There’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.
We 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.
It 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.
Went for a walk along the railway before dinner tonight and noticed that my plan to re-seed the banks of the burn with Himalayan Balsam last year had been successful. The Himalayan Balsam was everywhere, as was the cowparsley and meadowsweet. I so like the cowparsley. It’s always a great place for insects, like the great big helicopter landing pad of the insect world. Today I chased hoverflies of various stripes, and even some without stripes! Thankfully I managed to catch one of them, even if it was from the rear. However, it was the snails that were really the stars of the cowparsley. You see, everyone wants in on the act with this versatile plant. I’d plant some in the garden if Scamp would let me (fat chance there).
I don’t think tomorrow is spoken for yet, but Thursday and Friday are booked already. How did I find the time to work, eh?
In the morning we drove to Linlithgow to get some fish at Oyster Oyster. So it was sea bass for dinner tonight and probably herring in oatmeal for lunch tomorrow. No fish fingers for dinner tomorrow though. There’s plenty more fish in the sea and also in the freezer now too.
Yesterday you were subjected to a lengthy story about my problems with computer technology. Today I tackled another lengthy computer technology problem, but before you switch off, I’m just mentioning it for my record, because you will remember that this blog is as much for me as it is for you. With that in mind, all I’m going to say is that making a bootable USB drive is a minefield and I’m going to leave it at that. I may leave the USB drive at that too.
It was another lovely day and, I wasted some of it staying inside when I should have been out walking or cycling. I did get a painting started and it’s beginning to look ok. Maybe better than ok. I’ll know better when I finish it.
I got some more beastie pictures at St Mo’s. I also got some flower shots. I like what the ‘cooncil’ have done with the wild flower area. Maybe they will think about looking after it this time and not allowing it go to thistles and grass like they did with the other areas in the past few years. They’ve also pulled out the plug with an exceptional effort at producing an adventure playground that weans actually want to play in. It looks brilliant NLC. Pity you couldn’t have made a better job of grassing the hilly parts.
Salsa tonight was difficult. Two weeks off and I’d forgotten every move I’ve learned this year. The old moves, I can remember, the new ones are still ‘new’ every week. It’s the Goldfish Syndrome. I really must make a commitment to learning a new move every second week at least.
I was thinking about yesterday’s landscape shot. It was the way the lighting illuminated the textures and the way the highlights and shadows created a three dimensional feel of the hills that I liked. I saw it again tonight as I was driving home from Glasgow. The glancing rays from the setting sun created that 3D feel again. I didn’t have a camera, but I knew it wouldn’t last long enough for me to get off the motorway and grab a shot even if I’d had a camera. It was good enough just to see it.
Painting and cycling are on the agenda for tomorrow with a bit of luck.
The open-heart-surgery wasn’t on me, it was on my blog. Or to be more exact, it was on my website architecture, but more of that later.
Not such a lazy start to the day, by which I mean that I was up and having breakfast just after 9am. That’s early enough for me – on my holidays. After that, Scamp and I went for a walk through the woodland path near the house. Much better paths than back in Cumbersheugh. The managed woodland is wedged between two halves of a golf course and is wild enough to feel as if you are miles from anywhere, but with the knowledge that you are only a mile at most from civilization. I got a few photos, but on the way back, the battery on my ’10 packed in, so I swapped it out with the one in the ‘5 which is much more frugal with its energy. When I got back to the house I found I’d lost the battery cover for the ‘5. It’s the weakest part of the design of this camera and pivots on a flimsy plastic hinge, or doesn’t in this case. I reckoned it was lying on the path somewhere and as it was black and the path was hard packed black dirt among trees, there was little chance of recovering it. It was lost for good. Duct tape would make a reasonable substitute when I got home, until then I need to be careful.
For ages, Hazy has been promising she’d help me organise my website to make it more simple to navigate. Today we sat down and after backing everything up, we set about the open heart operation. Actually, the backing up was the hardest part. Once that was complete, the reorganising was pretty straight forward. Straight forward, that is if you have someone who knows what they are doing sitting right next to you, not on the other end of a phone line, or worse still, someone who had been sitting in their room in California six months ago writing a blog post telling a numpty like me how to do it. So, once again, thank you Hazy for not making a drama out of a crisis. You are a gem, and you know it.
After that scary thing, Scamp and I drove out to Tolworth to get dinner. This was another scary thing. Here I was driving in London, well, in the outskirts of London, but driving with the rest of the lunatics. My God, I thought I was impatient – I am impatient – but I have nothing on these folk that need to be everywhere, like, yesterday! The only thing to do is to join them and be as mental as them. Turn a rubber ear to all horns and turn your blind eye to the gesticulations. Fire a few well chosen Scottish sweary words back at them. They won’t understand the words, but they’ll get the gist. I’d hate to drive through this every day going to and coming back from work. I dare say you get used to it.
So, we reached M&S and got parked too. Almost as soon as the engine had stopped a bloke came over and offered to wash my car for a fiver. If I thought he could have removed the dried seagull crap from the back wing without steel wool, I’d have got him to do it! I saved him the trouble by saying “Thanks, but it’s ok as it is.” Had coffee after M&S to fire me up for the drive back, which incidentally was much more pleasant than the drive there. Maybe I have joined the lunatic fringe.
Scamp had already stated her intention to go and sit in the sun in the garden for the remains of the afternoon, but that battery flap was still bugging me, so I set off to see what I could see. I’d hardly walked for five minutes along the path when there it was! By luck it had fallen with the chrome inside facing up and glinting in the sun, completely confounding the Centre of Gravity theory that states that bread always falls butter side down. Too difficult to explain after a stressful day – Google it. Happy now, my step was a lot lighter as I retraced my steps of this morning and walked the wild woodland again. Saw a beautiful pale blue dragonfly, but it was too busy looking for another pale blue dragonfly to bother with the likes of me.
Dinner was Sea Bass en Papillote with new potatoes and broccoli. Followed by Apple Crumble with cream. Tonight’s film was the mystifying Now You See Me. Third success from Hazy.
Tomorrow we may be going to Hampton Court … on the bus. Enough driving excitement for me today.
Set off today after a fairly decent breakfast at the services next to our overnight accommodation and slipped back on to the M6 heading south and trusting in the satnav to get us to Hazy & N D’Ag’s house.
All went swimmingly as we traversed the M6, the M42 and then the notorious M25. It wasn’t as bad as we expected … for us. On the other side, the clockwise carriageway, things weren’t quite as good with what looked like a 3 mile tailback due to an accident on the outside lane. A burned out car and a fire engine in attendance, but thankfully no ambulance.
The satnav on the iPhone got us almost to Chessington when the bloody thing switched off because it was overheating! Just when I needed it most. Things like that don’t happen in the temperate climate of Scotland, but apparently it does in tropical London. Unplugged it and let it cool for a few minutes while I overheated and drove on. It finally came back on just in time to tell me to take the next turnoff. After that I was on home ground and recognised some landmarks so I could self navigate.
Spent the afternoon with Hazy and N D’Ag before he left to go on his trip to Barcelona. Made paella for dinner, after walking to the Sainsburys at the railway station because it was soooo much quicker than taking the car. Anyway, the Megane was tired since it too had survived the scary M25.
Today’s pics come from the garden in Chessington. Lots to see here including a little mouse mopping up the fallen seeds from the birdfeeder and parakeets flying overhead when I was coming back from the shops. Did I just say Tropical London?
Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. I thought Kingston, but Scamp says maybe Hampton Court. We’ll see.
I had a few things to do today and after I got started, late as usual, I got started on my To Do list and tonight, everything is ticked off.
It was another day of mixed fortunes as far as the weather goes. We had sunshine, rain and wind today in almost equal doses. Most of these climate elements were acted out under cloud cover.
One of the good things today was the delivery of my Grass shower gel from Lush. I had wondered if it would be the solid gel that they seem to have adopted as their base shower soap, but it was true shower gel. Expensive, but so good to have again. I will use it sparingly, I’m not that dirty these days 😉
Among the items on my To Do list today was thinning out my basil seedlings that have been sitting on the kitchen window sill for the last month. Scamp thought they should be left as they were, but I decided they’d grow better after they had been thinned out. We’ll just have to see who was right.
Scamp came to salsa class tonight, but didn’t dance. I think that was a sensible decision as the tempo towards the end of class was becoming quite frantic. Hopefully it won’t be too long before she’s joining in again.
Today’s photos are details from Scamp’s favourite rose. Alec’s Red was a wedding present from my mum, dad and Alex. It’s a beautiful deep red rose with a heavy scent. It’s followed us all around Scotland as we travelled around following the work in the 70s and 80s. It’s been a central point of the front garden here since we moved in in the mid 1980s. I had a bit of concern when I was taking some shots of it in bright sunlight, using extension tubes on the ’10. I noticed considerable evidence of flare appearing on the finished images that I hadn’t seen in the viewfinder. I think it may be due to some light getting in from the extension tubes which have worked really well since I got them, but they are plastic and maybe there is too much wear in the mounts. Some more research is necessary.
May go to Glasgow tomorrow to get some photos of the Homeless Football World Cup if it’s not raining.
Well it did. It rained and rained and rained. Then it rained again, just to make sure. We watched Lewis Hamilton win the British GP. We watched Andy Murray win Wimbledon. We didn’t watch Portugal win Euro 2016. That would be too much excitement for one day.
I made some bread, I did some sketching, I did some moping around the house. I was hardly past the door today. I did manage to get a photo of one of the roses from the back garden and in doing that, I was trying out my new tripod. It worked perfectly. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about Flickr now. Another night of irritating problems with uploads. I was attempting to upload two photos. I managed to upload one, but not the other. Checked the flickr (lack of ) help page and found I was not alone. As someone says, these things used to happen at weekends and during the (US) night when nobody was at work on Flickr to fix things. Now it happens all the time. Weekends and weekdays, night and day. You get the feeling that nobody cares any more. Until I find an alternative, I’m using 500px. Just click on the photo as usual and it should load for you.
After all the faffing around trying to get time lapse shots to work, I forgot to check that amazing camera, the on in the iPhone. It’s got a time lapse setting built in. I also found a couple of apps, one free and one cheap. Results so far are impressive. Must post them when I have time. They definitely won’t be going on Flickr.
Maybe, just maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.
Well, so much for the plan to go walkies early in the morning. I’ve discovered that it only works if you get up early. 9.15 isn’t early, certainly not early enough to drive to Auchinstarry for a walk along the railway. That’s the only thing that prevented the walk. The weather was lovely. Unfortunately it didn’t last.
Went to meet Fred P for coffee at midday and after half an hour the staff in Costa were putting out the buckets and the signs that said “Wet Floor”. That’s what happens when you are sitting in the new town centre in Cumbersheugh. It’s only been open a few years and already it’s as waterproof as a sieve. It only took us the usual couple of hours and two cups of coffee to set the world to rights. Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and the bastards who skimped on the seals in the glass roof of the Antonine Centre in Cumbersheugh. All topics of conversation today and all problems solved … our way. Hang them all!
The rain only got worse as the afternoon dragged on. Managed to get a few shots of flowers and plants in the garden. Not grab shots, nicely calculated shots. My only regret is that I couldn’t get a clean angle on the Gazania that didn’t include the hanging basket holder. I think it was still my favourite shot of the day.
Not as much rain predicted for tomorrow. Still wet, but not AS wet … allegedly.