Category: Flowers

What a grey day – 7 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

One of those days that stared out grey and got even more grey as the day progressed.

Out fairly early to deliver a birthday card and prezzy to Shona. Stayed for a while to talk and be entertained by Ben.

After that we came home we made the curry for dinner, well actually we chopped up the veg, skinned the chicken leg, put them into the slow cooker with the curry paste and a tin of tomatoes and switched it on. Then we had lunch. To be honest, there was more work in cooking the lunch than in making the curry. Both as it happened turned out perfectly.

I installed Lightroom 5 which I legally own in Scamp’s computer to replace the despicable app that Mickysoft expect you to use to manage your photos. Now I don’t like Adobe’s pricing policy, but they do know how to make an excellent photo management app.

Before we knew it, it was 5pm and we were going out at 6pm to dance the night away (or part of the night away anyway) at The Record Factory in Byres Road. Got there and the place was jumping. Loads of people we hadn’t seen in years. I danced with a few girls apart from Scamp, but she danced with half of Academia de Salsa, I think, or maybe that was a slight exaggeration. Got a chance to practise one or two of the more recent moves as well as a few old ones and one completely made up one that we both liked, but which I cannot now remember!

Came home and ate a lovely curry. The changes we’d made since Friday worked.

Today’s PoD was a last minute shot of a Gerbera in Scamp’s cut flowers.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go out for lunch to the Battlefield Rest.

Gardening – 5 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

It’s that time of year again when we buy plants that die a few weeks later in a late frost. Next month we buy the plants that will grow.

Hopefully that won’t be the case now that we can put them in the wee poly greenhouse to harden off.

We’ve got a new garden centre in the town. It used to be Dobbies, then Dobbies was taken over by the mighty Tesco and that started a downward trend. They still traded under the Dobbies name, but only the larger outlets flourished, if you excuse the pun. The little centres were just left to rot. That was certainly the case for Cumbersheugh Dobbies. It got so bad that it was better to buy your plants in B&Q or Homebase. Nothing looked as if it was being cared for, neither the plants nor the buildings. Eventually I stopped going and by the look of the car park, so did most people. Now it’s been taken off Tesco’s hands by Calders, who started up in Kirkintilloch and have made a good go of things so far. I visited the new Calders yesterday to get the Rhubarb and the Calabrese. Today we went back to get compost and also picked up a little golden leafed plant who’s name escapes me at the moment. It’s a little bit of winter colour. We were both impressed with the change, and the car park was full, but it’s early days yet.

Did a bit of digging for Scamp’s new regime in the garden. Simple stuff like spreading old compost over some of the beds and getting tubs ready for new arrivals. Some pruning noted as needing done. If we get a few warm, dry days next week we’ll get some more things done.

Scamp fancied a recipe for Chicken Curry that used the slow cooker to do the hard work and I’m all for that. It tasted really good, but we both agreed that there was too much liquid in the sauce, so we’re intending to have another go on Sunday. I like the idea that you stick everything in the slow cooker and leave it to get on with it for four hours.

PoD is a set of camper van planters seen at the aforementioned garden centre.  Very tempting, but nowhere to show them off.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow on the bus.

Dancing Day – 3 April 2019

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This is what happens after two weeks off.

Out after a quick lunch and drove into Glasgow for today’s dance class. Jive was a disaster. We could remember the seven spins, but everything else had been deleted from our brains and then the bin had been emptied. Spent an embarrassing half an hour trying desperately to remember at least one move we’d learned two weeks ago. Finally got half the Time Step correct, but then got lost in the second half. Practise is definitely required. Waltz wasn’t too bad, but it was the finer points I was missing and I knew Michael was right when he started pulling me up on them. Quickstep was no better, although I think I can see now what’s going wrong with the ‘fish tails’. Again, more practise is required. All the foregoing are my mistakes, Scamp was almost faultless throughout the class.

Walked back and drove home. No coffee today, I didn’t deserve it. Got a couple of shots in the Toon, but nothing that so far merits a PoD. May try St Mo’s before the light goes completely. Aching a bit with all the twisting and turning in the ballroom class. That’s the strange thing about dancing. The leader (man) in salsa doesn’t really move much. All his work is done with arms and hands. Ballroom, which looks fairly smooth, has a lot of twisting and turning and moving the core. It’s like a swan, it looks effortless, but beneath the surface the legs are flailing around!

Finally decided to go out in the cold wind and spitting rain in the garden to get some record shots of the Forsythia bush before the flowers all fall. Then I took some shots of the tiny wee daffodils Scamp brought back from Skye and finally I got a few shots of raindrops on some normal sized daffodil leaves. The daffodils won PoD.

Drove in to Glasgow again tonight and danced with the 6.30 class and then with the new beginners class who had suffered at the hands of Shannon last week, but were now into the mad maelstrom of Jamie’s class. Most of them seemed to have a good time and hopefully they will be back next week.

That about wraps it up for this Wednesday when there was snow down south and snow up north, but thankfully none in the middle where we live. Long may that continue.

Tomorrow Scamp has a Gems gig in Abronhill, but no roadie or taxi driver is required, so I may go out tomorrow if I can borrow a coat to wear. Lyrics from an old song.

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

Posted on by Zogman

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.