Category: Flowers

Testing out the knee – 9 July 2018

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Went to visit the physio this morning and have made an appointment for Wednesday.

EARLY on Wednesday, 8.15 at the sports centre. That’s well before I usually wake up, so he should get a view of the knee in its most rested state.

Today, however, we did a bit of clearing up upstairs where Sim & Jamie would be staying in a few days time if all goes to plan. I’ve now found the settee which converts into a bed after dumping loads of rubbish and computer stuff (some people say ‘rubbish’ and ‘computer stuff’ are just two descriptions of the same things, but they’re wrong. Rubbish is just that, rubbish. Computer stuff on the other hand has to be sorted through, looked at, checked to make sure there’s not a possibility it might be used some day and then put in the bin, only to be retrieved later on the grounds that somebody might use it someday.
I also found the top of the chest of drawers hidden under similar rubbish and fewer pieces of computer stuff. The upshot is that the place looks tidier, but it will take me ages to find anything again. I even found a tape cassette with the logo T’pau! However, thankfully I’d taped over it with The Wall. That was a near thing!

Went out after lunch ‘to get some photos’. The best one I got, which was also the first was of a trio of Gaillardia Sunrita sitting on the front doorstep. That became PoD. A close second was a shot of a robin sitting on a rose stem on the banks of the Luggie Water.  Like the bloke I was speaking to said, it was “another beautiful day”.

Went to salsa tonight and managed to catch up with most of the gossip. It appears that Irene is now a fully fledged teacher and has her own level 2 class. She did quite well tonight. I danced in that class as a helper, but all the turns she was doing were wearing away at my knee, so I was glad when the end of the class came. Jamie’s advanced class was a different challenge and I had to sit out half an hour of it because I wanted to test out the knee, but not totally destroy the ligaments that David, the physio, thinks I’ve irritated (his word).

So, all in all not a bad day. A bit of a workout for the knee, a return to salsa and a picture of three startling flowers.

Tomorrow a visit to the optician in Larky for Scamp and I and maybe a run down Clydeside for lunch if the weather permits. Sounds like a plan.

On the Rock – 28 June 2018

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Today we were at Gibraltar. That little corner of a foreign land that is forever England. Not Britain, England.

Today was a short stop. We arrived at 8am and after being told for the umpteenth time not to carry anything on board “for the benefit of a stranger” (why use one word when ten would do?) we were ok to go looking for cheap booze and fags. There’s not a lot more to Gibraltar than that.

  • Well, there’s the rock, but once you’ve gone up on it and admired the view, you come back down.
  • There’s the apes, but manky beasts they are and best kept at someone else’s arms length, preferably a stranger’s.
  • There’s the hundreds of electronic and photography shops selling five year old models, slightly cheaper than Amazon and without any warranty.

Other than that, there used to be the Almeda Gardens, but the last time we went there the gardens were in a sorry state and looking the worse for wear. It used to be good fun for me watching the coming and going of the airies at the airport, especially the scary Tornados, but they’re all gone now and it’s just the occasional commercial flight that lands or takes off, so no fun today.

We got off fairly early and walked up the Main Street populated with well known UK high street shops, the aforementioned cheapo photography and computer shops and the rest are tax-free jewellery or tourist places. Scamp got a new piece for her Pandora bracelet in the shape of a dragonfly. How neat is that. She was quite taken by it and so, I must admit was I. That doesn’t mean I’m thinking about getting a Pandora bracelet any time soon.

Stopped at a street side cafe for a slice of apple pie and a coffee. I won’t tell you how much they cost, but it was extortionate. Very nice apple pie though. We bought two cards and posted them and then went back to the ship.

We went for a swim in the inside/outside pool to avoid the Great British Sailaway. One man a few nights ago was trying to get the other people at the table excited about it, telling us that “… then the bunting comes out and we have a right good singsong.” Sorry mate, allergic to bunting and don’t do singsongs. Some of these english are so easy pleased. Give them a flag and some songs their granny sang and they’re happy as a sandboy, whatever a sandboy is.

Dinner tonight was with two of the most boring couples we’ve been with. They seemed frightened to speak to us because we were obviously not english. They droned on all meal about weather, sailing and driving. Driving us away.

Highlights of the day were the flowers in the garden of the court house and the cheap booze and fags.

Recovery – 16 June 2018

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I was exhausted today, it must have been that salsa dance last night.

So tired that I slept until almost 11am. Thankfully Scamp took pity on me and let me sleep on. Woke to the news that the GSA had burned down for the second time in four years. Such a pity after all the work that’s been put into it. Thankfully the new building wasn’t touched, but the old Mac building looks like a shell now. Perhaps that’s the way it should remain.

Didn’t do very much, didn’t even have to bring the car down from where I’d parked it last night. Scamp did the honours and drove down very carefully and parked it for me.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk to St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is of a hover fly on a flowering weed. I just liked the shot. There’s a more arty one on Flickr if you care to visit it. It’s a leaf covered in water droplets from the torrential rain we had this morning.

Dinner was a frugal potatoes, fish fingers and spaghetti. Maybe frugal, but quite delicious. A house speciality.

That’s about it for today. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, but hopefully with a good outcome.

Waiting, waiting, waiting – 15 June 2018

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… for the party to begin. Going to a wedding reception tonight.

There wasn’t much else to do today apart from tidying up and getting organised. It was a much more relaxed day than yesterday. Spoke to Hazy in the morning and admired the views from JIC and Sim’s holiday cottage. That was about it.

Today’s PoD was taken in the garden. My delicate little yellow aquilegia that has withstood Storm Hector and is still smiling.

Finally the time came to get dressed and go to the reception in Bearsden. For once, a suit I’ve not worn for a year was too bit for me. I’ll say that again, TOO BIG. I had a kilt taken in yesterday and now may suit trousers need a belt to hold them up. What is happening to me? Don’t worry, I have the antidote to this strange malaise. I’m sure in a couple of weeks it will all seem like a slim dream and I’ll be back to reality. Just wait and see.

The reception was quite like the one we had for JIC and Sim four years ago. It was a Scottish reception for a friend who got married abroad. Only close family went to the wedding with the friends and in-laws attending the Scottish reception. It was the full rerun of the Italian reception with speeches and a cake. It was a good night. Got my birthday book signed by Jo, the author. As I was driving, and the bar only had Becks Blue on the ’no alcohol’ list, it was the Orange Fizz (Irn Bru) for me. We did do one salsa dance for half of a track at the insistence of Anju. I was being very careful of the ‘bad knee’ and so was Scamp. Still, we can now say we danced at Mhairi’s Wedding!

When we got home I had a bottle of Old Engine Oil to take away the synthetic taste of the Irn Bru and went to bed. So this blog entry is actually written after the event. I’m sure there will be a few sore heads among the Bearsden population on Saturday.

Tomorrow (well, today in reality) we won’t be going far.

Quiche and Cross Body Salsa – 4 June 2018

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The usual Monday but with baking.

I had expressed an interest in making a quiche today and my teacher was Scamp. It’s a long time since I’ve made shortcrust pastry from scratch, so that was the first lesson. With the pastry cooling and firming in the fridge, I took my virtual apron off for an hour or so to prep a few photos of Skye and Rannoch for Facebook. I had to get Scamp’s assistance again to upload them! After that I emailed Jackie whose quiche I was attempting to copy. Got the pastry made. Got the recipe. Good to go.

By then it was Gems time. Time for a hasty exit. I’d loads of stuff to take to the council tip and after that I went for a photo walk along the Luggie. That’s where the PoD came from. It’s a Wood Avens. Not a lot more to encourage me to photograph anything else, but it was warm and the sun was finally getting through.

Back home, I got started rolling the pastry (to the thickness of a pound coin) and fitting it into the baking tin. Pricked it all over with a fork and then blind baked it. Then I removed the ceramic baking beans and returned it to the oven to brown. Next I made up the egg and cream filling, blanched the broccoli and filled the pastry case with Hot Smoked Salmon pieces and the Broccoli then poured in the filling. Baked it and it’s smaller cousin (made in a smaller tin to use up the pastry) in the oven. Wee one was done well before the full size quiche was ready. We split the small one between us before we went to salsa.

Salsa tonight was a bit of a hotchpotch with Jamie and Will off, it fell to Shannon to teach the first advanced class and Alex (new teacher) to teach a free taster class on <spit> Cross Body Salsa which looks like salsa with a lot of fancy hand waving and posturing. It looked like there were going to be too many leaders in the advanced class, so I bowed out, partly because I had a headache and partly because I don’t want to waste my time being taught by these less capable ‘teachers’. Obviously I used a different word rather than ‘less capable’! Alex’s cross body class was also in that category as far as I was concerned. I’m afraid he didn’t win me over with his teaching style or his dance. Not for me.

Back home we shared a half of the big quiche and it too was excellent. Still needs work, but the basic structure is there.

Tomorrow, we have no plans. I may go in to Glasgow to get my hair cut.

Dancin’ and drawin’, that’s a Wednesday – 30 May 2018

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The day started badly, but improved … a bit.

Up early to go to the docs to get my blood taken. Sat for a while and finally went to check. Apparently my appointment which I’d been told was for 9.50 was actually for 8.50. Despite remonstrating with the receptionist, who I must say treated me like a retard, she was adamant that I was wrong. I was equally adamant that I was right. I eventually got another appointment for tomorrow. Came home slightly less incandescent than I left the health centre and wrote this suggestion to them:

Here’s a suggestion:
When a patient makes an appointment over the phone or at reception, send them a confirmation email or text. This will avoid wasted time on both sides and will also give a degree of certainty a scribbled note on a piece of paper (at best) doesn’t. My dentist has been doing it this way for years so why can’t Kenilworth? After all, it’s 2018, not 1918.

I don’t think it will be implemented. After all, what would a ‘retard’ know about automatic email generation? That was the started badly part over.

Drove in to Glasgow under a blue sky and danced up a fair sweat. I thought Michael was nit picking again until I realised that he was picking up on things I was doing wrong without noticing. He took us a bit further along our waltz journey, into the tricky double natural turns. Michael tried to teach us a new line dance based on Charleston which is much more difficult than you’d think when you see it on Strictly! We didn’t get much further with Jive, but we consolidated the first turns. I got as far as Spin 3, Scamp got to Spin 4. By the end I was exhausted.

Scamp bought a new pair of flip-flops (sparkly ones of course!) because she’d scraped her heel and needed a new pair of sparkly flip-flops to take her mind of the excruciating pain! I browsed some bargains in CassArt, but finally decided that I’d better places for my pennies to go.

Came home and went for a walk to St Mo’s, but by the time I got there the good light had gone and it was becoming decidedly dull and overcast. He weather fairies, the rain isn’t supposed to arrive until Friday! It didn’t arrive, but the clouds still held sway in the heavens, so I had to make do with some pretty wee Berberis flowers. They’ll do, and one of them got PoD.

Swift dinner of prawn salad which was really very nice and then Fred picked me up to go to art class where I caused a stooshie by telling the tutor that I thought the videos we’d been watching were a bit faked. It became rather heated for a while, then settled down to the usual sketching. I get a sore back from standing at an easel drawing for two hours, but it is rather therapeutic and enjoyable trying to get a likeness of someone. I got a bit of praise for my planar drawing of the model. Converted his youthful soft face into a series of flat plates. Strange, but there was a real resemblance there.

Tomorrow a repeat of the blood-letting attempt of this morning, hopefully with a better result. Scamp is off to see the new baby in Larky and I’m going for coffee with the auld guys.

Up the Glen – 22 May 2018

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Up fairly early for a Tuesday to speak to a man from Falkirk on the phone.

The man told us that we are doing all right and that’s what we wanted to hear. To celebrate we went out to lunch, but not before we had a word with Hazy and caught up with all the news from London, discussed plans, books and the disappointment of having to wait another few days before getting a new car. Their car, not ours. After the second phone call of the morning, we did go for lunch.

We drove to the cafe at Clachan of Campsie where I had the disappointment of discovering that the cafe no longer listed their Apple, Brie and Honey sandwich. We were told that it was because not enough people liked it. Why not? Have these people no taste? It’s an absolute find, a delight of a sandwich. To her credit, the waitress said she could make me one because she had all the ingredients, but I had already ordered a bacon, brie and cranberry toastie, so that had to do instead. I’ll just have to settle for my own, homemade ABH sandwich.

After lunch we walked up the path to Campsie Glen. I’m sure my dad took us there years ago. I’m also sure that the ‘us’ in question were Mum, Dad and Me, because it was before my brother was made, and I was quite wee. Probably not even ten. I remember getting a collapsible tumbler to go, because my dad said the water was so clear you could drink it. I’ve vague memories of the place, but nowhere we went today relived that memory. Maybe we had to go further up the glen than we managed today. We both had the wrong kind of shoes for the dodgier bits of the path. Maybe next time. Just think, from Larky you’d have to get a bus in to Glasgow that would take about an hour, then get another bus to Clachan of Campsie, another hour at least. What a lot of planning. You don’t realise the things your parents did for you or the sacrifices they made. Not until it’s too late.

Took some photos there of some water running over stones, but the water was so low they didn’t amount to much. Also got some photos of Wood Avens flowers, but they were just out of focus, so didn’t appear in today’s published shots. What did appear was a photo of our red and white aquilegia which became PoD. Scamp thought it was called Strawberry Sundae. I thought it was Strawberries and Cream. After checking the label on the pot, we found its name was Swan Red and White. I prefer either of our names.

That was our day in the countryside, again under blue skies and sun. I’ve been meaning to go to Campsie Glen for years and am glad I did go today. Just a shame it wasn’t as I remember it about sixty years ago. Maybe we just didn’t go far enough. Yes, that’s it, we need to go back.

Tomorrow it’s dancing in the afternoon and portraits at night. Another busy Wednesday.

Dancing by the loch side – 19 May 2018

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Not us, although we’d have liked to have joined them.

It was a late start this morning, later than we’d anticipated. We both overslept so I’d guess we needed the sleep. Finally we decided that it was just stupid to waste such a lovely day and we got everything ready for a run to the country, to the start of the highlands, no less, to Loch Lubnaig. Seats, picnic basket with picnic, tripod, camera bag, paints (just in case). Off we went hoping that the Royal Wedding would keep the ladies glued to the TV and that the Scottish Cup Final would do the same form the gentlemen. We were right. Apart from a slight hiccup at Blair Drummond Safari park where the weans were being taken to see the monkeys (or vice versa) there were no traffic jams, not even in blue rinse Callander where it’s usually chock-a-block on any other Saturday. We drove on to the big car park on the loch side and got a place right away. Fantastic.

Walked down to the shore and felt a cool, nearly cold breeze. But what took our breath away was a group of four folk dancing a mini rueda in the water. Even better, we recognised the moves involved. It’s one of Jamie Gal’s favourite ways to terrify the advanced dancers. It looks so simple until you try it, then you know why it’s only for the advanced group. After that the group set up a full rueda and danced for a couple of tracks. It took all our willpower not to get up and join them. After their two ruedas and a group photo, they packed up, jumped in their minibus and left. It’s been suggested that they were from an Embra salsa group, but I’m not sure that’s right. The caller was definitely foreign, possible Spanish, possibly Cuban and there were other languages there too, none of them Embra accents.

With the entertainment gone, we sat down to lunch in the lee of the car. Still sitting in the sun, but avoiding the wind. Scamp had her factor 30 on just in case. After that, she sat and read for a while and I went for a walk to get some photos. The best one was taken with my iPhone on the shore of the loch and it became PoD. Just a wee dandelion flower washed up on the loch side.

When we were driving home, just after 2.30 the afternoon traffic was building up, so my guess is that as the wedding was now past, but the cup final was still to be played, it was the women who were out driving while the men stayed in to see twenty two other men kicking a ball around a piece of grass while thousands stood and watched.

By the time we got home the hazy clouds were solidifying and blotting out a lot more of the sun than they had when we were on the loch side. I think we can agree that we had the best of the day, despite a late start.

I spent the remainder of the day beating some flour, water and salt into what may or may not be a sourdough loaf tomorrow. It’s resting now in its basket to fluff up enough to bake tomorrow. I think Scamp wants to go to Glasgow tomorrow. Me? I’m not bothered, I had a grand day today.

The Constant Gardener – 17 May 2018

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Today I had the car booked in at Halfords to get the dash cam wired in properly.

We were told that it might take up to 2 hours to do the job, but after having a quick look, the bloke said it would only take 15 minutes. He was correct. With the work done and paid for we drove to Torwood Garden Centre for Scamp to buy some (more) plants for the garden. We ended up with quite a car full, but she has it all planned out. She knows where they are all going, and I believe her. I got some leafy broccoli looking plants whose name escapes me at the moment and we also got a bay tree to replace the one we lost to the winter snows. All the rest were flowers. I’m sure they’ll all look beautiful.

Went out for a walk and left Scamp to her digging, potting and pottering. Got a good shot of Mr Grey and another of a young deer just losing its winter coat, but PoD goes to the Orange Tip butterfly that sat patiently for me to focus the new macro lens on. The lens is a prime (non-zoom) and is as sharp as a tack. You can see the butterfly above, but you’ll have to go to Flickr to see the other two.

When I came back there was just enough time for a glass of wine in the sun in the garden before dinner. Dinner tonight was Neil’s Chicken and Wild Rice Salad. It’s a firm favourite in the summer and went down especially well tonight.

Tomorrow Scamp and the Witches are off on the town, although which town isn’t totally settled yet. Me? I’m off the leash for a day, so I think I may go and take photos. Now there’s a surprise!

Going Home – 13 May 2018

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Today the fun was over for a while and we were going home.

A laze about morning then we went to a garden centre for lunch. Saw some interesting plants for the garden, but because we were flying home, there was no opportunity to bring any of them north to visit our garden. Maybe that is a godsend with the number of planters and pots we have there now. Wandered round the shop with the usual amount of tat and junk. I bought some pea seeds to plant in addition to the ones we already have.

It doesn’t matter what you try to fill your hours with on ‘leaving day’, there’s only one thing on your mind and that’s going home. The drag of going through security and waiting for your gate to show then finding that gate, which is usually the furthest away one. Better to get started and just go. That’s what we did.

Really busy place Stanstead. Couldn’t believe the queue to drop folk off, but soon we were through security and sitting breathing in the muggy reconditioned air in the departure ‘lounge’. Then there was the hour in a metal tube in the sky before landing in a really sunny and warm Glasgow. I don’t say that very often, do I? Bus in to Glasgow, then train to Croy while being serenaded with rebel songs by a seriously guttered Sellic supporter whose wife and son tried to disown him. Thankfully he was travelling on to Stirling, although Croy would have been more fitting surely. Just going to phone for a taxi when the ‘wee bus’ appeared and we used our pensioner’s tickets again to get to Craiglinn and then walked home.

It was a lovely stay. I think we both really enjoyed it. Thank you again JIC, Sim and the new, improved Vixen. Great, relaxing few days. Too few, but sometimes it’s better leaving wanting more.

Back to auld claes and purrich tomorrow.