Category: Food

Tesco, Ice Trees and a Trio – 17 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

We went for messages today. Lots of messages.

Scamp was out first, clearing the frost from the windscreen of the Micra. I locked up and then sat in the passenger’s seat for our run up to Tesco on another lovely bright, but cold day. A waltz round the shop, just normal food shopping. So good to be able to walk around without folk barging past to grab stuff off the shelves like they did pre-Christmas. Today was relaxed shopping. Scamp drove us back and we had lunch. It was good being a passenger.

After lunch I had a headache and thought a walk with a camera would ease the pain, so I wrapped up well and walked over to St Mo’s to see if the ladybird was still in its hibernation hideaway. It was, then I noticed there were three more on a nearby tree. A trio of ladybirds of different sizes tucked under a lump in the tree. This time I’d come prepared. I screwed the camera onto the Gorilla Pod I’d brought along for taking low down shots of Cladonia and pressed two of its legs on to the tree trunk just below the trio. That allowed me to angle the camera to get quite close to the ladybirds and get a few shake-free shots. The ladybirds were about two metres above ground level, so hand holding the camera would almost certainly have induces camera shake.

I didn’t find any Cladonia today, but the wee pond gave me the opportunity to do my ‘Camera On Ice’ trick and get some low level shots by resting the camera on the ice (once I’d tested its thickness) and pressing the shutter. It gives a totally different perspective on the pond. Lots of little bundles of ice crystals growing round the rushes that protruded from the pond like little frozen trees. By that time, the sun was beginning to set, so I walked back to the path by the shortest route to get a few landscape shots before the orange ball of the sun dipped behind the trees.

When I got home, the delicious smell of mince cooking reminded me that tonight was going to be Mince, Potatoes and Cabbage. Just the food you need on a cold winter’s day. Before that, though, I had a cup of hot chocolate and discovered that my headache was gone.

So, tonight’s dinner was indeed Mince, Tatties and Cabbage for me and Bubble ’n’ Squeak for Scamp. Basically the same as mine but without the mince.

Tomorrow doesn’t look as clear as today and there’s snow on the forecast for tonight. What we do tomorrow depends on the weather.

A walk around the pond – 15 January 2023

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It was a bright morning, but we didn’t get out. Although the sun was shining, it was cold outside and as we didn’t need to be anywhere or to do anything in particular we saw that as a reason to stay put. Scamp had a problem with her FitBit and we struggled with it for a while, eventually getting it to work fairly well, but not properly. We decided we’d been sitting too long and got the heavy jackets and coats on, then went for a circuit of the pond.

Once we were out and walking, it didn’t feel so cold, although once round the pond was enough for Scamp, so she went home and I stayed for another walk round and into the woods too. I got today’s PoD there. It’s the seed head of one of my favourite wild flowers, or weeds if you prefer, the Cow Parsley. I spooked a deer when I was out in the woods. It stood watching me for quite some time and I almost got my camera out of its bag before it saw me and loped off into the undergrowth. By the time I was coming home it was becoming much colder and it’s forecast to drop down to about minus three tonight.

We worked at Scamp’s FitBit again for an hour or so before dinner and I think we have resolved all the problems now, but my fingers are all crossed, which is why I’m finding it difficult to type this blog! These thing seem so simple when you see them outlined in YouTube, but they never are in reality.

Dinner tonight was the remainder of yesterday’s curry and as with all curries, it was better on the second day. The lack of salt wasn’t so noticeable and we had it with rice and a couple of flat breads.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and heard about their posh meal with baud. Simonne is off to Japan next month on business. I remember how lucky I felt when I got a full day off to go to a business meeting in Airdrie! While she’s away, Vixen is going to the kennels for a few days.

We have no plans as yet for this coming week, apart from a visit to a travel agent to, hopefully, find somewhere we can fly to from Glasgow or Edinburgh then have some quality time on a cruise ship. It might be a pipe dream, though!

Dancin’ – 14 January 2023

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Out for the first dance class of 2023.

It was an interesting drive out to Brookfield. We left Cumbersheugh in brilliant sunshine, but by the time we’d reached the outskirts of Glasgow it was obvious that wasn’t going to last. It wasn’t until we were almost at the airport that the heavens opened and we drove through rain all the way to the bowling club where our dance class was waiting.

We started with the Quickstep and we were both glad that we weren’t going to be learning a new dance. We really needed pointers on the ‘back end’ of the dance. There were a lot of things we weren’t sure of at the end of the routine. Thankfully the teachers were careful to show us ‘easy’ ways out of the tangle we found ourselves in, and by the end of almost an hour we were well on our way to completing this, our favourite dance of the moment.

Next a simple wee sequence dance then we were in to the Slow Foxtrot. That was another of our recent stumbling blocks and the word ‘Stumbling’ is not there by accident. We both did a fair bit of ‘stumbling’ on Thursday. Some of those problems got ironed out today, some are waiting to trip up the unwary! Another couple of sequence dances finished off a very useful morning.

The traffic was quite heavy driving home, but the nearer we got to Glasgow, the thinner the traffic became and I thought I’d risk taking the M74/M73 route which turned out to be a good decision. Almost no spaces in any of the car parks around the house. It later became clear that someone across from us was having a celebration of some kind and that explained the amount of cars. I found a space a fair bit away from the house and when a vacancy appeared nearer the house I drove down.

I did get out for a photo later in the afternoon and the best one was a shot of an old bunch of hawthorns growing on a wizened old tree in St Mo’s. That got PoD.

Dinner tonight came courtesy of Bombay Dreams. Pakora was the best I’ve had from there. My main was too greasy and lacked salt. I’ll fix that tomorrow hopefully. Scamp said her’s was much better than usual. You just can’t please all of the people all of the time.

I finally got round to writing to Alex and sending him some of my photos. I could hardly believe how long it’s been since we did a photo exchange. Nearly a month! Weather, Poor light and generally feeling Yuk were all contributing factors. Hopefully we are on the up and up now.

No plans for tomorrow yet.

Busy day – 13 January 2023

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It could have been retitled “Relentless”, but I did steal an hour to find and photograph an old friend and have a walk in the bog that is St Mo’s just now.

It was a lovely bright morning and after coffee this morning I got to work and made a batch of dough for the Tear ’n’ Share to go with the tomato soup. Meanwhile Scamp was out dancing with the FitSteppers. While the dough was rising I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which was a wee orange ladybird with sixteen white spots, hibernating in a crevice in an ash tree. It was a Halyzia sedecimguttata and I’d seen it last year in the same tree, you know the one. It’s just to the right of the tree with the stick in it. You can’t miss it.

When I got back the bread was ready to be shaped into twelve balls that would squash together to make the tear ’n’ share. Scamp had been just in front of me and after lunch she walked down to the shops to get lots of stuff for the dinner. When she got back I realised I’d forgotten to tell her to get mozzarella cheese for the bread. Also the broccoli she’d brought turned out to be a bit dodgy with great purple streaks running through most of the florets, so I drove down to Tesco to get the cheese and broccoli. What exciting lives we lead.

Long story short, the dinner tonight was Tomato Soup for a starter, Chicken Milanese with (non-dodgy) Broccoli and potatoes for the main and Dutch Apple Cake for a dessert. The soup and the Tear ’n’ Share was obviously the start of the show with the rest just filling in time! 🤣.

We both had a really good catch up with John and Marion. It had been a long, long time since we’ve met up. Let’s hope it’s not so long until the next one.

Tomorrow it’s the first dance class or about a month and we’re both looking forward to it.

Dancin’ … badly – 12 January 2023

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Today was the first Tea Dance of the year.

It was raining when we woke, which wasn’t surprising because it had been raining all night after a beautifully clear day yesterday. When I was opening the curtains this morning I was drawn to the distortion caused by raindrops running down the window. I thought the two geranium plants made a good foreground and trusting my new phone, I took some shots as ‘bankers’, just in case I didn’t get a chance to get some with my ‘real’ camera. That was a good move, as it turned out, because the rain just kept coming all day.

By midday we were almost ready to drive to Glenburn, south of Paisley for the tea dance. A much smaller group than normal today which was a double edged sword. More room to practise the moves we had sort of forgotten, but on the other hand, nowhere to hide when we made mistakes, and we did make mistakes, both of us. I was the worst though, I’ll admit it. Even dancing the two simple waltzes we know I still managed to make a load of mistakes. Sequence dances I could handle, but it’s the repetition that cements the steps and of course the ‘sequence’ of those steps. The other plus for sequence dances is that they are danced in a circle, so most of the time there’s someone in front of you to watch and learn from. Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep are a different kettle of fish. You’re out on a limb with them. If you do find yourself making mistakes or if you lose the sequence of the steps, your partner is going to give you THAT STARE! I know, I’ve been there. Having said all that, we had a great time. Almost two hours of dancing that passed in a flash. We sat with Barry and Cath and the conversation was good.

Drove home through more lashing rain and went the ‘long way’ down the M74 and the M73 and continued on to Tesco to post a birthday card to one of Scamp’s pals and get some Thursday stuff. You know what I mean. Thursday is still ‘Prize day’.

Dinner was a fall back, Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti (it has to be tinned spaghetti). The fish fingers went between two pieces of butter bread and became a Fish Finger Sandwich. Delicious.

Remember those photos I took in the morning? One of them became PoD. I’d shot them in RAW format. Very few phone cameras will record in RAW which is an uncompressed, unprocessed, literally raw image file. Usually it takes up a lot more space in the phone’s memory, but the excellent quality makes up for that. I dumped them into Lightroom and after half an hour of tweaking it looked presentable, so that’s what you see here.

Tomorrow is a busy day. Scamp’s intending to go out to FitSteps class in the morning and I’m hoping to start by making the dough for the night’s bread. John & Marion are coming to dinner. First time they’ve been here for ages. Looking forward to it.

Wet! – 10 January 2023

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It was raining when I went to make breakfast and it’s still raining tonight. It hasn’t stopped!

Scamp was feeling better this morning. Sometimes a bit dizzy, but not nearly as bad as yesterday. As the day progressed and it looked like we wouldn’t have been going anywhere anyway because of the weather we settled down to regroup and relax.

Lunch was scrambled eggs for Scamp which I messed up the first time. “How can you mess up scrambled eggs?” I hear you ask? I mean, the word ‘Scrambled’ in the name describes it perfectly. My excuse is that I added water to the eggs before I beat them, it should have been milk. Scamp corrected me and watched over me as I made this culinary delight, especially delightful if you’ve a dodgy stomach. I had the much more rustic piece ’n’ square sausage cooked medium rare, just the way I like it.

After lunch and after being assured that she was fighting fit, Scamp started the ironing and I parcelled up Hazy’s calendar then drove up to Tesco to post it. Drove back home in torrential rain again and not long after that, Hazy herself phoned. She’d read the blog and wanted to know how the patient was. I think she was relieved to hear the Scamp was feeling a lot better. We talked for a while about holidays to come and problems with planes, Neil’s surgery, which seems to be healing well and also cats with heart problems. All in all we covered a fair bit of ground.

Dinner was just a plate of the tomato soup we’d put in the freezer last week. It was ideal for today. Easy to thaw out and reheat, and gentle on the stomach. I do think that soup brightened the invalid up, because she was back to her old self after that.

I still hadn’t a photo of the day and it was a tube of Rowntrees Pastilles that gave me the idea, that and a torch I’d been playing with all afternoon. It’s a set of traffic lights made with the new Rowantrees Illuminated Pastilles which missed the Christmas shelves due to the train strike or the postal strike or any other strike you care to mention. It doesn’t matter, they’re fictitious anyway!

Tomorrow, Scamp is going for coffee with Isobel and June. I’m sure I could come too, but not when there are three women all talking at the same time. I don’t think I’d fit in, nor would I be able to get a word in. Anyway I have work to do at home that will keep me occupied for an hour or so. If possible I’d like a dry half hour some time before the sun sets.

Out to Lunch – 9 January 2023

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Today Scamp was out to lunch with an old friend she used to work with. I wasn’t invited.

It was a dull morning with rain. Not much to recommend it and because it was Monday, nobody seemed to want to move from the car park at the house.

Since Scamp was driving to Calders I thought it might be a good idea to change the windscreen wiper blades. I’d had two new blades sitting in the boot of the car since before Christmas and they weren’t going to be keeping the windscreen clear if they were languishing there. Five minutes later they were on and were keeping the screen much clearer than before. Scamp drove off about fifteen minutes later in a downpour.

Left to my own devices, I started another clean up of my room. It didn’t last long. I chucked out a couple of magazines and ditched two exhausted basil plants. The plants went into the compost bin and the pots went into storage in the wee greenhouse. The greenhouse was a mess. Inside the walls were running with condensation and all the plants that had been put in there before the snow and ice came were well and truly dead now. One of the problems with wee plastic greenhouses is that there is no air circulation. I think the greenhouse will need a good hose down, inside and out, on the first dry day – if such a day ever comes.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s later to get some photos. I wasn’t very hopeful, but I did come home with some interesting macro shots of a clump of Cladonia lichen I’d never seen before. The PoD was a photo of a Knapweed seed head, looking like it was covered in little spiders. Actually they are the seeds themselves.

When Scamp came home I started to make some soup in the Magic Pot. Just a variety of “Just Soup”. A mixture of veg with some lentils and a couple of Stock Pots to add some flavour. Ten minutes cooking time and there was a pot of soup. That was dinner sorted.

An hour or so after dinner Scamp began to feel a bit unwell. Feeling sick, and then actually being sick. We both immediately blamed the soup, although I didn’t seem to be affected. Even after she’d been sick, she wasn’t much better, feeling light headed and just not right. She went to lie down for a while and although that helped, she still felt queasy when she got up, so decided she’d have an early night. She and Denise had had sandwiches at Calders, Scamp’s being Tuna. I just wondered about what Jamie always said about not trusting mayonnaise in cafes and restaurants. Maybe that was the culprit and not the soup. Time scale was about right, at 7 hours. Maybe …

I decided I too would have an early night, so this is a catch-up. Scamp is feeling better this morning and is going to risk scrambled egg and toast. The soup went down the toilet this morning.

Today we’re having a lazy morning and probably a lazy day. It’s raining!

What!! No Coffee!!! – 8 January 2023

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The orange warning light was flashing on the coffee maker this morning, indicating that its innards needed cleaning and I had no cleaning solution. Oh my! What would I do without coffee?

Well, the answer, of course was to look on Amazon. Ah the relief, they had the descaled, but it wouldn’t be delivered until TUESDAY!!! That would be three days before I’d get my 11am fix. What other options were there. Thankfully JL came to the rescue. John Lewis had them in stock and actually cheaper than Amazon too, so I could get them today. We just dropped everything, jumped in the car and drove to Glasgow where I picked up the life saving liquid. Scamp was looking for tops to go with skirts, but I had the important stuff paid for and in my bag. We’d nothing else to go for today, so we just drove home.

After lunch I started the long winded cleaning routine. It takes a good half hour to descale the boiler of the De Longhi 685 and then another fifteen minutes to wash it out. Life is tough when you’re a home barista.

While I was engaged in this delicate operation, Scamp was out pruning the roses and tidying up the plants in the back garden. She came in to tell me she’d found a Snowdrop, the first one of the winter, and a sign that spring wasn’t too far off. The flower was growing in a rose pot, surrounded by vicious looking thorns, so I was extra careful getting its photo, but I did get it, more than once. We compared the photos I’d taken and Scamp chose her favourite. She’s becoming really good at spotting the good shots and sidelining the poorer ones. I think she chose the best one to be PoD and I started work on it.

She was almost finished when I thought I’d broaden my photographic horizons and went over to St Mo’s to see if I could capture some of the reflections of the setting sun from the boardwalk. I managed a good dozen shots of various formats and angles and then quite suddenly, the light was gone. It was like the sunsets you get in much warmer places, when the sun sets and fifteen minutes later it’s almost dark. It’s not something you find very often in more temperate zones. It didn’t matter all that much, because I was on my way home by then.

Dinner was Chicken Milanese (battered flat and dipped in breadcrumbs before being pan fried) with a baked potato each. Beautiful. It was followed by coffee from the sparkling clean and descaled coffee maker. I’d say the coffee was better than normal, but it was probably something to do with the extra glug of Kahlua that went into each cup.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard that he’s got ‘Mallet Finger’. I was telling him that my pal, Fred has ‘Hammer Thumb’ which sounds similar and that I get a less painful version of that. Then the strangest thing happened, my thumb (always my left thumb) went into spasm and folded across my palm and refused to come back out. How strange is that.

Tomorrow Scamp is out in the morning for coffee with one of her, recently retired, work colleagues. I’m tidying up the living room table of all the calendar junk that’s been living on it for the past month. If it’s dry I may go and take some photos in St Mo’s.

What a delightful day – 5 January 2023

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Yes, that was sarcasm!

Dry early in the morning, but after that the rain came and forgot to leave. Also the rain slid in quite quietly, but got stronger and heavier as the day progressed.

I suggested that we go to The Bothy near Stirling for lunch and Scamp readily agreed. It’s a nice wee cafe/restaurant at the foot of the Ochil Hills. We’d been there before and I had great memories of the Sri Lankan Lamb Curry. Maybe I’d have something different this time.

The place was busy when we arrived and they were handing out buzzers which isn’t really a good sign. We were told a wait time of about fifteen minutes. Half an hour later our buzzer buzzed and we were shown to our table for two. A quick glance at the menu while Scamp was looking for her glasses confirmed my choice. There it was on the menu Sri Lankan Lamb Curry. My day was going to be fine and hang the bad weather. Scamp chose Mac ’n’ Cheese, her second favourite on the menu. We weren’t disappointed.

After our I grabbed a few photos of the Ochils with the rain clouds misting them and a massive flock of geese in the field at the bottom. A panorama made in Lightroom from three of the frames got PoD. I had another try at photo of the Wallace Monument without the irritating electricity lines catching the eye, but it didn’t work, so I went with the geese on the grass at the foot of the hills. Then it was time to drive through Stirling because Scamp wanted to visit Dobbies. However, the shop was doing its Twelfth Night changeover from Christmas to Valentine’s Day, so it was, in a word, shambolic. We drove home.

For a three cylinder car the Micra fought its way through torrential rain and standing water to get us home safely and in good time. We stopped off at Tesco for a bunch of flowers for Scamp (it was Thursday, remember) and to see if the rum tanker had made it through. Flowers were bought, but no sign of the rum yet.

We watched the first episode of The Apprentice tonight, but it was more of an advert for Antigua than the usual contest, but the usual n-hopers were there and one of them got fired.

It’s a windy night tonight, but it might be a dry afternoon tomorrow.

Another day Another walk – 4 January 2023

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A slightly different start to today’s walk, but basically the same route. There are limited variations in this area.

The day started with the usual struggle with Wordle and Spelling Bee, but they weren’t all that difficult today. Just before lunch I got a message from Alex to say that the family were almost all down with what sounded like a Norovirus variant, so we wouldn’t be going for a photo walk this week. Hopefully they will be over it by next week.

After lunch we went for that walk round part of Broadwood Loch and then up the path beside the exercise machines. Then it was back through the underpasses and on the path to home. While Scamp walked home, I went for a circuit of St Mo’s. Instead of the usual circuit I went up through the woods behind the main pond and got some photos of the smaller manmade pond near the motorway. I could see streaks of blue sky through the clouds and waited for a while to see if those streaks would get bigger, but I was disappointed. They just faded away as the sun started to drop to the horizon. I walked straight back to the path through a shallow bog. I am sure I lost the lens hood from the Samsung 18mm lens in that bog in the spring and I was hoping I might catch a glimpse of it in among the grasses, but again I was disappointed. I trudged home thankful for good boots and dry feet. The boots aren’t too clever on ice and slippery leaves, but are (touch wood) waterproof and comfortable giving a good grip on dry ground.

Today was the day we’d agreed to take down the tree.  No matter how careful you are with taking all the ornaments off first,  there’s always one more you find.  Also there are always one or two decorations left on the wall and you don’t notice them until the rest are packed away.  The place always looks really bare once the decorations are packed away and the tree is also in its old cardboard box that Scamp says is more parcel tape than cardboard now.  However a bunch of flowers in a vase will add some colour again.

Dinner tonight was the remainder of the fish pie from yesterday for Scamp and a piece of bacon joint for me. Using up stuff that was near its ‘best before’ date made good sense after the excesses of the last couple of weeks.

Just before 9pm someone knocked the door and there was a bloke with a big parcel that wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow. It’s been on the road for about a week now and was a bit battered, but secure and everything inside was intact. Prezzies for Scamp, June and me from Hazy and Neil. Scamp got a pair of fancy earrings and a pair of cleverly up-cycled gloves. Mine was a book I was considering buying and a badge with ‘bad words’ on it that brought a smile to my face. My Bergy jacket was getting washed and I’d worn my old, and I mean OLD Bergy today. It has a badge on it and that badge also has ‘bad words’ on it. Needless to say it came from Hazy and Neil, but I think Hazy was the prime mover there. We got a box of high octane boozy chocolates to share. My Mojito had a fair kick to it! I can’t remember what Scamp got, but she could walk after it!

PoD was a shot of a branch with two pine cones on it, sitting on a mossy stone. It was taken in the woods at St Mo’s. 11,359 steps today!! First time I’ve broken the 10,000 this year.

Tomorrow we may be going to a garden centre, it being Thursday. We may have a spot of lunch too.