Category: Folk

No fog, just clouds – 27 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

In a way I’d have preferred fog to the ubiquitous white clouds.

Today we were heading to Kilsyth to get some gin for me. Cheap gin, but I like the taste. With that in mind, we went via Lidl and picked up a fair bit more than a bottle of gin. Waited in the queue, but when we’d loaded our goods onto the belt the flake in front of us put a ‘dead’ card into the machine and screwed up the till. She said she’d kept her old cancelled card and that was what she’d used by mistake. Neither Scamp nor I believed it. It then took the assistant ages to put things right again. I have a feeling there was a scam being played out here. Who keeps their old cancelled bank card unless they’re trying to pull a scam?

Drove to Colzium House for a walk round the grounds and hopefully a couple of pics. I did get a PoD, but that was the good one with around 30 duff shots. After walking round the trees and the almost silted up curling pond, we walked through to have a look at the loch. Banton Loch is manmade and was built to feed the Forth & Clyde canal in the 18th century. I’m sure on a bright summer’s day it’s very photogenic, but today it was just a pool of dull grey water. We walked to the outfall dam and read about the battle of Kilsyth in the ’45 rebellion. Strangely there was a footnote on the commemoration cairn in French. There was nothing to see here and nothing to photograph either. That didn’t stop me taking photos that I just knew would be deleted later. We drove back home for lunch.

Walked to St Mo’s in the afternoon to try out the Sigma 105mm macro on the adapter for the Sony. It performed really well, but the weather and the light hadn’t improved since the morning and I had to give up. PoD went to the leaves we saw at Colzium. Today’s sketch nearly never happened. I just couldn’t find a ‘G’ subject until I saw a tin of beanz when I went to get some glasses from the cupboard. Set up a wee trio of groceries and sketched a thumbnail. As usually happens with these things, the thumbnail became the sketch and after I’d splashed on some paint it looked ok. Actually better than ok. I’m happy with it.

Hoping for some decent light tomorrow to get out and take some photos.

In better tid today – 21 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

I learned the word ‘Tid’ when we were down in Newton Stewart. It sort of mean ‘state’ and I’ve only heard it in a positive setting.

So, today my head was in a better place, that’s what I was saying. Number one, I had a good sleep and a long one too. Woke fairly refreshed. Secondly, the problem with the NAS drive had resolved itself. Yesterday after the electrician plugged in the hub for the Hive, my NAS changed its IP address and nothing I did would get it back again. Today, I think, the OS had taken a long hard look and consulted its DNS spreadsheet and discovered the new address for the NAS (I apologise if that’s too many UPPER case abbreviations, JIC). Whatever happened, the NAS was online again.

A possible third reason was that our Hive controlled lightbulb arrived and we could play with it. Scamp was the first one to get it installed on her phone, but couldn’t quite remember how she did it. Then my phone registered it too. We had some fun switching it on and off, brightening it and dulling it, and then it was lunch time. Simple things and simple minds!

After lunch I chose to go out for a walk and a rainstorm was just waiting for me to walk about half a mile before dumping on me. I walked to the butchers and waited in the queue which went down quite quickly until some dimwit wanted a whole lamb rack French dressed, and then said she wanted them cut into individual chops. All the while she was chatting up the butcher. Eventually the women who work in the shop could see their wet customers considering leaving and decided they could allow two people in the shop as long as they were socially distant. When the dimwit entered the shop there were two of us waiting outside, when I left there were about nine wet, disgruntled shoppers. Some people just don’t care about others.

Came back home via St Mo’s and as the weather had brightened up considerably, I got some photos in the sunshine for a change. My favourite, and PoD was the tree.

I wasn’t long home when my parcel arrived from Amazon with its autofocus adapter to allow some of my old Nikon lenses to work seamlessly with the Sony A7. I was pleasantly surprised to find that two out of three worked completely. One didn’t quite cover all the bases, but enough to make it a worthwhile investment.

Nick the Chick (no, I wouldn’t risk calling her that to her face!) put a large swathe of Scotland into Level 4 on Friday, yesterday. Unluckily for me, I’m in Level 4 of the Scottish Covid prevention scheme. It’s not total lockdown, but it’s fairly close to it. With that in mind I decided I’d start sketching again. Initially it will be alphabetical subjects.
Today it starts with ‘A’ is for Apple.

Tomorrow may be a case of sunshine and showers, but we can survive that. We may go for a walk.

A long walk – 7 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

It was a foggy start that faded to a misty morning.

We had thought of going in to Glasgow today but we waited too long for the mist to clear. Eventually we decided on a walk and if you’re having a Saturday walk it should be a proper one, so this one was a walk around Broadwood Loch.

We set out with our usual walk down to the stadium and I managed to get a ‘one in the bag’ with a few shots of some mushroom/toadstools. Crawling around on the grass with your bum in the air is what gives photos a bad name. We chose to extend our walk to include the loch too.

Although I had one in the bag, the PoD was some cormorants on Cormorant Island on Broadwood Loch stretching and drying their wings in the feeble sunshine. I needed a long lens for that and the Sony can’t quite manage that … yet. I had to resort to the tiny sensor of the Teazer 90, but it didn’t let me down. It’s the best camera in the world. The one in your pocket. The rest of the walk was just ok. Mainly because the sun was on our backs and walking into the sun is always more interesting, photographically.

Dinner was meant to be roast duck legs, but someone forgot to check that they were fully defrosted and we had pizza instead. Hopefully duck legs tomorrow. I couldn’t possibly say who was responsible for the oversight with the frozen duck legs, but you know it was me. Numpty.

We had a wee dance tonight to practise our three jive routines with a couple of successful attempts at quickstep. It was partly to revise our jive and ballroom skills(?) and partly to celebrate Joe Biden’s win over the other Donald.

Not a bad day at all. Hopefully another one tomorrow.

The postman only knocked once – 6 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

But that was enough, at 8.15am, to get me out of bed.

He was just walking away as I opened the door, having left my parcel on the doorstep. He gave me a wave as he headed back to his van and was off before the door shut. It must be really hard for delivery men and women these days, working such long hours and with tight schedules to keep. The parcel contained a used tripod head I’d bought from WEX in Norfolk two days ago. It’s a bit scuffed in places, but is a solid piece of kit, better quality than the one I was going to buy in Glasgow. Best of all, it cost a fraction of its value when new.

I made our breakfast while I watched two blackbirds, one cock and one hen, having their early morning bath in the garden. Took the breakfast back to bed and we read for a while, waiting for the day to brighten up. I’m now on my second last Slough House book, having finished “To be taught if fortunate”. It got four stars Hazy because of the ending and because of the inclusion of 30 pages of her first “Wayfarers” novel. Thirty pages too much padding.

After our dragging ourselves out of bed and having a cup of coffee, Scamp went out to tidy up the garden and I took the Sony out for a walk in St Mo’s. There was blue sky for a while and even some sunshine, but I had the feeling the weather just wasn’t trying too hard today. Nothing really struck me as interesting enough to make a PoD.

No lunch today, because we were heading out later in the afternoon for a late lunch at The Cotton House in Longcroft. Since we were booked for 2.30 we were eating off the a la carte menu instead of the lunch menu. We didn’t mind, because we realise that the lunch menu is a sort of loss leader, but the a la carte is where they make their main profit. Also, there would be things in there we’d never had before! as it happened we didn’t end up being all that adventurous. Scamp had Thai Fish Cakes for starter followed by Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice. I had Gyoza Dumplings as starter and then Salt and Chilli Chicken with noodles. Once you throw in the Prawn Crackers, this was a fairly substantial lunch and one we both enjoyed.

Drove home into a beautiful sunset that would have made an excellent photo if only I had brought one of my multitude of cameras. Besides, we’d had a lovely afternoon and it would be a shame to waste it by boring Scamp to tears with me wandering around taking sunset shots.

I’d ordered an adapter to allow the tripod head I’d received this morning to fit onto my tripod. It hadn’t arrived when we got home and when I checked, it was due to be delivered about 5pm, just about the same time the Tesco order was due to come. You guessed it, they arrived at exactly the same time.

Just to test out the combination of tripod + adapter + tripod head + Sigma 105mm macro lens, today’s PoD is an Alstroemeria flower taken with a 4 second exposure at f8. It’s not brilliant, I know, but it shows the combination works and it’s a lot better than any of the shots I took this morning. That probably tells you just how bad they were.

No plans for tomorrow.

On the yellow brick road – 4 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

… with masks on.

Today, you’ve probably guessed, we went to Ikea. That’s what Scamp suggested, and as I had nothing better to do, I agreed. Fairly long queue to get in, but it was moving quite quickly. One absolute numpty literally ran in front of us to get in the queue before us. I don’t know if she’d maybe never been in the Big Yellow House before, but I hope she found what she was looking for or I imagine she’d scream and scream!

We were looking for three things one of which I thought was on the upper floor. I was correct, but we had to walk all the way round the maze and found it at the very end of the upper floor. With Covid restrictions you MUST follow the yellow brick road where before you could double back sometimes. That is totally forbidden now. So two trays for my storage cabinet meant I accumulated about 1,000 steps. We came out with the three items we had gone for … and a few more.

Drove back into Glasgow, heading for Glasgow Green. I followed the map in my head and then missed a lane change and we had to drive right through the city rather than round the edge. It didn’t matter, Scamp knows the city well and told me the lane changes well in advance. As we were walking past the People’s Palace I saw what looked like two sword fencers practicing under some trees. Now, as I said to Scamp, there’s used to be a fair amount of swordplay down on Glasgow Green, but only on Saturday nights. This was in broad daylight. If it was London there would be van loads of polis armed to the teeth surrounding the Green within minutes. In Glasgow it’s just par for the course, apparently!

We went along to Parnie Street because I was looking for a fitment for my Benbo tripod. Unfortunately the didn’t have it. The nearest they had was more than double the price. I could get it from Amazon, but I’d have preferred to have bought it from a small independent shop. Never mind, they said they might have it in two or three weeks. I might wait that long. We walked back through The Green, the fencers were still there and there were still no police marksmen hidden in the bushes with laser sights drawing red dots on the fencers’ heads. Nobody shouting “Throw down your weapons and lie on the ground!”

After lunch I gathered together a collection of ‘small electrical and electronic’ gadgetry that was destined for the council skip. For once there was no queue to get in and I was waved through after showing my proof of ID to show that I was a bona fide Cumbersheugh resident. Junk dumped, I headed for Fannyside Moor where I was aiming to get some photos with the Sony camera and a fifteen year old Sigma lens. The test went well and you can see the result on Flickr. It nearly made PoD, but was just pipped by the fencers. Love that stance!

Scamp and I hung up more of her ball lights on the rowan tree in the back garden. They really do brighten up the garden with such a cheery light.

That was about it for today. No plans for tomorrow, but the weather looks good again so we might go out for another walk, this time in NL.

A busy day – 3 November 2020

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The Gas Man was coming today, but we weren’t sure when, exactly.

So we did what we usually do in a situation like this:

  • We got up early
  • We emptied the boiler cupboard
  • We waited
  • And waited
  • We gave up!

I went upstairs and started building the bookcase we’d got yesterday. It would never hold books, but would make a decent sized small cupboard to relieve give us some floor space in the ‘wee bedroom’. It was much easier to build than it looked and will probably hold enough stuff to make it a worthwhile investment. Scamp seems happy with it and that’s what counts.

After lunch we got the call to say the man was on his way and he arrive about 20 minutes later. We got the usual warning that the boiler was running about 80% efficiency and there was a problem getting replacement parts. We’d been expecting that and we agreed to an online discussion of a replacement. He had a problem getting connected, but we have that too. It’s one of the annoyances when you live in the valley between phone masts. We’re not sure now his message to his HQ went through. Unfortunately we can’t access the British Gas website since we got our new superfast modem. We always get a DNS error now. Since we can connect perfectly well from our phone using our feeble 4G signal, the problem would appear to be with Virgin. I spent over an hour tonight trying to find a way to speak to someone there, on live chat or by landline, but they seem to have dropped the portcullis, raised the drawbridge and blamed Covid. I wonder how many other businesses will claim that same excuse.

We went out for a walk after the man had gone. It was still a lovely day although it seems to be getting colder now.  We walked down round Broadwood Stadium and along the boardwalk beside the loch. That’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s one of the pylons that circle the loch, looking like one of the Martian war machines from War of the Worlds with its deadly Heat Ray. On the way back I went for an extra circuit of St Mo’s and Scamp headed for home but bumped into Chris’s mum, Carolyn. They hadn’t seen each other for years and I was glad I’d chosen the St Mo’s circuit otherwise I’d have felt like the (actual) odd man out. Back home I’d left some stew on the slow cooker, but it turned out really tough. We’re not sure why. It might be the meat itself or maybe it wasn’t cooked for long enough or the temperature was too low. It’s had another four hours tonight, so I’d imagine it will be well cooked for tomorrow’s lunch.

Not sure what we’re doing tomorrow. We might make a big break for freedom and go in to Glasgow or we may be like little good mice and do what our mistress tells us. (Aye Right!!)

Today was a lovely day – 30 October 2020

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It was all that the weather fairies promised and we made the most of it.

So where would we go today? East or West, what was best? I chose East and Scamp refined it to South Queensferry.

We arrived there just after midday and walked down to the pier after finding a parking place on the hill leading out of the town. Cold blustery wind blowing down the estuary from the west. It might not look it from PoD but that was in the lee of the wind. The other side of the wall it was a very different picture with waves crashing over the sea wall.

We walked into the town proper from the harbour, passing a dozen or so folk fresh from a wedding ceremony at the Registry Office. They looked cold and unconvinced this was the best day of their lives. I couldn’t blame them. Walking along by the estuary in those “peery heels” as my mum would have described them with a gale blowing behind them couldn’t have been fun. One of the bridesmaids had decided that bare feet were better than wearing the uncomfortable posh shoes she was supposed to wear, and who could blame her?

I think the walk along the Main Street truly brought home to me the misery that Covid has caused to small communities. Shop after shop with either ‘Closed’ signs or ‘Everything Must Go’ in the window. Tiny wee ice cream shops reduced to selling tea and coffee to make some money, because realistically, who wants ice cream when it’s nearly November? Not one pub open. Not one restaurant open. I could almost hear the bell tolling the death knell of tourism in Scotland.

To cheer us up and to provide lunch, we had a portion of chips and a slice of really good tray pizza from a wee chip shop that was the only one doing a roaring trade on such a cold day. We sat on an uncomfortable seat eating the chips while we watched the waves crashing. The sun was shining, but the wind made it bitter cold. However, we were out of the house. The weather was dry. The sun was shining from a blue sky and we had chips. What on earth is wrong with that?

We drove home by a circuitous route provided by me and the sat nav. Eventually reached the motorway and basically came back the way we had gone a few hours earlier.

PoD was the view from the pier. No sketch yet because it took me too long to decide how to interpret ‘Ominous’ and because the gin was too strong. I’ll play catch up tomorrow, hopefully.

Rain predicted for tomorrow, so it will be a stay at home day I think. Still, we did get out in the sunshine today.

Christmas Prezzies … already – 28 October 2020

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Today we were off to collect some Christmas Prezzies that Scamp had ordered.

I usually complain about the condensing of the year. You know the sort of thing. After the schools go back in August the first Xmas cards start appearing. We’ve hardly got Christmas and New Year out of the way and the Easter Eggs are on the shelves. However, Christmas prezzies in October is just good planning, Scamp says. We found the place, just a normal house in an everyday street where the maker lived. That’s the way things are now. Ideas are seen online. Discussions are done and prices agreed on Messenger. Purchases are made online and items are collected from the maker’s home. I suppose it’s better than using Amazon, and at least we are supporting small businesses, which is a good thing.

With that done we drove up to a retail park in Bishopbriggs. Probably as close as you could get to the diametric opposite of the small business we had just left. I attempted some visual retail therapy in Currys, which was a waste of time because there were so few pieces of tech on the shelves. Another loser to the online market place. The problem with that approach is where to you find someone to advise you on a purchase? Where is there a salesperson you can trust to give you sound advice? The other question you should ask yourself is “Would I buy my item from that salesperson, knowing that I can get a better deal by logging on to Amazon?” It’s the old chicken and egg quandary. Scamp got what she wanted. I got what I deserved. Then we went for coffee in Costa and drove home after using up our allocation of 30 mins.

Soup for lunch, then I went out to St Mo’s to get some photos in the two hour window the weather app said I’d get. The sun almost came out and the Larches shone in the unexpected light. They surprise me every year with their bright yellow needles. I also has that strange vision of snowflakes, walking down the avenue of trees with the yellow needles blowing in the wind and looking just like snow. A branch of a larch with its bright needles still attached and a pinecone too made PoD.

Just before dinner while I was working on the PoD and Scamp was reading, someone knocked on the door. It was the Tesco delivery! We’d completely forgotten about it. Rushed to empty the crates and let the driver get on his way. Dinner was one of Scamp’s specialities, Stir-fry. This was a Chicken Stir-fry with all the fancy veg. Quite delicious.

Sketch of the day was Float. I’d decided about a week ago that today’s drawing centre around a fishing float. It looked a bit dull, just a view of a fishing float from below, so I searched for sort of cartoon drawings of fish and adapted one of them to add to the sketch, then added a few rocks and sand on the bottom of the water. That brightened it up. I’m happy with it.

That was about it for the day. These autumn days are so short now. We really should get up and out early to make the most of them. We watched the first episode of Roadkill. We’re both still undecided about it. We’ve another episode recorded and we may watch it tomorrow. Tomorrow however we are booked for a full day of wind and rain, which seems to happen about every second day just now.

Better than we expected – 24 October 2020

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It was raining this morning as predicted by the weather fairies. Then, surprisingly, it brightened up!

I wasn’t feeling at my best this morning. I think I’ve got a cold hanging over me. For that reason I was quite happy to sit and watch the rain on the window with nothing really to go out for. I was also waiting for a parcel to arrive for Scamp, one she didn’t know about and thankfully it did arrive on time. It got the reaction I was hoping for.

After that I sketched out my version of today’s prompt “Dig”. I was quite pleased with the result because it was drawn from my imagination. Not sketched from a Google Images photo.

After lunch it brightened up and the rain stopped, so with some vitamin C in me, Scamp and I went for a walk round St Mo’s, but the tribes were holding a convention there that involved getting bevvied and swearing. They really do drag the area down. I’m pretty sure the polis know about it, but it doesn’t tick any boxes for them, so they aren’t interested. At least until something more serious happens and that does tick a box, then, too late, they’ll react. Might give St Mo’s a wide berth at weekends for a while.
Continued or walk down to the shops and came back with stuff for tonight’s and tomorrow’s dinners. Grabbed a few photos on the way and one of them made PoD. It’s my favourite plant, the Cow Parsley against a bush of brambles.

The highlight of the day was tonight’s Zoom dance with, at it’s height, sixteen, or was it seventeen couples participating. One of Stewart’s great ideas. Dancing in your living room, or sitting watching others dance in their own houses no problem with bumping into others or avoiding the “Thick Couple” who insist on stopping every time one of them makes a mistake and enter into a “That was your fault. No, it was your fault.” discussion. No flamboyant show-offs to dance around. Just two and a half hours of dancing. Absolutely brilliant. Made us feel human again in these surreal times. We’ll ache a bit tomorrow, but it will be worth it.

Tomorrow I think it’ll be more of the same weatherwise. Rain and sun. We may go out for a walk.

Wet Ones – 21 October 2020

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That used to be the name of hand wipes. Now it seems an apt description of the days this week.

The sun was splitting the trees this morning and we took a chance on it staying with us when we drove over to Mugdock Park. It was a bad choice. At least, for the choice of weather it was a bad one. It rained on and off all the way there, but we’d come prepared with raincoats and boots. We needed them. It was just liquid air we were walking through for a while. Down past the old ruined ‘Big House’, then down the hill to the tree lined walk. Crossed the boardwalk over the bog to Mugdock Castle on the banks of Mugdock Loch. We were in and out of the trees all the way, but I did get a few shots through the trees and of the trees themselves. It was a bit dreich, but the colours were beautiful and the company was good. We continued round the loch in the hopes of getting a cup of coffee in one of the wee cafés, but one only had outdoor seating with no available umbrellas. One only had uncomfortable bar stools available and by that time the notion had left us. We changed our footwear and went home. Annoyingly, the closer we got to Cumbersheugh, the better the weather became and when we arrived home, blue sky was showing through the clouds.

After lunch Scamp drove to Halfords to get a rear wiper fitted. I told her I could do it. The biggest problem was taking the old one off and I’d done that at the weekend. Not without a fair bit of wrestling. With the wiper in place we tackled the scrubbing down of Scamp’s car. It needed it. One of our neighbours who was watching the action said “Oh, so it’s a Red car then!” That is its first wash this week. It’s going to need at least one more, probably in a carwash before it goes for MOT next week.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Tikka Masala and I was chef. It was a slightly less than successful curry. I don’t think I’ll be using that recipe again.

Today’s prompt was “Sleep”. Another vague request. Thinking along the lines of “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?”, I asked the question:
“Do insomniac sheep dream of counting humans?”
Answers on a postcard please.

PoD was a grab shot walking through the avenue of trees at Mugdock. I don’t know who the bloke was wearing the red jacket, but thank you sir for providing my focal point. ARPS = A Red Point Somewhere!

Tomorrow we’re booked for breakfast at Calders with Isobel. Let’s hope the rest of the day is not another Wet One!