Category: Food

Back in the land of the living – January 2026

Posted on by Zogman

After yesterday’s aches and pains, today was a much more pleasant day, thank goodness.

In the morning we drove to Tesco for some shopping, more shopping than we’d anticipated, but when we got home we discovered that the new freezer held a lot more than we’d expected.

After lunch, Scamp went for a walk in the garden and found the first Snowdrops had appeared. I think that January 4th is quite early for these delicate looking flowers, but it was good to see growth appearing in the garden. Scamp went for a walk around both front and back gardens and found more little green spikes appearing.

Even later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s and although I didn’t find any snowdrops, I did get some interesting skies with planes creating jet trails through air that must have been almost as cold as the frozen St Mo’s pond! Neither the planes, nor the jet trails got PoD. That went to a photo taken in the house, as a test shot for a very old Olympus 40-150mm, f4-5.6 lens. Old Glass, although it felt like Old Plastic. Not much, if any metal in its construction, but beautiful quality results. That was today’s PoD and its title was Our Daily Bread.

Back home it was my turn to cook and today it was an old favourite for us, Chicken and Pea Traybake. Just set it up and let the oven do all the rest of the work. In addition, and since the oven was on anyway, I roasted some tomatoes, a leek and a couple of onions. That should make the basis for tomorrow’s dinner if all goes well.

That was about it for today. Not a lot done, but much more than yesterday. Hoping to go dancing tomorrow if the weather plays nice and doesn’t bring us some snow, which is possible. We’ll wait and see!

Dentist – 5 January 2026

Posted on by Zogman

A morning visit to the dentist. On a cold day too, Minus 7ºc.

First I had to de-ice the car both outside and inside. Everyone in our street seemed to be doing it and complaining about the weather as we scrubbed and scraped. Thankfully I’ve got a good screen heater that works really well and didn’t take very long with to thaw the car out.

Drove over to Condorrat and got taken fairly quickly. I think I had three impressions made with that strange soft blue gum stuff they use, then after being ‘numbed up’ with the big syringes the dentists use, she drilled out the temporary filling I’d had. Totally painlessly too. Then a 1mm run round the diameter of the little stubby pillar where a tooth used to be, before Donna the Dentist made and fitted a temporary crown for me. I think it makes me a Lord or a King or something when I’m given a Crown.

A cup of tea back home provided the heat required to thaw my gum where the injection was still keeping it numb. It really didn’t take very long at all for me to be able to eat a bowl of soup for lunch. Good soup Scamp!

The sun was still shining so I risked a walk in St Mo’s. I’d left enough time for it to cast a light through the trees without it being too bright and after wandering around and not finding anything interesting, I managed to get the shot I was looking for. I was pleased with it and it made PoD.

Dinner was another variation on Pasta with Tuna. This one was a bit spicy, (too much chilli flakes) but a better amount of Balsamic Vinegar. Still experimenting.

Tomorrow I hoping to meet up with Alex and get some street photos. Hopefully there will be no snow for us.

Another really cold morning – 4 January 2026

Posted on by Zogman

The temperature when we woke this morning was -5.7ºc which is brrrrr very cold!

We decided we’d wait a wee bit before we began taking down the decorations and lights, just to make sure everything was packed away before Twelfth Night which will be on Monday. It’s deemed unlucky to have your decorations up after then. But first, there was coffee to make and puzzles to complete and anyway, we weren’t in a hurry because we weren’t going anywhere special.

Once Scamp started to remove the decorations, I followed suit and volunteered to remove the outside lights on the fence and Jamie’s Tree. Both of them had performed really well in the freezing cold weather of the past week. The next task was to remove the indoor lights and sort the batteries into ‘Still Good’ and ’Not Worth Keeping’. Meanwhile Scamp was in charge of dismantling the Christmas Tree and packing it away for another year, and my next task was untangling the cables for the inside and outside lights. By lunch time we were almost there. I’m glad I wrote this because I just realised I’d left out a wee Christmas Tree Scamp gave me a few years before I retired. Couldn’t leave the poor wee thing out. It’s safely tucked away in a drawer in my room.

I got today’s PoD in the garden. The water buckets were full and now frozen solid, and yesterday I thought I might bring Katy back and give her a chance to do some skating on the frozen ice of the buckets. She performed perfectly and still looks good!

I went for a walk after lunch, just my usual tramp across St Mo’s and back again. However I wondered if I could get a shot of that damselfly shuck I found yesterday. I knew it was a needle in a haystack and didn’t really think I’d ever find it among the withered wind flower husks, but there it was! I took some photos and recorded the GPS position of it just in case I chance to go looking for it again.

Dinner was a rather tough beef stew for me and finely sliced potatoes and fennel bulb baked in the oven with cream and cheese for Scamp. It sounded wonderful and the smell from it was equally good, but Scamp wasn’t impressed with the outcome. I think she may attempt it again fairly soon.

Spoke to Jamie and heard all about their working fortnight in Trinidad, securing Jaime’s house and getting money sorted out for when the house goes onto the renting market. It all sounds like a nightmare, but it looks like the hard work has been done. I hope so for everyone’s sake.

Tomorrow I’m off to the dentist to have an impression of one my teeth taken for a crown. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Finding my feet again – 3 January 2026

Posted on by Zogman

Today was more like ‘normal’ whatever that is.

In the morning we de-iced the car and drove to Tesco to get some food to put in the new freezer. Oops, I forgot to tell you about the new acquisition. Last Tuesday Scamp sat me down and together we went through all the different combinations of under-counter freezers. Although we have a fairly big fridge-freezer, it doesn’t hold as much as we’d hoped, so we’d each of us mumbled about needing more storage. That problem was solved today. We ordered a medium priced under-counter freezer from John Lewis. Everything done, sight unseen, online. It was delivered yesterday, Friday. It’s so hard to keep track of days, what with Christmas, New Year, Twelfth Night and stuff.

The freezer had to sit for four hours for the refrigerant to settle in the complex of pipes, then it had to be plugged in and told to freeze, as an afterthought, we could just have left it outside, it was plenty cold there!

Today Scamp gave it some fish, prawns and ice cream to work its subzero magic on them. It’s very quiet and fits in perfectly. Not a snore or a grunt from it at all. I think I have been allocated the bottom drawer for my meat and coffee beans.

I went for a walk in the afternoon. It was really cold, just above zero, but not by much. PoD was a Knapweed plant just about ready to release its seeds to the four winds. Also if you have good eyesight, you might catch a glimpse of the skin (or Shuck) of a damsel fly up close to the head of the main flower.

Dinner tonight was Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti. A firm favourite at this time of year.

We have no plans for tomorrow.

Over to Fife – 30 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

We got the bus to the town centre and another bus to Dunfermline. We were off to Fife!

We woke to a fairly heavy frost. The poor wee bluetits were having a hard time getting through the ice on the bird bath. It didn’t seem as if there would be much bathing there today. We were running just a wee bit too late to catch the early bus to the Town Centre, but we waited and caught the next one. I wasn’t going to drive today, thank you very much! Another wait in Cumbersheugh bus station where the temperature was slightly higher than the 0ºc temperature outside in the stance. On other days I’d have said it was freezing, but that one degree or so of warmth inside the waiting room made all the difference. The bus arrived right on time and we were off to Dunfermline.

First stop was for a coffee in Nero. For the second time recently I had a decent cup of coffee. Coffee that tasted as strong as it should have. Not watery, not lacking crema. Just coffee as it should be. Two wee cakes to keep the wolves from the door and we were ready to go for a walk in Pittencrieff Park.

We walked over to the park, but alas the door to the glasshouses was locked and a sign saying essential maintenance was underway. For once, it did look as if there was work being done, so we continued round behind the rose beds and over the hill that would take us back in to the town.

I wanted some cloth to make a couple of bow ties. I knew there was a fabric shop on the Main Street and found it quite easily. The girl who served me was really helpful and almost talked me into buying a pattern for a man’s necktie, but since neither she nor I could work out what some of the terms were, I decided to shelf it until I had a better idea what it was going to look like. Instead, I got two pieces of fabric to make a couple of bow ties. That’s not to say that I’ve given up the idea of making a normal tie, it’s just that it’s on the back burner for now!

Neither of us could really commit ourselves to lunch, so we went looking for a yearly wall calendar for Scamp and a book for me, but we could find neither of these objects, so we headed home and arrived at the bus station in Dunfermline just in time to catch the Glasgow Express. Even better, the X3 was due in five minutes back in Cumbersheugh and we hopped on.

Back home, dinner was a plate of Minestrone soup courtesy of John next door. They have both been good at feeding us soup lately. Maybe we’re looking too thin and they’re trying to feed us up? I really don’t think we need it.

PoD was a photo of Pittencrieff House looking splendid in the sunshine. I almost included a couple of photos taken with an Olympus E-PL5, an ancient camera from around 2012 vintage. A lovely wee camera. It still works!

Tomorrow is the last day of 2025 and the weather looks even colder. It’s -3.7ºc just now!

Off shopping – 29 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Looking for somewhere new to take our trolley through.

I decided it wouldn’t be Tesco, so that left Morrison’s or Waitrose.
Again, I chose, and it was Morrisons. Now which Morrisons?

There were two options:
1. The Fort (it would be busy)
2. Morrisons in Falkirk (it’s traffic light city!)

Between us we made the choice of The Fort and headed off as soon as we could. Two spaces when we left the house and headed on to the motorway.

The Fort itself was busy, not excessively busy, but busy enough. The bonus of going to any of the Morrison’s is the breadth and availability of the produce. I think it’s better than Tesco, but for the ‘thing you forgot’ Tesco wins. Morrison’s lived up to its promise and soon we were heading home. Unfortunately I got in the wrong lane and that means a drive round and round the circular car park until you can find the way out. It took me two tries before I could find my way out of the maze. Then it was just an easy drive home.

When we got home there were still two spaces in our car park, but by the time I’d unloaded the car those spaces had been taken. Driving is crazy at this time of year. My cousin had an answer to it. He said you should treat everyone on the road as a drunk. That’s a really good idea. I’ve used it often, especially at this time of year.

Lunch was a ‘well fired roll’ (the means black!) filled with a banana. Then Scamp sat me down and between us we chose an ‘under counter’ freezer to replace the very old one in the hall. It arrives on Friday and cost a lot less than the equivalent model in Currys. Sorted.

I went out in the afternoon to grab some photos. The best of a bad lot was a dried up Willow Herb which, with a bit of care and attention became PoD.

It was pasta for dinner, it being Monday. Scamp wasn’t really impressed with it, but I liked the different sauces and spices that went in to it.

We watched our trilogy of quiz programs later and Scamp beat me hands down getting most of the answers correct. I must work harder at these quizzes.

Tomorrow we may take the bus somewhere interesting.

A very dull day – 28 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

The sun just didn’t want to take part in today’s photos. I don’t know why. Maybe he/she had a hard night yesterday and was resting.

It certainly was a dull day. We didn’t even leave the house, but we did go for a wander in the garden, seeing some evidence of plants showing their green spikes here and there.

After lunch, I forced myself to go for a walk round the pond. Plenty of folk out fishing. They didn’t look as if they had caught much of anything, but they had plenty of tackle with them and they weren’t doing anybody any harm. I left them to their pursuits.

One and a half times round the pond was enough to tell me I was fighting a losing battle and I went home, not exactly empty handed, but with only a very few shots in the bag. Then I found that the bag itself had a tear in the zip and wouldn’t close. Not a good end to a dull day.

Dinner was a baked potato each with different toppings for both of us. A glass of Port later gave us a little bit of brightness and an ice lolly each cemented the good feeling.

We watched an absolutely awful “Two Doors Down”. It was awful. It was like a kids program with too much swearing. I will not watch that program again. Not quite so bad, but still in the Awful category was a Christmas edition of Death In Paradise. Another hour of my life I won’t ever get back. Thank goodness for Celebrity University Challenge. At least someone makes good TV.

PoD was a walker, just visible mid, left walking round St Mo’s pond. Now you see what I meant with “A very dull day.”

Right, that’s grump over. Tomorrow I believe we may be going shopping.

Walking in the woods – 27 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Another dull day. Not a lot of photogenic light, so I had to make do with what I had.

Scamp and I went for a walk to the shops in the late morning and came home with two big bags of stuff we thought we couldn’t do without. It wasn’t until we were walking home I realised just how heavy these shopping bags were. I know now! When we got home, the light hadn’t improved much, but just enough that would make it worthwhile to take a camera for a walk.

<Technospeak>
I brought my A7c with the intention of bolting on a 16-35mm lens, but instead I stuck with the 10-18mm I already had on the camera and one possibility after another made me appreciate that little lens more and more. It’s actually an APS-C lens, designed for use with a ‘crop sensor’ which means the camera wants to reduce the size of the image by ‘cropping’ the top, bottom and each side and throwing away all that useful image space. I read somewhere that occasionally an APS-C can almost cover the full frame sensor and this one certainly can. With care, you can get a decent shot from this little wonder lens. That’s what I did today.
</Technospeak>

My first target was the boardwalk over the pond, but the light just wasn’t great, so I wandered over to a fallen tree and shot a few frames before I saw the Dandelion sprawled over the roots and each ripped out when the tree was blown down earlier in the year. Another few shots and I was engrossed in taking different angles. Finally, I dragged myself away and looked for other topics, but happy with the photos I had.

I’d decided to make a loaf. A better one than yesterday’s. I checked with ’Numbers’ what the best proportions were and made a decent looking loaf. I kept it in the living room because the heat in there would help the dough ‘prove’ enough to make it expand and get the yeast working. After an hour it was looking pretty good. It’s so long since I’ve baked any bread, but Scamp asked me if I was using the ‘basket’ and I remembered the woven basket that you use to allow the bread to expand into. Long story short, the bread looks good, although I haven’t cut it open yet. I’ll leave it for breakfast tomorrow, if I can resist the smell of fresh bread long enough.

We watched a few things on catch-up, but there wasn’t all that much to whet our appetite, so I read for a while, checked out the photos and by then it as almost time to go to bed. That’s almost exactly where I am just now. I’m intending reading for an hour before I go to bed.

Hopefully we’ll have better weather tomorrow. Some sun would be good.

Boxing Day – 26 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Thankfully no boxes were found on this cold day.

Not a lot to say about the day, other than the sun came out to play for a very short time. I did get a few photos over in St Mo’s, mainly with the Lensbaby with a Sweet 35 lens. I wasn’t altogether happy with the results, but I really needed better lighting to make the most of this curious lens. Maybe tomorrow.

I’d promised to make a loaf yesterday, but I forgot. I did come good on my promise today, but the first attempt was a bit of a disaster. The second try produced a loaf that was edible, but only if you were desperate. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll manage the ‘Goldilocks’ loaf (not too soft, not too hard, Just Right).

Dinner tonight was chicken soup. That means it was yesterday’s chicken used to bolster today’s vegetable soup and despite Scamp’s complaints about it needing something to strengthen the flavour, I found it really good. Lots more for tomorrow in the pot, so plenty of time to improve the texture and taste.

PoD went to a close up of a cow parsley reduced to the claws of the plant. No seeds or seedpods left, the birds must have been needing the extra feeding the seeds provide.

We watched White Christmas. Some amazing dancing in a film that had quite a few old stars in it some of whom were singing about Dreaming of a White Christmas that was a possibility in the days when it was filmed, but which doesn’t seem to be likely this year. A feel-good film. We also watched a Paddington film we’ve seen again.

Hoping to get out somewhere tomorrow, even if it has to be on the bus.

Christmas – 25 December 2025

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A chance to catch up with friends and family.

It was just the two of us this year, but with Jamie and Hazy setting things up we had a three way connection over WhatsApp. One pair in Trinidad, one pair in London and one pair in Scotland. We had a good half hour or so chatting away to each other, then it was time to say goodbyes and sign out. Isn’t technology wonderful when it works.

It was still dry at home, so we went for a fairly long walk round Broadwood Loch, but Scamp didn’t have boots with her, so it was the shorter walk rather than the longer version she would have preferred. I got a few photos, but not very many. It wasn’t really cold out, but not very welcoming either with a damp feeling in the air. We passed a few folk out walking and exchanged the usual “Merry Christmas” greetings.

Back home, lunch was Scrambled Eggs on Toast with Smoked Salmon. A posh lunch for a special day. Later in the afternoon and while the chicken was roasting in the oven, I took two cameras out for a walk in St Mo’s. Why two cameras? I have no idea. I looked in my bag and there were two cameras there and it seemed a shame not to take both.

I got a few photos, but the light was poor. Then as I was walking round the pond the sun shone for a few minutes and I got the shot I was hoping for with the light just touching the tops of the reeds. One in the bag and a keeper to boot!. The rest of the walk was less productive because by that time the sun had sunk below the treelike and darkness wouldn’t be far away.

By the time I got back to the house, cooking was in full swing. I’d completely forgotten that I was to bake bread today and the chicken was still in the oven, so regretfully I left the loaf until tomorrow.

The chicken when it came out from its tinfoil cover smelled exactly like a chicken should, but had to wait another half hour before Scamp would deem it safe to eat.

So, Starter was fresh Prawn Cocktail followed by Breast of Chicken for Scamp and a portion of breast for me with a Drumstick as well. Both were served with Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts and Buttered Carrots. Dessert was a lovely trifle.

We watched a silly little Sewing Bee spin off. Nothing worth watching. Then the final, final of Strictly which I didn’t watch because I was working on today’s PoD. Any excuse to avoid the nonsense.

No plans for tomorrow. Maybe another walk if the weather holds, but nothing grand. Boxing Day is another day for relaxation.