Category: Friends

Stirling – 27 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Went to Stirling today to get nothing in particular and we were successful.

It was a lovely day when we started out, but we could see that things were a bit more changeable in the Stirling direction. Parked in our usual place and discovered that in May the charges go up by 40%!! That may seem like an outrage, but it still means that we can park for a whole day for £2. You’d be pushed to get an hour’s parking for that in Glasgow. Paid up and walked through a steadily increasing drizzle to the Thistle Centre. Went to Waterstones and picked up a likely looking book. A ‘real’ book with pages and a cover and everything. First ‘real’ book I’ve bought in ages. Scamp found the trousers she’d been looking for in M&S, so we both got something.

Talked for a while to Mhairi who had a stall in the centre this weekend. Had coffee in the usual Nero and came home. Drove through more April showers on the motorway and decided we’d eat from the remainder of yesterday’s dinner. ‘Rats’ for Scamp, Tagine for me. Before that, I just had time for a quick walk over St Mo’s before the rain came on heavy. Got today’s PoD which is a rapidly forming pine cone. It’s only just over a month since they looked like this, a little pineapple. Enjoyed the walk, but there was definitely the hint of rain on the wind, so I curtailed the walk and came home. On the way home I found a bunch of flowering Cowslips. I’d just been reading a year ago’s blog post about finding a bunch of these flowers blooming at the same time of year, despite 2017/2018’s terrible winter. They had a much easier time of it this winter, but still flowered in the same week.

Watched a scary Baku GP qualifying. Two drivers crashing at exactly the same place. Both unhurt, but badly damaged cars.

That was it for today. Nothing exciting and no real cooking either.

Tomorrow we may go dancing at Mango if it’s on.

A day in the kitchen – 26 April 2019

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Started about 9.30am and just kept going.

First thing to do was get the Lamb Tagine on the go. After chopping and frying the onions, then adding all the spices and the lamb it all got bunged into a slow cooker with the dates and apricots. Got it up to temperature and took it up to the back bedroom to do its work. That’s the benefit of a slow cooker, it can be working away anywhere with a mains socket.

<Technospeak>
Time for a bit of relaxation playing with some old photographs I’d backed up yesterday to a new USB-C drive. First time I’d used this supposedly revolutionary system. Allegedly capable of 10Mbps compared with the 5Mbps of USB 3. I can’t say I noticed the difference, but the big benefit is the connector to the computer. It’s reversible, unlike the normal male USB connector that only goes one way round. How long has it taken someone to realise how annoying that has been? Anyway, it was great editing those 10 year old D70 photos in new software. So easy to over-process, though.
</Technospeak>

Back in the kitchen it was the pakora. One lot of cauliflower and one lot of onion and potato. Both both lots fried and then stored to cool with some retained for lunch. They tasted fine, with a nice crunchy batter.

Meanwhile Scamp was beating the living daylights out of some cream for a cake that was baking in the oven while an ice-cream maker was churning away in a corner of the living room. Another time-saving machine that can be plugged in anywhere.

By now it was well into the afternoon an I was just about to go out to get some photos when I remembered the bread. It wasn’t bread yet, it was still flour in the cupboard, yeast in another cupboard, butter in the fridge, salt on the work surface and water in the tap. Soon, however they were all in the bowl of the mixer being battered into a bread dough. I kept the dough in the bowl, parked the bowl next to the slow cooker to keep it warm and finally got out for that walk. Halfway through the walk it started to rain. It’d been predicted all morning, but I’d been too busy. Got very few photos, but the PoD was the little pink flowers. Haven’t found out exactly what they are yet, but hopefully someone on Flickr can ID them.

The visitors arrived about 8pm. The pakora had been heating in a too-warm oven for too long, they were frazzled! Luckily Scamp had made some of her “Just Soup” which she served with some bacon on top and it was much, much better than my pakora. The lamb tagine was excellent, even although I say it myself. Scamp’s signature dish of Pears in a Red Wine Sauce served with Yoghurt Ice-cream was even better. Finally the cake was a moist sponge with lemon curd cream. Didn’t like the cream, but the sponge was lovely.

After a long night and an even longer day we dragged ourselves off to bed just after midnight. It was a good night. Not great, just good.

Tomorrow a relaxing day with minimal cooking.

A well filled day – 23 April 2019

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Driving to Falkirk, and back, lunch out (for some), coffee (for some), broken website – now repaired. Just your usual Tuesday.

Very warm during the night, but the temperature was dropping all morning and, when we got out of the car in Falkirk, I was glad I had worn my fleece. Dropped my ring off in the jeweller’s to have it repaired after having it cut from my finger back in March. We will be reunited on Thursday, hopefully. Went to Morrison’s while we were there to buy muesli, hand wash and milk. That, with a few other things, came to just over £70. That’s the way the money goes.

When we came home, Scamp just had time to change before she went out for lunch with her pal Mags. I had an hour to rearrange the mess in the art room before I too went out. No lunch for me just coffee and setting the world to rights with Fred and Val.

By the time I got home, Scamp was too and there was just enough of the day left to wander over to St Mo’s to get some photos. PoD went to a branch with what looks like Wild Cherry blossom. The competitor for the PoD was this shot of a new memorial seat in St Mo’s park. The name on it is Deone, who I think is Deone MacRae who died of cancer in 2013 aged 15. The family put a memorial bench beside Broadwood Loch, but some people didn’t like it and burned it to ashes. You really wonder about the mentality of some people. The new butterfly seat is cut and welded from 6mm steel. I don’t think that will be quite so easy to burn.

After dinner which was a joint effort at a paella, I noticed all the email from the new server was offline, and so was my site. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it to clear itself. I tried a website checker and it showed the site as open. Asked Hazy to check and she got access. Eventually used the chat facility on the new server’s webpage and after some checking on their side I was told that my IP address had been blocked after too many attempts to log in to an email address using different passwords. Actually it was me who was attempting to log in and get Mac Mail to accept the new password. Good to know they are on the ball, but will have to be more careful in future when changing passwords.

That was my busy day. Tomorrow will be equally busy, I’m sure. Hoping to go dancing in the afternoon and maybe in the evening too. The weather fairies say it’s going to get colder and wetter. Oh what fun. Summer’s over for another year perhaps.

Not such a bright day – 16 April 2019

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Today was Chris’s dad’s funeral. JIC had flown up specially for it last night.

He might have come up for the funeral, but before that JIC had to take a conference call with California and China. That’s just the kind of circles he moves in these days. Half past eight this morning and he was on Skype, doing work.

The funeral went well, I suppose. Well, as good as these things get. This was the first Humanist funeral I’d been to. I don’t confess to be a Christian. I suppose the closest I can get to religion is Buddhism, but even elements of that don’t work for me. I didn’t like the delivery of the woman who took the ceremony. Maybe she was new to it, but her delivery was too fast, too rushed with pauses that were too long and sometimes in the wrong places. It didn’t have the solemnity of a Church of Scotland funeral, but the delivery there has a style all of its own too and its not a pleasant one either. I’d guess it’s only someone who knew the person who has died who can really speak about them, from the heart, and that’s what the people listening want to hear.

We went to the ‘tea’ afterwards and met a few folk we knew. I liked the way Andy, JIC and Chris shared memories of Chris’s dad. That’s more like what folk do at a traditional ‘tea’ after a funeral. They remember the good bits in a person’s life and forgive the bad bits.

In the afternoon we went for a late lunch with JIC before he got the flight home. Unfortunately time seemed to slip away and the next thing I knew it was 5pm, we should have been on our way by then and we still hadn’t had our pudding. Eventually we got served and left for the drive into Glasgow. CITRAC was displaying its usual useless nonsense. “Nineteen minutes to the airport” it said. Actually it took nearly forty five minutes through what is euphemistically called ‘Rush Hour’, except nobody was rushing. Finally dropped him off at the airport to go through security. We turned round and started to drive home when Scamp suggested we go for a coffee at Braehead. That gave just enough time for the congestion to decrease and allow us to drive at a fairly steady pace back home through the rain. The plants need the rain Scamp said. She’s probably right.

Today’s PoD was made possible by that rain on the back bedroom window. I liked it. I called it “Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes” lyrics from The Final Cut by Roger Waters. Seemed somehow fitting.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing. Let’s hope it’s a happier day than today.

Isn’t it nice when a plan comes together – 2 April 2019

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Drove in to Glasgow this morning and dropped Scamp off so she could go on a shopping trip, then went to see the nice man at JL about an Un-Fitbit.

The nice young man at JL had a good look at my faulty Fitbit and, after checking the receipt, immediately pounced on the fact that the screen was cracked in a few places, suggesting that the cracks could be the cause of the screen failure. I was ready for this and told him that it was a well documented fault on the Fitbit2 caused by differential expansion between the metal body and the acrylic screen. He said he’d have to go and check with ‘the techies’ to see what they’d say. When he returned he agreed that it was indeed a manufacturing fault and was nothing to do with the pretty black and white pattern adorning the screen of the now defunct Fitbit. Unfortunately JL didn’t have any Fitbit2s in stock now, only the more expensive Fitbit3, but if I was willing to pay the £20 difference, I’d get a new Fitbit3 with a new two year warranty. I paid the money, said thank you very much and walked out of the shop with a new fitness tracker complete with warranty.

Drove home, grabbed some photos off the iMac and stuck them on the Samsung Note to show to Val and Fred. Met Fred in the car park and we walked in through the rain to meet Val. Strangely, Fred was very generous to Morag when I told him about her retirement and agreed that she had had a raw deal. For once it was me who did all the talking, but both Fred and Val admired the statues and sculptures I showed them from the tablet.

Got home just after Scamp had returned from the shopping expedition. Quick lunch and then unwrapped the Fitbit, charged it up and got it sync’d to the iPhone. Seems to be working fine. Long may it continue. I was just thinking about taking it out for a walk in St Mo’s when the hail storm put an end to that idea. The hail lasted for about an hour and the white layer that looks exactly like snow is still there. I did manage an hour in St Mo’s later and got the PoD at the top of the page of the daisies pushing their heads through the hail into beautiful sunshine.

Gave Scamp a quick look at the potential of Lighthroom as a replacement for the deplorable ‘Photos’ app on Windows 10. It’s even worse than its twin on the Mac. Not sure if she is totally happy with it yet, only time will tell.

Tomorrow it’s “Put on your dancing shoes” time again.

Another teacher breaks out – 29 March 2019

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Didn’t do very much today.

Some days are like that. Scamp went out shopping for essentials at Tesco. I stayed in and re-lived the holiday through the medium of blog writing.

My Fitbit is not at all well. The date was stuck at 27th March and nothing I could do would shift it. I tried doing a few resets with no success, and last night I let it die completely. I tried again to plug it in and reset it from zero, but all I got was a mangled display on the screen. I fear it may be dead, well, that’s not entirely correct. It still works internally, it just doesn’t have any way of displaying that work. It still vibrates to tell me to move and it still syncs to the iPhone. It just displays scrambled egg on the screen. Apparently it’s a common fault and is well documented on the InterWeb.

I went out at night to a retiral evening for Morag Pearson the ex-PT Art at Cumby High. Met Duncan and John for a beer in the Wetherspoon’s in Sausage Roll Street and had a pint of the excellent Punk IPA. The meal was a curry in Kama Sutra, just along the road. Lots of old faces from the old guard. Lots of young fresh looking faces of the youngsters, some of whom would eventually become the old guard in about forty years time. Talked to lots of folk I knew and liked and a few whom I disliked or detested. Thankfully I could walk away from the latter to find more of the former to compare stories with. It was a good night.

Walked down Sausage Roll Street with John before we went our separate ways him for the train home, me for the bus. Unfortunately, as I got to the bus station I just saw the X3 disappear round the corner. As I’d have to wait in the rain for another hour for the next one I phoned a taxi instead and had a pleasant run home talking to the driver.

Nice to see another teacher get out of the Cumbernauld Academy hell hole and into the light. Shame to see that some are still stuck in this nepotistic environment. Not conducive to good learning and no good for teachers or pupils. Glad I’m out.

Today’s PoD is of the leaves on the Poinsettia Scamp’s been tending since before Christmas.

Tomorrow, maybe a curry in Hamilton. Another curry!

Getting the horses cut – 14 March 2019

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Today was a tidying up sort of day. A day for sorting out loose ends.

It started off with a visit to the school to pay the deposit for a retiral dinner. Met the lady in question and spent an hour chewing the fat about people we knew in the past and the less savoury ones who were in management in the present. Dropped in at my ex-department, but cautiously didn’t visit ‘my’ room. I prefer to remember it in my mind’s eye. From there I drove in to Glasgow to get the horses cut. It was an old joke when I was at school. The French for ‘hair’ is cheveux and the French for horses is chevaux. When you’re 12 it’s so, so funny to say you’re going to get your ‘Horses’ cut! Not so funny now, unfortunately.

Got a Number Four all over with eyebrows trimmed too and all for £7. A bargain at the price with a political diatribe on the failure of a Conservative government to finalise the Brexit details from the bearded one who was cutting hair (or horses) at the next chair, while my Polish barber was bemoaning the dishonesty of fellow barbers who had left with her ‘neck brush’, meaning she had to share the shop ‘hair brush’. I couldn’t say who had the more forceful opinion.

With a much reduced head of hair (or horses – Enough? Yes, probably) I went for a walk down the town for a coffee in Nero. Wandered through the Argyle Arcade and grabbed a few shots to create a PoD and then back up to the car park to retrieve the Juke for a decent enough price of a fiver.

Back home I had to get stuck in and clear a living space in the back bedroom for Jackie who was coming to stay the night before going back up to Skye tomorrow. After I found the sofa bed under an assortment of books, tablets, clothes and sketch pads, I started to make some pakora for the starter for tonight’s dinner. It’s such a faff to make, but once the prep is done, you can use it for a couple of days.

Visitor arrived and the pakora was deemed good enough for her to want the recipe. I tried to explain that it was a recipe handed down from mother to son or father to daughter, but I know she didn’t believe me after I said I’d send her the link to it from YouTube. Scamp made Chicken & Mushrooms with Rice and then June arrived and a coven was in session, so I cleared up the kitchen, made amoretti coffee coffee for everyone and then settled down with a glass of Grants Sherry Casked to write some emails.

Decided I just had enough time to process the PoD and post the blog before the witching hour. Hopefully I’ll make it.

Tomorrow we may go to lunch somewhere because Saturday looks snowy!

Just dancing once today – 27 February 2019

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Just Michael’s class today, but that was enough for me.

Scamp was out for coffee with Annette this morning. Before she went she noticed we’d missed a phone call from Hazy yesterday, so I phoned her back and we had a long chat about stuff, just stuff, families and friends. For once we didn’t talk about books, so just incase you were wondering Hazy, I’m trying desperately to finish All The Birds In The Sky I notice you gave it four stars on Goodreads. I’m afraid my rating will be considerably lower!

Next on the list of To Do tasks was to get started on today’s sketch while the house was quiet. After a couple of false starts, I did achieve a likeness of an apple and that’s what you can see here. I decided to stick to a monochrome pencil sketch. I used a nice cheap school pencil. It’s an Impega No 2.5 HB. Just goes to show that the quality of the equipment has less of a bearing on the finished article than you’d imagine. I really need to practise these simple objects. Curved objects. I’m happy with my ability to draw objects with straight lines. Curves are the killer.

When Scamp came back we had lunch and drove in to Glasgow to Michael’s class. Jive was not a problem apart from a bit of brain fade by me. Rumba I will never get used to. The nonsense of not using beat one, starting on beat two instead is beyond me. Why make it more difficult than it needs to be? I’m sure some people will just smile and say it makes perfect sense (eh Scamp?), but I don’t hold with that belief. Beat one is there for a reason. Use it! Cha-Cha? Just Rumba with a wee shuffle in the middle. Equally pointless. You can see this is going downhill now, can’t you? You’d be right. We’d practised Quickstep at home last night and we’d practised it again today while the advanced Jivers were doing their stuff. When we were asked to do it on the dance floor it was a disaster. We didn’t even get as far as the running step, the fishtails which had worked so well half an hour before were more like fish paste! Back to the drawing board for quickstep. Maybe next week …

Coffee and a visit to CassArt put a smile back on my face.  After that we drove home and I managed an hour in St Mo’s to get today’s PoD which took a fair bit of post-processing.  Dinner tonight was roast veg risotto and it was lovely.  I squirted some lemon juice in at the end with a bit of lemon rind too and it lifted it.

No dancing tonight because the lady ‘teacher’ was reputedly taking the class!

Tomorrow is free, the last day of 28 Drawings Later.  Such a pity, it’s been a PITA and it’s been fun too.

We had cake! – 26 February 2019

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So, that apple again. I’m determined to get it right. Dug wi’ a burst ba’, that’s me!

Spent the morning taking a different tack. Tried using Inktense ink blocks. They look and feel a bit like hard pastels, but they are made from intensely coloured dry ink held together with a binder of some sort. You draw directly on to paper with them, add a clean water wash and the colour whooshes all over the place. To be used with care, I think as they are permanent. Once on the paper, it’s there for good. The same goes for shirts, jerseys, carpets too I’d think, although I’ve only really tested the first two. It was an improvement, much better than yesterday’s apple, but still not right. By the time I had finished, it was lunchtime and then we were off to Sandford to visit the wean (and its mum) and to see if there was indeed cake on offer.

Set the satnav for Sandford which is a village near Strathaven. The last time I was along this road was on a motorbike and it must have been around 1978. Amazingly I remembered the road. Mostly single track and through farmland. The satnav got it perfectly correct and took us right to the door. However the thing that impressed me the most was that the voice on the satnav told us to take the Strathaven road, but pronounced it correctly as Strayven. Artificial Intelligence gone mad.

When we got to the house the wean, Imogen, was asleep in her pram in the garden. IN THE GARDEN?? IN FEBRUARY?? Are ye mad? No of course they weren’t. This is no normal February is it? Not with temperatures like we’ve been having. This is Costa Del February! The wean was perfectly happy sleeping in the sun.  Anyway, nice house, lovely landscape photos printed large and hung on the wall. And why not. That’s what photogs take photos for and it wasn’t until I got this lovely big iMac that I truly appreciated the detail in my photos. I should print more of them and hang them up, not for visitors to admire, but for us.

The cake was delicious. We’re still at a loss to explain to ourselves how Jaclyn managed to make a crunchy topped sponge. Probably it’s good that we don’t know how or we’d be making sponges all the time. Nancy arrived just before Imogen woke up and she reminded me of my mum willing JIC and Hazy to wake up so she could hold them. Scamp was no different. She too was eager for a chance to hold her. Me? No. I don’t speak the baby talk and usually reduce them to tears, so I stayed in the background.

Eventually Scamp had had enough of the wean and we went home, but we were encouraged to go visit the waterfall on our way home. We parked the car and walked along the path to see moving water. Always fascinating, mainly to men, but probably to photogs in general. On the way we found a clump of snowdrops growing wild at the side of the path. That became PoD. Drove home and scamp made a delicious fish pie. One of my favourites.

Today’s painting was done in watercolour, not Inktense, but with more concentrated colours for the apple. I think I was trying too hard to lay on too many washes and overloading the paper. Fewer, but stronger colour washes may be the way to go. I’m better pleased with it, but practised a few more apples while watching the TV tonight. Practise, practise!

Tomorrow we are only dancing in the afternoon. It is rumoured that a certain lady salsa ‘teacher’ will be taking Jamie Gal’s class and that will be no fun, no fun at all.

Keeping the wheels turning – 22 February 2019

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I’d decided that today was the day to pump up the tyres, oil the chain and get the bike on the road again.

Before that there was the usual attempt at the Fiendish sudoku and then a visit to Tesco to buy everything in sight, just in case of a no-deal Brexit when everything will have vanished from the shelves overnight. Why do the news programs try to frighten the living daylights out of us? They spread more panic and fear than actual news these days.

Once the shopping was done and lunch had been made and eaten (pizza – home made) I got the pump out and inflated the tyres, checked that they’d stay inflated and oiled the chain. Swiched on the lights and the bike computer and was amazed that both still worked. Then I got dressed and slipped on those SPD fitted shoes and went out into the wild world. I was amazed at just how warm it was. Comfortably warm in February, not that’s a first. Apparently, a couple of days ago, Aboyne recorded the highest February temperature in over 120 years. Such a strange winter this year. Not a sign of last year’s ‘Beast From The East.’ Well, not yet anyway. Had a pleasant run on the Dewdrop which performed perfectly. Need to get the bike out more often.

Home just as Scamp was going out to meet the Witches and after starting today’s sketch, began making today’s dinner which again would be pakora and then curry. Egg curry this time.

Today’s PoD was a low level view of one of Scamp’s crocus flowers, well two flowers to be more exact. Today’s 28 Drawings Later drawing, No 22 is of a bar of Aero, before I had to call a halt, having eaten the model!

Interesting news story today about a flypast honouring 10 American airmen who died when their plane crashed in a park 75 years ago has taken place in Sheffield.  The US bomber came down in Endcliffe Park, Sheffield on 22 February 1944, killing everyone on board. A campaign for a flypast started after a chance meeting between BBC Breakfast presenter Dan Walker and Tony Foulds, who tends a park memorial.  Good to see something in the news that isn’t about Brexit.

Tomorrow looks like the end of the good weather we’ve been having and a return to rain. It was good while it lasted.