Category: Food

A walk down The Green – 12 March 2017

Posted on by Zogman

We decided, well I suggested, last night that we go for a walk down Glasgow Green today.  It fitted with the new regime of getting up that wee bit earlier, especially if we were to miss the hoards of ‘Billys’ and ‘Dans’ who would be heading for Celtic park for a local derby, AKA a punchup, because that’s what usually happens.  Actually, although Celtic park is close to Glasgow Green, I’d rather drive there than Ibrox which is the Rangers park.  Both Scamp and I know lots of short-cuts we can take to avoid most of the Parkhead traffic, but if Rangers are playing at home, the motorway becomes one big car park with all the maddies desperate to get there before anyone else.  I imagine living near Ibrox must be a nightmare, no matter which team you support.  I can just imagine all those cars parked everywhere.

So we drove through the green and white hoards to The Green and got parked without any problem.  Walked down to the McLennan Arch at the far end, then back along the side of the Clyde past the rowing clubhouse.  The high flats on the far side of the Clyde always impress me.  They seem to catch the light so well, especially in the winter and spring.  I took some pictures of them, but preferred the shot of the washing drying behind the perspex screens.  Lots of rowers out today and an unusually large number of ‘8s’ with the self-important looking coaches cycling along beside them shouting through tannoys.  Stood on the suspension bridge watching the coming and going of the different boats with their varying skill sets.  Then went up the hill to the People’s Palace.

Went for the usual lunch of Roll ’n’ Sausage for me and two rounds of Toast for Scamp.  My sausage was inedible.  That’s the first time that’s happened to me.  I think it must have been left over from New Year’s Day and had been ‘nuked’ in the microwave once a week since then to heat it up and kill of the bacteria.  I left it on the plate.  I value the few teeth I’ve got left and wasn’t going to risk damage to the expensive crowns.  Maybe I should have complained, but, like I said, this is the first time it’s happened, so I’ll cut them some slack.  Did a quick sketch of the inside of the Wintergarden.  It’s still got its emergency sheeting in place to prevent any further risk of falling glass panels.  I expect that sheeting will become a permanent feature, which is a shame, because it does detract from the look of the wrought iron trusses, but safety before beauty, I suppose.  I am quite pleased with the sketch because the perspective is fairly correct, but also I managed to include a couple of people, something I must practise.  Walked round the plants and took a few shots.  Smiled when I saw a wee girl with her wee sister and a point-n-shoot camera. Talking into it as if she was conducting an interview, finishing with “… and that’s it for this visit to Glasgow.  Handing you back to the BBC in London.”  Imagination.  That’s what it’s all about.  The camera wasn’t even switched on.

Came home and dumped my photos, then the sun came out.  It had been raining on and off all morning, but now the clouds had rolled away and the sun was coming out.  Scamp was ‘Tidying Up’ and I didn’t want to get involved in that, so I too the ‘Big Dog’ out to St Mo’s to see if there was anything interesting there.  Some coots building nests, but they were too far away to make anything of.  A cormorant, but it flew away.  No deer to be seen, but load of frogs.  Spent a wee while watching them, watching me.  I took some photos of some of them, but didn’t notice them photographing me.  Maybe they did and have posted them on FrogFlickr.  Maybe they’re writing in their blog about the BigBloke with the BigCamera who they saw today.  Who knows.  We are not alone in this world.  Might go back for some more photos tomorrow.

Dinner tonight should have been Tuna steak, but neither of us were impressed with it.  It just didn’t taste right, so we ditched it.  It looked so nice too.  Last time we’ll go to that fishmonger – it wasn’t even Tesco!

Hoping to go in to Salsa early tomorrow to get some ‘messages’.

A Posh Lunch – 11 March 2017

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Scamp had booked us a posh lunch today at the Blythswood.  It was an Itison voucher lunch, but a posh one, none the less.  This was our second posh lunch this week.

As it happened, neither of us were over impressed with the Blythswood or the lunch.  Now don’t get me wrong, the food was good, just not great and the surroundings were nice, just not all that impressive.  Maybe we are being over critical or maybe places like this aren’t trying all that hard for the voucher brigade.  I don’t know what the answer is.  The food was Smoked Hake starter for Scamp and Chicken Liver Parfait for me, followed by Chicken Supreme for both of us.  Like I said, good but not great.

After lunch we got the subway out to Byres Road and walked through the Botanic Gardens which are celebrating their bicentenary this year.  Usually we just walk through the Kibble palace, but this time we took in both glasshouses.  Oh, it was almost like being back in Trinidad with the heat and the humidity.  However, alas and alack, when we came out it was just Glasgow humidity.  It was raining.  Not heavy rain, just a Scottish smir.

We thought we had nothing more to do than dodge across the street and go for a drink in Oran Mor.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  The place was mobbed.  Not a seat to be had anywhere.  Most of the punters seemed to be engrossed in Scotland getting gubbed by the english again, at rugby this time.  Instead of a drink, we walked down Byres Road and got a piece of Tuna for tomorrow’s dinner, then got the subway back into town and walked up to get the bus home.

Just as the driver started the engine, I saw this wee wummin running across the road, arms outstretched like a scarecrow, carrying two bags in one hand and one in the other, trying frantically to catch the driver’s eye.  As he put the bus into reverse to exit the stance, I saw her visibly deflate as she realised that she had another 30 minute wait in front of her, because he wasn’t going to open the bus doors.  I don’t know what she said, but I’m sure it wasn’t “Oh dear”.

<Technospeak>
Back home, I think I’ve parted company with Dropbox.  It seems that my temporary term with 10GB of storage is rapidly coming to an end and the 2GB I’ll have in a week or so just won’t cover my requirements.  So I have to move my backup to Google Drive which generously gives me 15GB.  There is a ‘but’ and the ‘but’ in question is, ‘but it is the very devil to set up’.  I’d read up on it last night and didn’t understand a word.  Tonight I found a YouTube video explaining in words of one syllable how to do it, so I got started.  After an hour and a half of setting up a project, getting a ‘secret’, authorising it, failing, authorising it again, failing, resetting my ‘secret’ before authorising again and this time succeeding, it now seem that I have a new home for my WordPress backup.  I felt a bit like the wee wummin.  I had just thought I’d caught the Google Driver’s eye, but then he pulled out of the stance.  Never mind, it’s done now and I hope the wee wummin is home with her three bags full.
</Technospeak>

Today’s photos are from the Botanic Gardens and also a couple from Tobago.  You see Hazy, Shug and Tam did go on their holidays.

Celtic are at home to Rangers tomorrow.  We’re hoping to go for a walk down “The Green”.  Need to go early to avoid the battles.

In Training – 7 March 2017

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It was Scamp’s idea.  We had booked lunch at Cafe Tabou in Perth.  How about, she said, How about getting the train instead of driving there?  It sounded like a good idea, a great idea.  I added to it.  Why don’t we get a taxi to the station?  You can never get parked on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.  Mondays and Fridays aren’t too bad.  So it was settled.  A day in Perth without driving and without the drudgery of travelling on the bus.

The journey was really good.  Taxi to the station, train to Stirling, quick connection to Perth.  Brilliant.  Visited my favourite second-hand bookshop and then a quick visit to Waterstones.  One of my favourite Scottish authors, James Oswald was there talking to a readers group.  I don’t do readers groups, neither do I read the ‘Questions to the author’ at the back of a good book.  If the author didn’t explain everything in his book, either he wanted it that way or else he wasn’t such a great writer after all.  Either way, questions aren’t going to provide the answers you want.  Went for coffee in Nero before we went for a walk through the park.  Then more coffee – beans this time in The Bean Shop.  Finally, it was lunch time.  Mine was Venison Stovies, then Saddle of Rabbit stuffed with Pork and Chorizo <Posh Word meaning Sausage> served with Roasted Root Vegetables and Sliced Potatoes washed down with a couple of glasses of Rose D’ Anjou.  Simply delicious.

After lunch I returned to Waterstones and used up my Christmas present from Scamp.  I turned out that James Oswald was promoting his new book so I decided to buy it, along with another two ‘real’ books.  Time to get used to books that don’t self illuminate or automatically remember your page or even provide a dictionary, but ‘real books’ are a great idea.  I think they’ll catch on.

The return journey was equally as good as the one this morning with nicely timed connections.  Even the wait for the taxi was minimal.  A great day out.

Today’s flower photos came from the park at Perth and the bottle pic?  It came from Cafe Nero’s window.  Like I said on my Flickr description, I wondered How?  I also wondered Who?  I finally wondered Why?

Tomorrow?  I think we might be getting in training properly as we return to the gym.

Goodbye 28 Drawings Later – 28 February 2017

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Scamp was out for lunch today so I took the chance (and the clippers) and gave myself an end-of-February crew cut.  It feels so much better than the mop I had yesterday.  Made quite a good fist of it too, even if I say so myself.  Lunch was the stewed chicken Scamp made on Sunday, then out to get some photos and a final sketch for 28 Drawings later … which wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.  I knew the photos would be easy because the sun was shining.  Ha!  Then things started to go wrong.

I’d chosen the wee house beside Fannyside Loch as my sketching subject, but when I got to the turn-off, Road Closed.  Not to worry, I knew another way round.  After fifteen minutes on a single track road I got the the turning that would take me back to the house.  Road Closed.  Access Only.  Well, that would have been fine, but access was denied too as a road roller was on one side of the road and a lorry with a load of asphalt was on the other.  Not to worry, I’d choose my alternative subject and rather than turn round, I chose to carry on and go through Slamannan.  Slamannan, if you don’t know it is an old 12th century village on the outskirts of Falkirk.  Some of its original inhabitants still live there, I’m sure.  They look at you as you drive past with that “You don’t come fae here.” look.  Both brain cells frantically banging together, but the synapse isn’t firing today, so it’s back to drooling and chewing the cud.  I wasn’t going anywhere fast, so I took the scenic route through Falkirk, mainly because there wasn’t any other road, but the scenery was interesting with great views over the Forth to Fife.  I came back through Bonnybridge and along the canal to my second subject choice of the day, Underwood Lockhouse.  Actually, the burned out remains of Underwood Lockhouse.  It dates from the early 19th century and was originally the two storey lock keepers cottage with adjoining stables.  A few years ago it was turned into a pub and restaurant until it was burned down in 2013.  Despite what people think, it is not a listed building.  It was also blocked off today.  Some moron had decided to drop a portacabin on the entrance to the carpark.  According to the painted sign on the side, the portacabin used to be the changing room for Allandale Boys Club.  I wonder if the boys carried it there themselves.  Anyway, it wasn’t going to stop me, so I parked beside it, just off the road and got my sketch done, uninterrupted.

Got home and the sun was still shining, so headed for St Mo’s to get some photos, but first chose to photograph the first blooming daffodil in the garden.  Found Mr Grey intently stalking some small fish on the far side of the pond and got a few shots of him.  Nearly got a shot of a couple of deer, but they were too wary and ran away.  I reckoned I had enough material to use for today so left them to it.

Sea bream and potatoes for dinner with Mango Mojito Pancakes for pudding.  Obviously designed by someone who had never tasted a Mojito before.  I don’t think we’ll be going there again.

It Rained – 26 February 2017

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All day it rained.  It rained heavy, it rained light, it rained sleet with an outside temperature of 9ºc (!), it pretended to stop, just to catch the unwary before launching another torrential downpour.  We weren’t fooled.  We live in Scotland.  We have a hundred names for rain, just as the Inuits have a hundred names for snow.  Most of the words for rain are suffixed with ‘AGAIN!’, or prefixed with ‘STILL’.  Sometimes, in extreme cases, with both!

Lunch for me was last night’s curry reheated.  I hope you’re impressed, N D’Ag.  Not quite up to having it for breakfast – on toast, but getting there.  Actually it was very good.  Not as fiery as last night.  After that I settled down to do a sketch for 28 Drawings Later …  I wasn’t going outside to sketch.  Watercolours or even ink pens and rain just mix too well, but not in a good way.  In an experimental way, perhaps, but not a good way.  Today I went back to Trinidad, at least in a photograph.  The building is an old house at Mt St Benedict’s Monastery in Trinidad and it fair brightened up the day.

We had already decided on a Trinni dinner and that’s what we had.  It’s Stewed Chicken with boiled rice, boiled cassava and fried plantain. Definitely a work in progress, but the fried plantain, although soft was the star of the show.  Loser was cassava.  Too much of a faff.  We’ll take Madeleine’s advice and try frozen stuff next time.  We were going to have coconut ice cream, but we’re leaving that for later in the week.  The coconut has been drained, smashed, flesh peeled and blitzed and the pulp drained, so the hard work has been done.

The forecast is for a drier day tomorrow after a wet and cold start.

Dorothy – 25 February 2017

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Today we drove down to see Dorothy.  She was looking well, although her leg seemed to be giving her bother and her hand looked as if she was suffering a bit from rheumatics.  Still, she was sharp as a tack and quick to tell Colin off if he strayed too far in his stories.  A pleasant wee hour although I felt bad that we hadn’t been to see her for a long while, but there was nothing we could do about it, either Colin was busy or we were.  A case of life getting in the way again.

Stopped at Waitrose on the way home to buy a chicken and ended up with two bags full of other stuff as well as the chicken.  We were shocked that Waitrose, in addition to allowing Neds into their stores are now stooping to this gutter humour to advertise their mugs.  What is the retail sector coming to.  (No, it wasn’t me who did it, I just photographed it.)

When we got home, the daylight was still there, so I grabbed the chance of an hour in St Mo’s.  Startled a couple of deer, but chose not to pursue them because they were on the motorway side of the fence and I didn’t want to be the reason for them running across the carriageway and causing an accident.  Other than the deer and the ever present buzzards, there wasn’t much of interest.  The overnight rain had increased the water level in the pond and part of the boardwalk was under water, so that, at least, made an interesting shot with the 9mm lens.

A curry from Bombay Dreams provided dinner because neither of us could be bothered cooking and today’s sketch was a disappointing pencil drawing of my mouse.  I like the curves and lines of the mouse and felt the pencil rendered it well, but it’s a bit of a stopgap really.  Not the most interesting drawing I’ve done in the month.  Only three more sketches to go in the 28 Drawings Later challenge.  Like the Inktober challenge, I’ll miss it when it’s finished.

Tomorrow looks wet.  At least we had some sun and blue skies today.

Russian around Glasgow – 24 February 2017

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We made a late decision to go to Glasgow today.  The other option was Falkirk, but the finger finally fell (alliteration of ‘F’) on Glasgow because we wanted to buy some ‘Trinny’ stuff to make dinner on Sunday, and we didn’t think Morrison’s would have plantain, dasheen or cassava, but Solly’s African Shop in the West End probably did.  Or two out of three as it turned out.

Got the bus in because that meant we could both have a drink with our lunch.  I wanted some water based markers in Cass Art or Millers so we headed down Buchanan Street, then along Argyle Street.  Scamp suggested we should have lunch in Charcoal’s cafe on Argyle Street and I thought that was a good choice.  However, when we got there, it looked closed and although there was a sign outside, there was no lights on inside and no customers.  I was ready to head back to Paesano pizza shop when Scamp said why didn’t we try the Russian place, Cossachok.  I’ll admit that I wasn’t all that keen.  The a la carte menu didn’t look very inspiring, but it was open and it was busy and we’d often passed it and said we must try it.  Yes, we had to give it a chance.  I had Borscht which I’d heard of, but never tasted and for a main I had Golubtzi which was cabbage roll stuffed with mince served in a spicy tomato sauce.  Scamp had Olivie which was like vegetable salad which we both remembered having back in the ‘60s! Her main was Mama’s Blinis which was minced chicken in a thin pancake, served with a creamy spinach sauce.  I’d have borscht again, definitely, but the golubtzi was really quite hot.  Scamp didn’t like the spinach sauce because it had a caramel taste.  That said, the lunch was cheap, filling and tasty.  What else can you ask for.  Next time I’ll have Russian coffee which is espresso with vodka and whipped cream.  A strange mixture.  There will be a next time!

Got the subway out to Kelvinbridge and investigated two Caribbean food shops.  Both had most of our ingredients, but only one had the plantain we were looking for.  Neither had dasheen.  We came home with plantain, coconut and cassava. It looks like Sunday dinner will be Stewed Chicken with Fried Plantain and the possibility of Coconut Ice Cream.  Subway back and coffee before we got the bus home.  Only the advert above as a possible PoD.  I thought it was exactly what you do on the subway and exactly what I was doing.  I was avoiding catching the eye of the three Chinese (?), Japanese (?), Korean (?), yes, Korean girls sitting opposite.  They looked like three little maids from school (yes, I know that’s Japanese) and seemed to find the adverts funny too!  Good advert, well worded.

Tonight’s other picture was taken after I had finished today’s ’28 Drawings Later …’ sketch which is here.  I wanted something simple to draw and paint and the two sheep worked well for that.  I needed something to recreate the mottled finish on the salt & peppers and decided to try out the salt technique where you sprinkle salt on a wet wash and allow it to dry before dusting it off.  According to the books, it works with sand too, but I’d never tried either.  I did a quick test using salt from my mum’s old bakelite salt cellar and the result was exactly what I wanted.  The photo shows the tools I used for the painting including the salt cellar.  Remember it anyone?

Yesterday’s snow and this morning’s ice is nearly all gone now, so I think we’re going down to visit Dorothy tomorrow.  Strong winds forecast for overnight, but hopefully they should have calmed down by tomorrow.

Out to Lunch – 22 February 2017

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It was another beautiful day.  Cold, but beautiful.  After seeing the fun the birds had at Madeleine’s birdbath in the garden in Trinidad made us decide to get one for our wee postage stamp garden at home.  Today we set out to see what was available and at what price.  We could also have lunch.  Two birds, one stone, no killing was done.

I’d initially thought of driving to Dobbies near Bearsden, but decided to change our destination to Oakwood Garden Centre.  We’d been there before and the food was good.  You can see now that the real reason we were going was for lunch.  Bird bath was just a ruse!  Enjoyable drive through the countryside just north of Glasgow.  Got there and the cafe was full, but they took our name and we were soon seated, with Scamp getting the good view out the window across the fields to the hills.  Food was good, maybe mine was not as good as last time, but that’s being picky.  This place serves real coffee.  Strong, rich Columbian.  Just the way I like it.  Browsed the bird baths available and although I liked the one with the two cherubs, Scamp scowled.  It will be a plain one, I think.

Drove home and dropped in at Lidl for some veg to make Minestrone soup.  With it simmering away and Scamp ensconced at the ironing board, I went out to get some photos at St Mo’s.  Thought of doing a sketch of the front / side of the sports barn, but it started raining, so I walked over to the pond instead.  The rain didn’t last, so I attempted a sketch of the rear / side view and that’s what you see here.  I think I should have stuck to the front view as the perspective gets a bit dodgy here.

There wasn’t much to photograph at the pond or in the trees, but I did get the shot above which I quite like with the contrast of hard and soft textures.

Salsa was good, if exhausting tonight.  Almost the whole of a level 2 class, followed by an advanced class.  I think I’ve finally mastered El Niño, but I won’t know for certain until Monday night when it will be put to the test again.

Storm Doris is heading our way – didn’t it drift our way when we were in Trinidad?  Maybe it got lost.  Anyway, amber alert for snow for Central Scotland tomorrow!  Don’t think I’ll be going far, except possibly a walk to St Mo’s again to get some photos if all goes well.

Programming for Nerds – 21 February 2017

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Nothing to do with Elton John.  Keyboard Maestro is a very powerful programming tool for the Mac.  I’ve been struggling with it on and off for over a year now and have to tell you that with great power comes great complexity.  I’ve programmed interesting stuff in Basic and Assembly Language along with simple stuff in C and in Pascal, and even used Visual Basic to write macros in Excel, but the programming syntax in Keyboard Maestro is back to the stone age.  It makes assembly language look slick by comparison.  All I wanted to do was add two numbers together.  It shouldn’t be difficult, should it?  It was.  Mainly because of an almost total lack of tutorials using variables with this behemoth of an app.  I eventually found a wiki for it and all became (almost) clear.  I don’t think I’ll be coding very much in Keyboard Maestro, but my macro now works and I’m happy about that.  Actually I’ve been using it in the background while I type this blog.  I’ve got it set up to alter a few of my typos and also, if I type * KM without the space, it changes it to Keyboard Maestro –  See?  It did it there and you never even noticed.  I know, lots of other apps do the same thing, but this is an app for nerds!  I’m not afraid to say it: I AM A NERD!!

Scamp went to visit her Auntie, well, her dad’s cousin [that’s close enough to be an Auntie (or Uncle, depending on the version) in Larky].  Anyway, she was going for coffee with Isobel this morning and I was looking for something to do, so I copied yesterday’s sketch onto watercolour paper and made it into a painting.  I was quite pleased with the result.  I know it’s a bit gloomy, but the real thing is gloomy too.  The house sits back among trees and there can’t be a lot of light getting in those windows.

When Scamp came home and after we had lunch we went searching for food in Waitrose which is where I found the group of Neds you see above.  Who would have thought that Neds would be allowed in Waitrose.  Either they’ve cleaned up their act or that supermarket is allowing its standard to slip.

It was such a dull day, we just drove home afterwards with our spoils.  Lamb chops with potatoes and mushrooms for me.  Salmon and potatoes for Scamp.  Still on our self enforced diet, we didn’t even have a pudding!  We did have a crayfish salad to start with though, but you can’t consider that, because it was healthy!

Played a game of my new addiction Upwords tonight, but I don’t think Scamp was impressed with this Scrabble look alike.  I think it might be going in the next but one charity bag.

Nothing planned as yet for tomorrow because the weather may be taking a turn for the worse.

Oh, yes.  If you’re in the need of someone to add two numbers together, I’m your man.  Just give me a couple of hours to write the code and debug it and I should have it done!

Carrigan’s – 18 February 2017

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I went out for a walk along the railway in the afternoon.  A dull day with little prospect of any photos, and that’s how it turned out.  I took one photo before I went out and that was my PoD.  It was of a plantlet on the spider plant that lives in the downstairs toilet.  It reminded me of the Trinidad jungles!

On the way back along the railway, I stopped to sketch the house beside the canal with it’s extensions and odd angles.  It was a better viewpoint from the one I’d done a few months ago and it was looking quite good until the rain came on.  As I was closing the sketch book I realised that I was blotting the ink, but by then it was too late.  When I got back to the car and took a look at the damage, it actually looked quite good.  The rain had added texture to what would have been an empty page!

We were meeting Margaret and Billy Kent for dinner tonight in Carrigan’s in Hamilton.  It was a great night. Just nattering and eating all night. Right now, I’m feeling pretty full.  I may never eat again after a heavy three course meal, the star being the tablet ice cream!  Peppermint tea to settle my stomach then bed, I think.