Category: Food

No Mr Bond, I expect you to die – 9 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

img_3385-flickr-253-1Went to the physio this morning to have my usual bashing and needling, but he had another torture in store. “I think I’ll give that wee ligament a shot with the laser” He said. Immediately I thought of Goldfinger with Bond on the table and a laser cutting through a steel slab on its way towards him. Thankfully he wasn’t Goldfinger and he didn’t strap me to the table and slice me in two with a gigantic laser. The laser was applied from a small pen sized device and controlled from something that looked a bit like an old-style Mac. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Away back, years ago when I was at school, I recall memorising that acronym. I never did understand what it meant, but it sounded really clever. Once the laser had done its work, it was aided and abetted by another set of needles. Whatever he did, it worked. Shoulder feels a lot looser and I get an extra week’s reprieve before my next ‘manipulation’. Progress is being made.

Not long after I got back, the rain came on and forgot to stop. Since Scamp was off galavanting with her sister and Nancy, I had the afternoon to fill and it didn’t look as if I was going cycling, or even for a walk. El Capitan, OSX 10.11.6 was sitting there looking at me and I couldn’t not install it. It was a little hand grenade waiting to be thrown. I used to have a friend in Oz who use to refer to things like this as hand grenades. “What will happen if I pull this little pin out?” Well, the pin is out and there has been a bang or two, but nothing spectacular. I won’t say there has been no swearing, but there’s been less than I expected. The only thing I can’t get to work is the email for my old account. It’s amazing how the settings worked fine on Mountain Lion, but resolutely refuse to work in El Cap. Same settings, same mail app, different result. I’ll leave it until tomorrow.

Today’s photo is the apple pie Scamp made from the rest of yesterday’s pic.

Dinner out tonight at the Dead Deer. Just like old times, in our previous lives when we worked for a living.

Dry tomorrow apparently.

Autumn – 1 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

IMG_3374- flickr--245This is the meteorological first day of autumn, so the weather fairies say.  Just thought you deserved that information.  It was a bit cooler today, but not inordinately so.

On Saturday we had intended going to Tea Jenny’s for lunch, but for a variety of reasons, we didn’t manage it.  Today, I suggested we remedy that and off we went to play the 500metre traffic light game and have our lunch in TJ’s.  Luckily the traffic was a lot better today and we managed to pass the traffic light test quite quickly.  Tea Jenny’s is simply a tea room in Falkirk, an old fashioned tea room with odd (as in random) china cups and teapots with hand knitted tea cosies.  Although you can get a full lunch there, the main attractions are the soups and sandwiches, oh yes, and the gigantic meringues.  None of these really hit it off for me.  For me it has to be Stovies.  If you don’t know what stovies are, then you almost certainly aren’t Scottish and will need to Google the word, because I’m not going to describe stovies.  Everyone has their own version.  Today’s stovies had potatoes, onion and sausage in it.  It’s not as good as my mum made, nothing would be, but it ‘filled a wee space’ today.  One of the attractions for us is the variety of tea cosies.  Today’s candidates are shown above.  The photo was taken by the best camera in the world, the one you have with you.  In this case, my iPhone.

With my fingers firmly crossed, I’m going to say that I think I’ve solved the gallery problem.  It looks like the problem was caused by a rogue plugin messing things up.  The plugin has now been severely spoken to and has been banished to the ‘Deactivated’ box.  It has also been grounded for the rest of the week.

 

Total abstinence is an impossibility – 31 August 2016

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M8310698- flickr--244Not a lot to say about today, other than the six Auld Guys met up in the Horseshoe Bar for a few drinks, a cheap lunch, a few more drinks and a lot of good natured banter. It was great fun and for once there were no arguments, even when conversation turned to politics. The title of the blog post is one of the quotes painted, properly painted by a skilled signwriter on the inside of the gantry of the Horseshoe Bar. It’s attributed to Queen Victoria, but there is no proof that she drank in this pub.

From visiting one of the oldest pubs in Glasgow I had a look in one of the newest places, the Apple Shop in Buchanan Street. It only opened on Saturday after an eight month refit. It’s now much more open inside, but unfortunately they removed the glass staircase. Such a shame. It also looks as if they have removed the upper floor which housed the ‘Genius Bar’. That’s not such a big deal as I never actually found any ‘Geniuses’ there.

Only one photo today, there were more serious things on my mind today like a few drinks, a cheap lunch, a few more drinks and a lot of good natured banter.  The building is the Premier Inn which, like the Apple shop was recently renovated. In my opinion they turned an ordinary building into a really ugly one. Kind of suits this area of Glasgow.

Don’t know what’s on the cards for tomorrow. It all depends on the weather.

The last day of summer? – 30 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

30 AugIt looks from the weather forecast that it will rain later tonight, so this may be the last day of summer. Who can tell?

Day two of the new early rising regime and resolve is flagging already, but at least I didn’t stay in bed all morning. Scamp, on the other hand, was showing how it should be done and was up and working before I’d switched the shower on.

Went out in the afternoon, equipped with a tripod to get some more photos of the mini toadstools I’d seen on Friday, but when I got there, the toadstools were gone. There were some slug trails, but not enough to explain the complete decimation of the toadstool forest. I knew they had a short life-span, but I didn’t think it was that short. Disappointed, I looked for other photo opportunities, but none were to be found. It seemed too good a day to waste by going home early, so I went for a walk over the grassland of the dump, but there were no deer, not even a rabbit. The closest I got to a decent photo was on the way home when I took the shot of the corn field with the nice wee sinusoidal path. When I got home I found that I’d dropped my designer green glasses somewhere on the road or the paths. Must go back and find them soon.

Made some Tiger Bread today. Attempt 1 is not too successful. The actual bread is fine, but the Tiger part is too thick. More testing required.

Finally got photo galleries to work on my newly themed blog. This time they are totally within WordPress and not using the Galleria widget, thingy. It was proving just too clumsy and untrustworthy. To be honest, the basic ‘Classic’ theme worked fine except for the black background, but the paid-for ‘Twelve’ theme wouldn’t cooperate at all, so I used a much simpler WordPress plugin that did the trick for now. May revisit them later.

Beer with the Old Guys tomorrow. Usually a good laugh.

Non-Stop – 27 August 2016

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27 augThat’s how it felt today. From the minute I got up until now 9.30pm, it feels like I’ve been on the go all day. Here’s how it happened:

Went shopping with Scamp in the morning through the dreadful traffic in Falkirk. In less than five hundred metres there are no less than five different sets of traffic and pedestrian lights. Come on, this isn’t central London or even Glasgow city centre, this is a small town in the central belt. What’s the story? Were too many traffic lights made that year and they had to put them somewhere? Away back in the dim mists of time not long after the UK joined what was then the Common Market, there were stories in the press about Butter Mountains and Wine Lakes. Is this the result of a Traffic LIght Forest? Rant over.

After fighting my way through this no-man’s land of tailbacks, not once, but twice, we drove home and dumped the hard won food we’d sourced at Morrison’s, had a very quick lunch then drove to Muirhead to Colin’s Flower Show. It’s not actually Colin’s. True, he is on the committee and enters an amazing amount of stuff in it, but other folk do to. Today’s show wasn’t quite as grand as some I’ve seen there, but most of the flowers were spectacular, and the vegetables were mammoth. I don’t know how these folk do it.

We left the flower show and went for coffee, then bought even more food in Asda. Still not satisfied, we stopped at Tesco to get the things we’d still to check off our list. Well, at least we spread our money around all the local supermarkets! Finally we headed home to try to find places to put all these consumables.

By the time everything was packed away and the fridge door closed on the groaning shelves, it was time to make dinner. After dinner, once we had done the washing up, I set to, to make the paste for tomorrow’s Thai Green Curry.

With that made, I grabbed a cup of Earl Grey and went to read for an hour before starting to tidy the painting room (back bedroom) for tomorrow’s guest.

Now I’m writing the blog and submitting the photos to Flickr, after which I may have a small libation. I think I deserve it.

Tomorrow will not be as frantic – please!

Fungi, Physio and That Friday Feeling – 26 August 2016

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26 AugWhen I was making breakfast this morning I saw a coal tit having its breakfast of peanuts in the garden.  Grabbed the Oly and got a dozen shots.  Two of them were fairly sharp and showed a bit of detail in the bird.

Physio later in the morning and it looks like there is quite an improvement in my shoulder, but I’ve to keep doing the exercises and continue being a pincushion.  I was amazed when the physio (David Brogan) showed me his cycling shoes, made from carbon fibre with dial-in adjusters to tighten them.  I didn’t dare ask him how much they cost.  It looks, JIC, as if his whole bike is carbon fibre.  It’s a Wilier.  A Beautiful machine, designed for racing and that’s what he does with it, I think.

After lunch I took the bike out.  Poor wee thing had been languishing in the hall for so long, its computer had gone to sleep.  Anyway, despite a fairly strong west wind, I headed out for a bit of exercise.  Nothing too strenuous.  Half an hour of cycling and then an hour or two searching out some interesting things to photograph.  The Three Amigos were an easy candidate, but getting a decent viewpoint was a bit more demanding.  I finally settled on leaning on the fence by the railway to get a usable shot without the intrusion of the overhead lines for the electrification of the line to Embra.  Big push to get all the gantries and cables in place and then for some reason it’s going to take another seven or eight months before they will be used.  That’s British efficiency for you.  In my wanderings I found hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny little toadstools on a rotting tree stump.  I got a few shots of them, because fungi in general grow, seed and die in a very short time span.  Better to get the shots when I can and hopefully get some more later when I’ve got the proper equipment (tripod) with me.

We had dinner booked at Cotton House for 6pm, so I took the shots I could get and headed home hoping for a tailwind and with thoughts of Chow Mein in my head.  I got both.  See, even when you’re retired, you can still have That Friday Feeling!

Colin’s flower show tomorrow.

Cushions – 20 August 2016

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20 augSome people will complain about anything.  Today as we were getting off the bus in Glasgow, one wee woman was berating the driver because the seats were too hard on the bus.  She told him in no uncertain terms that he should be supplying cushions for the seats.  The poor man just agreed with her.  It was certainly the path of least resistance today.  The bus he was driving was definitely a bit rickety and seemed to be playing the complete percussion section of the First Bus Orchestra all by itself, but cushions?  I think that might be a step too far.

We had been promised rain today and we got it in abundance.  After walking down Buchanan Street in the rain, it simply got heavier as we waited to see the Gay Pride march go past.  We felt really sorry for them plodding along in the rain trying to look suitably festive in their rainbow capes, rainbow flags and rainbow scarves, soaked to the skin.  Scamp was looking for one of her friends who was supposed to be taking part, but she later confessed that said friend was probably still in the pub.  I might have felt sorry for the marchers, but I felt even more sympathy for the poor drivers in town who had to sit and wait for about half an hour for the parade to pass through, with only two short breaks to allow the traffic jam to partly clear.  Polis were nowhere to be seen at any of the road junctions.  Total shambles.

Lunch was a pizza each in Mediterranianeo in Ingram Street, then we went for a walk in the rain to get a couple of DVDs for tonight’s viewing and avoid another night of the dreadful Rio Olympics.  Then it was home again on the bus, and who was sitting behind us?  That’s right, that same wee woman.  It was a different bus from the one we went in on and the seating on this one was far superior.  I don’t know if she critiqued the cushioning as she left the bus, but I wouldn’t have put it past her.  See JIC, it’s not just me.

Dry weather forecast for tomorrow.  Not sunny, but dry.  We’ll take that.

Green – 17 August 2016

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17AugI’d read on a blog somewhere about taking shots of part of an object or even parts of an object and allowing them to define the whole and another about taking more time to study a shot before taking it.  They must have struck a chord with me because that’s what I found myself doing today.  First when we went to Strathaven this morning after we’d picked up our new reading glasses in Larky.  We were sitting having lunch in a wee cafe.  The local secondary school was coming out for lunch too and for a time we were surrounded by school weans.  I felt quite nostalgic for a while.  Aye Right! (that mean’s “No I DId Not” in Scotland).  Anyway, we were sitting next to a wall and over the wall was the Powmillon Burn and a beautiful fern lit by contré jour light (backlight). It looked good, and it still does after Lightroom has had a go at it.  I took another wide angle shot from the same position, but it did not come out of Lightroom very well.  In other words, it was rubbish.

That sort of set the tone for today’s photos.  Also,most of them were green, like the fern, but one that bucked the trend was a shot of a Yellow Wagtail which wasn’t a plant and wasn’t green, but it WAS only a part of the frame, because I couldn’t get closer and I only got one shot.  Remember, it’s better to have one shot in the bag and then try to improve on it rather than fart about trying different compositions but then miss the shot entirely and end up with nothing.  The other one that wasn’t green was the blue blobs shot which was taken with the intention of having only one flower of the three in focus.

After Strathaven, we came straight back home as I wanted to get the ingredients for tonight’s dinner and Scamp wanted to cut the grass in the back garden.  Grass is also green, or am I stretching this too thin now?

With the dinner half made and having solved today’s Sudoku puzzle while sitting in the garden, I went for a walk to St Mo’s to see if there were any other parts of things I could isolate and that’s where the leaf and the two grasses came from.  Back home I finished making today’s dinner – Thai Green Curry.  Total coincidence!

Possibly one more glorious day tomorrow before the rains come.

On the buses – 16 August 2016

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16 augToday I had a retinopathy appointment where the nurse takes a photograph of the retina of my eyes to check for damage to the small veins and capillaries there.  As the nurse sometimes needs to put drops in my eyes to get a clear picture, I can’t see very well for a couple of hours afterwards, so I had to get the bus instead of driving.  Since we were limited to the bus to start with, it made sense to use it again to go for a wee run.

It was a beautiful morning again and it looked like it would stay blue sky and sun for the rest of the day, so we headed east to Dunfermline in Fife.

We went for a walk through Pittencrief Park wandering around the flower beds.  I walked through the greenhouses too, but Scamp decided to wait outside in the sun.  We both agreed that the flower beds were looking a bit untidy, with weeds taking over in places, but if councils continue to refuse to increase the council tax supported by the Scottish government, then the less important jobs will not be done.  Corners will be cut, but unfortunately the grass won’t be.

Lunch was in Wetherspoons.  Damned by some for having a boilerplate menu and a poor selection of beers, it suits us fine.  It is what it is.  Eat, drink and don’t pay too much.  That’s our motto.

Back home we sat in the back garden with a Pimms each and a book to read.  Enjoying the late afternoon sun.

A walk in the sun, beer and fish&chips for lunch, then Pimms in the garden and best of all, no driving.  What’s not to like?

Happy Birthday JIC on a significant date 16 – 8 – ’16.

The Lodge – 13 August 2016

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13 AugToday was to be dry, and so it dawned. Dry with a little sprinkling of sun – even better. The weather fairies had been telling the truth for once. That said, we took ourselves off to the wild highlands or at least the Trossachs which is a sort of tame wild highlands. We were pointing the car at David Marshall Lodge or DML for short. Instead of our usual route through Thornhill to Aberfoyle and up the Duke’s Pass to DML, we rebels took the alternative way through blue-rinse Callander and over the other side of the Duke’s Pass to DML. Callander is usually a bottleneck on this drive and so it was today, but the bottleneck was caused by two of the boys in blue (with yellow hi-vis jackets and a speed gun) checking the speed of anyone wishing to venture in to the town from the general direction of Stirling. Not that we had much chance of raising our speed above jogging pace because some numpty at the front had forgotten to bring the red flag with him to indicate that a motor vehicle was approaching. That’s the way it seemed anyway. We passed the polis quietly, sedately and well under the speed limit. The drive up the Duke’s Pass was uneventful and terminally boring. It’s strange that when driving some roads, the scenery is much better in one direction than in the other. I hadn’t noticed how little of interest passed the car as we travelled along this road until today. We arrived at DML only to find that, Shock! Horror! they’ve changed the name to “The Lodge”. Now to someone born and brought up in Larkhall, The Lodge is synonymous with either Lambeg drums, Orange sashes and flute bands or groups of men congregating in a hall with a builder’s square and a pair of dividers over the door. I’d never been involved in any way with either group but that is what The Lodge means to me. Orange or Masonic, these are the only Lodges I’ve known about and this was neither. No sashes of any hue, no aprons and no rolled up trouser legs – do they really do that? What happened to David Marshall? Was he ex-communicated? Did he retire? Was he sacked? Maybe they found out that he didn’t belong to either Lodge, and he had to go. We’ll never know, I guess. However, like the Clyde Arc will always be the Squinty Bridge and the Tradeston Bridge will always be called the Squiggly Bridge, so The Lodge at Aberfoyle will alway be DML to us.

We paid our £3 for a day’s parking and headed off to get some foties and to walk the paths. Set up my tripod below the waterfall and waited until the lighting was right. Took a couple of test shots to get the shutter speed and the exposure right before starting the long exposure shots to get the water looking fluid. Then some prick, sorry if you’re offended by the description, but that’s what he was, walks right in front of me just as I’m taking the first exposure. Photobombed by a moron. Really, they walk among us. I wasn’t for moving, despite the midgies which were clouding round me. He proceeded to clamber up and over some rocks. Maybe he thought he was a rock climber. Nah, you need to have a brain for that. I was waiting for him to fall in, that would have made a good shot. I took a few shots with him in different positions to make sure I could easily edit him out later. When I was happy with what I’d got I walked back to Scamp who was standing near his keeper (who was quite apologetic) and said to her, “Don’t worry, the monkey won’t be in the final shot.” Some folk shouldn’t be allowed out, even with their keeper.

After that, we had to cut our walk short as I was getting eaten alive by midgies. We had a quick lunch at the cafe. Scones are good and coffee is brown(ish) water. Don’t risk it if you like your coffee to taste of coffee. If you normally have your caffeine hit in Starbucks, you probably won’t notice any difference. After that we drove down the other side of the Duke’s Pass and on to the Loch Ard road which is a dead end road after about 20 miles or so. We didn’t venture that far. We stopped in a parking place and Scamp opted to stay in the car while I went looking for more photo opportunities without idiot photobombers. Met a group of mallard ducks that seemed quite happy to pose for me until it became obvious that I had nothing worth eating with me, then they went off in search of better feeders. Photographed some wee sailing dinghies on the loch, passed an outdoor wedding reception in full swing (hope they had lots of DEET spray) and drove back home. Bypassed Callandar just in case the polis hadn’t filled their quota of speed merchants.

Dinner was yesterday’s curries reheated and served with rice and home made flatbreads. I think they tasted even better than yesterday. Maybe it was just that we’d been out in the fresh air. Looking for similar weather tomorrow. That would be nice.