Category: Food

In The Wild – 18 January 2017

Posted on by Zogman

 

Today we drove to The Fort in what used to be Provanhall in Easterhouse.  Where Scamp was brought up.  It certainly doesn’t look like it now.  It’s a Retail Park.  We were just getting out of the house for a while because it was depressingly dull and the howling dogs next door were doing my head in.  People who want dogs as a status symbol and who go out to work leaving neighbours to put up with their howling should be prevented from keeping pets.  They obviously don’t care about them and leave others to suffer from their noise pollution.  Maybe NLC will be visiting them soon.

While Scamp wandered round the shops, she left me in the creche that is Waterstones book shop.  It’s just a small book shop, but has some interesting new drawing books and it was one of them I tried to enter into my new app, Airtable.  That’s when the honeymoon ended.  I couldn’t get a signal on my iPhone.  Unusual in a shop these days when everywhere seems to offer ’free’ WiFi.  Yes, it is free, but you have to ask for the password and obtaining it is sometimes like pulling teeth or stone exsanguination.  Today was different, no 3G or 4G and no WiFi and therefore, no Airtable because it needs to download your database from ‘the cloud’.  I opened Bento and it obligingly added my book to the database I’ve been using for about five years.  When I returned home and Googled “No offline access Airtable” I found that over 40 people had registered the same complaint and the desire for that offline access.  I filled in the questionnaire and became number 44 in the list.  I don’t expect much will be done in the short term to fix this, but what is the point of making an app for a portable device that demand internet access.  In a perfect world, 24/7 internet would be the norm, but I live in Scotland where even the trains don’t run on New Year’s Day.  We’re one step away from horses pulling carts along the street.  What surprised me most though was the number of complaints from users in the US.  It appears that away from the cities, they are as bereft of trustworthy internet access as we are here.
So…. The search for a replacement for Bento continues.

When we came back from The Fort and I’d taken the wrong turn coming out of the carpark for the 100th time, there was just enough light to grab some shots of Mr Grey at St Mo’s.  Then the light mysteriously disappeared and I headed home for mince and tatties with ‘roop’  (AKA Beetroot).  But I didn’t do a treasure hunt, JIC 😉

I was a helper at Shan’s beginners salsa tonight.  Oh dear, I wonder why these poor beginners keep coming back.  This is not entertainment or education, this is purgatory.  Badly explained, badly demonstrated dance moves with as little humour as Marcus Wareing.  I felt embarrassed to be helping in this class and I don’t think I’ll be back again.  Jamie G’s class by comparison was a bundle of laughs as it always is.  Unlike normal classes, all the moves tonight had ‘real’ names, and mostly Spanish names too.  Great fun.  Nobody ridiculed or made to feel small.  He always denegrates himself rather than pour scorn on others.  A great teacher.  Many could learn from him.

Being a roadie for tomorrow Gems tomorrow when they head the bill at the Link on Cumbersheugh.

Perf – 17 January 2017

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Today we went to Perf, Perth to you.  It was a really dull, dreary day when we left the Cumbernauld Cloud, but true to form, the weather brightened up about halfway to Stirling and from then on it was a lovely day.

Walked from the carpark to the coffee shop to start our visit in the time-honoured fashion and stopped at Clarks shoe shop to see if there were any bargains.  There were and a new pair of shoes and trainers were soon bagged and paid for.  I think the trainers may replace the ones I got last week.  Both are Goretex which I think is the bees knees as far as walking in Scotland is concerned, in fact all three new pieces of footwear are Goretex.  Coffee scoffed we wandered for a while around Perf and decided on an early lunch.  We went to a new (to us) cafe and I had a lamb burger (which I am suffering for now) topped with feta cheese.  Not sure it’s a great combination.  I get the link: Feta – cheese made from sheep’s milk and Lamb, but it just didn’t taste that good.  Maybe it’s just me.  Scamp had a chicken burger which seemed to go down well.  Coffee was on a par with Callander Coffee!

After lunch we split up Scamp went shopping for a bag and I went looking for books.  Didn’t find any, but I did pick up a lovely Dylan album in  the Bootleg series.  From the Philharmonic Hall in New York 1964.  An all acoustic set.  Brilliant.  Scamp didn’t find a bag – the search continues.   I also got today’s trilogy.  The girl in the mono shots was busking next to the the iconic street architecture in the main street of Perf.  Actually she was quite good and I really should have dropped some money in her guitar bag.  I liked the graphical nature of the the square window overseen by the security camera.

When we met up again, I went and got some coffee and tea and also dropped in at a fabric shop and bought some blue cotton with white spots to make another bow tie, a keeper this time I hope.  By the time we got on to the main street, the light was failing and it was time to drive home.  I felt quite sorry for the old church at the end of the main street.  I’ve photographed it a few times.  It used to provide great shots of pigeons sitting in the broken stained glass windows.  The last time we were in Perf there was scaffolding on it and I hoped it would be renovated, but today there was a security fence round it and the scaffolding was gone.  Soon, I think the church will be too.  Such a pity.

I finally managed to rip the Monty Python DVD tonight.  I used an old program that I’ve used in the past and also one that Hazy suggested, ‘Make MKV’.  It wouldn’t work on the Mac, I think it didn’t like the DVD player being connected by USB.  Maybe the information stream wasn’t quick enough.  However, when I used the PC laptop, MakeMKV got to work right away and after half an hour or so later I had the rip.  Unfortunately it was a 4Gb rip.  Compressing it into an MP4 file looks like it’s going to take a couple of hours, but that’s a job for tomorrow.

No plans for tomorrow yet, apart from converting from MKV to MP4.

Cauld day in the Toon – 13 January 2017

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We went in to Glasgow, drove into Glasgow.  The ring road was still being dug up and we weren’t sure the buses were running normally and besides, we didn’t want to be sitting in a bus whose heater was pumping out cold air for 45minutes.  That’s one of the reasons we bought a car.

I bought myself some interfacing for stiffening the cloth I’m going to make a bow tie with.  Got it in JL (didn’t get it delivered!) for £1.50!  The bowtie itself, the prototype, will be made from an old pillow case.  That’s the essentials bought.  This weekend I’ll try to put it into practice.

After JL we walked down Bucky Street and on to Argyle Street, then up Miller Street to Paesano.  For the first time ever, we had to wait for a table.  When we got one five minutes later the food was just as good as ever.

After being fed, we went for a coffee in Café Nero in St Enoch’s.  Scamp went to wander round the St Enoch’s Centre and I went to do a quick sketch of the suspension bridge over the Clyde.  It’s rough, but it’s done and it’s on time.

When we got home, Scamp realised that she had fogotten to post a card in town, so I volunteered to post it in Condorrat.  I took my camera of course and that’s where the sunset shot came from.  It’s more a gloaming shot really.  Gloaming means more than sunset.  It’s that golden hour before the sun sets and it’s also the afterglow from the set sun.

Gloaming.  Make it a word you use some time today, in its correct context.

It Rained – 6 January 2017

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All day it poured water from the sky. The only photo I got worth its name was the one above. I took it when I was heading over to Condorrat to post the calendars. So, to my readers, you should be receiving them in the next few days.

The five star Sudoku puzzle for Fridays are very, very difficult, Hazy, and to JIC and Sim, the hamper is going down, but going down nicely if you know what I mean. Red wine was lovely (so were the jelly beans!). White wine is in the fridge, chilling.

There being nothing more I can say about today other than we’re going out for dinner at Crawford & Nancy’s in Larky, and hoping for a drier day tomorrow, with maybe, just maybe a touch of sunshine, I’ll post this early for a change.

Frosty Morning – 5 January 2017

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Cold and frosty morning to be more precise.  I got up around half past eight and after making Scamp’s breakfast, I went out for an early morning photographic foray into St Mo’s.  The light wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped, because the sun hadn’t risen above the pine trees and the frost wasn’t as thick as I’d have liked.  Probably not enough dampness in the air for a change.  However, I did get a few shots worth posting.  I was just taking my boots off when I got back and there was a knock at the door.  My sewing machine had arrived, delivered by Parcel Force.  Why couldn’t JL have told me they were delivering it?  Why must everything be a mystery with them?

After breakfast and a dive into today’s sudoku, I had a go at loading a bobbin with thread and doing a couple of trial runs.  It’s so smooth and quiet compared to Scamp’s old Jones machine.  You even get an instructional DVD with it, showing you the basics of threading it and starting the first few stitches.  Heavens, when we first got the Jones machine over 40 years ago, we didn’t have a TV far less a DVD player.  They were as unimaginable as the science fiction of 2001!

I needed to get this ‘pure affro’ of a hairstyle of mine cut, so we drove in to Glasgow to get it done.  Before that, Scamp bought herself a new Samsung tablet from, of all places, John Lewis!  The price was right and we weren’t getting it delivered so I forgave her.  After the haircut, lunch was in McPhee’s fish and chip shop and although it was a bit greasy which I knew I’d suffer for later, I enjoyed every mouthful.

That about summed up the day.  Cold but bright with the temperature not rising above zero until the late afternoon when cloud rolled in

Troon – 2 January 2017

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Out before 10.30 this morning because although it was two degrees below zero, the sun was shining and the sky was fairly clear, so it would have been a shame to waste such a beautiful morning.

We pointed the car towards the west and drove down to Troon.  Probably Scamp’s favourite place in all the world or at least very nearly the favourite.  The drive down was great and I saw some beautiful photos just waiting to be taken.  Unfortunately, when you’re on a dual carriageway travelling at just under 70mph, you can’t just stop instantly, jump out and grab the shot then jump back in the car.  You have to give some consideration to other road users and the laws of physics.  What you can do is record them on your inner camera and remember the place, time and weather conditions, then hope you can replicate them when you have more time to stop and look.  If not, you’ve always got that inner record to look at in your mind’s eye.  The best thing about the inner image is, it’s perfect.  No intrusive grain, no camera shake, not photobombers.  Everything is just perfect.

When we got to Troon, I think we got the last space in the carpark.  Temperature was now on the positive side of zero, but not by much.  We took a walk along the front, heading south, wrapped up for the cold, but wearing sunglasses to avoid the bright sun. About halfway along we bumped into my old boss with his wife and son.  ‘Old’ as in the sense of ‘from some years ago’, because he is much younger than me.  Almost the same age as you JIC!  We talked for a while before his son wanted to be getting away on his scooter.  We had to scoot too, because it was cold just standing.  At the end of the path we walked onto the sand and continued out past where the kite surfers are usually to be found.  There were none today, I suppose because there wasn’t enough wind for them. After a while we turned round and although the sun was now at our backs, the wind was in our faces.  You can’t win sometimes.

We walked back into town and thought about going to the Lido for lunch, but it looked quite busy, so Scamp suggested we have a coffee in a wee cafe round the corner.  The Venice cafe was busy too, but we managed to grab a booth while another family were dithering about deciding if they was enough space for them.  He who hesitates is lost.  We won.  Lunch was a roll ’n’ scrambled egg for Scamp and a roll ’n’ flat sausage for me and two of the best coffees I’ve had outside of our house.  I’ve a good mind to get a business card from the Venice and hand it to the owner of the cafe in Callander and say “That’s how you make coffee mate!”

After that, it was back up the road with a stop to get tomorrow’s dinner from Morrison’s.

Tomorrow?  Scamp’s sister’s coming for dinner and before that it’s coffee with Fred for me.  Sorted.

Ne’erday – 1 January 2017

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Ne’erday to Scots, New Year’s Day to the rest of the world.

Made some bread in the morning and left it to rise while we went for our traditional walk around Broadwood Loch.  It was a bright morning and the sun was quite blinding, reflecting on the water of the loch.  Got some photos of the gulls sitting on the fence at the outfall of the loch.  We used to call them seagulls when I was young, but these birds have never seen the sea, far less paddled in it.  The furthest they get is foraging in the various landfills around the country.

Further around I got some shots of cormorants stretching their wings to dry.  It appears that these birds have also rejected the maritime life for the more sheltered inland waters.

Lots of people taking the opportunity of getting out in the sun, even if it was cold like today.  Allegedly 5ºc, but a cold 5º.  There was a bit of a breeze which probably made it feel even colder.  However, when you’re walking and talking you don’t feel the cold so much.

When I looked at the photos once we got back, I wasn’t impressed, so I grabbed my camera and headed out again, alone this time, to St Mo’s.  Scamp was more interested in watching the ballet on telly.  Got some landscapes taken with the Oly 5 and some more burds had their photo taken with the Nikon.  I managed just over an hour out before the light started to fade, but at least I got some better shots this time.

Dinner tonight was roast chicken with roast potatoes and mixed leaves.  Very nice.  Pudding was panna cotta with crushed raspberries.

Struggled to understand the latest Sherlock while I struggled to understand the first Sudoku of the new calendar.  Eventually solved the Sudoku but got lost somewhere in Sherlock.  Nothing strange there.

May go out somewhere tomorrow, maybe not.  It depends on the weather.

Goodbye 2016 – 31 December 2016

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Today we didn’t want to be bumbling around the house all day, so made a frail excuse and headed in to Glasgow on the bus.  From there we got the subway to the west end, to be more exact Kelvin Hall station and went for lunch at Usha’s where food is served in tapas style.  It used to be totally vegetarian, but now it feeds the carnivore too.  I’m not going to have you salivating by repeating all our choices, but Scamp’s favourite was Aloo Gobi and mine was Patina Ghosht.

By the time we came out, it was bucketing down.  It was teeming.  We walked up Byres Road and while Scamp went to Waitrose – our frail reason for coming – I wandered round Waterstones.  It was there I found my PoD.  Hazy and I have been following Chris Riddell on Facebook for some time and this looked like an original.  After getting the shot, I met up with Scamp and we walked across the road to Oran Mor and had a drink and a chance to get warm.  Oran Mor is an old church that has been converted into a pub.  It’s pretty old-fashioned inside with sanded floor boards and dark furnishings and it suited us perfectly today because it was warm with good beer and wine.  Unfortunately, we had to get home today, so we restricted our drinking to one pint of Deuchars for Scamp and a large glass of Shiraz for me 😉

Outside the rain was still falling, so we decided to cut our west end visit short and get the subway home.  When we got to the platform and the train arrived, it was absolutely ram-jam-full of Rangers supporters, all of them with very long faces.  Today was the annual Old Firm match between bitter rivals Rangers and Celtic, and it didn’t take a genius to work out who had won.  It must have been the quietest subway journey I’ve had.  Every single one of the supporters was locked into his or her own little world, and it was colder in that world than the weather outside.

Got the bus home and that was the end of the Glasgow trips for 2016.

Now to the questions:

Best thing I’ve done this year?
Without doubt, it must be completing Inktober  Not only did it make me sketch, but it made me sketch outside and that was a big challenge for me.

Best ‘Toy off the Rack’.
It must be the Linx 10.1″ 2-in-1 tablet/laptop.  Very portable but very powerful too.

Worst thing I’ve done?
Technology again, but it’s installing El Capitan on the Mac.  It’s the ‘Windows Vista’ of the Mac OS.  The operating system that just didn’t operate.  Wish I’d stuck to Mountain Lion.

Challenges for next year

  • Sketch more.
  • Paint again.
  • Gym and Swim at least once a week.
  • Talk to more people.
  • Smile more!

Let’s see how it pans out.

A Day in the Trossachs – 27 December 2016

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After the last two days, we decided to get out and about today and that is what we did.  We agreed on Loch Lubnaig as the destination.

It was a pleasant drive along from Stirling to Callander and on to the loch itself.  We’d decided to park at the big car park.  We were pretty sure the cafe wouldn’t be open, but when we got there, we found the car park was locked up too.  Barrier down and padlocked.  What pinhead in the quango that owns this car park decided it would be a good idea to lock up it up during the Christmas holidays?  Don’t they want to encourage tourism?  Probably not.  So, having been baulked by our first attempt, we went back to the smaller parking place, where you are also expected to pay to park 366 days a year and what do you get for your £1.40 per two hours?  Well, you get a hard standing and … Well, that’s it really.  No toilets. No cafe.  No shelters.  You do get picnic benches and BBQ holders.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have a BBQ, or a picnic, or £1.40.  Actually we did have the £1.40, but that had been pre-allocated for parking at the big car park which does have all the aforementioned facilities.  We were rebels!  We didn’t pay the parking fee.  So, Mr Car Park, “I don’t want to park with you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”

I took some photos of the hills around Lubnaig from CP2 and then we drove down to the hedonism of Callander itself.  This time we did pay for parking, like good little tourists.  The River Teith was just about bursting its banks with all the rain that’s fallen in  the last few days and the car park is right down next to the river, but Callander isn’t a very big (or interesting) place, so I didn’t reckon we’d be there long enough to get flooded.  We walked down one side of the main street.  At first I thought everything was closed.  I was half right.  All the shops were closed, it was the cafes and tea shops that were open.  We eventually chose a dingy little cafe.  All we wanted was a coffee and a bowl of soup or a sandwich.  I finally settled for an Award Winning Pie (which was actually very good!) and Scamp had a vastly overpriced bowl of soup.  We also had two cups of brown water.  At first I thought it was just straight out of the river, but then I realised that the river water was darker than this stuff.  It was meant to be Americano, but I think they were cutting corners and just steeping the beans in the cup without grinding them first.  I can honestly say it was the worst cup of ‘coffee’ I’ve ever tasted.  Even Starbucks would be better than that.  No, wait, that’s taking things a bit too far.  At least I could drink this dishwater.  It didn’t taste of anything but nobody asked my name so they could write it on the cup.  I don’t think they do that any more in Starbucks for obvious reasons.  “Hugh Jars.   Your americano’s ready!”

Got some pics of Goosanders on the river and of some neat yarnbombing going on in the town before waving goodbye to great pies and boggin’ coffee and heading for home.  On the way we stopped off to see David Stirling the hardest man in Stirlingshire.  His statue stands on a wee hill overlooking the snowy hills of Perthshire.  Then it was back to motorway driving all the way home.

That was a beautiful day and I think Scamp enjoyed it as much as me.

Tomorrow?  No plans as yet.

A wild night – 26 December 2016

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Howling wind and rain battering against the window all night it seemed.  Wildly high temperature too.  Almost too hot to sleep.  There really is something wrong with the weather this year.  I’m not a firm believer in Climate Change, but I’m willing to admit that this just is not the weather we are used to having in Scotland in December.  Whether it’s El Niño or the Jet Stream or melting polar ice caps, I don’t know.  I taught Woodwork and Graphics, not Geography, but I know when something isn’t working properly.  Maybe Theresa May will fix it.  There’s as much chance of that as there is of her arguing a profitable exit from the EU, but that’s enough of politics.

The wild winds and heavy rain persisted through the morning, but by afternoon the dry spells were outlasting the wet ones and the temperature was returning to the seasonal normal, so I got my boots on and headed for St Mo’s to get some photos … and some exercise.  Much needed exercise.  I had to shelter for a while under a tree form some heavy rain, but I didn’t mind that because I could see that it was only a shower and there was blue sky behind it.

Other than the swans and some ducks, I saw no other wildlife, and very few of the human variety.  I could hear a motorbike engine coming from the old BMX track, so I presume some wean got a mini scrambler bike for Xmas.

Most of todays photos were taken with the old 105mm macro lens on the Nikon.  I forgot to grab my Oly M5 and stick it in my pocket which meant no real landscape shots, but I did like the B&W shot of the runner, just visible bottom right of the frame.  Much better on Flickr.  Speaking of pocket, I DID put one of my Chrissy Prezzies in my pocket.  Scamp got me a pair of Thinsulate gloves and I’d forgotten just how windproof they are.  Great things to stick in your pocket.

Just like I intended, Scamp suggested pasta for dinner, so it was tomato and bacon pasta.  Nicely low cal.  I did have some of the killer pudding from yesterday, but only a couple of spoonfuls and even they were mainly the biscuit and sherry mix with some fruit.

The wind has dropped considerably tonight and it looks like a fairly decent day tomorrow.  If we manage it, we’ll be up and out early and somewhere nice for a walk.  That would be good, and would probably do us the world of good.