Category: Food

Out for a walk – 26 September 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A walk between the showers.

But first, there was work to be done in the morning. I decided that I’d make some soup for lunch. Not one of Scamp’s ‘Just Soups’, but more a ‘What have we got in the fridge’ soup. What I found was some carrots, a leek, a red pepper, a slice of bacon, a couple of kale leaves and in the cupboard a tub of broth mix. That should be enough to make a pot of soup, with some boiling water and a couple of stock cubes. After chopping the veg and grating one of the carrots, I brought the lot to the boil and then let it simmer for about an hour. It looked like soup and it smelled like soup, so it was soup. That was lunch sorted, and the rain was on. I chose to drive down to the shops to get some bread while the soup was simmering. I drove to the shops because the rain was getting heavier, straight down rain.

The soup made a fairly filling lunch and the rain went off. I was thinking I might chance a walk in St Mo’s, but a quick look over the Campsies told me that although the sun was shining and the streets were drying, it wouldn’t be long before the rain would return … and I was right. However, Scamp and I did get out later in the afternoon for a walk once round the pond at St Mo’s in sunshine. I almost managed to grab a shot of a dragonfly, only one shot before it flew off and that was out of focus. Such a pity. On the way back home I got a few shots of a bloke waking home along the path through the trees and that made PoD. It’s heavily edited, but I quite like the warm light and the streaks of light across the path. The light on the path is real, but the warm light is just pure Lightroom!

The rain didn’t return for a few hours, but when it came it was torrential again. We’re expecting more rain tomorrow and strong winds too when Storm Agnes visits us. I do hope the two who are holidaying in Wales don’t suffer too much from the stormy weather.

Another short practise tonight to rub more rough edges off the waltz and it’s beginning to look like it will actually be danceable soon.

No plans for tomorrow. Just making the most of a wild day, I think.

Soil – 25 September 2023

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We were meeting Isobel for a coffee and a long blether this morning.

We drove up to the town centre and found Isobel halfway through her latte. I imagine it would have been cold by then. She seems to like cold milky coffee. I can think of few things more disgusting than that, although cold milky tea must come close. My Cortado seemed to interest her, but as she said, it hardly even a mouthful. We sat and talked for over an hour and found out that her son had delivered a bag of topsoil for her. Scamp has been looking for topsoil to pack round her roses to give the roots more of a grip in their pots. After interrogating Isobel we discovered that the soil came from Dobbies in Stirling and was reasonably priced. So reasonable that she had decided to get her son to buy another bag for her. Scamp was telling her that she was needing some and we might just go to Stirling to get a bag or two. Then I said to Isobel, “why don’t you come along for the run” and she agreed.

So it was that we drove to Stirling. lifted three bags of topsoil into a trolley, paid and left. Isobel’s quip that “It’s the shortest time I’ve been in a garden centre in my life.” was true. They hadn’t been in that plant paradise for more than fifteen minutes! While they were in looking for the topsoil I had been taking photos of the Wallace Monument and the Ochil Hills through a two meter wire fence. A bit clumsy, but the photos worked. Half a dozen shots in the bag.

We drove home and the wee blue car was struggling on the hills going home. Three full 25litre bags of damp soil and three folk too, plus a heavy camera bag and a zimmer. That was straining its three cylinders to the max, but at least were keeping most thing in threes!

We stopped in the village and used Isobel’s zimmer to transport her bag of soil up the path to her house. Then we drove back home for lunch which today was pizza.

After lunch Scamp got her tools out and started filling the rose pots with the soil. It looked like good quality stuff with maybe more than its fair share of sand mixed with the soil, but it hadn’t been very expensive, so we didn’t mind. I did consider taking a walk in St Mo’s, but when I checked the clock, it was almost dinner time and as it was Monday I was pasta chef today. A sort of cross between Penne Arrabiata and Amatriciana. It tasted fine anyway.

A quick Wednesday Waltz practise tonight and I do believe we are beginning to lick this dance into shape, but whisper it, because I don’t want it to hear!

After a bit of photoshopping and some jiggery pokery I declared one of today’s shots to be the PoD.

We have no plans for tomorrow.

A day to recover – 24 September 2023

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Today was going to be a much more relaxing day than yesterday.

No driving, no dancing and, as it turned out, neither of us went out any further than the garden. I did think about taking a walk over to St Mo’s, but the next time I looked, it was raining. That rain lasted most of the day and eventually dried up in the late afternoon. I did take some photos in the garden, but wasn’t impressed with any of them.

While I was out I found the Venus Fly Trap that struggled in the garden with the dry weather in June. We had managed to coax it back to health, but now as the temperature is dropping it’s coming in to the kitchen, to overwinter. Venus managed to make PoD. I think that was the highlight of the day, although my photo of the Lady of Shalott rose from a couple of days ago was awarded ‘Explore’ on Flickr. I was quite surprised, but happy to accept the accolade.

Dinner tonight was Fish Fingers, Tomatoes and Chips for Scamp and a Venison Burger with Mushrooms and Chips for me. Dessert was Meringue with Ice Cream, Passion Fruit and a dash of Passion Fruit Sauce for extra flavour. Not a bad Sunday dinner.

Tomorrow we’re intending having coffee with Isobel if we don’t get blown away with the wild wind.

A long day – 23 September 2023

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A day that started around 9am and finished around 1am the next day, which means, of course, that this is a catch-up!

We started off at 10.15am heading to Brookfield. We had a quorum, but only just with four couples. Our dancing started off with Tina Tango, the music being Scamp’s favourite ‘Shivers’. Two tracks of that got us moving, then we moved on to Cha-Cha which I admit I struggled with, but eventually came to terms with. I remembered Janes warning to keep my feet just scraping the floor and not make clumpy noises, but I’d entirely forgotten the other nuances of the dance. Information overload was my excuse.

A couple of tracks of Mayfair Quickstep and then we went on to Joy’s Waltz which I almost had before the teachers swanned off for a fortnight ‘working’ on a cruise ship, then another week on holiday. We hadn’t practised it since then and it had dissolved from my memory. I just got angrier and angrier with my inability to remember what went where. Eventually, with Scamp’s patient help it all came back, well, almost all. But I’ll write down the sequences and practise them before the teachers return from their next holiday, ‘cruise work’ in three weeks. Then Joy’s Waltz will be a joy to behold!

Another two sequence dances and we were done for the day. Done dancing at least. After we drove home I intended driving somewhere to get a PoD, but I forgot my phone, so I drove back home and parked the car, then went for a walk in St Mo’s where I found a wee knothole about the size of £2 coin in the wooden boardwalk. A moss had colonised it and from above it looked like a tiny garden in an urban environment, but maybe that’s just me.

By the time I got that processed and posted it was time to get ready to drive to Crawford and Nancy for dinner. It was a good evening and night and dinner was good too. I tried to solve Crawford’s problem with connecting his iPhone to his Microsoft PC but eventually had to give up. I have exactly the same problem trying to get the Macs to connect to my Android phone.

We got home just after midnight after driving through some torrential rain on the M74 and as I said at the start, the day finished around 1am after Scamp had gone to bed and I’d had a wee whisky as a nightcap.

Tomorrow ( ok, today, but ‘tomorrow’ is traditional) we will treat the day as recovery from a full day.

 

Roses, Freezers and Heather – 22 September 2023

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Scamp was off to FitSteps this morning and I was looking for something to do.

The sun streaming in the back window lit up a pair of roses Scamp had put in a vase to keep them from getting battered useless in the wild winds. I thought it would make a good photo and gathered a camera, a lens and a tripod, plus some wee microfibre cloths to make a mat for the vase to sit on and also for a backdrop. I thought I’d get it done in a few minutes, half an hour at the most. An hour and a half later after Scamp returned from her class I was finally working on what was to be the PoD! It’s the fading flowers of the rose Lady of Shalott. I liked the way the sunlight through the window picked up the textures of the roses. Scamp wasn’t impressed, she doesn’t like to see flowers, especially roses in this condition.

We drove up to Calders in the afternoon because Scamp wanted a white heather plant to replace one that didn’t survive the summer drought. I thought at first we’d gone to the wrong place, this seemed to be a Santa’s Grotto with giant Santas, fairy lights and decorations of every shape, size and colour, especially white. The place was mobbed, I’m guessing it was people waiting to be buzzed for lunch or wandering round the grotto after lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the garden centre looking so busy. Christmas may be coming, but we haven’t even had Halloween yet!

We stopped at Tesco on the way home to get some veg to make Veggy Chilli for dinner, but before that there was the matter of a freezer that had almost as much snow in it as Santa’s Grotto! We’re not sure what has happened to it. Scamp reckons SOMEONE had left the door slightly open, but when I was clearing it out and scraping off the frost that had formed, I noticed the seal at the bottom of the door was twisted and wasn’t making proper contact with the frame of the freezer. I think we’ll need to keep an eye on it for a few weeks. Between us we cleared off all the frost and found very little actual ice, which is also suspicious, and it’s freezing away quite happily now.

The veggy chilli wasn’t a great success. Too much water too little chilli and not enough flavour sum it up. First time I’ve used the Magic Pot for a while, so we’ll see if it will be good enough for lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow we think the dance class is back on, although we haven’t had a confirmation from Stewart yet. We might be going to Larky later.

Dancin’ again! – 21 September 2023

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Today we were going to a tea dance in Glenburn.

It was a lovely bright morning, but cold. Well, I felt it cold anyway. I should have gone for a walk, despite the temperature and shot some photos, but I didn’t, preferring to stay in the warm living room and complete Wordle and Spelling Bee. That meant I’d need to squeeze in a shooting session when we came back from Paisley. Never ideal, but I’ve only myself to blame.

I hadn’t realised just how windy it was until we were on the motorway heading west, and meeting that westerly wind head on. Despite the wind and the intermittent rain we made good time reaching Glenburn before the dance started … for once.

First dance, was a sequence to ‘warm us up’ apparently. I’d expected a waltz, but it was not to be. The waltz was next and I got lost again. Before we left the house I got Scamp to list all the figures we did and I wrote them all out in order. They went clean out of my head. I always think of a waltz as being a slow dance, and it is, but there are a lot of steps in the Waltz Nioli and that means your feet and brain need to be nimble and mine simply aren’t nimble enough. That compounded with a lot of folk on the floor made it difficult for learners like us … or me. We sat with a good crowd at our table and the banter was good. We attempted everything that was flung at us apart from a ballroom Tango and a Tango Serida. We struggled through a Cha-Cha and by the end of that particular one, almost remembered how to do it.

As usual we left early at 3pm to avoid the school rush and almost made it. As usual the Kingston Bridge was a congested car park, but we were on the M74/M73 route and avoided the stop – start – change lanes – change back of the M8. It takes a bit longer in miles on the M74, but at least you are moving at the legal limit most of the time.

Back home I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a Common Carding Bee on a Scabious flower. We couldn’t decide what to have for dinner and finally chose Fish Fingers, Egg and Fried Potato. Perfect for what was turning out to be a cold day.

Tomorrow we may go looking for a small heather plant to replace one that died during the drought in the early summer.

Out early to beat the rain – 20 September 2023

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Today Scamp convinced me it would be a good idea to go out early and grab some photos while the sun was shining. That sounded like a plan.

I wore my boots, because it was going to be mucky out there. It was a bit wet underfoot, but there were some interesting cloud shapes and also some blue sky  and some glorious sunshine. I took a quite a few photos with the A6500  and the Pentax 50mm while I walked round the pond.  It’s a new steep learning curve, taking photos without autofocus and without really being sure your aperture setting is what you think it is.  I don’t know how I managed before digital.  At the halfway point I found an empty can of Irn Bru sitting on the wooden seat that appeared a couple of years ago, probably more, actually.  I took a few shots with the Pentax and then swapped the combo to the A7 and my 16-35mm lens.  Sitting there I had a good view over the pond to the pines behind and that, not the Irn Bru can, made PoD.

As I was walking back the clouds got heavier, the blue skies less and the sunshine almost gone.  I’d got my photos and as I was walking home I could feel the first spits and spots of rain.

Back home it was lunch time and I tested out a packet of sausages I’d bought in Waitrose.  They were boggin’.  I could smell the preservative from them and the skins were thick and rubbery.  I survived them, but the remainder went in the food bin.  Now I know why they were half price! Then the rain that had threatened did appear and it was heavy for a while.

Decided I’d finish off the photos I’d started to process and then saw that there were no folders or files on the desktop.  Usually a quick restart fixes things like that, but not today.  I began to think that I’d been hacked.  The folders had gone.  They weren’t simple hidden.  Everything else was as normal and I couldn’t understand it.  Then I remembered I’d been messing about with Hazel, not you Hazy, but Hazel the app.  I checked and there was the culprit.  It had tried to backup the entire contents of the desktop to the NAS drive.  Thankfully I make an automatic backup every week to a removable drive and managed to get everything (and more) back from last week’s backup. We had a quick practise later in the afternoon and it was a shambles.  I seem to have forgotten everything overnight. Too much computer nonsense in my head.

By then I’d scoffed dinner and Scamp was ready to go dancin’. At the hall, I think I was still trying to process exactly what had gone wrong and wondering if some of the folders were recoverable from the NAS, so that’s my excuse for not being able to put a foot right all night.  With that said, in the few glances I had at the other couples, we were actually doing not too bad.  We did manage to finish the routine almost perfectly a couple of times.

Drove home and after reassuring myself that it was ‘Pilot Error’, we had another practise for the tea dance tomorrow.  This time I listened to Scamp, remembered what teacher Kirsty had said and concentrated on where my left foot and my right were going.  I think we might be ok for tomorrow.

Only plan for tomorrow is to go to the tea dance and introduce them to Kirsty’s Waltz. That’s the plan.  Whether it comes to fruition or not is a different matter.

Testing, Testing – 19 September 2023

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Testing yesterday’s purchase and the other acquisition.

I drove over to Alex’s to borrow his K mount adapter so I could test the ‘new’ lens. New, is a bit of a misnomer as it’s at least second hand and maybe has passed through a great many more hands since it was really New. Last night I’d found a tiny bit of mould in one of the internal elements. Nothing that would have a detrimental effect on any of the shots I was hoping to take with this piece of ‘Old Glass’. I also found a few fine scratches on the rear element, but again, they wouldn’t make any difference to the photos. Sat and talked about family and stuff with Alex and Carol and I’m sure the two cats were listening too. Pretty wee things that reminded me of Tibby.

After an hour or so I drove home and took a detour in the direction of Lenzie to a wee draw in by the side of the road to get some test photos taken of a bit of farm land that looked like a promising photo opportunity. As it happened, the light wasn’t quite as good as I thought, but it did give me a chance to test out the Pentax 50mm f2 lens I’d splashed out some money on yesterday. I was surprised at the quality of what is really a kit lens, and not really all that well rated. Last night I was having ‘buyers remorse’, but today I was delighted. It’s circa 1995 vintage, so it’s manual focus, but I knew that and it’s also very compact, especially when it’s bolted onto the Sony A7. One of the Pentax’s shots became PoD. The storm clouds you can see from the PoD followed me home and didn’t drop any rain until I was safely in the house. Sitting in the living room I took a few shots of the raindrops on the leaves of Alec’s Red and they looked good too.

Scamp had roasted a chicken for dinner with roast potatoes and cabbage to go with it. It truly was the best chicken I’ve eaten for a long time. The pudding was rhubarb and apple crumble using our own rhubarb and apples. It too was delicious. Then it was time for the test. It was time to pack the dishwasher, slide in the washer tablet, choose the program and press the start button. Like new parents we watched the counter light up and listened to the water trickling into the reservoir, then it was off and running. We could leave it to do what it was bought for. An hour and a bit later it had washed all the dishes and they were drying. A sigh or relief all round!

We had a longer practise session than I’d intended tonight, but there were rough corners to rub off the new waltz and it’s dance night tomorrow, so Kirsty will be looking for mistakes, I’m sure. Finally I got a grip on things and worked out where I was and what came next. I think most of it was muscle memory, but internal clues helped too. Not least in the help category were Scamp’s whispered prompts. We might need a reminder tomorrow, but I think we’re good to go.

No plans for tomorrow. The weather fairies are warning of heavy rain and strong winds tonight and tomorrow morning.

What a glorious day! – 17 September 2023

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Yes, that was meant to be sarcastic. The rain started this morning, an extension of yesterday’s deluge and forgot to stop, it seemed.

The furthest I went was a drive to the shops, not even a walk. There wouldn’t have been any joy in a walk and no point from a photographic point of view.

Toast and beans for lunch and dinner was an oven baked fish risotto, the drive to the shops was to get the fish. The good thing is that the oven does all the work, as I’ve said before.

We watched what turned out to be a quite exciting Singapore GP and that was NOT meant to be sarcastic. The race kept us in suspense right up to the end, a tension only released when George Russell crashed out on the last lap. Oh dear, what a shame (back to sarcasm!)

Jamie phoned just as the race finished and we talked about their holiday in Wales. Hope they have some decent weather for that.

I did manage to get a PoD. It was taken in the rain and is a Fuchsia, a purple and white one tucked away in a corner of the garden.

Hopefully our dishwasher will be delivered tomorrow. But the message from Currys is that it will be delivered and fitted between 6.35 and 9.05AM tomorrow. I can’t remember when we last had to be up at 6.35am. Probably the last time we went on a cruise, many months ago!

Other than overseeing the installation, we have no plans for tomorrow, although the weather looks better than today.

Old Glass and the Owl Woman – 16 September 2023

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Today we drove over to Klondyke at Falkirk for the worst lunch in living memory.

Actually the garden centre is really good. Plants all look good and are reasonably priced, but we thought we’d try their lunches. Scamp ordered her favourite test piece, Mac ’n’ Cheese. I wasn’t all that hungry (for once) and ordered Home made Pork & Leek Sausage Roll. What arrived after about half an hour was a sloppy looking macaroni in a tasteless white sauce and a giant sausage roll that had been microwaved. I’m the first person to say that I’m not a chef, but I know you don’t microwave flaky pastry. It just isn’t flaky after that kind of treatment, but obviously the ‘chef’ was oblivious to that. The ‘meat’ inside the inedible wrapping was almost as bad. My advice if you fancy stopping there for lunch? Don’t, just don’t. If you want some plants, fine, just don’t eat there. You’ll only regret it.

We did buy a couple of plants, because it only seems to be the restaurant that’s affected by the lack of culinary knowledge. The plants are fine. We took away a batch of pansies and a new Japanese Anemone and since the Kelpies are nearby, we went there for our second, and edible, lunch. A scone each and two coffees with a view out at the horses looking sparkling in the sunshine. A walk around the Kelpies and a few photos taken. One with old glass, the eleven year old E-PL5 with the squeaky 20mm Panasonic lens. One with the cantankerous 28-70mm kit lens on the A7iii. Nothing is perfect in my photographic repertoire! The Old Glass shot of pansies taken at Klondyke won the day and that became the PoD.

We finished off our lunch with an ice cream ‘Boat’. A plastic boat with two servings of Mr Whippy ice cream and one chocolate flake to share. While we were consuming this dessert, a man and a lady walked past and the lady had an owl on her arm. A real owl clasping the gauntlet on her hand. It was interesting to watch the looks on folks faces as they did the ‘second look’ thing and then turned to look at a woman with an owl on her arm. We just spent a few minutes trying to outdo each other with jokes about the “Owl woman”. Which, if you’re Scottish (or Irish) translates as “Old Woman”. Oh what childish fun we had at her expense. Of course, all the time she was preening herself for being the centre of attention, while the owl just looked superior and blinked … as owls do. Said goodbye for a while to the big horses and drove home.

Back home, Scamp was deadheading more of the flowers while I repotted the sad looking Berberis plants that were looking a bit sad.

Dinner tonight was a Spice Tailor almost instant Goan prawn curry which no doubt Delia would say was nothing like what a Goan curry would taste like. It was certainly better than a dodgy Mac ’n’ Cheese or a nuked sausage roll.

Watched an ‘interesting’ Singapore GP where neither of the Red Bull cars made it to Qualifying 3. That means they’ll be in he middle of the pack and will have to prove their prowess. Some folk are just getting too big for their boots. The signs that Xmas is on the way is that the days are getting shorter, the temperature is dropping and Strictly is starting its annual run. Tonight was that night. Oh what fun it was to see all the hopefuls finding who their dance partners would be. I wonder who’ll be first to go.

We have no plans for tomorrow. It took a long time for the sun to come out of hiding today and it might take longer tomorrow. Some rain predicted.