Category: Friends

Living in the frozen wastes – 14 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

The frozen wastes of Cumbersheugh.

Despite the freezing temperatures I did go for a walk in the morning, but before that there was the car to defrost. It didn’t take long to defrost the windscreen, the rear screen and the wing mirrors. Two buttons and about ten minutes max and they were clear. It was the side windows that took the time. The ice on them resolutely refused to budge until the sun came up far enough to reach them. After that it was a simple nudge with the old plastic scraper and the ice was gone.

With that done I had time to go for a walk in St Mo’s. It had to be done in the morning because we were booked for a visit to see Margie in the afternoon and I knew we’d be back after the sun had set, so lined jacket, lined walking trousers and a pair of sturdy shoes for a change and I was off to see the frozen world. Actually it was quite pleasant to be out today. The sun was shining from a cloudless blue sky with no sign of yesterday’s fog. I didn’t really like the fog. Like I said yesterday, it seemed to suck all the colour from everything. The frost did the opposite. It seemed to turn up the contrast on everything. Whites looked whiter and blacks looked blacker. I even remembered to old photographer’s maxim. Overexpose by at least one stop when shooting snow scenes. And while this was frost, not snow, the same rule applied. The camera is fooled into making the frost look grey, because that’s what the exposure system is designed to do. The photographer’s job is to make the finished scene look like what he or she saw on the camera screen, or maybe what he wanted to see!

I covered a fair bit of ground, tramping into the wilderness at the back of St Mo’s and the eventual winner of PoD was a cow parsley seed head completely covered in frost. It’s almost black and white, but there are just a few bits of colour there too. I arrived home with just enough time to download the photos, have a plate of soup and a cup of tea before we headed out again in a defrosted car to see Margie. I don’t know what’s wrong with my new phone. Every time I connect it to Spotify it will play one song and then stop. I suspect it’s something to do with bluetooth, but I’m not sure how to fix the problem. What worries me is the amount of folk on the ‘net who are having the same problem with the same line of phones, the Galaxy S22. I did some tweaks and a reset tonight, but I’m not convinced it will make any difference.

Margie was her usual interesting self today with lots of stories to tell. She has such a cheery manner and quite outspoken when she feels the need. Not as fit as she used to be, but doing well for 89.

We got back in plenty of time for the Tesco delivery. Three basket’s worth this time. I pity the poor delivery drivers. It must be no fun lugging those heavy baskets and driving on the sometimes untreated roads. Although, for the first time in a long while, our road has been gritted, or at least the hill has been gritted, which makes a difference.

Fish ’n’ chips for dinner tonight. A lovely bit of cod cooked to perfection as only Scamp can. After dinner we watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We’ve seen it, maybe twice, but this is the first time I can remember seeing the first ten minutes of it, where we meet the characters for the first time. Still a feel-good film. Worth watching again and again.

More cold weather forecast for tomorrow, with the chance of snow tomorrow night or on Friday. We’ll have to wait and see.

Happy Birthday Hazy – 2 December 2022

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Happy Birthday Hazy. Hope your day was less frantic than ours.

Today was always going to be a busy day, but cramming too much into one day is never a good thing.

The day started well for me. I measured out the ingredients to make a loaf and got the mixer to do the hard work, then left it to do its first rise. Also, I was getting things organised in my head for repairing the damage I’d inflicted on my Lightrooom catalog yesterday. One simple bit of digital housework led to a scrambled catalog. The Lightroom catalog holds the records of everything you do to every photo. Every adjustment however small is recorded and can be played back and altered later … until you screw it up. After that, Lightroom is no longer your friend. I left it last night and by this morning I’d worked out how to fix it.

Scamp meantime had gone off early, 9.15am early, to get her hair cut. She arrived back about an hour later with a new cut that she didn’t like. She rarely likes the cut she gets, but it’s nothing to do with the hairdresser, it just her resisting change, I think. She came home for a fleeting visit, had a cup of coffee and was out again to go to FitSteps class wearing her new dance trainers that make spinning easier!

<Technospeak>
After Scamp left, I started work on the repair. It involved moving the damaged files to a temporary drive, erasing everything on the old drive then putting everything back again, in the right order. Simple. Except, somewhere along the line I forgot to move the catalog on to the temporary drive and when I formatted the original drive, my catalog was destroyed. Only after I had put everything in place did I discover that the catalog couldn’t be found. What a numpty. As usual, I had a backup on the system that gave me nine months worth of catalog data, but October and November were gone into the ether.
</Technospeak>

I wasn’t a happy bunny when Scamp came home, but things brightened up again when Hazy organised a Zoom call. We had about an hour’s worth of relaxed conversation and heard about the further complications of Neil’s op and what it feels like to have your own house. We were both pleased that she liked her birthday present.

Back to work, My bread needed to be ‘knocked back’ that means you knock all the air out of it and put it into a wicker basket to let it do its second rise before it goes into the oven. Going in to the oven at that moment was Scamp’s Chicken and Mushroom Pithivier. A posh name for a Chicken and Mushroom Pie. I’d drawn a circle or exactly 35mm diameter and another of 30mm diameter on greaseproof paper using an old pair of compasses to act as a template for cutting the pastry. It looked good as it went in to the oven, nothing to do with my drawing, but everything to do with Scamp’s skill. When it came out, the bread was ready to go in for its 20min bake and it looked good when it came out, as did Scamp’s Pithivier.

A bit of a break before we cleared the dining table and dressed it up for tonight’s dinner with Crawford and Nancy. The menu was Sweet Potato and Peppers Soup, Chicken and Mushroom Pithivier with potatoes and broccoli followed by Dutch Apple Cake with Custard or Cream.

C&N arrived a bit later than expected, but we had a good night. Lots of catching up and lots of laughter. Maybe a bit too much to drink and certainly far too much to eat.

Just after midnight we waved them off on their journey home and settled down to calm down.

PoD was a Fuchsia in the back garden flowering long after it should have shut down for the winter.

Tomorrow (today) we’re intending to go to Brookfield for our Saturday dance class.

A day at the fair – 23 November 2022

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Got the train in to Glasgow to celebrate the fact that they weren’t on strike today!

Spoke to Hazy this morning and we heard all about the joys of being a house owner. Also found out that although Neil’s nose is a lot better and healing nicely after his op, although it hasn’t affected his snoring ability! We discussed Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City books and his appearance on The Big Scottish Book Club.

Scamp didn’t need the car today, so I drove down to the station and got the train in to Glasgow to meet my brother. As usual, we went for a coffee and discussed what to do and where to go. I’d hoped to go and photograph the lights at the Christmas market in St Enoch’s Square or just get some street shots. We agreed that the Christmas market would be good with a few fairground attractions thrown in for good measure.

First, Alex wanted to photograph the inside of Princes Square and wasn’t sure if we were allowed to take photos. It appeared that almost everyone was taking photos inside, although we were the odd ones out because we were using ‘real’ cameras. Everyone else had phone cameras. We got the photos, then bumped into Mirka and Artur who used to go to salsa class in Glasgow. It appeared that Mirka was trying hard to get Artur to go to a new class in Motherwell, but he’s still resisting!

Photos taken and goodbyes said, we went to lunch in Il Pavone in the basement of the department store. We both had pizzas, but I struggled to finish mine and in the end had to give up. Too much veg and far too much cheese.

Once we’d been fed we walked down to the Christmas market which wasn’t quite as busy as I’d hoped. Fewer rides too, but the did have an enormous spinning wheel called The Booster. It looked scary. I tried my best to get some decent shots of it and although I got a few, most of the pics went in the bin when I got home. We both prowled around trying to find something to capture our interest. My favourite place was a Pick ’n’ Mix stall that seemed to attract all sorts of folk. That’s where PoD came from.

Eventually we’d had enough and headed back. I went to Queen Street and Alex went to the bus station. We agreed to do it again, but actually we will be doing something like it again when we’re going to lunch tomorrow with Alex and Carol.

I did have a wee space for dinner when I got home because Scamp had made Veggie Chilli with brown lentils. Totally different from mine. Very nice, but maybe needed some more chilli. Poor Scamp had been working all day tidying up and hoovering while my brother and I had been out on the town!

Tomorrow, like I said, Alex and Carol, Scamp and I are hoping to have lunch down Clydeside. The teachers across Scotland are all on strike tomorrow for the first time in almost 40 years. That will mean thousands of weans will be having a free holiday! Hope they don’t go where we’re going.

The rain came back – 15 November 2022

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We had two days of glorious sunshine. It was inevitable the rain would return.

It was a “chucking it down” kind of rain. Straight down, no messing rain that wasn’t going off any time soon. In fact it stayed with us until about 4 o’clock.

Scamp was out for coffee with Annette this morning. I was staying in, not just because it was raining, but also because Mr Bezos was sending me a shiny new SSD, yes, another one. This one will be a swapping drive to allow me to make a running copy of my Big Sur operating system, built using the latest method. It looks and feels faster than the first build I made. Also it was half price as Amazon have now extended Black Friday to November. I’d been sent an email to say that it would be delivered today before 9pm. Not a very exact time slot, but Mr Bezos is a busy man! It arrived just after 6pm.

Left to my own devices, I decided it was time to pick all the remaining chilli peppers and prune the plant back a bit. ‘Experts’ opinions vary on how fierce that prune should be. Some say cut about 25% from the bush. Others say cut it right back to the ground, it will regrow next year. I chose the middle ground and cut off about 50% of the green stuff after I’d removed all the ‘fruit’. I was being careful to work around the nettle that has taken root in the pot. The sting I got from it the last time I was removing chillies took a couple of days to go away. It’s done now and I think it looks a lot healthier after its trim. We’ll wait and see if it needs another chop.

The next thing to do was to phone the plumber to come and fix the kitchen tap. He’s promised to come on Friday morning. We’ll wait and hope that he’ll know how to fix it, or just replace it, whichever is easiest … and cheapest!

Lunch today was soup. It’s a long lasting soup that one, and there’s even a splash or two left for tomorrow. With that done I took a walk over to the butcher’s in Condorrat in the rain and on the way back got today’s PoD. It probably looks faked, but the only fakery in it is the removal of a couple of street lights that were spoiling the view. That misty spray from the cars on the motorway and the colour are just as it came out of the camera. It’s the low sun pushing its way through the clouds that colours the spray to the sepia hue. That’s why they call it the hour just before sunset, ‘The Golden Hour’.

I got another couple of photos in St Mo’s, because the clouds lifted, the rain stopped and the sun shone for about half an hour before it dipped back into the clouds again.

We heard from Neil that his check-up today went well with nothing untoward to report. Photo looks good Neil. They haven’t spoiled your good looks with the ’Nose Job!’ 😉. Nurse Hazy must be working hard.

Tomorrow looks like the best day of the week, but we’ll be staying at home waiting for Scamp’s new dance trainers. Hope they come before 9pm!

Dancin’ and Singin’ – 12 November 2022

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As usual on a Saturday we were off to Brookfield for dance class.

Very small class today only four couples and one single woman. Apart from the single woman, they all have nicknames, none of them particularly complementary and none of them will be used here!

First dance was a Melody Foxtrot which did have a musical Melody attached, but no discernible Foxtrot steps. Some knew it, some didn’t, some did ‘kind of’ know it. I’m talking about individual members of the pairs here. I was in the ‘kind of’ category while Scamp was in the ‘know it’ one. It took us all about half an hour of staggering around the hall to get more or less adept at this fairly simple sequence dance.

Next was the main lesson, The Cameron Quickstep which, although danced as a sequence because it finished at a point where the dance could start again. We’d danced it for the first time last week at Perth and it looked and felt just like a normal quickstep. We’ve not had much chance to dance quickstep and this looked like a great introduction. We’d practised it a bit at home, but a living room is not anything like a dance floor. Today gave us a much better chance to work on the dance and of course we had expert help at hand. Unfortunately the teachers are off watching rugby next Saturday, so we’ll have to wait a fortnight before we get to have a real practise, although there is the chance of a tea dance later this coming week. A couple of sequence dances rounded off the day and we were back on the road home.

I did actually get out this afternoon to take some photos in the sunshine that had lasted all day. PoD went to a view through the trees to the setting sun. Nice to get an outside photo without too much fakery, or post-processing as photogs call it.

We drove over to Larky later. Me to have a jam session with Crawford and Scamp to go with Nancy and Jacquelyn to a concert in Strathaven. I wasn’t really looking forward to jamming with Crawford. I don’t practise playing guitar, relying on what I did way back in the late ’60s, but my fingers were far more supple then and could reach all those hard to fret strings. However we did cover some weel kent songs and had settled down to a blether by the time the girls returned. Another cup of white tea for Scamp and some arrangements for a return visit to us in December and we headed home and actually found a parking place just after 11pm.

Watched a confusing Brazilian GP with Kevin Magnussen in first place and Mick Schumacher in last place. Both drivers from the Haas team! Unfortunately Magnussen couldn’t hold on to that lead after the sprint race.

Tomorrow the weather looks good again. Two days in a row, is that too much to ask? I’m hoping to tell you tomorrow.

Coffee – 7 November 2022

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Well, not really coffee because this was a Costa hot milk drink to paraphrase an american lady I heard once in Dubrovnik.

I joked three weeks ago about Crunchy Nut Cornflakes breaking my tooth. That’s exactly what happened this morning.  A crunch and the filling came out in two pieces. It was due to be replaced this week anyway. It will have to be now and I will have to apologise to the dentist for breaking a second filling.  Having said that, it couldn’t have bonded properly to the tooth in the first place, so not all My or the Crunch Nut’s fault!

Scamp was meeting Isobel and I was meeting Val at Costa. I’d forgotten that Val was using two walking sticks now. We talked for a long time about his plans for their new bathroom and possible remodelling of their kitchen. Of course we talked about tech too. Val’s Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of memory, but after that he lost me in the tech. Also, Val is an experimenter who loves making things that look like a box of wires, but act just like a desktop computer does. I like the idea of that, but will it run Lightroom? Will it turn on every time I want it to? Great fun to play with, but it’s not a fully fledged computer yet, at least not for me, besides, it runs on Linux which is like black magic to me. But the Raspberry Pi  is very, very clever and so is he!

We discussed my experimentation with running MacOS 11.7 from an SSD and the next stage I want to take it to once I get the actual process settled in my head. We even talked about changing the washer inside our kitchen mixer tap. Sometimes you just have to come down to the basics! When we were done talking Val left to meet his wife and I went to find mine. We’d agreed that we’d try to get everyone together for a coffee before Christmas.

Scamp and I drove to Tesco and bought a trolley full of messages, plus a couple of bottles of wine. After lunch I took a camera out to St Mo’s. Just one camera and one lens. Not a lot of light and I’d no idea what I was going to photograph. In the middle of winter I like to rest a camera on the ice and photograph the weeds poking through the ice with a macro lens. I tried the same thing today but without actually resting the camera on the surface of the water! I got a similar effect and after running it through noise reduction software it looked perfectly clean and tidy. That was PoD.

Pasta Carbonara looked and tasted more like scrambled eggs tonight.  Over cooked the sauce, not for the first time.  Must try harder.

No plans, and no meetings set for tomorrow. We’ll see what transpires.

 

An invitation – 24 October 2022

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Scamp and I were watching the US F1 GP this morning when my phone rang and I got an invitation.

Fred was heading to Tesco in half an hour and did I fancy meeting him for coffee. Of course I did! Got myself organised with the books I’d borrowed from him and hadn’t got round to returning then drove over to Tesco where I was also instructed to bring back a loaf, pancakes and a bottle of milk.

I met Fred in the car park and after I dumped my bag of books in the boot of his car, we went to the cafe. He was buying and I had a cappuccino which I realised too late was coming from what looked like a Costa machine. That meant it was more of a Babyccino than a Cappuccino. Next time I’ll get a flat white. I let him peruse my Inktober sketch book that I’d brought with me and for once he was less than critical. It must have been good, because he usually finds something to criticise. But that’s good. He’s always fair with his crits. Eventually, now that it had been all but confirmed that Sunak was to be the new PM, he turned the conversation to politics, that and the gormless council being his two pet subjects. He’s really suffering with his leg now, especially his knee and is having a hard time of it trying to keep moving. It’s worrying that of the six of us that are left from the Auld Guys. Three of us need walking sticks just to get around. We are an ageing group now.

After we’d drunk our warm milk and set the world to rights, we went to do our shopping, vowing to meet up again soon. I managed to get the three items that were on my list and added in a packet of doughnuts just for the fun of it.

Lunch for Scamp and I was Just Soup, then we needed to get ready to go and visit Margie. I dropped Scamp off at the entrance to Monklands and then went to park the car. I gave up on the car park after about fifteen minutes of driving round and round and round. The galling part about it was that I’d driven past a space and ignored it. Of course, it was long gone when I went back for a look. I remembered parking at the roadside down a quiet cul-de-sac. Maybe I’d be lucky again. I was. A space just the right size for the wee blue car. Perfect.

Walking back to the hospital, I saw today’s PoD lighting up in front of me and grabbed a few shots with my phone camera, not having a ‘real’ camera with me. I could never have achieved that quality with my old phone camera. Sat and talked to Margie and showed her my sketches so far in Inktober. Again, Margie is quite a critical sketcher and doesn’t give praise lightly. I’m so glad she liked my efforts.

Drove home through the awkward road junctions in Airdrie and found there were no spaces in our car park either. I did find a space further on. Dinner tonight was a rather good Pasta Carbonara. Finally got round to writing to Alex and asking where we were going this week for a photo walk.

Today’s prompt was ‘Fairy’. This happy wee fairy lives in our bedroom. She’s always smiling and wears a pretty pink dress with matching bright red boots. I do believe she enjoyed being a model for a day.

Well, Sunak did get the PM job. A poisoned chalice if ever there was one. I hope he’s better than the last two inhabitants of No10. I just wonder what Larry the Cat thinks about all the comings and goings in his house!

We’re waiting to see what the weather is going to do tomorrow before we make any rash decisions. Maybe East, maybe West. Who knows.

Entertained by Margie – 28 September 2022

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This afternoon we went to visit Margie.

Margie is one of Scamps friends. She is a ray of sunshine on a dull day, and today was a dull day. As usual our conversation ranged over may subjects, taking in, on the way: The difference between a Carry-out and a Take-away, what a Boogie is and how you’d draw one and the horrors of hospital food, especially Gravel Hotpot. No, not Gravy, Gravel, apparently that’s what it looked like! Three hours gone in a flash. What an entertainer. She’d have made an excellent stand-up comedian when she was younger.

We drove home and we should have stopped at the shops to get some spinach to add body to the pesto I was going to make for dinner. If we had, I might have remembered to get some pine nuts, because there were none in the cupboard. But we didn’t and the pesto tasted fine with the spaghetti without the spinach and the pine nuts.

I spent most of the evening wrestling with, and swearing at, the Samsung website. Badly written and riddled with error codes. I eventually gave up when it crashed just as I was about to buy my new Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus phone after struggling, and failing to get the 0% finance deal for some undisclosed reason. Your code worked perfectly, Jamie, as did trading in Scamp’s old unused Huawei phone for a healthy discount. I tried talking to ‘helpers’ on Chat, but they were as useless as the website. I think it might have been an omen. Keep the phone you’ve got. You don’t need a new one.

Today’s PoD was a grab shot of some carnations sitting on the kitchen window ledge. It was dull and gloomy by the time I was taking the photos and the final result was a grainy as a sand dune, but thankfully ON1 came to the rescue and removed all the digital noise without altering the flowers too much. At least something worked today.

Off in to Glasgow tomorrow to meet Alex, hopefully and talk some technospeak with him.

The Heron and the Holey Man – 14 September 2022

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Today went out to lunch.

John had told us about a restaurant they’d been to. It was called The Heron and was between Strathaven and Darvel and since he said the food was good, we just had to try it out.

It was indeed in the badlands between Strathaven and Darvel, in the middle of nowhere, up a long hill on a single track road with passing places. It wasn’t a real ’Skye’ single track, just a narrow road. There were plenty of tables, although some of them were in the ‘Dog Friendly’ area. Since neither of us is dog friendly, we chose a different table in a different area. There wasn’t much variety in the menu, but that didn’t bother Scamp. She went straight for the Mac ’n’ Cheese. I was more adventurous with Steak with Chimichurri dressing in a Bagel from the specials. Not my usual lunch choice, but it looked like it was that or a sandwich. Food came fairly quickly and Scamp’s M&C looked really good served in an old style enamel Ashet dish. Mine looked good. A bagel with minute steak and some green dressing, presumably the Chimichurri. Unfortunately it was barely warm and the dressing had almost no taste. Scamp asked for peppermint tea, but unfortunately they didn’t have any, so she settled for her speciality ‘white tea’, ie hot water. They were obviously rationing the coffee too judging from the slightly brown water in my cup. It wasn’t expensive, but it wasn’t very good either. Still, it was doing a roaring trade with a constant stream of folk coming through the door. Maybe we were just unlucky, or maybe not!

We did go for a walk round the ‘shop’. It was overpriced. A 50g box of Assam tea was £5.50. My Assam from The Bean Shop in Perth costs £6.50 for 200g. Lot’s of interesting beers at reasonable prices, but the gin and vodka was just silly money. I described the place as ’Style over Substance’. I doubt if we’ll rush back.

With all that said, it had a lovely outlook over the hills and farmland and the weather couldn’t have been better.. We drove back down that narrow road and turned right to try to find Loudoun Hill which was my destination today for photos. It’s not hard to find. It’s a volcanic plug, apparently. It looks like a big lump of granite or some such mineral, dumped in a field. You just can’t miss it. I missed the turning for the car park, though. A mile or so down the road we found a place to turn and with Scamp giving directions, we found the path to the car park.

I’d brought my rucksack with both cameras in it, but forgot my walking boots. I had no intentions of climbing the hill anyway. I just wanted to make sure I got the image I had in my head for today and it was there in front of me. The Spirit of Scotland monument by artist Richard Price was erected in 2004. It stands on a pathway which runs through the Irvine Valley near Drumclog. The monument, made from steel stands over 5 metres tall. It’s one of the ugliest monuments I’ve seen, but one of the first I’d seen with the shape burned out of the steel slab. It commemorates the Battle of Loudoun Hill between Aymer de Valence and Robert the Bruce in 1307. It was a return grudge match which Bruce won, despite being vastly outnumbered. Loudoun Hill stands in the background. It might be ugly, but it gave a foreground for the scenery in the background. PoD captured.

Another short dance practise when we got home, because I don’t want another day like last Saturday. I want to be able to crack not just the Jet Lag Waltz, but also the New Foxtrot. I’m getting there, and there are a few more days to go to get it even better.

Tomorrow, Scamp is meeting June, Ian and Isobel for coffee in the morning.

 

A beer in the Toon – 13 September 2022

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Today the Auld Guys, or at least, three of them went in to Glasgow for lunch.

We all met up sporadically in and around George Square. We were going to Doppio Malto, an Italian restaurant and beer shop in the centre of Glasgow. Ray arrived first and got things organised while I met John in the square (not a masonic keyword!) and we went looking for Val. Eventually we went back in to the restaurant to see if the wily Italian had sneaked in behind us and that was when we found Ray with the table all sorted. You can always expect Ray to get things done properly. So I left John with Ray and went looking for Val again. Found him and brought him back to the fold. The lunch could commence.

Pizza for Ray, Val and me, but John went for Carbonara, just to be different. Beer for me, IPA in fact, “Sexy IPA” to be more exact. John went for boring lager and Val had Guinness, Italian Guinness! Who knew there was such a thing? Ray was driving when he got home, so he was drinking orange juice. The pizzas were a bit of a disappointment. A bit tough and to use the Scots word, “Cheugh”. John said his carbonara was fine, but the sauce looked a bit thin. Maybe it’s just the focaccia that they can make well. We may go somewhere else next time.

Val seemed to enjoy chatting with the waitress in Italian. No, he didn’t tell me what they said! I just enjoyed being out with folk other than family again. Just sitting for an afternoon with pals, blethering, telling jokes and tall tales. What we ate and what we drank didn’t matter, but I did have another beer, if only to hear the waitress say “Your Sexy Sir”, while Val and John had Sambuca, but “Your Sambuca” doesn’t have the same ring to it!

All too soon we had to go our separate ways, vowing to do it again, hopefully some time in November. Before the Xmas rush.

Managed to get a train back and Scamp picked me up at the station. Her lunch had been the same as ours. Wetherspoons where they’d chosen had no fish, so fish ’n’ chips was off the menu. I’ve never heard of a restaurant having no fish. Macaroni cheese is fairly easy to make from scratch, but Wetherspoons seemed to be serving a microwaved box of it. There will be excuses reasons, I’m sure, but it’s sorry state for the hospitality sector to be in.

PoD was an ultra-wide shot of the new Queen Street Station in Glasgow.

Tomorrow we’re intending to go somewhere for a proper lunch. No ‘ping’ food accepted.