Category: Flowers

Mojitos & Earwigging – 9 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

9-nov

This being our last full day in Lanzarote 2016, we took our time and made the most of it, but took it easy too.

We sat by the pool for a while after breakfast because it was very warm, possibly the warmest of the days, but a cooling breeze kept the temperature within a reasonable range.  We stayed there until after lunch when we walked along in the direction of the airport, with the task of finding a coloured strap for Scamp’s case to make it easier to find on the carousel at Glasgow … when the moving belt eventually squeaks into life.  After selecting a suitable strap we settled in a bar with two mojitos.  Real ones, not the pre-made, out-of-a-bottle ones they ply the unwary with at the hotel, topped up with a teaspoon of their watered down ‘local’ rum.  These weren’t the strongest mojitos we’ve had, but they were very tasty and went down a treat.

While we were there we were earwigging a scam being played out by an old white haired bloke with a beard and his wife behind us.  Scamp was shocked at the length of the claws his wife had, you couldn’t call them nails, these were full-on talons.  Anyway the old beardy had got wind of the fact that a bloke who owned a bar in Arrecife had a backup battery for his own bar that he didn’t need and wanted rid of.  According to his electrician friend, the bloke in Arrecife didn’t know what it was worth and would be happy to sell it on for a fraction of what it was worth.  OK?  The scene has been set.
So, old beardy bloke and Eagle Claw are plotting their pitch to Mr Arrecife.  They decide that they’ll tell the bloke they are interested in his backup battery to use to keep their two fishtanks running when there is a power outage.  The electrician has already told them that this battery will run all the electrical requirements for a bar; fridge, freezer, air-con, pumps, lighting, the lot for 10 hours, and they’re going to tell the bloke that they want it to power their fish tanks.  It made we wonder just how bit these fish tanks were, or how ingenuous they thought Mr Arrecife was.  Beardy thought they could get the battery for under €400.  The phone call was duly made and either the electrician was playing both sides against one another, or Mr Arrecife wasn’t as stupid as Beardy thought, because a figure of €1500 was being bandied about.  The call ended with Beardy telling Eagle Claw that he could probably beat him down to around the €400.  I hope he’s got a good baseball bat to beat him with, either that or he’ll have to threaten Mr A with Eagle Claw.  We’ll never know the outcome.

We walked back to the hotel and while Scamp went for to grab some more rays, I went for a last walk over the lava rocks.  Now, not all of the wilderness is rocky, there are dried up riverbeds, Arroyos that occasionally carry enough water to allow plants to survive and it was one of those areas that gave me the little green leaves.  Like I found in Fuerteventura there are lots of shells here, embedded in the soft dry clay and the lowering light brought out their textures.  At last, I found myself a dragonfly.  Apart from the unlucky pair laying eggs in a swimming pool, this was the first dragon I’d seen.  It was very delicate and thin, not like the big bruisers we get in Scotland.  However, the light was getting poor and I grabbed a couple of shots and then headed back to the hotel.

It was a Rock Show in the theater and it wasn’t quite dire, but it wasn’t all that good either.  There was a lot of shouting, enthusiastic applause and whistling coming from about four folk at the back of the audience, quite near us.  It was totally unwarranted and I have to admit, I think they were ‘Rent-a-mob’, bought in to encourage some interest in the miming and aping on stage.

That was it, apart from a G&T on the balcony to finish the bottle and the initial packing.  Another holiday draws to a close.

The Ba’s Burst – 29 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

29-oct

I heard that today in the congested and now quite tacky shopping centre in Dunfermline.  While Scamp was off looking for bargains in Debenhams, I was trying to get my iPhone to burst into life with no success and I overheard a snippet of conversation between two blokes.  One asked the other why he was in town today and his pal replied that he’d offered to take his wife for a walk in the country, but ; “If there’s no shops then the ba’s burst.”  I liked that way of saying that there was no point in taking the conversation any further.

Previous to this we had walked through Pittencrieff Park which for once was almost empty of people.  Loads of squirrels though and a few dogs intent on chasing them, but not too many people.  It was very dull and damp and not conducive to a walk in the park, so I don’t really blame the folk for staying in the warm.  We went into the warm of the glasshouse and I got a few flower photos.  Now flooers used to be a sign of failure to get a decent photo, but these flooers were beautiful living blooms and gave the possibility of creating a shot.  I notice a lot of American photogs talk about ‘making’ a photo rather than ‘taking’ a photo.  I think it was Ansel Adams who started using that term many years ago and to be honest, how many times do we simply ‘take’ a shot?  More often than not we ‘make’ or ‘create’ the shot either by post-processing or by posing the subject the way we want them or it to be seen.  These were ‘made’ photos of flowers.

Previous again, we had chosen to bus to Dunfermline today after yesterday’s long drive out west.  It’s a relaxing run across country to the middle east and out into Fife and one I don’t mind doing on the bus, especially as this is a real express with very few stops.  However, the driver had forgotten to switch off his microphone and we were treated to all the squeaks and rumbles from the springs in his seat, at least I hope it was from his seat.  We were also given a chance to hear the bloke behind’s choice of music through his less than effective noise cancelling headphones.  Worst two things about Public Transport are the Public and the Transport.  I know I’ve said that before, but I thought it sounded so good, it was worth repeating 🙂

img_3479-flickrToday is day 29 in Inktober and today’s sketch of Pittencrieff House was done in the open air again.  The house was built by Sir Alexander Clerk of Pittencrieff as a simple laird’s house with two stories and an attic around 1635.
Drawing the windows was a nightmare as no two windows are the same size and no two windows line up with each other.  Only the attic windows share a top line.  Not surprising given the age of the building.

I did get the iPhone started again while we were having a cup of tea each before heading for the bus home.  After holding down the home and power button for about 10 seconds, it grumbled into life.  I still don’t know why it went in the huff.  Maybe “the ba’ was burst”.

My web host apologises for the later arrival of this blog.  Apparently there were issues with the server last night and the admins were looking into it.  It’s a bit like when there’s a hole in the road and the council are looking into it.  They’re looking into it, they’re not doing anything about it, just looking.  Well, I’m looking too.  I’m looking for a new web host.

A day of two halves – 22 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

22-oct

Left home on a bright sunny morning heading for Perth to get essential supplies of tea and coffee.  Scamp was going to a Christmas musical with her aunt.  A Christmas musical in October?  Really, that’s just a wee bit ridiculous.  Yesterday at the Art Galleries I saw my first Christmas tree this year.  Too early, people!

Most of the journey to Perth was fine with great visibility but about ten minutes out of the city the mist came down.  After that the heavens opened up to dump gallons of rain on me.  Well, it felt like it was all just on me, but I suppose others were getting wet too.  It stayed like that for the two hours I stayed in the Fair City.  I’d had enough.  I had my coffee beans, my tea leaves and a piece of cheese as a bonus.  Home was calling.  When I drove back down the road, at exactly the same place where the rain had started, the rain almost stopped.  The rest of the drive was in the dry and when I got home, I got out of the car into sunshine.  I presume the gardens in Perth need the rain.

A roll ’n’ sausage improved my state of mind as it always does.  Went for a walk to St Mo’s with the Nikon to get some photos.  There wasn’t much to see, but lots of little fungi and those big ones too.  The flowers in the wildflower garden are a joy to behold.  Thankfully the gardeners haven’t cut them down with their usual unthinking efficiency.  At least, not yet.

Dinner tonight, once Scamp arrived back was courtesy of Golden Bowl.  Chicken Chop Suey and Fried Rice times two.  Delicious as usual.

img_3461-flickr-1I couldn’t settle on a subject for tonight’s Inktober drawing and then I found it, sitting right in front of me.  What better subject on a Saturday night than a bottle of beer? Difficult because of the symmetry of the bottle and also because glass is difficult to render in pen, I find.  I did use a bit of brushwork to even out the glaze, but other than that it was just pen work.  Quite happy with it.

Tomorrow?  Who knows.  Possibly a walk if the rain stays away in Perth and doesn’t travel down south, but other than that I’m open to suggestions.  Hoping to get some sketching done outside.

The Weather Fairies Lied – 16 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

16-oct

They promised us sunshine.  I think they must have had their fingers crossed behind their backs.

It started off dull, but we were expecting that.  We knew it would brighten up around midday.  However, when the wee hand was at 12 and the big hand was also at 12, the weather was much the same.  It stayed that way with the occasional bright spell through the afternoon.  I risked a half hour walk later in the afternoon and got a fairly decent portrait of a swan and a shot of a ‘Black Panther’ salute from a bush before the rain put an end to play.

Drove in to Glasgow in bright sunshine, but the sun was low and distracting.  One of those days where you wish it was dull like in the morning.  It might be boring, but at least there’s nothing to blind you.  Salsa was very energetic and very, very enjoyable.  I think Scamp was wondering what was coming next a few times when I started to string two or even three half moves together in a sequence.  It must be really hard being a follower at times.

img_3449-flickrTonight’s Inktober sketch is of some Lisianthus flowers in a vase on the table.  I keep wanting to call them Lissajous which are a totally different kettle of fish.  As far as I can remember, they were produced on an oscilloscope when we were studying AC current at college, back last century some time.  Google it, that’s the best idea.  Anyway ‘flooers’ as I call them are sometimes a picture of last resort, but these ones were quite a challenge.  Pen was a blue Linc Saffron from the Pound Shop.  Quite high quality rollerball pen, made in India.  It has a tendency to smudge when wet, but dries to a water resisting finish, at least the black does.  I’ve been using them for years now.  If you see them on sale, buy a pack.  A pound well spent.  Paper was my favourite Pink Pig sketching book.

Not sure what to expect from the weather tomorrow, but hopefully it will be better than today.

Clingfilm – 11 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

11-oct-3

A strange title, but hopefully all will become clear – like the clingfilm 😉

Lazy start to the day, but that usually happens on a Tuesday after a busy Monday with two hours of dancing and an hour of driving, then preparing the photos, posting them and then blog writing.  I’m not moaning about, just explaining why we almost broke our self imposed rule of Up By Ten.  The light seemed to be improving in the morning and I grabbed a few shots of the Gazanias in the hanging basket with their covering of raindrops from the showers during the night.

What to do with the rest of the day?  We couldn’t decide where to go, because we had decided we’d go out.  Dinner was sorted and we needed nothing extra for that.  It was finally settled when Scamp said we didn’t have any cling film and that called for a visit to Lakeland.  Scamp also wanted to get some flowers to plant in my raised bed for some winter colour.  We could achieve both aims with a visit to Lakeland and Dobbies just outside Stirling.  What exciting lives we lead when our day revolves around Clingfilm and Pansies!

We came back from Stirling over the Tak ma Doon road.  Usually it’s a scenic road with plenty of opportunities for big-sky landscapes.  Today heavy clouds had rolled in and everywhere was dull.  Oh well, I still had the pics of the Gazanias to fall back on.  Just to make sure, I went out to bother the wildlife in St Mo’s when we got back.  Just missed Mr Grey, but he saw me and was off like as shot.  More snails up trees.  It seems that they favour Ash trees.  Disturbed a couple of deer and this time I got a shot I liked. One young doe ran when she saw me, then turned and watched to make sure I wasn’t following, giving me the chance I needed to take the shot.  I don’t know what kind of fly was on the tree in the other shot.  It looked a bit like a mosquito, but on closer examination, the head looks more like a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly).  Don’t know.

Today’s Inktober (Number 11) is of Monday’s Daily Sudoku which was completed yesterday (Monday) and was img_3436-flickrlying on the coffee table in front of me, so, like the hand yesterday, it wasn’t going to go anywhere.  Fred P can do quick portraits or caricatures of people sitting near him in Costa and they always look like the subject.  I just can’t draw fast enough to grab a likeness.  It’s all about confidence I think.  Anyway, I’m happy enough with today’s quick sketch.  Made some more fruit scones tonight.  I did think of sketching one of them, but they move off the plate too quickly.

Don’t know what’s happening tomorrow because we’ve got clingfilm now, so possibly no need to go out.  Jamie G our Salsa teacher is off on business tomorrow, and we don’t know who will be taking the class.  It’s not worth driving for an hour through Glasgow’s Wednesday evening traffic only to find it’s a, how shall I put this, less entertaining teacher.  Maybe we’ll stay in and watch a film instead!

Autumn – 5 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Earlier in the week there was mist in the morning and today I noticed that the leaves were turning, but I stuck to my pledge not to photograph the sugar colours and I stuck to my self imposed ban. As you can see, it was flowers that took the brunt of my photography today. It was a nice bright day with good directional light in the afternoon.

Those photos accounted for an hour in the late afternoon the rest of the time was spent farting about on computers. There’s probably a perfectly good verb for wasting your precious time trying to get the electronics inside the CPU and its various siblings to to do your bidding, but ‘farting about’ is an adequate substitute in my opinion. The less said about the detail, the better.

<Rant1>
Drove through horrendous traffic in to Glasgow tonight to get to the STUC building in reasonable time. Nearly knocked a bloke off his bike.

  • Doesn’t he realise that I own the road?
  • Doesn’t he know that I’ve got right of way simply because I could knock him down and kill him with my tonne of pretty coloured steel?
  • Doesn’t he know that the person on the roundabout has right-of-way?
  • Does he want to have “But I’m a cyclist, give me room” chiseled on his tombstone?
    </Rant1>

 

<Rant2>

After losing my temper with the world, the cyclist and Scamp we made it in to the STUC building for salsa class in time, only to find almost the whole building was taken over by an LGBTI group. What the hell does the ‘I’ mean? Isnae sure? It looks like it’s like Countdown:
Consonant, consonant, consonant, consonant, oh, better have a vowel. Rearrange them into a well known phrase or saying. Failing that, decide on a use for the acronym.

</Rant2>

Now mentally knackered after navigating through the traffic and physically knackered after two hours of salsa I’m writing the blog at 11.15pm because the person who runs the salsa class decided undemocratically to make all the classes start half an hour later. Some people are great at business, but are just not people-people, if that makes sense. After you ask folk if a change is ok with them and they tell you that “No, it isn’t”, then that’s the time to have a rethink, not just carry on regardless. That was probably rant 3.

img_3426-flickrI did manage to get a quick sketch done for Inktober 2016. It was a bit of a crash at the last minute, but it was completed. A partly blind drawing, that is you don’t look at the paper when you’re drawing, you just concentrate on the subject. I did correct myself once or twice, but for the most part it was blind drawing. It probably looks like that, but Inktober is not about skill and ability, it’s about putting pen to paper, daily.

Looking for a relaxing day tomorrow. May let the train take the strain. Hoping for even more late sunshine.

Almost a wasted day, but not quite – 29 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

e9291754-blog

I got a phone call just after 8.00 this morning to say that the ‘engineer’ would be visiting between 11am and 1pm to assess the situation with the aerial and provide a quote.  I must admit that I lost a bit of confidence when he then asked “What exactly is wrong?”

11am came and went.  Two hours later, 1pm went too.  I gave him a generous 45minutes before heading out.  I wasn’t intending wasting another day in the house.  I drove to Falkirk in torrential rain followed by blinding sun followed by torrential rain.  Just on the outskirts of the town my phone rang and when I picked it up on Hands-Free ( a great boon ), it was the engineer.  “Is your door dark red?” I told him it was, but he was late.  He asked what time it was and when I told him it was almost 2.15, he said “Oh, I must be running late.”  An understatement from the man without a watch!  He then told me that his estimate was £75 plus VAT.  If it took him two days to get to me and then arrived over an hour late, with an overpriced ‘estimate’, there was no way he was going to do a decent job, so I thanked him for his price, but no.  He seemed surprised!

The pop-up gallery I went to was a mixture of the beautiful, the pretentious and the downright gruesome.  Luckily the beautiful was really beautiful, the pretentious was almost funny and the gruesome was instantly forgettable.  For a gallery of amateur work this was very good.  The watercolours were very well finished and framed, but the winners by far were the pastels.  Something I’ve never been happy with.  Maybe something to try in the future, but it will be a long time before I can achieve this level of work.

For once I drove (fuming after my phone call to the ‘engineer’) through Falkirk without the usual murderous traffic.  It was almost a pleasant experience.

Today’s picture is of two roses.  Lady Emma Hamilton and Alec’s red.  Two of Scamp’s favourites, both with heady perfumes.

Tomorrow I’m going to forget about aerials and ‘engineers’ and enjoy a ‘Day in the Toon’ with Scamp DV.

Flooers again – 18 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

18-septThere’s not a lot I can say about today. It started off sunny then clouded over before raining in the afternoon which was a bit of a downer.

We went to the Sunday Social which was energising as usual.

Dinner was a re-heated curry and it was very good.

We watched a ‘really exciting’ Singapore GP.

Some days are like that. You can’t always have sunshine and great photo opportunities.

Coffee with Val and Fred tomorrow. The world needs fixing again and we’re the boys to do it.

Pins & Needles – 7 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

7 aug2We had already been warned by the BBC that today we would have abnormally, unseasonably high winds. They arrived during the night and stayed most of the day. Apparently we are to have more of the same tomorrow. This was not going to be a cycling day. The high point for me today was going to the physio.

I arrived early and got the paperwork done while he was attending to another patient. Then it was time for my assessment. After he’d poked and prodded and moved my arms in all the different directions they could and couldn’t go, he told me that I’d injured the muscles surrounding my shoulder joint and that it was not as serious as I’d thought. All it needed was a bit of gentle pushing in the right direction. He also suggested that he could use acupuncture to stimulate some regeneration in the muscle tissue. He certainly did a fair bit of manipulation and I could feel the effects of it. Then he took three needles and poked them in. I felt the muscle spasm after the first one, but nothing from the next two. Once he was satisfied with the position of the needles he left me to relax for about half an hour. I had had acupuncture before and knew that it worked. This time it took away a lot of the ache he had put into the muscles and I felt quite relaxed when he came back. After he removed the needles he did some more manipulation and then showed me a few exercises to do between now and my next appointment on Friday. Overall, I felt quite a bit of benefit from the work he had done and will have a go at trying the exercises before Friday.

Scamp was also feeling fitter from her shoulder injury (two old crocks!) and was keen to go to the Sunday Social in Glasgow. It had been a long time since we’d tried to dance on a Sunday and this was to be a test to see how much we could do. Some of the moves were more successful for me and some were more successful for Scamp. Between us we covered most of our repertoire of favourite and not so favourite moves. Enough to say that we could quite happily dance as well as most of them.

Driving home was a bit hairy at times with very strong winds and heavy rain.  As usual, the new section of the M80 did a less than exemplary job of draining away the surface water.  Why don’t the road designers take these things into account when designing motorways in a country where heavy rain is a fact of life, not an occasional hazard.

Two quick shots today taken with the macro lens on the Nikon. I’d seen the water beads on the Gazania when we came home and of course, you can always rely on one of the pink roses to look good in the rain. Hoping for some dry weather tomorrow and a bit less wind. Hoping, too, to get to the gym to begin the process of getting in shape again with some treadmill, some bike work and a swim.  We’re both banned from the weight machines for now. Holiday is over, there’s work needing done.

Rain – 3 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

DSC_6063- flickr--216It rained today. After that it rained again. Later on it rained. There was no point in waiting for it to go off. It was on for the day.

What I did do was finish off the painting I was doing.  I’ll try to remember to photograph it for tomorrows blog.  All I did today was add a couple of bits of dark shade to the farm buildings and then some darker areas to the windows.  The trick with painting is knowing when to stop.  I stopped early.  Next painting is going to be an acrylic of maybe oils.  It’s too easy to get locked into adding too much detail in a watercolour.  This isn’t colouring in, it’s creating an impression of the scene.  I don’t really like the ultra-realist styles.  I admire the skill in them, but I don’t like the paintings as such.  Photographs can do the exact same thing with much less effort and of course much less skill.  Yes, acrylic or oils next, on a big canvas.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day for weather, but I wouldn’t bank on it. The poor gazania at the back door doesn’t understand this Scottish weather. I’m not sure I do either.