Category: Food

An afternoon in the country – 17 August 2021

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The morning was work. The afternoon was photography.

Scamp was off to have coffee with Isobel in the morning and I was left to my own devices. First thing to do was to investigate the leaking shower cabinet. It turned out to be a leak in two corners. One tiny little drip and one a bit bigger. Both were being caused by mould growth in the sealant between the glass and the ceramic base of the shower. Half an hour of poking and prodding with a wee round pointed device whose original purpose was to score cardboard teased most of the gunge out and allowed me to start to dry the offending parts. Left them to dry out properly by themselves and started the second, and bigger, task.

The top of the chest of drawers in my room has not seen the light of day for about a year. Today I was set to remedy that. I had a big IKEA bag ready to hold the stuff that was going to the skips, that meant most of it. Some things I didn’t really want to chuck away, but I had to ask myself if I was ever likely to use it again and if I wasn’t, was I emotionally attached to it. If the answer to either of those questions was YES, then it got to stay for six months. If the answer to both question NO, then it was going to the skip, via the IKEA bag. Some things even got he heave after failing only one test. Sometimes you have to be ruthless. As the bag got fuller and fuller, the top of the chest of drawers magically appeared.

After Scamp came back and we had lunch, I took all the stuff in the car to the skips. Heavens, Jamie, you’re not going to believe this, but I even parted with a camera. A working camera! I won’t list all that went to landfill, but there was a a lot. With the boot of the car empty I could go to B&Q to get a tube of sealant for the shower, and have somewhere to put it. Next stop was Screwfix for a Hive plug socket. The number of times I’ve left the house and driven to the bottom of the road wondering if I’ve left the phone charger or some other piece of dodgy equipment switched on. Now I can check on my phone if it’s on and with a touch of the screen, turn it off. Hopefully it will be worth the money in peace of mind. Two things in the boot. Time for some photo opportunities.

Drove up to Fannyside Moor and found an old fencepost strapped to its new replacement with its great collection of mosses and lichen. It looked like a little garden, although one comment on Flickr likened it to a “micro rainforest”. I understand what he meant. It got PoD. Found a little wee ladybird with sixteen spots. Dark red wing covers and white spots. It’s a Cream-spot Ladybird (Calvia quattuordecimguttata) and it’s not very rare.

Back home, Scamp made Sea Bass with asparagus and home grown Potatoes. Absolutely brilliant. Later we had a quick practise of the final parts of the Foxtrot we’ve been learning. I say ’final’, but it’s likely the teachers will add another two or three little bits to the end of the routine.

No plans for tomorrow, although a trip out for ‘the messages’ is not out of the question.

Out early for a dance or five – 14 August 2021

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The new normal for a Saturday. Up and out by 10.15.

Drove to Johnstone, flying solo. I did have a radio operator, but didn’t have the backup of sat nav. You have to fly solo some time. You can’t always be relying on instruments to guide you, besides it was a fairly easy route to follow.

Started with a couple of sequence dances and finished with a line dance! Oh No! I’ll be buying a Stetson hat and a pair of cowboy boots soon! In between there were more additions to the Foxtrot to contend with and more detail in the Sweetheart Cha Cha. We managed it, but with a bit of difficulty for both of us.

Came home and had lunch then we lifted our second, and last “tattie bag” and got a fair amount to tatties for tomorrow’s dinner and a few more days besides. Then Scamp wanted to do some pruning and I went to the butchers to get sausages for tomorrow’s breakfast, stew for a steak pie and free range eggs. On the way home I stopped at St Mo’s and nabbed a little dragonfly, a Common Darter, for today’s PoD. Still shooting with the new A6000 which is so much lighter than the E7m2. Image quality is a bit lower than its big brother, but not so much that it is getting sent back. The kit lens is one of Sony’s failures, but I’ve enough lenses to go round without having to use that bit of plastic. It’s a keeper.

Dinner was from Golden Bowl and was our usual selection: Chicken Chop Suey for Scamp and Special Chow Mein for me. Both up to the usual high standard. Watched one of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise which was just mindless entertainment, no thinking required.

Tomorrow we may go for a drive somewhere scenic if the weather is as good as today.

Going to the dancing – 7 August 2021

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At 10.45am!

Ballroom dancing class in Johnstone, the posh end of Paisley. The class started with a fairly relaxed Tina Tango just to get us going, then we segued into the Foxtrot which we made a decent enough job of, we thought. We got round the floor without too many mistakes and increased our confidence in dancing around people. I picked up a couple of tips from Stewart about posture and its benefits and also how to better direct my partner by using my hand on her shoulder blade. Jane ironed out a flaw in Scamp’s Heel Turn that had been bothering her. Finished off with a Rumba One.

Next was the Sweetheart Cha Cha, the one we’ve been trying to get to grips with this week. It was much better than last week’s disaster. We’ve managed the first part of it (the Front End). The Back End is still a mystery to me, but Scamp will sort it out. We also filmed some of the demos the teachers did and we can work with them once we slow them down and cut them into manageable chunks.

We had a bit of rain going to the class and a heavier bit coming home. The road was really busy coming home. We just dumped our stuff and headed off again, this time to Stirling to go to Waitrose. We got a fair amount of things. Mainly things you can’t get in Tesco or Morrisons. I got a couple of lamb chops that are earmarked for dinner tomorrow and Scamp got some fish, also probably for tomorrow. Didn’t go in to Stirling proper, just came home because it looked as if the town was busy.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s, in the rain. PoD came from there. Dandelion clocks are a bit of a cliché, but if they get wet they hold little beads of rainwater and become a bit bedraggled too which makes them more interesting, I think. There wasn’t much else that came from the walk.

Dinner tonight was a Charlie Bigham Thai Green Curry which was plenty hot and really good. Expensive, but worth it, because it is Saturday and neither of us wanted to cook.

I think I might have pulled a muscle in my arm. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I’ve been dosing myself up with paracetamol all day. I’ve also used some Ralgex tonight. I don’t think it does much good. I’m pretty sure the massaging it in does more to encourage blood flow, but it’s worth trying.

We had some thunder again today and a few heavy rain showers. More of the same predicted for tomorrow, so I doubt if we’ll be going far. Maybe a bit of dance practise.

Recording Studio – 4 August 2021

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Scamp did the clever music stuff, I was just the techy.

First there were messages to do, but I wasn’t needed for that, so I kept a low profile and allowed Scamp to do the donkey work. Just to show that I wasn’t shirking the work entirely, I removed the fairy lights from the back fence. I could just have cut the wires and ripped them all down, but I wanted to find out what was causing them to fail. I think it might be bird damage. The wee birds trot happily along the fence looking for beasties to eat. I think one or more of them have pecked through the wire. I was just finishing when Scamp appeared with the shopping.

Just before lunch we started to look at setting up the recording studio. Scamp had been asked if she could play a piece of music on her piano and put it onto CD, so Veronica could play the CD and sing to it at her daughter’s wedding. We could do this between us, we’ve done it before, but first we’d to work out how we managed it the last time. We started off with Scamp’s Windows laptop. I got Audacity, an excellent free music editing app, downloaded and running. As far as I could remember the procedure was to get a line out from the piano, plug it in to the headphone socket of the laptop and fool the laptop into using it as an input. Windows didn’t like that and refused to work with us. I then tried my new Apple laptop, with the same lack of success. We adjourned for lunch and a think.

I tried doing the same thing with my old Apple laptop and got a bit further, but still no real success. Finally, after reading a couple of explanations on the Net I worked out how it was done, on a Mac at least. We managed to get the track recorded from the piano and into the computer, but there is a dodgy key on the piano which plays a rough note, that’s the only way I can describe it. It just sounds rough. I went for a walk! I got PoD which is a bunch of Forget Me Nots in a lovely little bit of sunshine. I came back with an elegant solution.

Could she, I asked Scamp, play the tune in a different key which wouldn’t use the dodgy piano key? Then we could record it and get a clean result and using Audacity, change the key to make it sound like a clean version of the original. “Yes” was the answer once she’d worked out what I had in my head. While she set about transposing the music in her head, I made the dinner which was Prawn & Pea Risotto with our own peas. Pods in the stock and peas in the pot! It was really quite good, augmented with some frozen peas.

Back in the studio we were good to go. We recoded the music without a problem. Re-transposed it electronically in the laptop and then looked around for the CD burner. We’re still looking! It must be in the house and I think we both looked everywhere it could be but it’s still hiding. My inelegant solution was to copy the MP3 Audacity created on to a memory stick and plug it into my old Toshiba laptop running Windows 7. After a struggle we finally got it to burn the CD using Windows Media Player. Ancient technology. We played the track on the CD player and it sounded perfect. So here’s the pathway to our success.

Fairly new HP laptop – couldn’t record
Almost new Apple laptop – couldn’t record
Old Apple laptop – could record, but couldn’t burn CD
Old Tosh laptop – managed to burn the CD.

I hope Veronica likes the track and doesn’t decide she’ll sing a different song. I don’t know how these bands manage to record albums. I’m presuming they have a few old Mac laptops lying around to record the tracks and a couple of 20 year old Tosh laptops to burn the demo CDs.

That was our day. Just a musical extravaganza. It looks like rain tomorrow, so I don’t expect we’ll be going far.

“I have seen the future …” – 3 August 2021

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“… and it works.” Reputed to be the words of Lincoln Austin Steffens after he had visited Russia in 1919 and had seen the new Soviet society in operation.

We did travel east today, but not as far as Russia. We went to Embra. We wanted to ‘expand our boundaries’, travel on public transport and live like ‘ordinary’ people. We survived the adventure. One of the places I wanted to see was the new St James Quarter with its roof that isn’t really a roof and its multi-storey shopping extravaganza. But first we had to get off the train at Haymarket, walk through Ladyfield (where today’s PoD came from) to Cafe Nero on Lothian Road, because that’s what we used to do when the world was a different place. The last time we were in Embra was in January 2020, by the way!

After the coffee and feeling suitably refreshed we walked round past the Usher hall and up on to the Grassmarket. Strange to see it without any stalls but with cars and buses driving past. Lots of tables set out where the stalls usually are, so the cafés and restaurants were in business. From there up the hill and round to cross the Royal Mile, then down The Mound (not the pile of turf beside Marble Arch, but the real Mound) to Princes Street Gardens. On that walk I got this shot of an old joke. Scrawled on a sign beside some scaffolding. It made me smile. Back at the stroll through Embra, we walked through the gardens and finally reached The St James Quarter which is quite impressive on a first viewing. But anything would be impressive compared to the old St James Centre which always looked like it was based on the design for Cumbernauld Town Centre. Yes, that bad!

We had a wander through one of the levels, marvelling at the amount of shops some with names we’d never seen before. Some with names we’d seen in foreign climes. Some we feel sure will last 6 months and then be replaced with shops that people will actually buy stuff from. I wanted to have a look at the ‘toys’ in JL, the new six storey JL. Why do they put the best stuff on the top level? I saw, what might be, my next camera. One version up from what I have now, but light years ahead in tech. I did say at the start “I have seen the future …”. Scamp wandered round the lower levels but didn’t buy. However she gave an ultimatum that she was looking for a new dress. I got the impression that the shortlist has already been written.

We exited the bit glitzy glass building and found our where we were. We were heading for Valvona & Corolla, only to find that it’s not there any more. We were definitely in the right place, but it wasn’t! We walk on along Rose Street to find our second choice, but it was closed. At least it was still there. Eventually we gave up and walked back up the Grassmarket and waited five minutes at Petit Paris for an outside table, because it was still a lovely, fairly warm day. Scamp had Salmon Rillette followed by fish of the day, Coley with a Basil Sauce served with mash. I had Countryside Terrine followed by Chicken Supreme with Forestière sauce, and Hazy, we hadn’t brought the voucher, but we asked if it was still valid and the reply was “Of course! Bring it next time.” Lesser restaurants would just have said no, but the trio of French blokes are better than that. We’ll know for next time.

We retraced our steps from the morning and after almost exhausting ourselves climbing about a million steps to get up from the low Kings Stables Road to the Castle Terrace, then marching down Morrison Street we managed to catch the train home with a couple of minutes to spare.

A great day. It was almost like it was before the world turned upside down.

Two days of eating out. We need to get back to cooking and eating our own food tomorrow! We might even get some rain.

Out to lunch – 2 August 2021

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Away into the country.

Drove out to The Smiddy near Blair Drummond and accepted the last table they had. Not really a table, more like a shelf with two high seats to sit on. We were lucky to get it because not long afterwards people were told there was a 20min wait for a table. Also, others seemed to waltz in, have a few words with the manager and jump the queue, no questions asked. I don’t think that’s a good way to run a restaurant. At least not if you want the jilted customers to come back.

Despite the poor managerial skills, the food was good. Scamp had her usual Mac ’n’ Cheese, but a much improved cheese sauce she said. I had the fishcakes and although they were a bit small, they tasted great with big chunks of fish and floury potato. Also, they were surprisingly filling, although that could have been down to the chips I snaffled from Scamp’s plate.
All in all, a good lunch if you can get a seat.

Instead of driving straight home we took a detour further out into the country on a road we’ve been on before we think, but couldn’t recall any of the scenery on it. Driving on ‘B’ roads in the lakes may have inspired my choice of narrow roads today, but the sun was out and we were away from the towns for a while. Our detour eventually took us through Thornhill and back to The Smiddy. We didn’t go in though. We’d been lucky once today, we didn’t want to have to wait 20mins for a table and then find some friends of the owner got seated before us. We drove home instead.

I’d taken some photos before we left the restaurant and today’s PoD is the result of eight of those frames being seamlessly joined into a panorama of the Carse of Forth. The ‘Carse’ being the name given to the low lying fertile land either side of the River Forth.

Watered the garden tonight and included our next door neighbours flowers in the deluge because he’d watered ours last night. Scamp watered the back garden. We may have another good, dry day tomorrow, but after the middle of the week, things will go downhill. With that in mind, we may go out somewhere tomorrow before the rains come.

Down the Green – 1 August 2021

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We went for a walk this morning.

It’s been ages since we’ve been down Glasgow Green. It used to be a favourite place for a walk, but we’ve been staying closer to home recently. Maybe it’s time we stretched our boundaries and found some new places to walk and also remembered old ones. Today we remembered old ones.

The park had changed a lot since the last time we’d been down there. The boathouse that stands on the banks of the Clyde just before the weir is under renovation, as is the riverbank from there to the weir. Not sure what they are doing and there are no signs to say what work is being undertaken, so maybe it’s going to be a secret submarine base or something like that. Much more information about the restoration of the boathouse which is now going to be a community hub of sorts with other areas inside, not just storage and repair areas for boats. Might be a good thing to give a wider section of the public a chance to use this space, not just the rather elitist rowing community.

We walked on and watched a man feed the ducks and saw the frenzy of wings as the gulls tried to steal everything white in the water. Most went for the bread, but some fought for a piece of white plastic bag. Each gull sure that it was theirs until another flew in to steal it. We walked on to the suspension bridge but there was little to see there. The university boat club who own the upstream boathouse were going out in fours, but we got bored waiting for them to do their downstream run.

I wanted to go for some photos in The Barras so we headed over there next. It’s just a shadow of its former self, but there was certainly more activity today that the last time we walked there. Good to see the trade in knock-off DVDs and CDs is still good and folk are making a dishonest bob from it. Scamp was half looking for a new kitchen carpet, but there weren’t many worth buying today. I got a few decent street photos, but very few were in focus. The Sony A7ii is noted as being particularly poor in the focus department. Some day I’ll trade it in and maybe get an A7iii, but not this week!

Back home Scamp went for a walk to the shops while I tried to fix the fairy lights on the back fence. The solar panel seems to be charging and the battery is holding a charge, so I suspect a break in the cable. Not easy to find and not easy to fix either. Cheaper to buy a new one.

When Scamp came back, we emptied the Tattie Bag and got enough for two dinners from it. We might empty the second bag next week, all being well. We might need to water it too, because the one we emptied was bone dry.

Dinner was a burger for me and a salmon fillet for Scamp. Both served with fried onions and our own potatoes.

I went over to St Mo’s for a walk, but didn’t get anything worthwhile. PoD went to a photo from The Barras of a group sitting having breakfast in Gibson Street.

Watched the carnage at the start of the Hungarian GP, then saw Hamilton attempting and almost failing to pass Alonso to come third to Ocon who won an amazing victory. I think the unlucky Verstappen was tenth after being caught up in the stramash at the start. If it wasn’t for bad luck he wouldn’t have any luck at all.

All in all, not a bad day. Tomorrow we may ‘stretch our boundaries’ if the sun shines.

Coffee with Val – 29 July 2021

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Just Val and me today.

I don’t know if Val has fallen out with Fred, but he never mentioned whether he had invited him or not and I didn’t ask. I thought I’d show him my new Huawei watch, but surprise, surprise, Val had one too. Like a couple of school kids we compared watch faces. He pinched one of mine and I pinched one of his. An hour and a half seemed to fly past and for once we didn’t just talk ‘tech’. It was more about trying to get back to ‘normal’. Maybe not real normal, more like this new normal. Still, it was a step in the right direction.

Back home Scamp was just getting ready to go and dead head some flowers, so I took the opportunity to grab some pictures of some of her favourites. That’s why today’s PoD is a bunch of Osteospermum all vying for the best place in the photo. I was impressed with the way the Sony dealt with the red roses. The Oly was much quicker to focus, but it oversaturate the reds, the Sony gave a much more realistic rendition of the reds. Something to do with the bigger sensor perhaps?

I did go for a walk in St Mo’s later in the day and got a decent macro of a shieldbug apparently steeling itself for a leap into space. In reality it was fighting with a wolf spider. I don’t think the spider came out on top this time. Maybe it got sprayed by the shieldbug. They don’t call it a stinkbug for nothing.

Back home it was veg chilli for dinner and as usual I made too much. Oh well, we can eat if for lunch tomorrow.

And with that, you are all caught up.  Two week’s worth of blog written.  I’m glad it’s done.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow if the weather permits.

Stones – 22 July 2021

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We were travelling into history today, our history.

Years ago we often drove down to the lakes for a long weekend when school permitted. Sometimes to Ambleside and sometimes Grasmere. Once when we were there we noticed an appeal for money to repair an old church in Grasmere that needed a new roof. If you paid a sum of money, can’t remember how much, you could have a paving stone engraved with your name laid on a path in a new garden near the church. We made the donation and got our stone laid, but when we went to see it, the path was only part completed. It seemed a shame to come all this way this year and not search for our stone in the garden in Grasmere. That’s where we headed today.

We knew it would be a long journey, but we hadn’t realised just how steep some of those climbs and descents would be. One descent in particular was 25%! We were just starting it when a girl on a road bike was cresting the rise, hardly out of breath. I admired her stamina getting up there. It wasn’t the most fun drive I’ve ever had and I’m sure Scamp wasn’t all that happy either, but we got there.

Grasmere was a lot busier than I remember it. Every car park seemed crammed full. However there was a notice on the exit of one that pointed to a new car park. We found it and it was nearly empty, I presume because it was on the far edge of the village. Didn’t matter, we were parked. There was a long queue to pay for a ticket, because everyone uses plastic these days and this machine didn’t seem to like that. It was rejecting cards right left and centre. I offered to try my luck with cash and four quid lighter I had my parking ticket for three hours. So, there was nothing wrong with the machine, it just didn’t like plastic!

We walked along a path beside the river and saw one of Mr Grey’s distant relatives fishing in one of the pools. The path came out just at the church and beside the church was the new garden, the Daffodil Garden, and the paving stones. The search was on.

Scamp was off like a shot and of course it was her who found the stone. Just as we remembered it. The entire path was finished now, all 3,000 of them. That’s a lot of money raised. After we’d photographed each other standing next to the stone, we left the garden to the others who were reading the names. The repairs to the church are still ongoing, but a lot has been done with the money.

We had lunch in a wee tearoom we used to sit in. Looked much the same as it did all those years ago. The couple who owned and ran it then have only recently sold it.

Scamp remembered another road home that didn’t involve climbing that 25% hill. I think it might have given the wee blue car a heart attack climbing it.

Back at the house it was an early dinner to allow JIC and Sim to get on the road. This was Neil D’s turn as chef again and it was Fried Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Beans. There was yet another group photo and a few tears when JIC and Sim took their leave.

I went for a last walk along the road and got a few landscape photos in the beautiful evening light. I think they are some of my favourite photos of the week. Back at the house I tried again for some shots of the moon, but none of them worked very well. One of the landscapes became PoD.

Tomorrow is the day we all dread. Packing up and going home.

Rosemary from the garden – 21 July 2021

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Scamp wanted milk Sim wanted tonic JIC wanted rosemary, fresh preferably.

We drove down to Millom by the ‘high road’ which the sat nav doesn’t understand. Too small a road and with no road number. Once there we went to Tesco. Got the milk and some other stuff but no elderflower tonic to be found and no fresh rosemary.

Drove down to Broughton and parked down near the livestock market, then found the wee deli where we’d got the cherries earlier in the week. Woman said there might be rosemary in the chiller cabinet in the back of the shop. The guy who was serving went to look said if there wasn’t any there, he’s cut us a couple of sprigs from the garden. That’s good service. Scamp bought two bottles of wine and one of gin.

Came out and decided it was far too warm to walk anywhere, even through the avenue of trees to the pools we’d found a couple of days ago. Just came home by the new road and stopped at the bridge just before the zig zag through the farm. I realise that means nothing to everyone except those who have driven that narrow road. Got a few photos there of a couple wee cottages that stand by the side of a river, half covered by a stand of trees. One of those photos. Back in the car I though “Isn’t air-con a wonderful thing”!

Spent the rest of the day lounging around. Jamie made Fish with Carrot Chips and I made Cheesy Tear & Share bread. JIC and Sim are leaving tomorrow night. They have business to attend to at home and also it will be cooler driving in the evening.

I took some moody shots of the moon which was looking good tonight, but the midges were busy again so I didn’t linger.

May go looking for stones tomorrow.