, thankfully missing another rain shower. We had a few today. Heavy rain showers blown along on a cold north wind. Flaming June!?

I walked over to St Mo’s to get a few photos and found the bees were busy in a sheltered bit of the park, feeding on nectar from the Bramble flowers and collection pollen to pollenate other flowers in the process. That’s the way the world goes around. That’s where today’s PoD came from.

Dance class tonight was a bit shambolic. Disorganised and stop-start. Neither of us were really sure whether we were doing the units properly or not. I did take a few videos, so maybe they will make things clearer. Perhaps Kirsty was also having a bad day.

I’m booked for a photo walk with Alex tomorrow. Hope the rain stays off long enough for us to get some photos.

Dancin’ – 30 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Dancing and really enjoying it for once!

Drove through the busy M8 to Glenburn community centre for today’s tea dance. I don’t know what was going on, but the traffic both ways was much busier than usual and that led to us being just a wee bit late

We started off with a waltz, as always. Just to get us into the swing of things, we danced the first part of Kirsty’s Waltz on repeat. Next was a sequence dance then there was a Foxtrot and a Tango, two tracks of each interspersed with two tracks of sequence dances. The line dance today was the Waltz Across Texas, one of the most dire and depressing line dances. The one where nobody smiles. We didn’t dance it. That took us up to the tea.

After the tea break, Stewart started with Scamp’s favourite, the Tina Tango, inevitably danced to ’Shivers’ by Ed Sheehan, then we were back on the script with another waltz. And this time we danced what is now being called the Four Seasons Waltz. It was the Christmas Waltz, the Winter Waltz and then the Spring Waltz. Now it seems to have found a home as the Four Seasons Waltz. Whatever it is called, we danced it, the moves constantly improving as we went, and by the time we had danced both tracks we were getting it right most of the time.

Time was slipping away and soon it was our turn to slip out the back door, waving “cheerio” to those who didn’t have to drive through the hoards of school children. We made not bad time getting home by the longer, but quicker M74/M73 route that avoids the bottleneck at the Kingston Bridge.

It was Thursday, so Scamp asked for and got a bunch of flowers. She was quite exacting in her description of a bunch of flowers. In other words, she didn’t want plants. Much as she’d have liked them, we just don’t have anywhere to put them.

Tonight’s dinner was yesterday’s veg chilli bolstered with some passata and spiced up with some cumin and coriander. It tasted fine, but it the extra liquid makes it look like the pot is as full as it was yesterday. The magic porridge pot becomes the magic chilli pot!

After we’d eaten, Scamp started a purge on the spices cupboard. Anything older than 2024 was emptied into the bin and the jars are ready to go into the recycling bin. All 28 of them!

PoD was an easy one. The second Schoolgirl flower to bloom this year on the rose bush at the front door. The first bloom was about 3m above ground, so it would have been difficult to photograph!

Henry Hippo, the catwalk icon from the 9th of May, returned to model today’s prompt, Pyjamas.
Although hippos live in mainly warm countries, the night time temperatures are often very low. That is why Henry and other right thinking hippos often wear comfy pyjamas after the sun goes down.

No plans for tomorrow. Scamp is intending to meet Isobel after her (Scamp’s) FitSteps class. I may go for a walk.

The constant gardener – 29 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

A little bit of tidying up of the garden in the morning. Then a lot more.

I’ve had seven little pots in our overcrowded greenhouse, hardening off before I planted them out. Actually I’d almost forgotten about them. Today I was going to plant them in the real world. The post held sprouting sunflowers. Their cotyledon leaves had now been replaced by their ‘real leaves’ and it really was time to plant them in the raised bed, except I’d been using the soil from the raised bed to bank up the potatoes. This was a shambles. I admit I wasn’t really dedicated to this gardening lark, but something had to be done. I decided the thing to do was have lunch!

After lunch the job started properly. Scamp was intending moving troughs with old daffodils in them from the front garden to the back to get them to dry out so she could gather the bulbs for planting next year, all being well. I felt ashamed that all I did was lug the planters about and not do anything creative, so I emptied all the pots and old plants from the raised bed, pulled up all the weeds I could reach and then used a bag of cheap compost to fill in the holes I’d been creating in the bed over the past months. I planted all seven sunflower seedlings. I also planted about ten leeks that were languishing in their plastic trays. Next I replanted two strawberry plants that were looking sorry for themselves and finally dug up and planted what might be a tree. I think one of our friendly birds planted it for us, but now it’s growing in a proper pot. I’ll be interested in seeing if it flowers and what fruit it bears.

Scamp planted up her new trough with Violas, Lobelia, two Heucheras and a Geranium. The trough is long and narrow and holds a fair amount of compost. It’s a heavy thing to carry through the house. She also did some general tidying up and kept an eye on me to make sure I wasn’t damaging any of her plants. As if I’d dare.

When we’d finished we drove to Tesco for some shopping that should have been done on Monday, or Tuesday, but was completed on Wednesday!

I made a fairly decent chilli non-carne for dinner, assisted by my commis chef. It wasn’t very hot, but I’m loathe to put more chilli powder in it, because chilli non-carne or chilli con carne have a reputation of becoming much hotter on the second day.

Five couples were getting in each other’s way tonight at dance class, but we did get round the floor and joined the first part of the waltz to the second part seamlessly after Kirsty supplied the middle section. It wasn’t perfect, but I’m sure, by next week we’ll have it working perfectly, DV.

Before I started making the chilli, I went for a walk in St Mo’s. Not a lot of interest there, but PoD became an Aquilegia flower I saw on the walk home. I think their season is drawing to a close, so I’m making the most of them while they are still here.

Today’s prompt has been completed, but it’s still soaking wet after I tried a very watery ink and wash technique. I’m sure it will be dry for tomorrow.

<Update> And here it is: Today’s prompt asked for a Turtle. The only ones I’ve seen live were the small freshwater turtles, but the images I found were of their bigger cousins, the sea turtles, so a Sea Turtle it was.
Just for fun, I painted it wet in wet. It seemed to suit the subject.

Tea Dance tomorrow. We may even attempt the, as yet, unnamed waltz if everything goes according to plan.

Computers! – 26 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

The morning was all about putting more things in the new laptop.

Later we realised that One Drive was clogged solid and was wanting more space to put the data from the old PC. There seemed to be no way to unclog it and by lunchtime it was obvious that the data wasn’t going into the space we’d allocated for it on the C: drive. This surely wasn’t right. It got to a stage where the only sensible thing to do was to restore the machine to the way it was in the morning, when everything was working.

It took it a while to do that, but by the time dinner time came around, it had restarted and with a few omissions it was running just the way it had in the morning. We set it aside and had dinner after a few arguments.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard how he runs his PC in conjunction with One Drive. It sounded a lot easier than the way we were doing things. Maybe that is the way to go.
Good to hear that his Bee Orchids, whose flowers actually look like bees, were looking good. He even sent us a short video to prove it. By the time he hung up, and we’d watched the end of the Monaco GP, we had an outline plan of what to do to get this laptop show on the road.

Except it didn’t work out like that. When we turned the laptop on, we were met with a BSOD. The dreaded Blue Screen Of Death. The death of the laptop. It wouldn’t boot. From about 8pm until just after midnight, Scamp and I tried every possible combination of the multitude of problem solving hints and tips that were appearing on the blue screen. Nothing worked. Eventually Scamp made the corporate decision to go to bed and suggested we take the broken laptop back to JL in the morning. When she had gone I tried another alternative solution, using old fashioned DOS, but got nowhere. It’s now a quarter to one and I’m going to bed too. Hopefully the Techs at JL will come up with a solution.

PoD was an Aquilegia taken in the rain, just to be a place marker.

The prompt asked for a bitten apple. This one has definitely had a little nibble taken out of it.

Tomorrow, realistically later today, will surely be a better day than Sunday.

Dancin’ – 25 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Back to the grind again, driving over to Brookfield for an hour and a half of dancing.

It started with Mayfair Quickstep danced to a new piece of music which didn’t really fit the dance I thought, but what do I know. The next one also the Mayfair was to the traditional tune and it worked fine.

Next up was a Rumba which we’d dance a couple of weeks ago. Most of it came back to me after a couple of tracks, but then Jane added in some pointers to make it look a bit smoother and although I’m not always a fan of her additions, the Ball Flat she taught, where you step on the ball of your foot before you drop on to your heel, did make the dance much smoother and quieter!

The next dance was what’s now called the Four Seasons Waltz. At last we have settled on a name that works in any season of the year! It worked well. We both kind of knew it, but again the emphasis was on teaching us the techniques. In particular it was the ‘Sway’ which is a big part of waltz. I found that quite difficult. I could do the correct steps but not the sway or I could do the sway and forget what the next step was. I think that requires some practise.

We finished with a Bellissima Cha Cha which was less than bellissima from my point of view. It was one we’d learned years ago during lockdown. It was another one that came together after a few runs through.

After that we were set free again to drive back home through some folk’s panic to get to a football match between Glasgow Rangers and Celtic.

Back home, a chicken and potato omelette brought me back to normal after the drive and the dancing. I went out for a walk and wandered around St Mo’s for a while. That’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s some Speedwell flowers. Not as good as the photos Jamie sent of his Bee Orchids growing in the garden.

Today’s prompt was Towel Day (Hitch hiker’s guide to the Galaxy) or a Walnut. I’ve drawn a towel before for the Douglas Adams tribute, but this year I opted for a Walnut instead. I don’t think Douglas would have minded. Complicated things walnuts, the fruit reminded me of a human brain with all its whorls and symmetries.

Scamp is looking through photos on her new laptop that seems to be going well. I might have a wee dram before I go to bed. It’s been a tiring day.

Definitely no plans for tomorrow.

Raining again – 23 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Just light rain early in the morning, but it got heavier later in the day. I think it’s time for the clouds to turn the tap off now.

We had another discussion this morning and decided to order the laptop from John Lewis.

  • Same price as everywhere else
  • They had them in stock (not display models)
  • They do next day delivery
  • Two years warranty

No brainer.

I drove over to Tesco to get some missing elements for tonight’s dinner which was Lemon & Turmeric Chicken. It was the second one this week to turn out ‘ok’, just ok. It might have been tough chicken thighs or maybe it needed to be cooked for longer. Neither of us was all that impressed. HOWEVER! The Rhubarb & Custard Pie that Scamp made was excellent, I thought. Scamp wasn’t all that complimentary about it. It’s a bit of a faff to make, but I’d say it was worth the effort. Plenty left for tomorrow.

While I was in Tesco I bumped into Fred and we had a blether for about 20 mins with topics covering: Chemists, Surgeries and Painting we also discussed Rishi Sunak standing in pouring rain, with no shelter or umbrella, announcing that the General Election will take place on the 4th of July. Why?

When I got back and after lunch Scamp had started making the aforementioned Rhubarb & Custard Pie and I went for a walk in St Mo’s just as the rain started, but unlike Rainman, I had a raincoat on. One decent photo of a field of buttercups. That became PoD.

Today’s prompt was for a Gift Loop or a Gift Bow. Since I had no idea what a Gift Loop was, I chose a bow instead. It eventually morphed into a red bow on a green box which probably held a gift or maybe it would be a Jack in the Box. That would probably have been funnier, but it’s done and dusted now and cannot be changed. My drawing – My rules. The judge’s decision is final.

Hopefully if DPD are as efficient as they usually are, they should deliver a big box tomorrow. Not too early I hope, but not too late either.

Today the rains came – 22 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

One of those days when you knew the weather had indeed turned for the worse.

Well, I guess the plants don’t see it that way, They are desperate for some fresh water even if it’s at the loss of some of the heat they’ve become used to.

<Technospeak>
Scamp had been complaining for a while that her watch wasn’t synchronising with her phone. We tried a few of the tricks resetting the phone and the watch we even did a soft reset of the watch. Nothing seemed to work. Eventually we did a factory reset of the watch and installed a new update that seemed to clear everything. It only took about three hours to work out the best way forward, with a stop for lunch in the middle. However, we did get it going in the end, but sometimes you just have to rely on your instinct rather than the wahoos who claim to be gurus.
</Technospeak> (Not seen that warning in a long time Jamie)

The next thing to do was investigate the situation with a new laptop for Scamp. Her storage is being eaten away and the battery is failing, so a new machine is on the cards. We thought we’d found an ideal solution in the HP Shop. But then we checked them on Trustpilot and it looks like they are going through a rough patch. Lots of complaints of punters paying for goods that just don’t appear. HP claim a delivery within 2 working days, but 2 weeks seems to be the norm. After another look round the stores, we decided that the HP store are a bit too risky

We’d had some spits and spots of rain during the day, but then the rain got heavier and heavier. I stood at the back door to shelter and took today’s PoD of wet roses in the rain. The title was “Raindrops on Roses. No Whiskers on Kittens.”

Not long after that the distant rumble of thunder came from the east and it rolled along the valley heading west. I didn’t actually see any lightning, but there was plenty of thunder.

When the rain finally abated, I drove down to Tesco to get a bag full of veg to make a stir-fry for dinner. Usually I buy an M&S set of protein, veg, noodles and stir-fry sauce, but today everything was either from the store cupboard or bought fresh or as fresh as Tesco veg is. It wasn’t the best stir-fry, but bits of it were good. Good enough to try again another day.

Today’s prompt was A Staircase.
My sketch was Just an attempt at a sort of perspective view of a dangerous looking open plan staircase. No handrail! No balustrade! No soft fluffy cushions to break your fall. It was a Health & Safety nightmare. Should have a warning “Do not ascend after drinking alcohol.” Parachutes an optional extra.

No dance class tonight.  We’re not sure why. Maybe too many people called off because of the weather. Maybe something came up and Kirsty wasn’t able to run the class. I’m sure we’ll find out in due course.

Tomorrow, perhaps the search for the world’s best laptop will continue.

 

Change of plan – 21 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We’d planned to go somewhere today on the train, but it looked like the weather was changing and there was just the chance of rain.

Scamp was the one who suggested we should take the train down to Largs on the west coast and from there we could catch the ferry to Millport, a town on the island of Great Cumbrae which is in the Clyde Estuary. However, looking out the window this morning it looked like we wouldn’t see much sun today, so we changed our plans.

Instead, we decided to go out looking for a particular plant trough to replace one Scamp wants to put into summer storage. It has held daffodil bulbs for the last six months. The flowers have now gone over and the plants need to be allowed to rest and rebuild their strength for next year. So we need a new trough to fill their space in the front garden. We drove to Klondyke Garden Centre, expecting to find one there, but they didn’t seem to stock that style. They did, however have hundreds, perhaps thousands of new plants, and we couldn’t leave without buying a few. We had a coffee first and a cake each to give us thinking time in the slowest cafe I’ve ever been in. The cakes were good, though!

Scamp eventually settled on a box of Violas and another of Lobelia, plus I got a pot of Marguerites, what my mum called Big Daisies. Marguerites always remind me of her. We drove home, but stopped at Calder’s Garden Centre, still looking for that trough. They had one that was almost a match, but was really too big to fit in the space. I suggested we try Home Bargains where we’d tried last week and were unsuccessful. Hopefully they would have restocked their shelves and have the troughs. Our luck was in. They had one left. It left with us. Scamp had also bought a pair of sandals in Klondyke and they went into the trough along with the plants which made it much easier to carry them into the house … just as the rain started. The temperature had been dropping when we reached Klondyke, and the clouds were massing, but now it was looking like we’d made the right decision, leaving Millport for another day.

I hadn’t taken a single photo all day, so I grabbed the A7 and took a few of daisies, ordinary daisies in the back garden. One of them made PoD. Just as well, because the rain continued all evening.

Dinner tonight was Pea and Lemon Risotto. An interesting mixture which Scamp made. We both liked it, but commented that there wasn’t enough to make a main meal. We’ll alter the quantities and try again some time because the flavour was good.

Today’s prompt asked for A Bicycle. This is my Kona Dewdrop. It was a great bike in its day, but now, like me it is retired. It doesn’t get out much, mainly because I don’t like riding it on the busy road around where I live and I don’t have a bike carrier for my car. I really should make the effort and take it off-road some day now that the weather is getting warmer. Maybe I will do that this year.

Watched the first Sewing Bee of the year later and both agreed on the person who left.

No plans for tomorrow, but we need to practise the Waltz.