Flowers – Page 83 – My Photo Blog

A wild night – 26 December 2016

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Zogman

Howling wind and rain battering against the window all night it seemed. Wildly high temperature too. Almost too hot to sleep. There really is something wrong with the weather this year. I’m not a firm believer in Climate Change, but I’m willing to admit that this just is not the weather we are used to having in Scotland in December. Whether it’s El Niño or the Jet Stream or melting polar ice caps, I don’t know. I taught Woodwork and Graphics, not Geography, but I know when something isn’t working properly. Maybe Theresa May will fix it. There’s as much chance of that as there is of her arguing a profitable exit from the EU, but that’s enough of politics.

The wild winds and heavy rain persisted through the morning, but by afternoon the dry spells were outlasting the wet ones and the temperature was returning to the seasonal normal, so I got my boots on and headed for St Mo’s to get some photos … and some exercise. Much needed exercise. I had to shelter for a while under a tree form some heavy rain, but I didn’t mind that because I could see that it was only a shower and there was blue sky behind it.

Other than the swans and some ducks, I saw no other wildlife, and very few of the human variety. I could hear a motorbike engine coming from the old BMX track, so I presume some wean got a mini scrambler bike for Xmas.

Most of todays photos were taken with the old 105mm macro lens on the Nikon. I forgot to grab my Oly M5 and stick it in my pocket which meant no real landscape shots, but I did like the B&W shot of the runner, just visible bottom right of the frame. Much better on Flickr. Speaking of pocket, I DID put one of my Chrissy Prezzies in my pocket. Scamp got me a pair of Thinsulate gloves and I’d forgotten just how windproof they are. Great things to stick in your pocket.

Just like I intended, Scamp suggested pasta for dinner, so it was tomato and bacon pasta. Nicely low cal. I did have some of the killer pudding from yesterday, but only a couple of spoonfuls and even they were mainly the biscuit and sherry mix with some fruit.

The wind has dropped considerably tonight and it looks like a fairly decent day tomorrow. If we manage it, we’ll be up and out early and somewhere nice for a walk. That would be good, and would probably do us the world of good.

A more relaxing day – 27 November 2016

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Zogman

After the biz of yesterday, today was relaxing. We started off by clearing up yesterday’s washing up and frittered away the remainder of the day.

We watched another boring GP that was spiced up with calculated skill in the last few minutes, but really it was as if the whole thing was manufactured to retain the viewer for the whole two hours it took to conclude and for one poor little rich boy to achieve stardom. Well, if that’s what makes him happy …

It was a dull day with outbreaks of wintry sun, but I wasn’t past the door. Hopefully I’ll get out and about tomorrow, because Mondays are frantic.

Cold and Frosty – 21 November 2016

Posted on November 21, 2016November 21, 2016 by Zogman

21-nov2

Yes, in the morning it was cold and frosty and it stayed that way for most of the day too. Poor wee violas in the hanging basket at the back door. They rarely see the sun in these winter days and today they looked wilted. When they finally thawed out about 4pm, the sprung back to life as if it had never happened.

Today being Scamp’s ‘Gems’ group’s singing practise, I packed my bags and headed for the leisure centre where I intended to have a swim and a nice 30 mins or so in the sauna and the steam room. That’s 30 minutes total, not 30 in each! However, it was their turn for ‘essential maintenance’. So far we’ve had the air-con in the changing room refurbished and the gym equipment replaced. Last week it was the jacuzzi that was essentially being maintained and today it was the hot rooms time for an overhaul. Next week the pool? Who knows. It always worries me when an establishment like this gets a complete facelift. Usually it presages a change of ownership. I hope I’m wrong, but I just have that feeling …

After the curtailed swim, I left and headed for Fannyside Moor, just on the outskirts of Cumbersheugh to get a PoD. Actually I had one in the bag from earlier in the day when the bluetits found the bird feeder had been refilled, but another one or two wouldn’t go amiss. I was armed with the old Sony F707 and the Furry Monkey. Hoping his magic paws would do the needful with the IR filter again. Well, he worked his magic, but there just wasn’t enough direct sunlight to give the necessary IR, so I resorted to a couple of landscapes taken with normal light instead, the best of which is above.

Salsa tonight was the usual mayhem with Jamie Gal forgetting his moves which “… worked perfectly earlier in the day in my office!” Then trying to make up a name for them, before attempting to translate the name into Spanish. Great fun!

Kizomba? Hmm, not a lot of fun and I sense a rant starting.
This was the last lesson of the block and I would have thought that Kay, the teacher, would have been pushing hard to keep us interested. Instead she just tread water for almost all the class time. Because her teaching assistant was absent, she had one of the class members run the guys through a ‘warm-up’ reprise of the last seven weeks’ moves while she did the same with the girls. The ‘warm-up’ lasted for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of an hour long class. Then she introduced a new ‘helper’ who either didn’t speak English or didn’t want to be there, because he hardly uttered a word all night. You could tell the class weren’t too happy when she applauded us all after our first dance and nobody in the class responded. I nearly left there and then when she attempted to introduce ‘Musicology’ as a topic. I wasted two hours of my life with the dreadful Samira attempting to make this into a science instead of something that everyone can do naturally. If you can’t understand the beat of the music, this time wasting exercise wasn’t going to help you IMO.
Scamp wants to go back for a second block of Kizomba, but I’m not so sure. This is the second week we’ve been without a teacher for the guys. I like the dance, but if there is no teacher for us, then I’m not getting value for my money and that’s not a good thing. I’m suggesting we pay the class on a week by week basis to see what transpires and if it doesn’t improve, I’m not going to continue with it.

Temperature is rising and even as I write this at 11pm it’s warmer than it’s been all day.

Dentist tomorrow 🙁

Mojitos & Earwigging – 9 November 2016

Posted on November 9, 2016November 11, 2016 by Zogman

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 October 29, 2016October 30, 2016 by Zogman

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 🙂

Today 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 October 22, 2016October 22, 2016 by Zogman

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.

I 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 October 16, 2016 by Zogman

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.

Tonight’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 October 11, 2016October 11, 2016 by Zogman

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 lying 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 October 5, 2016October 6, 2016 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.

I 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 September 29, 2016 by Zogman

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.