Category: Food

At the seaside – 23 December 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Jamie had organised a walk on the beach, twice today.

Simonne was working today, but Jamie had a plan. He drove us to Southwold and we had a walk along the long promenade. We didn’t go on to the pier, but I got a few shots of the pier with some interesting clouds as a backdrop, while Jamie and Scamp walked on. We passed a long line of painted beach huts. Loads of photo opportunities, but eventually we came to the end and turned back, then we headed into the shopping area. No boarded up shops here and no Poundstretchers.

Jamie knew of a good ice cream shop. Ice cream on a day when the mercury was in the lower single figures. But, he was right. Lovely ice cream cones and coffee afterwards. We walked round the town, although it was more of a large village, A busy place though. Plenty of folk out getting last minute prezzies. It has a lighthouse in the middle of the town/village though which prompted another photoshoot.

That was the first part of the seaside visit. Jamie drove us in a bit semicircular path to Dunwich, another beach. This one was almost the complete opposite of Southwold. The beach was half sand and half shingle. Steep cliffs rising behind the beach. We passed one man fishing from a wee black tent with a beach caster rod. I haven’t seen a beach caster for years. I didn’t envy him because the wind was even colder here, but he did seem to be well sheltered.

We passed two couples on our walk along the beach, but decided it would be better to turn around after about a mile and headed for a pub next to the car park for lunch which was soup for Scamp and me and a ploughman’s platter for Jamie, but he kindly gave me a large slice of his sausage roll.

Jamie drove us home by a different route from the way we’d come and by the time we got back to the house it was quite dark.

In the evening, Jamie took us all to The Ship pub in Levington. The pub was fairly full and a bit noisy. Food was good and so was the drink, but not for Jamie because he was driving.

PoD was a beautiful cloud bank behind the pier at Southwold.

Went to bed fairly early after a very interesting and busy day. We may go for a walk tomorrow, all being well.

Things I’ll remember:

Southwold
– The model boat pond – no boats today!
– Beach huts in Southwold.
– Ice cream on a cold day.
– Black recycled coffee cups – might try to source them.
– Lovely wild sky.

Dunwich
– Beachcaster on the shore.
– Picking pretty stones from the shingle.
– Food and beer in the pub.
– Cold wind

The Ship Pub
– Noisy locals.
– ‘Terry’ just a bloke one of the locals fancied.
– Terry’s wee dog wanting to get out of the pub.
– Us being called back because the waitress had messed up the bill.

Training – 22 December 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Off on our travels again.

Taxi from the house to catch a train to Edinburgh, an hour earlier than we needed to be there, just to make sure that there wouldn’t be any glitches because of the unnamed storm that was threatening to disrupt our journey to Jamie & Simonne’s for Christmas.

We found the First Class lounge for LNER so at least we were fed and watered as well as being comfortably warm as we waited for the platform for our train to be displayed.

We had the long walk along the platform to our carriage which was second from the front, so almost the furthest away one from the gate.
Settled and sorted sitting across from two young Japanese(?) twins(?) who were very serious looking and seemed only to speak in their native tongue, at least between themselves. While we enjoyed a glass of red wine each at around 11.30am! (Not something we usually admit to!) Said red wine was useful to help wash down the Roll ’n’ Chicken with Stuffing and Gravy. Delicious. That’s why we book First Class when we can.

Unfortunately we had to get off at Peterborough and into the freezing cold, but not for long because we continued our journey in a fairly comfortable train that took us to Stowmarket where Jamie was waiting to transport us to the house.

After dinner we watched TV and relaxed.

PoD was a view from the First Class lounge in Edinburgh at what looks like a deserted platform – Everyone was away to the left, waiting for the Polar Express to arrive!

What I’ll remember:

  • Hoping against hope that the wind wouldn’t spoil the day.
  • Enjoying that hot chocolate and pain au chocolat in the posh lounge.
  • Getting a window seat. Scamp gave me the window seat. Thank you.
  • That roll ’n’ chicken with all the trimmings.
  • ‘The Twins’.
  • Horrible wee noisy boy on the train to Stowmarket. Some children should be seen and not heard. For preference they should not be seen either!
  • Seeing Jamie waiting for us at Stowmarket.
  • The drive-by tour of the inflatable Xmas decorations near Old Newton

Tomorrow we might be going out to the coast.

 

The Fort – 20 December 2024

Posted on by Zogman

A lazy start to the day. It rained for most of the morning, but cleared away completely in the afternoon.

We drove to The Fort for some odds and ends and I finally got a shaver. Not the Braun I was looking for, but a Philips rotary shaver which seems to do what it’s meant to do and is much quieter than the Braun that’s going in the bin. The parking was fairly decent, although we did have to cruise around for a while before we found one.

While Scamp went off to find those odds and ends, I went for a browse in Waterstones and came out with another book. That makes it three in the same week and I’ve another one on the go just now that came from Fred. I was looking for something to photograph and saw the three “Easy Deer”. Easy, because they never run away. That’s probably due to them being cast in bronze. Got a view looking over their heads from behind, as you can see, as if they were watching the people rushing madly about. It wasn’t such a madhouse as Glasgow the other day, but I think everyone was in the new Primark.

When we were sure we had everything we came for, we drove home. A more pleasant drive that coming as the sun was now at our back. Some lovely landscape shots were passing beside the north facing side window, but as usual there were no places to stop and take a photo.

Dinner was a stir-fry made by Scamp an it was lovely. That was part of the ‘odds and ends’ Scamp was looking for at The Fort.

I watched a Kevin Bridges film in the evening: The Overdue Catch-Up. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favour and watch an hour and a half of Kevin. Just brilliant. After that, Scamp watched The Quartet. I think I’ve seen it before, but it was worth watching again.

Other than that, I tested the shaver and found it comfortable to use, no nicks! I think Scamp is now sorted for Christmas. We’ve had a glass of wine or two and we’ve watched the obligatory sickly sweet Nigella Lawson trying to pretend she has friends who come to her dinner parties. Aye right!

We’re hoping the promised incoming storm won’t be as bad as the weather fairies predict.

The gas man cometh – 18 December 2024

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Today we were waiting in for the boiler engineer to come and sign off our water boiler for another year.

Thankfully he didn’t arrive dead on 9am but knocked on the door an hour later when we were properly awake. He didn’t take long to clean out the boiler and certify it until next year, all being well.

That left Scamp me just enough time to run Scamp up to the town centre under a clearing sky to meet Isobel. While they were having coffee and a blether, I started putting everything back into the boiler cupboard. We’d decided that there were too many jackets hanging behind the cupboard door and we had to dispose of some and put others in long term storage, which is almost the same as disposing of them. I’d visited Tesco on my way home and brought home some essentials like milk and bread.

Scamp arrived not long after I’d finished and we had some lunch. I was about to dig out my boots and go for a walk but Hazy phoned and I wanted to speak to her, so delayed my walk. Scamp spent a while talking to her about her travels to Manchester and faulty buses. I asked her about the difficulties of moving Android data to iPhones. We were both glad that Neil is finally getting recognition for the work he does outside school hours.

There was just enough light left to take some photos over at St Mo’s pond and I’d brought some cabbage leaves to feed the waterfowl. Well, attempting to feed them. apparently they hadn’t had the memo about green leaf veg being good for them. They sailed past along to a bloke who was feeding them bread.You’ll regret this later waterfowl! A low level shot of the mixture of birds on the pond today made PoD.

It took me about an hour, probably more to copy the data from an almost full micro SD and paste it into a shiny new and much larger one Mr Bezos was kind enough to send us by Royal Mail, free of charge. Hopefully that’s the last of the computer work I’ll have to do for a while.

We watched the finale of the Portrait Artist of the Year and watched Brogan Bertie paint his version of Lorraine Kelly. It wasn’t the worst painting I’ve seen on this program, but it wasn’t great either. So different, it was from his work in the heats, I began to wonder if there was a ghost painter somewhere. Just thinking out loud. I must ask Fred for his opinion.

Tomorrow Scamp is OUT AGAIN. This time she’s intending meeting her pal Mags for lunch. I might go looking for a new shaver.

A day to relax – 16 December 2024

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Both of us used today as a recovery day after yesterday’s dramas. If that means nothing to you, read yesterday’s blog.

I noticed today that the sun hardly rose behind the houses facing us. In all the years we’ve lived in this house, this is the first time I’ve noticed it. Maybe it’s me who is shrinking. That’s the only logical way to explain it.

In the afternoon I went for a walk round St Mo’s, but by the time I’d completed one circuit, the light was visibly low in the sky and the camera had to be put away after taking just three shots!

I walked down to the shops to get some Basil because neither of us could find the full jar that’s somewhere in the house. Of course, I bought a lot more things as well. I bought a glass jar of dried basil in M&S for around £1.25 and then noticed a similar quantity of basil in a not so posh looking glass jar in Life for 65p. Almost half the price of M&S. Now, basil is basil. I don’t believe there is much difference in quality and no difference in quantity. It’s just something you sprinkle on pasta. I might need to put my Captain Clipboard hat on and query the price difference, doing blind taste tests and maybe even buy a microscope to compare samples. I might even know someone who has access to all that equipment. I might have to speak to him.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about their plans for next week. A walk along the sea shore sounds good on your day off. Glad he’s got his door finished and painted at last. Hope his Captain Clipboard approves of the correct shade of white!

The previous part of the blog was written hours before this next part.

Scamp had started to download the photos of her Manchester trip into OneDrive when it all went a bit tricky. Only a fraction of the photos made it from her phone to the computer. We both worked on it and eventually, after a couple of hours managed to tease out the knots in this problem. Just after midnight we had three different folders on a memory stick and they held most, if not all of the photos. It still amazes me how a simple slip of a finger can cause so much mayhem, but it all worked out in the end. That is the reason you didn’t have a blog to read this morning. Sorry. To think that I started writin this blog with “A day to relax”! Little did I know.

PoD was a drab looking photo of St Mo’s that mirrored a drab day. It’s Scotland, what did you expect.

Tomorrow we might go in to Glasgow.

 

Another broken bus – 15 December 2024

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Usually the blog is written from my perspective, but the majority of today’s is written about Scamp and the Witches visit to Manchester.

Yesterday the witches had a fairly faultless run down to Manchester and by all reports were impressed with the Trafford centre. Today they were heading back to Manchester from their overnight stay in Chorley or nearby there to go to the Christmas Markets. Around 3pm I got the message that they were leaving Manchester and would phone at Gretna.

I got a message to tell me they were leaving Gretna with an ETA of 7.20pm at Hamilton bus station where I’d agreed to pick them up. Two minutes later I got the message that the extremely high winds had blown the windscreen wiper off the bus and they’d need to get someone to fix it or get a replacement bus. Long story short, two hours late, I picked up the four and dropped them off at Jeanette’s house and we drove home.

I’d made a fairly large pot of Minestrone soup for a late lunch and it was used for dinner while the sorry tale unravelled. I’m not saying Scamp is a jinx, although she did, but this is the second bus journey that has come to grief with a broken bus she has been on!

My own day had been a case of taking some odds and ends to the skips in the afternoon. The winds hadn’t been as wild then, so I carried on to Fannyside and got some photos of “The Girls”, the hardy sheep that don’t seem to notice the wind and the rain as long as there’s food in their basket. Went for a walk along to a farm, got some photos of Cladonia lichen that grows well there, apparently a sign of clean air. On the way back I saw a fast flying bird land on a telegraph pole and grabbed a few photos of it. When I came home I found that it was a Kestrel. Unmistakeable with the narrow wings and the chestnut coloured back.

PoD was that picture of “The Girls”, looking as if they were posing for a photo.

Hoping to have a less stressful day tomorrow.

 

 

Off the leash – 14 December 2024

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An early rise for me. 6.30am is definitely early for me, very early. I was up at that ungodly hour to drive Scamp the Condorrat, there another driver would take her with the rest of the Witches to Glasgow. And from there down the M74 and the M6 for miles and miles and miles.

They were all off on a short ‘Jolly’ down to Manchester to experience the Trafford Centre. Tomorrow, hopefully, a Christmas Market awaits them, also in Manchester. Then back up north to a place called Reality!

That left me off the leash for a whole day and a half. What would I do with all that free time? I would do this, and that, and that other thing I’ve been meaning to do for ages … but in the end, I sat and read for half the morning. Then went to Tesco looking for something that wasn’t there. I did grab myself a pizza for dinner and a bag of Jelly Babies, two bags, actually and came home. That’s the trouble with having plenty of time. I just never ever use it properly. I just fritter it away, and before you know it, the sun is setting and I’ve not taken a photo yet.

Well, I did have a photo. Admittedly I’ve shot that same scene at least ten times, each one similar to but not the same as the last. It’s That Lane. Usually it begins to look a bit sinister after I’ve boiled it in Lightroom and Photoshop, then washed it out in ON1. Still, it’s done and I like its sinister aura “a’ roon” to quote Billy Connolly.

I watched another couple of painting tutorials. Little half hour slots with known faces, painting faces. They always amaze me how simple their structure is, simple and perfectly formed. I nearly always try to do as they say and end up putting it in the bin.

As you’ve gathered, I didn’t get up to much today, but I did go for a walk and achieved what Garmin says is a decent score.

Scamp is due home tomorrow evening and this time I’m chauffeur. After that, life will return to normal I hope!

 

Coffee and Cake Cancelled – 13 December 2024

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I said yesterday that Shona had invited us to Costa for coffee and cake. It was cancelled.

Scamp got a message from Shona just after 9am to say that Ben had refused to go to school. That means he’ll be home all day and the Costa visit was cancelled.That sort of messed up our morning, but not as much as it messed up Shona’s morning. Poor soul was looking forward to a relaxing morning, heaven know she deserves it.

To make use of the day, Scamp and I drove up to Tesco and bought a trolley load of food (and drink) and then drove home for lunch. Which turned out to be Wednesday’s soup.

Later in the afternoon, but not too late, I put my boots on and took a camera out for a walk in St Mo’s. Scamp was walking down to the shops, so I joined her for most of the walk down to M&S, then left to go round St Mo’s pond a couple of times. Not a lot to see, but the thaw had come and all the frosted trees had little droplets of frost melt. One of those photos made PoD. Scamp says it looks like a cartoon horse’s head. It took me a while to see it, but now I can’t unsee it!!

Dinner tonight was paella and it actually tasted quite good for a change. The only mistake I made was putting the prawns in too early, resulting in Rubber Prawns. Not very nice to eat.

Watched the semi-final of Portrait Artist of the Year and wasn’t surprised to see a truly awful painting make it to the final three. I think I now know who is going to win, unfortunately.

Scamp is hoping to go on a overnight tomorrow with the other Witches. That means an early rise for me too!

Dancin’ – 12 December 2024

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The last tea dance of the year.

Drove through the freezing fog to Tesco for a bottle of fizz for the dance teachers, plus a loaf and some pomegranate seeds and … well, lots of things, actually.

Then it was back home for a coffee and a Wordle. Didn’t quite get the Spelling Bee, but the coffee was good. Found I’d got an Explore for the photo of Hair Ice back on Tuesday. I suppose it is a strange looking thing and not seen very often.

Lunch was coming up fast and I wasn’t dressed for it yet, so it was a frantic rummage in the wardrobe to get suitable clothes for today’s tea dance. ‘Christmas’ was the unspoken theme for today and for once I did embrace it. Christmas jersey and a very old bright red tee shirt with a reindeer. Scamp was in her Christmas dress and looked very festive.

The fog was almost gone by the time we reached Glenburn but there were only a few or the regulars there. We danced a whole, or almost a whole, Quickstep. I was quite chuffed to find that I could remember almost all of the Hoabie Quickstep. We rather messed up the Waltz Nioli which we used to know and that was it for the formal ballroom dances. The rest were sequence dances and I think we danced them all, even the Christmas Pudding Dance which is a complicated four person dance with lots of ducking under and dancing round each other. Best seen, not described.

Made a mistake on the way home and took the Kingston Bridge road which felt like a moving car park. Once we were on the bridge and after a quick lane change we were moving a lot faster. Actually we took about the same time as we would have done if we’d taken our usual M74/M73 route. That freezing fog from the morning was descending by the time we got home. I dropped all the bags in the kitchen and went over to Condorrat to get a large fish supper for us to share, and that was dinner sorted.

There had been no time today for an outside photo, so it was a still life. The Christmas cactus has just come into flower, so that was today’s subject. Actually it an amalgam of two photos. One of the flower petals and one of the stamens. If you look closely you can see a dusting of pollen from the flower.

Watched the final of Masterchef The Professionals and the right person won as far as we were concerned.

Tomorrow we’ve been invited by Shona to coffee and a cake in Costa. I look forward to that.

Another early rise – 11 December 2024

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This time it was just me who was rising early. Heading for the 10.14am bus to Glasgow.

I met Alex at the bus station as agreed, just exactly at 11am. We were adventurous today and went to an old Nero for a coffee and to plan our day. After we were finished I tapped a lady on the shoulder and told her she could steal. She’d asked me a few minutes earlier if she could have our seats and I said we’d leave them for her when we finished. I headed for the toilet, but all of them were full, so I went back and tapped her on the shoulder and told her and her mother(?) that they could steal our seats. They thanked us as we left.

Alex was looking for a down jacket like mine and I told him I’d show him it in Tiso in Buchanan Street, so we had a wander through the shop and I do believe he may be writing a letter to Santa as I’m sitting writing this to you. While we were in the shop, I saw a lovely pair of gloves. Light as a feather as befits a pair of gloves stuffed with feathers and they were only £60! I liked them, but not that much.

We walked down to St Enoch’s to see if the stalls were worth photographing. They weren’t, so it was a quick walk around them and then along Argyle Street as far as M&S where I got a pair of underwear while Alex was photographing the “Star Tunnel”. Not its real name, but close. Two ladies (different ladies) were walking past and one said to the other “Would you look at that! The place is falling to pieces and they waste money building a thing like that!!” I had to agree. A lot of time, energy timber and electronics for something that would be torn down in a month, if it hasn’t been vandalised before that.

By now it was lunch time, or thereabouts, so we walked along to Paesano where we both had a pizza Number 3 Anchovy and Olive.

I went to Cass Art to get some charcoal pencils to test out a sketching method I’d seen on the Sky Arts program on TV. Alex went for a wander in the gallery but came away saying it was all about Collage which never interested either of us. By the time we’d walked up Miller Street, the temperature was dropping and so was the light level, so the coloured lights of the Roundabouts and Big Wheel were beginning to be worth a shot of two. The newest attraction whose name I now forget, consisted of a gigantic glowing square column with a four sided set of chairs for those of an adventurous disposition to sit in and be winched up to the top before a disembodied voice called out 5 – 4 -3 – 2 – 1 ZERO and the whole set of chairs dropped like a stone, accelerating downwards 9.81 meters per second, per second, before even more rapid deceleration pulled it safely to a halt. We didn’t go on it, surprisingly!

About an hour later I’d had enough and told Alex so and headed for the bus. Later he sent me a message to say that he’d stayed on for another 45minutes, before doing the same thing and going home.

PoD was a monochrome photo of two ladies (yet another two ladies) having lunch on a stage behind the main attractions.

Back home dinner was a bowl of soup. Lovely soup too, Scamp. Later we watched the finale of Shetland. Worth waiting for.

Tomorrow we may go dancing in the last tea dance of the year at Glenburn.