Category: Food

High Hopes rained off – 3 October 2020

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Well, I had high hopes that we’d manage a wee walk early in the day. The weather thought differently.

The rain started about 11am and it hasn’t stopped since. To be fair, the weather fairies warned us this would happen, but you live in hope, don’t you? Instead I spent the day … doing nothing. Nothing creative was achieved today. I think I sat in front of the computer for most of the day and hardly moved. At 11.15pm my Fitbit records 2,097 steps. That’s well below our daily average.  To give myself something to do I made a loaf.  It’s ages since I baked and I thought I’d get some practise in so I can criticise the efforts of the numpties on GBBO.  It actually turned out very well.  Impressed!

What I did do today was fit all three of my useable Nikon lenses on the Sony A7, using an adaptor that the kind Amazon man brought me this afternoon. I’ve used one of these before on the Olys, but it was always with heart in my mouth, hoping that when I pressed the button to release it from the lens, the pin it controlled would actually disengage. Sometimes it did, right away other times it had to be coaxed. As you can imagine, that didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. This one seems far better engineered and more solid. What’s more it works. Of course you lose all the electronic connections between lens and camera, but I don’t mind having to do a bit of manual focusing if it means I get to use my quality Nikon glass again. Unfortunately because of the reduced light levels today I couldn’t really test them fully. Hopefully we’ll get that done tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was Baked Potatoes. Accompaniments were Tuna Mayo for Scamp and Venison Burgers for me. Both were deemed brighteners on a dull, dreich day.

The topic for today on Inktober was ‘Bulk’ and my drawing for that was a well stuffed car with lots of bulky stuff. Not quite the exact solution the author of the list was asking for, but it was my interpretation.

PoD was one of Scamp’s roses, Troika. Beautiful colours when it’s in bud, but they reduce in intensity fairly quickly, even outside. It was taken with the kit lens for the Sony A7 in poor lighting tonight. I took it while we were watching The Birdcage on Amazon Fire Stick. Brilliant film, even if Robin Williams wasn’t at his manic best. It was far, far better than the film we sat down to watch, Get Duked. Just don’t watch it.

Tomorrow we’re hoping the rain will stop for a while.

Another warm sunny day in October – 2 October 2020

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We went for a walk.

Packed a bag with the new camera and an old camera, although they were both manufactured around the same time. With the bag packed we set off on our travels. It was the reverse of our normal route. Heading out to Broadwood Loch and back round to the new shops. ‘New’ is relative as they are only about a year old. Anyway, we went in to get crème fraîche and came out with a full bag of stuff, most of which we’ll use over the next few days. Couldn’t believe that tomorrow its to be wall to wall rain and today was blissful sunshine with only a few little clouds to create some interest in an otherwise blue sky.

Back home after a second cup of coffee today, I grabbed both cameras again and went in search of beasties. Found a whole line of them ranged along the edge of the boardwalk. All except one were common darter males. Possibly just finished work and waiting for the pubs to open. The odd one out was a black darter and he was certainly in the mood for darting. No quick pint for him, he was off attending to business, or so it seemed. That’s where the PoD came from. I was quite pleased with it. It’s had loads of views on Flickr, possibly from disappointed viewers sucked in by the title: Full Frontal! Oh yes, and Schoolgirl is still trapping the unwary.

Took a few moody shots of flowers and cow parsley seed heads with the A7 and they looked impressive. I’m sure some folk on Flickr will love the ‘bokeh’ that it produces. Just looks like out of focus blobs to me. Overall, I’m settling down to it. It’s still not a definite keeper, but I’m quietly impressed.

Dinner tonight was Cod with Prawns and Fennel. It’s rapidly becoming a family favourite.

Today’s topic for Inktober was Wisp.  It stumped me for a while, but I chose a couple of dandelion parachutes to become the drawing of  the day.  Not exactly a wisp, but light as a fairy.  Close enough.

That was about it for today. Tomorrow, as I’ve said, looks like rain, so I don’t think we’ll be going far.

The end of September – 30 September 2020

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Scamp drives in Blue, in the rain.

It started out dull but dry, that didn’t last. Hazy phoned and after a wee chat with her the rain came on. Actually I think it had been raining while we were talking, but I couldn’t say for certain. What I could say was that it looked as if it was going to be on more most of the day and I wasn’t wrong there.

Scamp wanted to go to Tesco and that meant driving, so I volunteered to be co-pilot and while she browsed for a birthday card, I could go and get the items in my mental list. As it turned out, most of the items were sensible and hardly any were really ‘mental’. Wee Scottish joke there folks! Back home and she reverse parked like an expert. A first time pass. Now she can rip up those Blue ‘L plates’. I expect it helps that she’s going from a Micra to a Micra, but probably going from a red car to a blue one is causing most of the problems.

We’d bought into a Naked Wines offer just over a month ago and got a box of six wines for a decent price. The first four we’ve drunk and they were very nice. Today I noticed the company had taken a few quid from me and added it to my account. I’m not entirely sure I signed up to that, but it wasn’t as if they were pocketing it. Once I signed it to the website I found that they’d topped up my ‘contribution’ by a tenner, which was nice of them. We liked the wines and thought we’d just buy another box of six, pay the extra and then cancel the contract. Then Scamp noticed that once we’d chosen our six bottles, the ‘Go to Checkout’ button was still greyed out. Now the implication of “Buy 12 bottles to get a magnum of white” became a bit clearer. That wasn’t an option, it was a demand. I’m afraid we removed the six bottles from the basket and cancelled our contract with our silent ‘contribution’ being returned within the nominal five working days. It’d better be or we’ll refer them to The Harris Distillery to find out how bad publicity can damage a company’s reputation. Be warned any of you wine drinkers out there. Read the (very) small print before you part with your money.

It was still raining when I left to take my camera for its daily walk. Wandered out to St Mo’s and into the woodland there. Found a wee frog about the size of a 50p piece, if you can remember what real metal money looks like these days. But it was a low-down photo of a snail carrying its house on its back as it crossed the path that made PoD. The rain followed me home, but the snail didn’t, it was on a mission.

It was Madras Chettinad curry for dinner with rice and naan bread. The word “Madras” should have been a warning, but we’d had it before an I thought we’d manage to deal with it. We did, but only just. Thankfully we had a tin of coconut milk in the cupboard and it took away a fair bit of the heat. This was a curry from the Holy Cow range and what worries me now is that it’s a ‘three chilli’ curry, which used to be their hottest, but now in their new packaging, it’s a three chilli out of four. Does that mean there is a Thermonuclear version still to come? Will we need to make it in one of those fancy ceramic pots, because it will melt the stainless steel ones? I may leave it for someone else to test first.

Possibly driving in to Glasgow tomorrow, just for a look at something. I’m not saying what, but you just know it’s going to be a camera, don’t you? 😉

Another beautiful day – 29 September 2020

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A day to go walking in the sunshine

But first there was the little matter of a bookcase to help tidy up my sketch books. We drove up to B&M and bagged the last grey bookcase on the rack for the princely sum of £18. I could have paid an extra £2 to get a veneered one, but the grey one was cheaper and nobody cares what it looks like, as long as it holds the books … more of which later.

Dropped off the bookcase and gathered a camera then off we went to Rouken Glen in the posh end of Glasgow. I can never remember which turnoff from the M77 takes us there and as a result I always come off too early and then have to navigate through the streets to find it again. This time the sat nav took me and I did what it told me and it worked. The last time we were there was in mid-March, just before things got crazy. Then the car park was empty. Today we were fighting for a space. We walked the park, from the north end all the way to the south gate and then down and round the boating pond.
What was it with boating on ponds in Glasgow in the past? Some stretches of water were for rowing boats like Rouken Glen and Hogganfield Loch and some were for model boats like Alexandra Park. Was it something to do with all the ship building going on along the banks of the Clyde?
Workies were cutting and trimming trees beside part of the pond so we had to take a diversion that brought us to the waterfall with its collection of padlocks locked onto the railings of the bridge carrying the path over the burn. We walked over and then out onto the rough area where the paths are just that, paths that have been trodden by hundreds, if not thousands of feet over the years. We followed our noses and finally came back to marked paths that took us back to the car park. A decent 7,000 odd steps to add to our total for the day. The tea shop in the Boathouse looked a bit busy and the service in the garden centre was hit and a miss last time, so we just came home and had a home lunch.

Spent the rest of the afternoon assembling the bookcase and filling it with sketchbooks. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite big enough to accommodate the A4 sketchbooks I’ve been using lately, so I may adapt it a bit to fit them or I may leave it as it is and store them on their long edges with the spines at the top. They are taking up the same amount of room as they would if they were stored like normal books. Too hard to explain in words. I’ll maybe take a photo tomorrow and save the thousand words for my stories.

Scamp made pancakes for dessert tonight with syrup and ice cream. Maple syrup for me! Delicious!!

Tomorrow looks wet. We may go out walking in the rain or we may go for lunch.

The man from Malta – 27 September 2020

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Continuing on our theme of daily walks, today’s destination was Glasgow Green.

Scamp drove us down to Glasgow Green in the Red Micra. We parked in our usual place and after inspecting the chestnut trees to see if there were any chessies although you may know them as ‘conkers’, we continued past the now closed People’s Palace. No people allowed in today. Walked the length of the path, past the folk practising hurling. I thought it might have been shinty, but I just checked and the sticks are definitely the spoon shape of a ’Hurley’ rather than the murderous ’Caman’ of shinty. There, I’m sure you’re as glad as I am that we’ve got that sorted out.

Walked back by the side or the river observing the ‘Keep Left’ signs that ensure social distancing. Stood for a while on the suspension bridge, watching the rowers on the river looking very efficient and freezing. It was only 0.5º this morning when I got up and the temperature hadn’t risen much when we were out walking on The Green. No ice floes on the river though, so it can’t be winter yet. Because it was such a lovely morning we continued on and crossed the river to Richmond Park. It’s really in a sorry state these days. I’m sure the council will blame Covid and problems with maintaining a workforce in these days, but the neglect here is more than the six months we’ve been under the cloud of the virus. This is an out of the way park, half of which has been sold off to developers and the other half left to wrack and ruin, and don’t get me started on the demise of the Wintergarden of the People’s Palace.

However, there was life here. There were boats in the boating pond. Not rowing boats, but radio controlled model boats and it was here we met the man from Malta. We were sitting watching these detailed models sailing up and down controlled by their makers when this bloke came up and started telling us how he originally came from Malta, but moved to Glasgow when he was six. He told us how he’d seen the pond when he was coming home from school and thought it was the sea and how his dad gave him a severe telling off for being late home. He now has six or seven boats that he sails on the pond at weekends. He left saying that it was a great hobby and if I wanted to take it up I should join the club. I think I have enough roads for my money to go these days without building model boats. We walked round the rest of the park before retracing our steps to the car. Gone are the days for a roll ’n’ sausage and a cup of coffee for me or two slice of toast and tea for Scamp in the Wintergarden.

Back home, Scamp finished picking the remaining apples from the trees and we emptied the last ‘tattie bag’. We got lots of apples, but just enough tatties for tonight’s dinner. We also lifted one of the leeks and cut some kale for soup. I even lifted one of my carrots which also made it into the soup. I managed to burn today’s stew, but also managed to salvage enough for my dinner along with the potatoes we’d lifted.

PoD went to the boatbuilders at Richmond Park. The man from Malta is slightly right of centre with his back to the camera. I liked his story and the fact he took time to speak to us.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to have coffee and a gab with Val.

A new camera, a dash cam – 25 September 2020

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Dashcam day.

I got to use my dash cam a couple of years ago and I wouldn’t be without one now. Today I went to Halfords to find out when they could fit one in Blue. Luckily, they had a space this afternoon, so confirmed the booking and drove home for a quick lunch before driving up to allow the nice man to fit a brand new dash cam for me. Yes, I could have saved a few quid by using the supplied cable and plug, but it looks untidy and a new car deserves a new neat fitting. Even more unlikely, I could have fitted it myself, but I knew that would have involved a lot of swearing and a fair bit of damage to the inside of Blue. The bloke from Halfords had made a really neat job of the fitting the last time and I trusted him to do the same again.

With him working away in the car, Scamp drove me off in her car to a nice little parking place beside the Forth & Clyde Canal where we could walk along under a fairly blue sky and some sunshine as far as the ill fated Underwood Lock House. It had originally been the lock keeper’s cottage and around 2000 was converted to a pub and restaurant, but after a fire in 2013 it remains a roofless ruin. It seemed a sensible place to turn and walk back. I grabbed a set of seven shots to form into a panorama when we returned.

Collected the car and paid for the dash cam and the fitting and drove home. I couldn’t see any evidence of how that man fitted the wiring, but he did just as clean a job as last time, if not better. Dash cams are a bit like insurance. It’s something you have to buy these days, but you hope you’ll never need them.

Dinner tonight was Veg Chilli and AGAIN I forgot to add the kidney beans. I did the same last week down at Little Musgrave, so you see JIC and Sim, it was nothing personal, it’s just a mental block I have with veg chilli!

PoD was that seven frame panorama. The other thing I did today was set up Inktober 2020 on Flickr. Hope I don’t have the same problems I had last year with nobody except me being able to find it on the website!

Tomorrow we may go for a walk.

Foodies again – 24 September 2020

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Second day of eating out this week.

Eating out in Glasgow this time. Two Fat Ladies in Blythswood Street. Quite compact and bijou. Specialises in seafood which isn’t too good for me, but usually there’s a meat dish or a chicken dish. Not so today. Scamp’s selection from the menu was: Mussels, followed by Channa Dal with a Vegetable Masala, finishing off with Sticky Toffee Pudding and Custard. I had Mushroom Rarebit, then the same Channa Dal with a Vegetable Masala and decided to learn from yesterday and just have a Cappuccino. I shouldn’t say ‘just a Cappuccino’, this must have been the best Cap’ I’ve ever had! Nero and Costa, you have a lot to learn from Two Fat Ladies as far as coffee is concerned. The menu today restricted me a bit. Of the three mains on offer, the only one I could have was the dal. Not that I’m regretting it, because this was up to Delia’s standard, well not quite, but almost. I must say that Neil’s mum makes the best Channa Dal I’ve ever eaten. This one was hotter than her’s and almost as tasty. Although I said the restaurant was ‘compact and bijou’, you really want to see the size of the kitchen. I passed it on the way to the ‘little boys room’. It wasn’t so much a kitchen as a galley from a small boat, like a rowing boat. The poor guy who works there must be skinny as a rake to fit in!

After lunch we wandered down SausageRoll Street and drove home via Calders Garden Centre to get some Geum plants to keep Scamp’s Allium bulbs company. We bought the bulbs in Kirkby Stephen last week and she planted them during the week.

I’d had a look at a discounted camera in JL and thought it might be interesting. It’s a Sony A7 at a very reasonable price. Unfortunately the prices of the lenses it takes are not at all reasonable. Most of them are the same price as the camera, which makes me wonder what quality the piece of glass in the front of the camera is. I think I’ll leave that one to someone less critical than me.

PoD is a shot looking up at the Premier Inn on SausageRoll Street. It looks like it’s getting its second refurb in as many years.

I think we’ve done our fair bit of eating out for this week. Tomorrow may be a stay at home dinner.

Dining out – 23 September 2020

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Just an opportunity to go for lunch and put aside Covid fears for an hour or so.

Scamp had bought the original Itison (Scottish version of Groupon) voucher back in February with the intention that it would be a useful lunch treat in the spring or summer, then Covid arrived and we tumbled into lockdown. Recently, when restaurants opened again, the vouchers came back to life. Today’s was for “21”, an Italian restaurant in Hamilton.  We even got free parking in the town because all the meters were covered, presumably to avoid folk having to risk catching the disease when emptying the meters. A little bonus. We walked down to the restaurant in the sunshine and arrived right on time. Scamp had Cream of Veg soup to start, followed by Veg Risotto. I had Salami Bruschetta followed by Balmoral Chicken. Both were perfectly satisfactory, but I wished later I’d stuck with my original choice of Lasagne. Because we’d had a cheap starter and main we felt it would only be fair to had a dessert too. Scamp had Coppa Amarena (ice cream with cherries) and I had Tiramisu. The Coppa looked great and the one cherry I had was beautiful. The Tiramisu was dry and looked as if it had come from a wholesaler. Not great. All in all it was fine. Next time if we go back, I’ll be more sensible in my choices. What impressed me most was that the staff spoke Italian to each other. That’s the way it should be.

Back home and back to reality, Scamp cut the front grass and I volunteered to do the same to the back grass. Maybe that will be the last cut of the year. The light was still good when we were done, so while Scamp relaxed, I took the Oly over to St Mo’s and went for a walk in the woods. It was a bit cold out of the sun, but the low light created opportunities for some decent photos. PoD was a backlit shot of a spider wrapping up its dinner. It’s a Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus).

Tonight about 8pm I was taking the recycling out for collection tomorrow morning. A group of folk were standing outside the house next door. Their father and mother, whose house it is, were inside with their grandchildren, but the parents were outside talking. Some were standing, some were sitting in garden chairs. It was dark and the temperature was a chilly 9ºc. What they were doing was perfectly legal and in line with the new rules for Scotland, but why would anyone go to those lengths? Will they do the same in a couple of months when it’s snowing? Who knows.

Tomorrow we may drive in to Glasgow.

The steak was the highlight – 20 September 2020

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This was a dull Sunday.

Not dull as in no sunshine, because there was plenty of sunshine, especially late in the afternoon, but dull as in nothing to do and nowhere we wanted to go. News was depressing too with a rise in Covid cases again and the promise of even more restrictions on the way. All this and the feeling that autumn was just knocking at the door.

We went down to the shops just to get essentials, nothing more. After putting the messages away, I went for a walk in St Mo’s and found a host of black dragonflies. Small ones with a waisted body. I’m sure I’ve seen them last year, but certainly not this year. ID’d them as Black Darters and the name didn’t ring a bell, which might mean I didn’t see them last year. Still lots of Common Darters about too.

Highlight of the day was dinner and a juicy sirloin steak for me. Nice fat piece of salmon for Scamp.

Hoping for a better day tomorrow. May go to Falkirk to search out a new kitchen bin.

Not driving today – 19 September 2020

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Just a walk or two, but no alpacas, viaducts nor waterfalls.

We walked down round the Broadwood outdoor gym trail then back past the BMX track where I got told off for photographing the kids who were competing, without permission. Quite right too, but I’d never thought about it before. I’d always been covered by school permissions when I was photographing anyone in school. I should have known better and should probably have deleted the shots I took. None of them got past the first cull anyway.

Walked back past the shops and bought two curries for dinner tonight. As it turned out, they weren’t all that good. Maybe it was just going to be that kind of day.

Walked round St Mo’s later to try to get some photos and found a patient dragonfly that sat for me. There was very little else, although it was a lovely day.

Tomorrow we may go further afield.