Category: Food

Making an impression

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp, not for me.

Scamp was out this morning to the dentist, to get an impression made of a tooth that needs replaced. This has been an ongoing saga for many, many months, probably since last year. Many excuses have been made for the length of time it’s taken. Covid has been the main whipping boy, being blamed for everything, but a government that sits on its hand, rather than making decisions is a culprit that is never mentioned, but is always there in the background. Don’t get me started!

When she returned and after she told her tale of woe, she went out to get some things for tonight’s dinner while I drove in to Glasgow hoping to find a new phone that would connect consistently using Bluetooth. I tried most of the shops in the city centre, but although most of them had phones on display, many were dead with a pasted on picture of what a screen might look like, but they were not powered, probably had no innards and besides they were glued down to the stands. The ones that actually worked were the most expensive, of course, but on closer inspection, there weren’t any boxed phones visible. John Lewis, one of my favourite browsing sites had hardly any available for purchase. It’s nearly always the case now that you look, you pay and you get the tech sent to you. That’s not the way old folk like me like to work. We like to touch, lift, and play with these ‘toys’ before we pay for them, then take them away in our pocket. We don’t want to wait for a delivery from a white-van-man. Even worse, we don’t want to get home and find an email waiting for us, the gist of which is “Sorry. The article you bought is out of stock. Sucker!”

Back home the sun came out for a while. Not a long while, but enough to encourage Scamp to go and sit in the garden. I joined her and together we sat with a glass of wine and watched the bees feeding on and at the same time, pollinating the Honeybell flowers. We must have had about half an hour of peace and quiet, watching the bees and waiting for the oven ready chips to cook, taking turns at shaking them ever ten minutes or so to make sure they didn’t burn. Then Scamp went inside to fry the Giant Fish Fingers to go with them for dinner. Fish Fingers, egg, chips and peas. A decent dinner.

PoD was going to be Honeybells and Bees, but instead it became the flower heads of the fluffy Thalictrum. The flower we bought in Cambo last year.

I don’t believe we have anything planned for tomorrow.

Hospitals, Doctors and a Horse Shoe – 13 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

All are here, but not in that order.

An easy start to the day. Wordle completed (Scamp got 4, I got 5). Sudoku completed and an early lunch was a piece ’n’ banana, delicious. Then we were off!

I drove Scamp over to Hairmyres this afternoon to get her eyes checked, the optician had spotted an irregularity in a scan she had in Larkhall, a month or so ago and she was referred for a further scan at Monklands a few weeks ago. Then Monklands referred her for yet another scan at Hairmyres. Turns out there is a thinning of her retina in her left eye which is something to do with her extreme shortsightedness, but there’s nothing that needs to be done about it just now.

While Scamp was at the outpatients, I took myself off for a walk round Calderglen park in East Kibride and got some photos. There’s a neat wee horseshoe shaped waterfall not far from the car park and I though it might make a decent slow shutter shot. Of course I’d left the tripod in the car and I’d also forgotten the ND filters, so it was hand held at 1/5th sec. Using the silent shutter feature I shot off 15 frames rapid, then blended them in Photoshop tonight. Quite impressed with the result, except that the image was a 2.72GB file! It was impressive, but not THAT impressive. However, it was good enough to get PoD.

When I was walking back to the car, Scamp phoned to say that she was finished and was having a coffee. I drove to meet her and had one too. When we got back to the house it was my turn to go to see the doc. I had been to see the triage nurse week before last because I’ve had a nasty looking rash on my leg. She said it might be dermatitis but thought there was a wee fungal infection there too. She gave me a couple of meds that seem to be working, but asked how my general health was and I told her ok, but I have an off and on problem with my waterworks. She sorted me out with an appointment with one of the docs for today. He suspected it might have something to do with my prostate, but after a ‘digital’ (nothing to do with computers!!) examination, gave me the all clear. After I’d wiped the tears from my eyes I thanked him and made my exit!

I think that was enough excitement for one day. We’re now looking more closely at the arrangements that will be needed for our holiday. It appears we will need a negative Lateral Flow test no more than 24 hours from when we depart. We also need to have proof of all the vaccinations we’ve had. I think we’re ok with that, but we’ll check with the dance teachers on Saturday as they’re at present in Cyprus and have up to date details. Just to check if the NHS Scotland app is enough evidence, or do we need a printout. We might have a word with you too, Jamie and Simonne as you’re not long back from Germany.

Maybe going looking for a new phone tomorrow in Glasgow. Hopefully a brighter day than today.

We shall go to the ball – 11 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

And the balcony too!

Scamp was on the computer first thing this morning. Her flying fingers quickly netted us a week (hopefully) in the sun, sailing round the Adriatic again. What a clever girl she is. I know I couldn’t have done that in such a short time. A wee while to wait, but that’s sometimes a good thing. No rush, and time to look forward to the experience.

With the technical and financial details completed, we sat back and dug deep into our memories of strange sounding names of places far away. We did notice the rain falling, but felt obliged to ignore it, because it looks like we’ll be going abroad this year after a long wait.

Ah, but back to reality. It was raining. The wind was blowing a hoolie, and we didn’t have anything planned for dinner. Scamp had hung some washing out to dry (or blow away) and we walked down to the shops to get some chicken for the dinner which would be Butter Chicken from an easy cook-in sauce mix. Back home we had judged it perfectly, because within half an hour it was bucketing with rain. We got the clothes in just before the rain started. Then Scamp made the marinade for the chicken and started ironing while I made some flat bread for the dinner. After that I made myself scarce and took the Sony A7 with the big macro lens to St Mo’s to annoy some insects.

Found a bit fat spider on a thistle and a lot of little flies on grass flowers, then got PoD, a plantain, not a Caribbean plantain, but a little weed you see every day, but don’t realise is a wild flower. I also found a wild orchid. Not as pretty perhaps as the ones we saw on Skye, but nicely detailed. Both are on Flickr.

Watched Maleficent which we both thought we’d seen before, but agreed we hadn’t after the first fifteen minutes. It might have been Maleficent2 or 3 or however many there have been. Anyway, it filled in an hour and a half of innocent fun with a few ‘funnies’ thrown in to lighten the dark gloom of the story.

The Butter Chicken was disappointing, we both agreed. No real flavour in the chicken sauce, despite being marinaded. Not a kit we’d use again. The flatbreads too, fell rather flat. ‘Could do better’ was the comment from both of us.

Well done to Scamp this morning for knowing when and how much to push!

No plans for tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a less windy and drier day.

 

Just out for a curry – 10 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We couldn’t decide where to go today.

Bright sunshine in the morning, but heavy showers blown along on a strong wind. I suggested we drive to Hamilton for a curry. Scamp favoured Glasgow on the bus. We settled for a curry in Stirling with the chance to do some food shopping in Waitrose.

We’ve been going to the Indian Cottage in Stirling for many years and the food is always good. Not so good today. My meal was just as good as it usually is Chicken Tikka Chilli Boonah never fails to hit the mark. Scamp’s Vegetable Dhansak, however fell short of excellent. She said the sauce was fine, but the vegetables felt a little ‘old’, and the sample I had did fit her description. She summed it up by saying that the veg tasted like frozen veg flung into the curry sauce before serving. We both agreed that what was promised as a ‘well done naan’ was nothing like a naan. Flat, tasteless with no ghee or oil to soften the bread, it was awful. I realise that restaurants have to ‘cut their cloth’ these days, but they also have to serve the food that people want to eat.

We walked back to Waitrose and bought a fair amount of food. Mainly things that we can’t get in Tesco or Morrisons. Fruit, veg, fish and meat. That about summed it up. Scamp used up a Covid voucher for a few bottles of wine too

Drove back home without meeting any of the heavy showers we’d seen in the morning, but we weren’t in the house for long before one descended on us. Others followed later in the day. I was tempted to go over to St Mo’s, but instead I sat in the garden in the sunshine watching the bees feeding on the Honeybells. I also took a few shots of them. One of those shots made PoD.

I think we’re turning the corner on foreign travel. Scamp had a look at some 7 day cruises, but it was difficult to determine if any flights were available from Glasgow. Maybe we need a visit to some travel agents to get a clearer picture of what’s actually available. Another hour out of our lives that we won’t get back.

Tomorrow looks wet and maybe that trip to Glasgow on the bus might materialise.

The day that the rains came down – 8 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

And stayed all day.

I decided that I’d let the day simmer along and hopefully the rain would stop or maybe I’d find something useful to do. The latter came first, but ultimately the former happened.

I had at least half a dozen boxes of bread ingredients that have been sitting on a unit in the living room for, well, ages. I picked the bottom one and started mixing up a loaf. The actual loaf was a Swiss Farmer’s Loaf and it started out as a sticky dough and ended up looking nothing like the picture in the booklet said it would. I think this is only the second failure I’ve had. I say failure, but it was perfectly edible, it just didn’t look like the book said. Probably my fault more than theirs. It was a good way to while away an hour or so of a day when I’d no intention of going out anyway, so no real loss.

After lunch it began to look as if the sun might just make an appearance, but there were no guarantees. Scamp had started making a couple of sultana cakes. She was halfway through the process when the mixer made a strange noise. When we let it cool for a while and tried again, the problem was still there. Another one with no user serviceable parts inside, so it was down to hand beating the mixture. Of course, I couldn’t do that, so Scamp did it all by herself. Probably better really. I’d just have made a mess.

I went out for a walk in the drizzle with the Sony. Thankfully the rain soon dried up and left behind clouds of little flies that got in my eyes up my nose and into my mouth when I was walking. I did get a photo of a much less invasive fly. It just sat on top of a desiccated weed and allowed me to photograph it. It also gave me a chance to use some of the more esoteric functions of the camera. Only available if the correct buttons are pressed in the correct order. That’s the Sony way! The fly became PoD. It was really tiny, about 3mm long. Got home to find Scamp’s bread coming out of the oven, smelling lovely.

Dinner tonight was Fish ’n’ Oven Chips. So much easier than deep frying and almost as good.

It was really dull for most of the day, but tomorrow looks a bit better. Hopefully I’m taking Scamp’s wee red car down to the village to get a new exhaust, then we’re booked for taking Shona to Falkirk. That’s where the planning ends. We’ll see what happens.

Visiting Margie – 7 June 2022

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I had the morning to myself and grabbed it with both hands.

Scamp was out for coffee with Annette, which meant I had some time to myself. I’d really meant to pot up my basil plants, but when you’ve got a good book, it’s difficult to put it down. Today’s good book is Bad Actors by Mick Herron, the eighth, and most recent of his Slough House series. That was a good way to use my free time, I thought.

When Scamp came home, and after lunch, we drove up to Margie’s strange wee split level house. She doesn’t get out much now and really seems to enjoy the company. The stories she tells are an entertainment in themselves and time simply flies when we’re there. Two and a bit hours just disappeared today amid stories of drinking Prosecco in the afternoon and dodgy, trouble making family members. We left her to rest before her son came in to make her dinner and keep her company in the evening.

We drove through more roadworks. There seems to be a rash of them these days. It’s like March, when all the excess funding has to be used up before the end of the financial year. But this is June and more needless work is still being done. There must be a reason for it, but it evades me. I got a shock when we went up to Tesco to get petrol and the price at the pump was £1.82 per litre. Last week it was around £1.76! I got enough to do us for the next few days and will shop around for our next fill up.

I still hadn’t a photo for PoD, so after we parked, I took the Sony out for a walk round the pond. Found a spider on its web looking translucent in the afternoon sun. With a bit of jiggery pokery in Lightroom it glowed nicely. Not a lot of insect activity, except from the bees which seemed to be enjoying the afternoon sun. Maybe they’d heard the weather reports, predicting wild weather with high winds and rain that are on the cards for the next few days and are making honey while the sun shines.

Scamp was chef tonight and she made a lovely stir-fry. I can never get the mixture right when I’m making it, but she seems to do it without thinking and gets it right every time. It’s a skill.

Tomorrow the weather starts to turn wet. I may make a loaf from one of my bread kits.

 

Finally getting my hands dirty – 3 June 2022

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About time too!

Went out this morning to get some bread from Tesco and hopefully post some photos to Hazy. The bread was no problem, but the post office was shut, as was the local one in Condorrat. Don’t blame me, blame Mrs McQueen and her Platignum Jubbly holiday. Ok, if I’d posted the parcel yesterday it wouldn’t have been a problem, but I didn’t. I still blame Mrs McQueen for it. If not her, then Boris. That’s the obvious fall back, Blame Boris.

Came home with the beautifully wrapped parcel and a loaf plus a couple of bars of chocolate for being a good boy. With that done, and not done, we started in the garden. I found a single pea had germinated from the five I’d planted in the raised bed, so I carefully dug it out and put it aside. Then I added some compost to the raised bed to replace all the stuff I’d dug out since the end of last years growing season. After that, this year’s planting could begin.

I planted four peas, plus the pea I’d recovered earlier in the back row of the raised bed. Next line was four curly kale plants. While I was planting them, I found what looked like another kale plant left over from last year. It turned out to be a piece of kale stem with a little green leaf sprouting from the middle of it. There was no sign of any root on what you might call a cutting, but the leaf looked healthy. Just for luck, I planted it with the rest of the kale. Next line was four leeks and that was the raised bed about full.

I’d five leeks left, so I emptied out last year’s plant pot that held about six leeks. Chucked half of the compost away and all the leek roots. Mixed what was left with some fresh composts and refilled the pot, then planted the remaining five leeks in the pot. Watered everything in as all the gardening programmes say you should and left then to sink or swim. Meanwhile, Scamp was potting up her new hydrangea and rearranging other plants to give them a better chance of catching some sunshine.

At that point, I felt I’d done more than enough gardening, so I grabbed a camera and a 105mm macro and went over to St Mo’s hoping to see a dragonfly I’d seen yesterday. I didn’t find it, but what I did find was a lazy Large Red damselfly which was compliant enough to sit there while I took a few photos of it. One of them made PoD.

Dinner tonight was a pizza we bought in Sainsbury’s yesterday and very nice it was too. Sainsbury’s always have produced good pizzas.

We may be dancing tomorrow or we may not. It seems there are only two couples definitely going to class. Hopefully we’ll find out in the morning. Mrs McQueen has a lot to answer for, I’ll tell you that, her and her Platignum Jubbly celebration.

Out looking for leeks – 2 June 2022

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Any excuse to get out and have a sneaky bit of lunch, but the wee car was sounding exhausted.

We started out early, because a lady would visit us today and ask us to stick a cotton bud thing down our throat and then up our nose before answering a series of very searching questions which we answered very quite honestly. Then after she went away leaving us with a memorable word picture of India we two went different ways. Scamp went to pick up Isobel to go for coffee and I wanted to do some painting. Neither of those things happened. Scamp phoned to say that she though the car was making a strange noise, maybe exhaust? I agreed because I’d heard it as she drove away. I never quite go round to doing any painting, because I wrote a long email to Alex instead. One thing added to my to-do list and immediately ticked off.

When she got back from having coffee at Isobel’s rather than at Costa, we drove off in the blue car to Clydeside, looking for somewhere for lunch and also if they had leek plants in that place, it would be a bonus. Gouldings was the first place we went to and it was bedecked with bunting and purple banners declaring that there was a Platinum Jubilee. The other thing they had was a very long queue for food. So we went looking for leek plants, but, eh, that was something they didn’t have. It’s become more and more difficult to find garden centres that sell veg plants. Flowers, yes. Vegetable plants just aren’t sexy enough though. Nor are they pretty enough. We left empty handed.

The next place was Dobbies which used to be Sandyholm. The car park was almost empty, not a good sign, but I did find leeks in their vegetable area. Scamp found a couple of interesting flowers there too and there was no queue for lunch. So we paid for the plants, put them in the car and went back for lunch. Scampi and chips for two and that was lunch sorted. When we drove past Gouldings on the way home, I did wonder if we’d have had our lunch by then if we’d stayed in that queue.

Dropped in at John & Marion’s to hand over a memory stick with a load of wedding photos on it. Then we continued on our way home to plant out today’s leeks, hydrangea and tomato plants. Actually none of these were planted in the soil, but they were watered with the rest of the garden when we dug out the hose and used it on the front and back gardens. Tomorrow I have kale to plant and also some leeks. Scamp has the flowers to deal with. I also have pea plants to transplant along side one pea plant that is growing from seed in the raised bed. Strangely, it looks as if I’ve got a kale plant growing from last year’s sowing!

I took a walk over to St Mo’s after we got home and got PoD which is a shot of Horsetails looking like an alien jungle. Also, if you look in Flickr you’ll find a pugilistic Wolf Spider that just missed PoD and slightly confused mushroom that thinks it’s autumn come early! On the way back, I had a poke at the exhaust in Scamp’s wee Red car and it’s definitely needing a visit to Jim Dickson’s garage. I think it’s hanging by a thread just now.

Tomorrow we’ve decided it will be a gardening day. Lots to do there now that we have some warmth in the soil, so time to start things growing.

 

Meeting a man from the money trade – 31 May 2022

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Our six monthly visit to Falkirk

We had an early morning appointment with a man who knows all the facts and figures and explains them with a large dose of humour. Always entertaining while he’s explaining how the world is turning.

With that done, the day was our own to play with and play in. First visit was to the Kelpies. I wasn’t sure exactly how to get there from deepest Falkirk. Unfortunately the sat nav wasn’t sure where we were. It was giving us the correct street names and the lady behind the map was giving the correct directions, but according to the map we were somewhere just south of Inverness. The electronics in this car are shot. However the lady with the posh voice knew where we were and where we wanted to go and she navigated us onto the road we recognised.

We parked and paid our £3. Three quid is pretty good value for a full day with the silver river horses. They alway radiate such a calm influence, it’s almost impossible to be down when you’re in their presence. We had a coffee and a coconut scone in the cafe and I took a few photos. We browsed the ‘gift’ shop but left without being tempted to buy any of the expensive merchandise. We walked round the ponds that the great beasts live in and that’s where I got PoD. It’s a bit spoilt by the pond scum. The council really should clean it up occasionally, just to make the photogs job easier.

We walked over the bridge that crosses the Forth & Clyde canal and walked along the towpath to the second bridge, recrossed the canal and drove over to Torwood, aided and abetted by that same posh lady who had in the interim fixed the display to show we were in Falkirk. Multi-talented she is.

I wanted some leeks and some curly kale at the garden centre, but there were no leeks to be had, so I had to be satisfied with the kale. Scamp collected some Violas and an orange Osteospermum. After a bit more browsing and deciding we couldn’t quite squeeze another plant pot into either front or back garden, we drove home.

Later in the afternoon Scamp planted out her new acquisitions while I made sure I did have a PoD. Actually I had quite a few contenders for that accolade, but the big wide shot of the Kelpies in their mucky bath won.

Dinner was Potatoes with Bubble & Squeak plus Haddock for Scamp and a Burger for me.

We watched another episode of Silent Witness, but maybe we’re being too critical, but it seems a bit of a fairytale these days. Too many unlikely scenarios. I suppose we must remember, It’s Not Real!

Tomorrow I’m booked to see the nurse at 4pm, but the rest of my time is my own. Scamp might have the whole day to herself!

Preparations – 27 May 2022

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One day’s rest and back to preparations again.

More washing in the morning. Thankfully, Scamp took charge of that. Then a fruitless walk for her over to Condorrat looking for roses. We have our own roses, but they are either too big or not quite opened yet, so not suitable for today’s task. Finally gave in and had lunch. Scamp’s attempt at making Crimpets with plain brown bread was a bit of a disaster. Maybe they weren’t pressed enough. Maybe they don’t work with ordinary bread. Maybe there was just a little bit too much filling. Whatever the reason, the Crimpet came apart in the toaster and it took a bit of jiggery pokery with a knife (the toaster was unplugged) to get the remains of the Crimpet out. Inedible was the word that sprang to mind. Glad I had nothing to do with it this time.

After lunch Scamp started the ironing and the first item to receive a pressing was my kilt. A kilt is a heavy garment and it took two of us, one manoeuvring it around the ironing board and the other applying the steam iron to get the creases out from where they shouldn’t be while leaving the creases in where they should. It didn’t take that long and the result once she was finished was amazing. Then I spent half an hour trying to work out how and where to put the kilt pin. It’s a fiddly little thing with a lock that doesn’t lock. I think I’ve got it sorted with a tiny bit of black electrical tape. The whole thing looks so much better now.

While Scamp started on the bulk of the ironing, I took the camera for a walk around St Mo’s. Once round the pond and a wander into the woods before I took a walk down behind St Mo’s school and found today’s PoD which is a Flag Iris just about ready to burst into the sunlight. The real reason I was walking this path was to go to the shops looking for roses. White ones or pink ones were on today’s list, so I got both just in case I chose the wrong ones, as is my wont.

Back home it was time for dinner which today was Scamp’s macaroni cheese with streaky bacon on mine. Toasting hot and delicious as usual. The wind that had been gusting all day had calmed down by evening, thank goodness. This is really strange weather for May.

Tomorrow we’re intending to take a run to Hamilton and perhaps a little further.