Category: Food

The Walking Tour – 07 March 2018

Posted on by Zogman

7 MarToday we were walking down to the harbour with a stop on the way for a drink perhaps.

After breakfast, that’s what we did.  We plastered ourselves in suncream as per usual and walked around the bay to the new harbour.  It was only after we got back that I checked and found that it’s been ‘new’ since at least 2014, the last time we came to Caleta.  We had coffee at the new El Faro bar.  Lovely views across the bay, but the 1/2 litre of sangria we had yesterday for £5.50 would have cost us £8.50.  We had coffee instead.  Walked out to the San George hotel and just a little bit further on to the cliffs.  Decided that was far enough and headed back, past the Dorido Suites hotel which is not being demolished, but is being ‘renovated’.  I think that means the balconies are being rebuilt.  Interesting to see the quality of the blockwork!!  Glad we weren’t booked there an don’t think we’ll be going there any time soon.

Back at the Elba we were in time for lunch which had to be reduced in quantity as we were going to the Italian waitress service meal tonight.  After lunch Scamp decided to do some more sunbathing while I went for a walk to try to get some sketching done.  I’d already completed my 10,000 steps for the day and this was just a little extra exercise.  I walked along the pedestrian path to the Museo de la Sal, the museum of salt!  The result is shown below:

IMG_4706_4706By the time I’d walked back, my 10,000 steps had doubled to over 20,000, and it was time to get ready for our Italian meal.  We both started with a selection from the buffet, then Scamp’s main was Vegetable Lasagne which she said was “warm on a hot plate”.  Mine was Spaghetti Puttanesca. which was lovely, although the sauce was quite thick.  Pudding for me was a “Disgustingly lovely” ice cream on a mascarpone cream.   Scamp just had to have Tiramisu. A great meal with coffee and a bottle of wine added in for free.

Evening entertainment, apart from Pepe, was a dire soul singer who thought he was every real soul singer in creation, but the star attraction was ‘Mr Sleazy’ from last night reliving his even sleazier youth with some seriously bad dance moves.  Oh dear, I hope I never look like that.

PoD was the upside down beer bottle, entitled ‘Reeb’.  Work it out yourself.

Tomorrow?  I might find the church behind the museum, but I’ll be going by bike, hopefully.  Scamp says she’s hoping to be grabbing some more rays!

Sangria, Dolphins and a Demonstration – 06 March 2018

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P1040326The task for today was to walk to the island for sangria.  Anything else was a bonus.

After breakfast, we sat by the pool for a while, but I was getting itchy feet and wanted to go for a walk.  The grounds of the hotel are fairly extensive and really well landscaped.  There’s  a stream running through it with fish in it.  There was a waterfall too which feeds the stream.  Along the banks of the stream there is a cat house and a fenced off area for the partly feral cats to live in.  I’m sure you’d be impressed Hazy.  That was where I headed today.  I was disappointed to hear that there was no rushing waterfall noise and that was because the waterfall wasn’t operating now.  The river is still there and the fish are enormous.  There are loads of cats too wandering around.  Some are quite dismissive of humans, as only cats can be, others are quite skittish.  This too will be quite normal for you Hazy.  Saw one of these large butterflies and managed to get a photo of it while it was feeding on some pelargonium flowers.  That is my PoD.

Wandered back to find Scamp and then we got ready and walked to the island.  It is actually an island, partly manmade I think and only accessible by a bridge.  A new bridge as it turned out.  Not more than a year old and made of good quality mahogany.  Most impressive.  We found a table and ordered a jug of sangria.  It was really quite good.  Not as good as the brandy based sangria Scamp had in Trinidad, but tastier than a  lot of red coloured water I’ve had in the past.  Lots of apple and orange bits floating in it too.  That’s when we saw the dolphins.  I’d seen some from the balcony last night, but all I really saw was the spray from their blowholes.  They were far too far away and my binoculars were no use because they were in a drawer in the back bedroom back home.  Difficult to access from that distance away.  These ones were much closer, but you could clearly see their fins and the spray when they breached.  I took a few photos and we agreed it was good to see them so close to the shore.  When I went to pay I saw one of the dolphins even closer to the island, only it appeared that there was a ball shaped object floating, now sinking, now floating again, just ahead of it.  Next time it surfaced I saw the pipe of the snorkel strapped to its head and then realised that ‘fin’ was in fact the diver’s flipper breaking the surface.  Oh dear, what a numpty.  Sangria must have been quite strong after all!

Walked back via the Spar shop in the Atlantico Centre and bought a tin of Pimento Dulce (Sweet pepper) for cooking with when we get home.  Yes, I know that I could have bought it in Tesco for about the same price, but when I use this pepper in a paella, I’ll remember the day we had sangria on the island at Caleta and saw the mysterious dolphin.

When we came back, it was time for lunch and today it was steak for me, cooked perfectly. Scamp had the vegetarian option.  After lunch Scamp and I went for a walk over the wilderness bit of the dunes.  There wasn’t much to see there, but it was good again to listen to the sea crashing in.

After dinner we went to wait for the singer and sax player we’d heard the last time we were here.  Unfortunately she couldn’t start until some football game was finished.  Bad planning by the hotel authorities.  Also, the germans (Small ‘g’  –  you know what that mean) had taken over all the seating and wouldn’t let anyone sit near them.  Now maybe we’ve just met some rude germans, but every time we come into contact with them, they are rude and overbearing.  Eventually we found a seat far away from the guttural shouting they call language.  Heavens, they didn’t win the first world war and they didn’t win the second word war,  They weren’t even placed!  What right do they have to be so noisy and proud of themselves?  Like I say, maybe we’ve just been unlucky.

When the music started, it was the typical middle-of-the-road stuff I hate.  Music for people who don’t like music.  However, Scamp coaxed me up to shuffle around the floor to something totally forgettable.  When we were leaving the floor she asked the singer if she could play some salsa.  Yes, she would.  She made an announcement that a couple wanted to do a salsa dance and she would play El Carnaval.  It was fast, really quite fast, but we knew it and gave it everything we had.  Not quite a perfect dance, but a good demonstration.  It certainly shut up the slimy guy who seemed to think he was John Travolta.  We got a great clap for that, then it was back to german junk and vanilla pop.  Got to keep the germans happy.  Look what happened the last twice they got upset.  We did try out our emerging Jive steps to an old Neil Diamond track and that was the end of the night.

Tomorrow we are hoping to go for a walk to the harbour.  Maybe get some food and drink on the way.

Going Outside – 1 March 2018

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Cabin fever was high today so I went for a walk in the snow

Put on my wellies and cleared a path from the front door. Thankfully the boy next door had cleared a path from their door out to the pavement, so I only had to join ours up to theirs and we were done. The snow was powdery and light and lifted easily at least it did until I trampled it with by wellies, then it compressed into slabs that were heavier, but still easy to lift with a shovel. I wanted to see just how the outside world looked in this deep, white coating. The answer was that it looked very bright and I instantly regretted not having a pair of sunglasses to hand. Why would anyone need sunglasses on the first day of March?

I walked over to Condorrat and watched the cars go by, slowly, from the bridge and watched the police erecting a ROAD CLOSED sign complete with a complement of cones on the northbound side of the M80. There weren’t many cars, lorries or other vehicles going in either direction, which was just as well as the road was down to one lane. The road over the bridge was down to one lane too with the extra hazard of a black van parked outside the bookies half on and half off the road. As I got closer I noticed that it was a satellite van and there was a film crew interviewing one of the ‘workies’ shovelling snow from the pavement in Condorrat. The news must get through, you know.

Tried in Spar for bread or milk, none. There was an enormous queue snaking all round the shop and folk with every conceivable foodstuff in their basket. Tried in the newsagents for bread and milk, none, but at least there wasn’t a queue here, so I bought a couple of bars of chocolate. It is still Thursday, even if we are almost cut off from civilisation!

Walked back and had soup for lunch. Then took Scamp out to survey the snowy scene. She was as impressed as I was with the alien landscape we walked through. This time I was wearing my cycling glasses with yellow tinted lenses. They make everything sharper and yellow (obviously) for a while and then you don’t notice the yellow, in fact you notice just round the edges, outside the frame that everything there is blue! So strange. There was a bit more traffic on the motorway but the diversion was still in place and when we walked back to the estate ring road, it looked much the same as it had when I first went out. I’d say it was down to one lane, but that would be a misnomer. There is no way you could call two slushy ruts in grey snow a ‘lane’.

Came home and fed the birds at what was the back garden. It’s now another field of white. At least there was less snow falling today and for a while it even felt as if it was thawing slightly. As I write this, around 10.30pm the temp is only -0.4ºc which is a good sign I hope

PoD is a ginger bottle (soft drinks bottle) stuck in a half meter deep snowbank.

Tomorrow, who knows. Checking websites to see what’s open and what’s not. Will keep you posted.

The Beast at the Door – 27 February 2018

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Today it snowed a bit.

Spoke to Hazy on the phone in the morning and she gave us a weather report from down south and it was cold with a little snow.  Later in the day Sim posted a photo of the tiniest sprinkling of the white stuff in their garden, slightly north of Hazy and at that point we had blue skies.  Ok, there were clouds too, the majority of the sky was clear.  Later in the day the snow started, then stopped again.

Went out to Tesco and got some beefsteak tomatoes to make some soup and thought I’d do a painting of three of them with my painting mug to break up the monotony (before I made them into soup of course!)  Got some cardboard cut and primed an after lunch I got started to paint.  About halfway through the painting I began to wish that I’d stuck to ordinary tomatoes rather than beefsteak with their puffed out bits and creases. However I stuck with it and the evidence was made into soup tonight!

Before the good light disappeared I went for a walk in St Mo’s.  It was cold with that east wind and the snow was still trying hard to fall, but just not cutting it.  I got my PoD with the last of the afternoon light, before the sun disappeared behind the tree line and darkness returned.  Just after I got back, the snow started with a bit more force and this time it was falling on already frozen ground, so it’s lying.  We’re expecting some more snow tonight and in waves all day tomorrow.  Constant warnings on the TV not to travel tomorrow.  It’s OK.  If we are going dancing tomorrow afternoon, we’re going on the bus and since Salsa on a Wednesday is a optional outing, we may just stay home instead.

That about wraps us today.  Tomorrow, maybe a trip in to town for Waltzing and Jiving, but not a lot else.  Oh yes, and I have an idea for the final 28 Drawings Later picture.

Finally the bike is out – 25 February 2018

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It took a lot of promises, but finally today the bike came down stairs.

When I got up this morning, it was still below zero outside. That used to be the norm in February in Scotland, but we have grown used to the milder winters of late and now if the mercury or its digital equivalent goes below that line everyone starts stockpiling food, turns the heating up full, keeps looking at the sky for the first telltale snowflake. No chance of snowflakes today with almost wall to wall blue skies, but the TV and radio news have been bombarding us with threats of ‘The Beast From The East’. Come on people, its going to get cold this week and we’re probably going to have some snow. That’s what happens in winter. Remember my warning:

Stop watching the news
Because the news contrives to frighten you.

You have been warned.

So, what has this to do with bikes. Well, nothing really, but it sets the scene. It was cold. It was cold, but the sun was doing its level best to warm the place up. I decided there and then, while I was getting the breakfast that today I’d do the bike thing.

Prevaricated for a while doing this and that. Going finding things I’d need, not least the bike itself. I knew where it was, I just had to find a way of getting it out of the room and down the stairs. Tyres weren’t totally flat and didn’t take long to pump up. So after lunch I was good to go. Oh dear, need to put my dinner in the slow cooker. It was to be shin of beef that had been marinading in the fridge overnight and now needed frying to brown it, the put in the slow cooker for about four hours. Oh yes, Scamp wanted some bread baked, so I defrosted some dough and set it to prove. Nothing else to do? Ok, best get on with it and get dressed in many layers to cut out the cold. Finally got on the bike at almost exactly 2pm. It wasn’t too cold … to start with, however once I was out of the shelter of the houses and into the open, the icy blast hit me. I wished I’d been sensible and put on my Buff™ to keep my ears warm. Too late now, I’d just have to soldier on. I’d mapped out my short, 3 mile, route and stuck to it although I realised it meant I’d have a headwind coming home. Cycled to the old disused refuse dump, now landscaped and walked around looking for something to photograph. That was after I saw that the Three Amigos, three beech trees I’ve photographed spring, summer, autumn and winter had been reduced to two. I was shocked. Those trees had stood together for years, probably they were older than me. I suppose it must have succumbed to one of the winter storms, and when I checked with the photo in the living room much later, I noticed that even then its crown was much sparser than the other two. It really was like losing an old friend. Such a shame. To kind of make up for it or to form a link of sorts, today’s PoD is of some beech leaves.

Cycled home braving the east wind that was getting stronger, but thankfully it was more a north east wind, which meant I got a bit of a push up the hill at the start of the run home.

Loch Ard

After a shower and with dinner simmering away in the slow cooker, I painted today’s 28DL offering. It’s not really all that good, but unlike some folk, I don’t admit that on the 28DL page! That was about it for the day. The shin of beef? I’d like to say it was wonderful, but I have to be honest and admit that it was dull, tasteless and chewy. The bread? It was worse. Heavy an doughy. I’ll chuck it out for the magpies, crows and pigeons tomorrow with a warning to the smaller, lighter birds not to attempt it or like their corvine relations, they will have difficulty achieving liftoff. On that topic, Hazy, I finished Sourdough and really, really enjoyed it. On the subject of books, JIC, the books from Amazon arrived this morning. Keeping the James Oswald book for hols, but will read the start of Paint Daily tonight. I’d recommend Natural Causes by James Oswald, book 1 in the series if you fancy some Scottish crime noir set in Edinburgh with a hint of the supernatural in it. Thank you to both of you for increasing my reading library.

Tomorrow? Panic buying at the supermarket and fitting hatches that can be battened down securely. Then if there’s time, a trip to the gym, because I think my legs will be sore.

A daunder with St Mungo – 24 February 2018

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Bright day, so let’s head for Dunfermline on the bus, we said. They do say disasters come in threes, right?

Went for the bus and missed it by about three minutes. Waited in a cold wind for the next one which luckily was due in ten minutes. After a mystery tour of Condorrat and Westfield, thanks to roadworks, we reached the town centre only to find that that Dunfermline bus has been discontinued. Oh well, nothing for it but to head in the other direction and go in to Glasgow … again. We were in on Sunday for Sunday Social. Back on Monday for dancing, on Wednesday afternoon for dancing, and again on Wednesday evening for more dancing. I was in on Thursday to get my hair cut and here we were again on Saturday. We might as well move in to Glasgow for all the time we spend in our own house. Not a happy bunny, I harrumphed behind Scamp into Nero for a coffee. When we came out the black cloud had lifted. The sun was out and we had said that we’d go for a walk in the sun, so that’s what we should do. With a lightening heart I walked down Bucky Street with Scamp and even the Bastard Drummers couldn’t dent my new good humour.

We walked right down Bucky Street, past St Enoch’s (it is St Enoch’s. I heard a wee wummin’ telling her pal on the phone to meet her at St Enoch’s and you don’t argue with wee weemin’ in Glasgow.) We walked on to the Clyde Walkway, stood for a while then walked downriver under the bridges and that’s where I saw the PoD entitled “Lady in Waiting”. As Scamp said, it couldn’t have been any other title. On under more bridges until we came to the Tradeston Bridge, known to Glaswegians as “The Sqiuggley Bridge”. Why do designers and Cooncil busybodies come up with names for bridges when they know fine well the general populace will christen it with a better name. Just build the bridge and wait for its name to appear. Saves time and money.

Back across the King George V bridge and up to Pulcinella for lunch which was decidedly second class. Not just compared to Tuesday’s food, just compared to anything I could have made. Not their finest hour.

After our lunch we walked up to Sausage Roll Street. Me to the book shop. Scamp to Bonmarche. Neither of us came out with anything. Came home on the fast bus and made a couple of coffees to warm us up when we got in.

Somb'di

Today’s sketch started out as a doodle and then this strange wee man appeared.

No plans for tomorrow. That’s not true, maybe I’ll get my bike out and see if it still runs. Yes, I know I said I’d do that before, but the sunny skies are bringing that day closer.

Visiting Herr Kutz – 22 February 2018

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Ok, this blog entry has been done on the 23rd for reasons that will become clear.

I set off this morning on the train in to Glasgow after Scamp kindly gave me a lift to the station. It was time to get my hair cut by someone who knew how to do it properly. The last time I had my hair cut properly, was last December or maybe November. I cut it myself in January, but as usual made a bit of a hack of it, just to keep it a bit shorter. This time I needed a bit of topiary. A bit of shaping, so it was off to the Nile Barber for some intelligent conversation and some humour as my untidy locks were snipped into shape.

It was the bloke with the beard today. He of the conspiracy theories and the liking for the Russian slant to the news. He says it gives a better balance than the BBC does. Now I like the BBC’s reporting, but while it’s not as sensationalist as some, there is a tendency to, as Morrissey said, ‘frighten you’.

Stop watching the news
Because the news contrives to frighten you
To make you feel small and alone
To make you feel that your mind isn’t your own
Spent the day in bed
Morrissey

Today he was a bit more down than I’ve heard him before, but when we had a discussion about the High School Shootings in America he became more voluble about the merits of Trump’s stance on arming the teachers. I must admit, when I first heard about DT’s proposal, I immediately remembered a line from Matt McGinn’s ‘Rap Tap Tap’:

Tak the straps fae a’ the teachers
Issue every wan a gun

Conversation drifted to legalising cannabis and then the explanation of his slightly depressed mood, when he said that he was ‘having some prostate problems.’ Poor guy. I know a couple of folk who have the same problems. Anyway, I enjoyed the conversation, and although I don’t agree with everything he said, his are intelligent and well though out arguments, always with a ‘middle ground’ stance.

Went for a walk down to CassArt and bought a couple of new pens and a wee sketch pad. St Enoch Nero provided, not only a coffee, but also a chance to do a quick sketch with my new pen, which turned out to be an old friend, a Pentel fibre tip which I hadn’t seen in years. Sketch was ok.

Nero St Enoch - Glasgow

Bus back home and listened to Dream of Gerontious on the journey. As usual, felt quite uplifted by it.

Dinner was roast chicken with baked potatoes and that’s when things went wrong. I’d also made sweet potato fritters which are also under suspicion.

About an hour or so after dinner, Scamp felt a bit sick and then was sick. That’s most unusual for her. I’m the one with the dicky stomach. The sickness and then diarrhoea went on for a good couple of hours and I was beginning to get a bit worried when it started to subside and she began to feel better and also get her colour back. She went to bed early feeling very tired. I decided to join her later once I’d cleared up.

This morning she was back to her usual self, ready to meet today’s problem!

TBC

Foodies – 20 February 2018

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Today we had a light breakfast before getting a taxi to the station, then the train to Embra.  Today was Foodie Day!

When we got to Embra we found the bus stop for the No 34 bus that would take us to Ocean Terminal.  With diversions, because Leith Walk is partially closed, it took about 35 minutes to cover the 4 miles.  The train journey from Croy to Edinburgh only took 45 minutes.  This was the X3 of Lothian buses.  However, we were in no hurry, because we had plenty of time to find today’s destination.  Had a cup of coffee in Ocean Terminal which is really just a great shopping mall with an entrance to the Royal Yacht Britannia, Mrs McQueen’s old boat.  We weren’t going there today, we were going for lunch at The Kitchin Restaurant.  It has been booked since November, such is the waiting list.  I was thinking “it better be worth the wait”.  It was.

Nothing to look at from the road, there’s a notice on the door telling customers to enter by Commercial Quay, round the back. Inside it was dark grey paintwork with discrete little areas like booths, but more open.  The food was superb.  Just what you’d expect from a Michelin star restaurant.  I’d recite what we had, but I can do better than that, and show you the menu with our selections highlighted.  Just click it to see it better.  It’s not a link to Flickr this time, just a link to the image.  My starter was from the Vegetarian menu because we were able to mix and match between menus.We also took the matching wine pairing and that really was an eye opener.  Truly an unforgettable lunch and not a potato to be seen 😉

After lunch we walked along and got a No 16 back to Waverly and it only took about 20 minutes and that because of traffic.  Got the train to Croy and a taxi home.  Strangely enough it was the same taxi driver we had in the morning!  Really, that’s the barest of bare bones of the day.  Too much to cram in to this blog post, you need to hear about it rather than read about  it (ask about the amuse bouche Oh yes, and the bread Hazy!)  A really memorable meal and one we’d do again once we’ve saved up enough to go back DV.

Tonight’s sketch is a coloured pencil sketch of an orange.  I described it thus:  “Oranges make great subjects because after you draw them you can eat them and destroy the evidence of your mistakes!”

Orange

Today’s PoD was a view of reflections on the Water of Leith.

Tomorrow?  Auld claes and purrich I’m afraid!

 

Walking, Dancing and Backups – 19 February 2018

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I’d fully intended going to the gym today, but although there was a smir of rain in the air this morning, I decided that to avoid Gems, I’d go for a walk instead. It was the right decision.

<Technospeak Alert>
In the morning I finally got my wee 2-in-1 tablet computer sorted out by using an old memory stick to boot into Windows PE and from there run a backup program to restore a backup I’d made way back in 2016. I thought it might be a bit basic, but all the apps I need are on it and I’ve even worked out how to use Microsoft Gallery to import my RAW pics. I got truly fed up with having to manipulate the EXIF data on the photos to allow Lightroom 5 to work with the RAW files from the Teazer (Panasonic TZ 70) so now I’m going to use the free and very good RawTherapee to do the heavy lifting of the RAW processing. I’ll see how it goes in the next few weeks. Right JIC you can come back in again.
</Technospeak Alert>

After successfully got rid of the baggage that Win10 leaves behind, and after lunch too, I went for a walk down by the canal.  The weather had cleared up nicely and the air was much warmer than I’d anticipated.  It actually felt like spring was in the air.  I know, there another cold snap due in a few days, but it’s Scotland.  There’s always another cold snap due in a couple of days, even in June … Especially in June!!  I even saw a hairy caterpillar, but it wasn’t caterpillaring around, it was just sitting there.  Maybe it was sunbathing, yes, that’s it.  It was sunbathing in its fur coat.  I took its photo anyway, just for the record.  Caterpillars in February!  Who knew?!  The photo at the top was my favourite of the lot I took, so that’s why it made PoD.

We went dancing at night and just for fun I asked Alexa what the travel time was to the STUC just before we left the house.  She (it?) said 25 minutes.  Twenty five minutes later I was walking along Woodlands Road looking for a parking meter that actually worked.  Glasgow council, you do realise that it’s not enough to plonk new parking meters by the side of the road?  You know you have to maintain them too, and occasionally empty the coins we commuters cram into them every time we need to park?  Duh!  So Alexa translated my speech into text, sent the text to somewhere in California accessed a database from there, checked my commute and returned the data which was turned back into speech and spoken to me in a very human sounding voice, and got it spot on right!  All of that within about five seconds.  Brilliant waste of technology, but still Glasgow council doesn’t seem to know how to operate its parking meters.  If it was up to them, high speed internet connections would be done with two shiny tin cans and a piece of coloured string.
Dancing was ‘interesting’.  We did one rueda move that didn’t have a name and seemed to confuse everyone.  Tonight’s move was ‘Stormtrooper’  Great name.  I hated it.  Then as I saw how it was working, I began to like it and later  in the night when I’d almost perfected it, I thought it was great too, just like its name.  That’s what a good teacher can achieve.

Just my glasses

Tonight’s sketch was just a 15minute shot.  A placemarker of a pencil sketch.  It’s a bit rough, but I don’t have a lot of time on a Monday.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we’re off to Embra, to Leith in fact to go for a fancy lunch.

Timba Merchant – 18 February 2018

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Like I said a few days ago, most days revolve around something. Today’s something was dancing … yet again.

Before the dancing could begin, some painting needed done. Painting in oils again, I’d practised the apple and the pear, so today I was painting the apple AND the pear, with the addition of a pink duster just to make it more difficult. I was also using a different mixture of oils. This time it was ‘normal’ oils mixed with ‘quick drying’ oils. Would it make any difference? I doubted it, but I did add some turpentine to the mix to avoid me dipping my brushes in water to clean them. Oil and water don’t mix you know! It turned out not too bad, well I think so anyway.

Apple and pear

We decided to go in early today to take Will’s Styling Class. Maybe he could make me dance with style. Anything is possible in Salsa. It turned out not to be salsa, but Timba. Timba is more like Rhumba than Salsa, but it was great fun and we now how to do Pelo (or ‘potatoes’) and ‘Ki-chang!’ Or at least something like that. Like I said, it was great fun but I’m not sure I’ll ever attempt it on the dance floor outside Arta. I think I’d look a right eejit trying that stuff outside the Salsa Set.
Two of the girls from our real beginners Wednesday class appeared and Scamp and I danced with them. One of them said she trusted me because she knew I “wouldn’t throw her about or anything.” Now was that a challenge or a warning? I took it as a bit of a challenge and tried some level 2 or maybe even level 3 moves mixed in with the beginners stuff she knew. Before we started dancing I did tell her that if things got too difficult, all she had to do was let go. She did, a few times.  Scamp and I danced a few times too.  Well, more than a few times.  By  the end of it I was soaked in sweat and my brain was empty of moves, but it was good fun.  The girls seemed to have enjoyed their introduction to Social Salsa and I told them that next time I WOULD throw them about and anything.”  They laughed, thankfully.  Just remember, if the going gets tough, LET GO.  That could be a rule for life!

Drove home and Scamp made a quite delicious Trout with veg and potatoes dinner.  Honestly, the fish just flaked off the skin.  Beautiful.  Nobody, but nobody cooks fish like Scamp!

Today’s PoD is a shot of Scamp’s Broad Bean shoots.  They really are sturdy specimens and fast growing too.  She thinks she’ll put them outside in the cold greenhouse to harden off a bit.  It seems a bit harsh with more cold weather forecast for the coming weeks, but I’m sure they’ll survive.

Tomorrow is Gems day.  If the weather is set fine, I may get my bike out and see if I can cycle for a few miles without falling off.  If it’s dull and dingy I’ll go to  the gym and cycle in comfort!