Category: Food

Postman and Driving Mayhem – 22 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Off to hand deliver a Christmas card and then driving to the Fort.

I’d left it too late for Elizabeth Gough’s card to be delivered by Christmas, but as I was going to be passing her house on my way to the last purchases at The Fort, I dropped it through her letter box. I was caught in the act by her daughter and then all three of us had a blether at her front door. I was invited in for coffee, but I declined as I knew it would be difficult to park at the Fort and if I’d accepted, I would have been there for an hour at least. It must be well over a year since I’ve met the pair of them and we had a lot to catch up on. Eventually I took my leave and headed back on the road to Easterhouse.

The parking was worse than I’d anticipated, much worse. There must have been about a hundred cars circling the gigantic parking areas and nobody was finding any spaces. I eventually had to give up and I thought I’d head out towards Drumpellier park and from there to Currys at Coatbridge to get some photo paper for the calendars. When I got near Drumpellier I could see there was low lying mist over the loch and, as I did have a camera with me today I drove in to the park. The light was lovely and the mist gave a great backdrop. Even better still, the car park was running at about a quarter capacity. I got a few photos and then headed back to see if Scamp wanted to go fro a walk. I wasn’t in a rush to get the photo paper anyway.

Instead of a walk we had lunch. Scamp wasn’t feeling too good and thought she had a wee infection. She had phoned the doc’s and was waiting for a call back from the nurse. The call eventually came about 5pm and the nurse said she’d leave a prescription at the surgery reception. I drove over there, picked it up and got it filled at the chemist, next door to the surgery. Then came drove home. It was getting cold by the time I was leaving the house and colder on the way home. I’m expecting the temperature will be below zero tonight, although it’s just about 4ºc just now.

I made celeriac soup for dinner. Thick and warming, but not getting much of the celeriac taste from it. Anyway that and some toast with a half a pizza later was a substantial mid-week dinner.

Good to hear that you’ve got your heating fixed, even if it is only short time, Hazel. Good advice from your mum to get a few local quotes too. Remember that the firms like our Scottish Gas like to put doubts in your head, saying that it’s difficult to get the parts now for older boilers. Sometimes that’s just to scare you.

PoD was a photo of four gulls sitting on the ‘Whale Tail’ in Drumpellier park. The sculpture was created in 1989 by artist Neil McLeod and entitled ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’.

No plans to go anywhere special tomorrow and definitely no driving to shops if today’s experience is anything to go by. We’ll probably do some local shopping.

Empty handed – 20 December 2022

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Today we’d agreed to get the bus in to Glasgow.

There was little dithering about, we just got ready, I’d packed my bag with the A7iii, the TZ90 and a couple of lenses and we walked down to get the X3, the sloooow bus to Glasgow. It was when we were getting on the bus that We were just getting on the bus to Glasgow when I realised I didn’t have my camera bag. It was still sitting on the table in the living room, where I’d left it. I decided I’d just have to make do with the phone camera. Actually it produced a few good shots. I took them intentionally in RAW mode and accidentally in HDR mode, but the results surprised me. Quite impressed. In fact so impressed that one of the shots made PoD. It’s looking up at a reflection in a window on Buchanan Street.

We wandered round the centre of the Toon, sometimes separately and sometimes together, because this was Chrissy Prezzy outing and we both had different places to go. As lunch time approached we couldn’t decide where to go. Neither of us was all that bothered about going to Paesano for some reason. Instead we ended up in John Lewis with a toasty each and a cup of tea. Not an elegant lunch, but it kept our stomachs from grumbling. Then we headed for the bus.

I was praying that we wouldn’t get the X3 and just as we were crossing the road to the bus station, the X3 dragged itself out onto the road and back to Cumbersheugh. Oh, thank you! I don’t think I could have handled another 45 minute journey stopping at every bus stop on the way back to Cumbersheugh. Instead we got the Falkirk bus that stops in Condorrat and walked home. It was a decent day. Not too cold but with occasional rain showers. Scamp got a new pair of sensible shoes, not dance shoes, and we had lunch. I got a photo and now know I can go out without a ‘real’ camera.

Tomorrow I’m told we may need some messages and I need to write a couple of cards and post them.

 

The long slow thaw continues – 18 December 2022

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It’s taking a long time to remove that ice.

It was one of those days when we should have gone out somewhere, anywhere just to get out of the house, but we didn’t. The furthest I got was a walk down to the shops to get some ingredients for today’s dinner. I got as far as the corner house before I was forced to put on my YakTrax.  Rain water on top of ice is a deadly combination.  Luckily the Yaks cut right through and give you a perfect grip.  Everybody else in the Central Belt was there too and they were buying thing, indiscriminately. Food! Let’s buy Food. The shops will be close for days over Christmas, where will we but Food. That’s the way it seemed anyway. I just wanted tomatoes, shortcrust pastry and cheese, but there were folk loading up great trolleys with every kind of consumable item they could lay their hands on. I know it usually happens at this time of year, but every year it seems to get worse, or maybe I’m just getting old and crabbit. “Surely not”, I hear you say!

I’d considered driving down to the shops, but I thought the walk would do me good and when I got there I was pleased that I’d walked. The road was clogged with cars in both directions. That’s where all the shoppers came from. I was thankful that some bright spark had put a Pelican Crossing at the entrance to the retail park. That got me across safely.

Walked back up the road as the sleet started. It soon turned to rain again, but didn’t seem to melt the snow or the ice, despite the temperature being above zero for the second day.

Dinner was to be a quiche. Mine was hot smoked salmon chunks and broccoli. Scamp’s was cheese and tomato. Not the best Sunday dinner, but fairly filling.

Spoke to Jamie later in the evening and heard about his week. Heard too about his plans for between Christmas and New Year, now that he doesn’t need to work those days. Looking forward to it. Glad to hear that Simonne is negative for Covid today. That’s a good sign.

Watched a 30 years of Jools Holland program after the phone call and like all of these things it was good in parts and in others it was just the same old faces, getting older. But 30 years? Surely not, is it?

PoD was a tradition. It’s Fairy Nuff the fairy not on the top of the tree!

Tomorrow there are no excuses, we’re going out, even if I have to dig wheel tracks out onto the main road!

 

A distinct quiet – 16 December 2022

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There was a distinct quiet about when I woke, almost as if everything was muffled. That probably meant it was snowing or it had snowed during the night.

I took a look outside and indeed, everything was white. Cars, road, trees and paths, everything. It wasn’t actually snowing at the time, but it definitely had been. One poor bloke was clearing his dark red car and getting ready for the morning commute. However, as it was about 6.50 in the am, I went back to bed and slept for another couple of hours before getting up to make breakfast. You can’t rush these things.

When I looked out a two hours later there were only two sets of footprints showing on our path. It must have been Wullie who lives at the corner and works odd hours. Nobody else had moved their cars and the space left by the dark red car was now covered in snow, so there had been another fall of the white stuff when I wasn’t watching. The temperature was a remarkable 0.3ºc when I was making the breakfast, a POSITIVE 0.3ºc. It felt like it had been weeks since the temperature had been above zero, but it was only a few days.

After breakfast I wrote my remaining cards and, dressed for the weather, I walked over to Condorrat to post them. I was hoping against hope that they would arrive on someone’s mat before new year, but I wasn’t confident about their chances.

On my way to Condorrat I took a photo of some leaves that would turn out to be the PoD. Just some warm brown leaves in a bunch without any frost or snow on them, but surrounded by lots of raindrops on the branches, in fact there was a very fine drizzle in the air. On my way back home I took a detour round St Mo’s pond, bit couldn’t see anything that would compete with the leaves. No directional light, you see. You really need directional light to give you shadows and form, to take away the two dimensional look of a photo.

Lunch was a bowl of Slimmers Soup. I don’t know if it is actually slimming, but the recipe came from Slimmers World via June and it’s quick to make and is just what you need when you’ve been out chilled in the snowy wastes. Scamp made it and it always tastes good.

We had already cancelled a dinner date with John and Marion for today because of the weather. Today we got a message to say that dance class tomorrow is also cancelled. One of the teachers is suffering from a cold or flu and doesn’t want to pass on her ‘Lurgy’. That’s a pity, but better safe than sorry in this weather.

Dinner tonight is Salmon fillet and potatoes for Scamp and a tub of stew Scamp discovered in the freezer. Both went down well. A wee glass of wine helped them on their way.

It’s been raining on and off all day and the temperature has been rising. We’re now up to 3.4ºc and the snow is finally receding. No real plans for tomorrow, but we’re hoping to get out somewhere if the roads are still clear.

Freezin’ – 15 December 2022

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But I don’t mean outside, I’m talking about inside!

Spoke to Hazy this morning. We had a good conversation. Glad to hear that they have booked a cottage for a wee holiday in the early spring. I’m sure it will be a welcome break. Not so good was that Neil has a chest infection, but I’m sure a course of meds will put that right. We discussed the weather and the postal strikes that are really making life difficult for everyone just now and also the pros and cons of varifocal glasses. More pros than cons, thankfully.

Once we’d finished our call, we had to discuss whether or not we were going to the tea dance at Glenburn. We eventually settled on staying home for today and hoping for more open weather on Saturday to allow us to get to dance class.

After lunch which was a piece ’n’ sausage (link sausage this time) and French Toast for Scamp, I thought I might attempt a walk in St Mo’s. The landscape was changed again. On Tuesday it was shrouded in fog. On Wednesday it was white with frost and today the wee berries I was hoping to photograph had lost all their frosty covering, as had most of the branches on the tree. Could it really be thawing? My fingertips said no, it certainly wasn’t and my phone confirmed it. Definitely still sub-zero. Maybe it was the effect of the sunshine that was streaming from a blue sky.

Some days I take fifty odd photos and most of them end up on the cutting room floor. Some days, like today I take a little more than a dozen and they are all winners. I think it was the colour returning to the land after the frost had gone. Not totally gone, but probably on the back foot. My favourite and PoD was a shot of a bunch of Alder catkins. I never realised that the catkins were formed in the middle of winter and don’t open until the early spring. Photography is a learning experience. Everywhere I looked today there were little spots of colour appearing out of the frost. It was good to see.

Back home I was post-processing the photos I took when I realised it was quite cold in the room. The Hive said it was 17ºc, but it was definitely lying. Checked the radiators and they were cold. Checked the boiler and the burner was off, plus there was an error message about ionisation. I did what I usually do and reset the power to the boiler. It started gurgling ominously. Oh dear, and just after we’d had it had it serviced too. I went out and tapped the soak-away pipe and it sounded solid, also the pipe from the boiler to the outside drain was dripping in the cupboard. I switched it off again and phoned the emergency plumber and he sussed it right away. Asked if where the boiler was, did we have a pipe going to the outside and said it was the outside pipe that was frozen. The solution was to dribble a kettle full of boiling water onto the outside pipe. That would melt the ice and allow it to wash away. Two kettles full usually does it, he said and he was right. After the first dose of water dripped down the pipe I could hear the water running and also the pipe wasn’t sounding solid when I tapped it. Switched the boiler on and reset it. The boiler started right away and we were back in a cosy house again. Not really surprised that it was the cold that had caused it, and hopefully I’ll know better next time.

While I was out with the kettle I noticed a bloke doing the exact same thing to his pipe, only he was about ten feet up a ladder doing it. I hope he was successful too.

We have no real plans for tomorrow, but it looks like we might get some snow. So it might be a stay at home day.

The Early Bird – 9 December 2022

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Scamp was off to her FitSteps class and I was out too.

It was early for me at just after 11am, but the sun was shining and so was the frost that coated everything, in fact it was sparkling. I went for a walk over to St Mo’s and realised I should have brought the macro lens to capture some of the ice crystals that were covering the reeds beside the boardwalk. But it was cold. Definitely below zero and if I went back to get the lens, I’d be even colder by the time I got back to the business of actually taking photos. I soldiered on using the kit lens and the 18mm ultra wide. One of the first shots I took got PoD. It’s just a backlit bramble leaf with the sun sitting just above the tree tops.

I wandered on, but nothing I shot was as good as that first photo and so I made my way back. The poor swan, the geese and the ducks were restricted to swimming a circle of open water surrounded by ice. I didn’t envy their day on the pond.

I walked home and got a few more shots looking up the lane at the edge of the woods. I knew if I had someone in the frame to give me a composition of sorts, I could deal with the lighting later in the computer. And so it was that one a bloke was walking home from the shops and he became the second shot to be posted on Flickr. Two in the bag. All that was left to do was post them.

We had soup for lunch when Scamp came home, not happy that I’d forgotten to buy a fresh loaf. Later we walked over to Condorrat to post some cards and buy some stamps. I don’t know why we buy stamps these days. There are so few days when Royal Mail are actually working. It’s beginning to look like a general strike with the postal workers, the train drivers, the teachers, the English and Welsh nurses and now Border Force taking industrial action.

Anyway, as well as stamps and finally, bread, Scamp also treated us to a Fudge Donut each from the Spar shop. They were delicious. None of your ‘real cream’ in the donut, no it was 100% synthetic. It tasted like the cream I was sent up to Frames for when we lived in Larky. You got it in a cardboard tub with a paper top and it tasted great. We got it when my mum was baking cakes because my Aunt Mary was visiting. Happy days.

Dinner tonight was baked potato with tuna for Scamp and for me it was the bolognese sauce I made earlier in the week, defrosted and reheated with pappardelle. A bit dry, but perfectly edible.  Later we ordered some presents from Santa, but arriving from Amazon for good boys and girls.  Present company excepted!

Tomorrow we’re intending going to dance class in the morning and then to the Christmas dance in the evening. That is, if the weather holds.

Out on the town – 8 December 2022

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We were both out to lunch today, but in different place and with different people.

Scamp has a lunch date with her pal Mags and I had a photo walk booked with Alex. We caught the same bus, but I hopped off early at Greenfaulds, crossed the road at the underpass and caught the fast bus in to Glasgow.

I got there half an hour before we’d agreed to meet and as there was no sign I decided that either Alex was still travelling or else, more likely, he too had come in early and had gone to get some photos. Either way, I probably had time to get my hair cut. Just walked in and got a chair right away. Fifteen minutes later I was back out with a number four all over, plus ears and eye brows done for less than a tenner. Walked back to the bus station and met Alex. He had been off on his own taking photos.

He wanted to take some photos of the old Pavilion theatre and once we walked over to it, I could see why. Even although it was midday, the sun had a distinct warmth to its colour. We took a few photos and it wasn’t until I was processing one tonight I noticed just how steep the hill it was built on was. We walk past these buildings all the time and don’t notice these things. With a few photos in the bag we went for coffee in Nero because photogs run on coffee.

During the coffee break we set out a plan for the day. This was Alex’s choice of venue and he had an outline plan of what he wanted to take. I added in a few ideas of my own and we started out down the hill to Buchanan Street Subway entrance which always draws us when the light is strong and it was very strong today. A few photos there and then on to George Square where we took some photos of the carnival rides.

A stop in Paesano for a pizza lunch and a glass of red wine for me because I wasn’t driving today and then on toe Princes Square for more photos. From there we walked on through St Enoch’s Square to the Clyde and walked down the walkway to the Squiggly Bridge whose proper name is the Tradeston Bridge, but nobody calls it that, taking photos all the way. Then it was back to Nero in St Enoch’s for more coffee before our final photo destination for the day which was George Square for some early evening ‘blue hour’ shots of the attractions. When SD cards were full we walked back and got our buses home. This time I chose to take the X3, the slow bus because I’d already completed 13,000 odd steps and the X3, while slow, stops nearly at our door.

264 photos taken and after the first cull 114 of them were on the cutting room floor, leaving an acceptable 150 deemed worthy of a place in today’s shoot. PoD went to a monochrome shot of Buchanan Street Subway entrance/exit, but another two shots are in Flickr.

Tomorrow Scamp is probably going to FitSteps, but I’m hoping to have a relaxing morning.

Coffee with Isobel – 7 December 2022

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We were out this cold morning (-0.4ºc) for coffee with Isobel. Always an entertainment. Straight talking, never bothered who hears her and straight to the point. She never changes and that’s what’s so great about her. She and Scamp had a long conversation about her extended family and I listened because there wasn’t much chance of getting a word in edgewise. When the two of them had finished their discussions we dropped Isobel back at her house and then came home via Tesco.

After lunch which was a bowl of Scamp’s rather delicious lentil soup, I dragged my boots on and went over to St Mo’s with the A6000 and a couple of lenses. Again I was just that half an hour too late to capture the trees lit by the setting sun. One of these days I’ll get it right. However I did get a shot of a duck feather sitting on the ice with tiny little frozen water drops hanging from it. That became PoD. The contender for the accolade was a low down photo of a single dandelion with its seed head closed, waiting for a blustery day to release those seeds to the vagaries of the wind. It’s on Flickr if you care to look.

Dinner tonight was paella which I haven’t made for ages. It tasted good, so good in fact that we ate the whole lot. I’d hoped to keep some of the rice to make more arancini tomorrow, or next day.

We watched the Portrait Artist winner for this year painting her portrait of Lenny Henry. I wasn’t impressed with her, or the painting, but I was impressed with him. I hadn’t realised he’d worked to get a PhD. What impressed me most about his was his quiet manner. No longer the noisy shouting comic, but a man who looked comfortable in his skin. We both agreed that the portrait didn’t look like him, and isn’t that what portraits are all about? Nice perspective and control of things like foreshortening, but there was only a fleeting likeness of him in the face. Disappointing.

Tomorrow I’m heading in to Glasgow to take some photos with Alex and hopefully to have a pizza for lunch.

 

Another beautiful day – 6 December 2022

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Same blue sky as yesterday, but colder.

Today started with a visit by the bloke to do a service on the boiler. Half an hour later it was done and given a clean bill of health. More or less as we expected, the boiler being just a couple of years old.

Next I was out to the doc’s to find out what he thought about the lesions (his word) on my leg. I’d been using cortisone cream for the last two weeks and they had almost disappeared. He had a good look and a prod round the nearby skin and pronounced them as looking good, but recommended another fortnight’s treatment with the cream twice a day. It’s not an onerous task, putting some cream on four marks.

Went home and did the usual Wordle and Spelling Bee before lunch which was a flat sausage I’d found in the freezer the other day, cooked and squashed between two slices of brown bread. Delicious, but an amazing amount of fat was left in the pan. One a week is quite enough, I think.

We did go out for a walk today, well wrapped up because it was cold. Lots of icy, slippery leaves. Today’s circuit was almost the same as yesterday and I got a few shots of seagulls on the outfall of Broadwood Loch again. On the way home we stopped at the shops to get some bread, milk and also a pack of four pineapple tarts. Well, man (and woman) cannot live by bread alone, as someone once said.

On the final leg of the walk I took the opportunity to get some photos in St Mo’s while Scamp went straight home. PoD came from there and was a view across the rushes to St Mo’s school lit up by the setting sun.

Dinner tonight was “What have we got in the fridge” and pasta. Actually it tasted quite good despite being made from odds and ends. I confess, I actually watched almost a whole episode of Masterchef tonight, mainly because Greg (Oh, Mate) wasn’t involved. He’d been sat in a corner with a bow tie and told to be quiet, I think. It was interesting to discover the number of things you can do with carrots, or an octopus on one occasion!

Tomorrow we’re booked for coffee with Isobel. That should be an entertainment.

Nothing but Blue Skies – 5 December 2022

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One of those cold, bright December days when you just have to get out.

Admittedly, it took a nudge from Scamp to make me get up and put my boots on and even then, it was about half past one in the afternoon before I managed to set foot outside the door. By then it was far too late to drive to Drumpellier which had been our stated destination, but Scamp agreed that a walk round part of Broadwood Loch would be a fair substitute.

So with both of us suitably dressed for the winter weather, we walked round the boardwalk at Broadwood, which is where today’s PoD came from. Technical details later. From the boardwalk we walked over the dam and I saw a bloke photographing the seagulls on the outfall of the loch with what I think was a Canon with a serious looking lens. Probably at least 500mm. It certainly outgunned mine, but it was fitted on to a ‘plastiCanon’. Not a real camera at all IMO. I tried a shot of the gulls too, but as usual, the result failed to inspire me. I hope he was skilful enough to get a good result with inferior equipment.

We walked over to the exercise machines and then up past the ripped up ground that will soon be converted to a ‘Micky Ds’. Allegedly they’re hoping to have it up and running for Christmas. I can’t imagine that happening, but who knows. It just might. We were going to the hole in the wall machine at the BP garage for some read cash in case the man who is coming to service the boiler tomorrow hasn’t got a card machine. With ‘real’ money in our pockets we headed for home and found the heating had noticed our absence and warmed the house up for us, all by itself. Scamp, of course, complained that it was too warm!

Dinner tonight was going to be Arancini (deep fried rice balls) using the remainder of yesterday’s risotto. Scamp was in charge of the arancini production line. She shaped the rice into little balls just smaller than a tangerine, dipped them in seasoned flour, then coated them in egg. Finally dropping them gently into the bowl of breadcrumbs. I was making the tomato sauce to go with the rice balls and also at the end of the production line, rolling the arancini in the breadcrumbs then easing four at a time into the hot fat from a wire scoop and fishing them out again onto kitchen paper a few minutes later. It may sound complicated, but it worked really well and without argument on either side.

The proof of the Arancini was in the tasting and we both agreed that they tasted fine and were filling enough with the tomato sauce. Quite messy though and would be even more messy without a dishwasher.

As I said, the PoD was a shot of the boardwalk at Broadwood Loch. In fact it was a panorama built in Lightroom from five separate images. I liked the finished result. The light was really good this afternoon and that warm glow from the afternoon sun gave it a wintry feel.

According to the weather fairies, we may be experiencing another ‘wintry feel’ this week with the chance of the first snow of the winter. We’ll hope it’s not too serious an attempt from the white stuff.

I’m off to the doc’s tomorrow morning to see what he has to say about my leg. Also, the bloke is coming to service the boiler, also in the morning.