Category: Fungi

October’s almost over – 31 October 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Another bright morning and a cold day to follow it.

I think we just sat in the warm living room and looked out at the world outside for a while. We also stood at the back window and watched the antics of a couple of magpies struggling to find a way to get at the fat in half a coconut shell that’s hanging on the rowan tree.  It’s a cheap bird feeder I bought intending it for the bluetits to feed on.  However one of the wily magpies found a way to hook the string that holds the coconut with its claw and pull it close, meaning it could plunder the contents in comfort.  The others were still flying up, taking a peck and falling back down.  I think they expended more energy than they gained from the fat.

Scamp wrote a letter to the Gas Ombudsman, complaining about the terrible wait we’ve had to get a gas bill.  Nobody seems to know why we’ve not had a bill and any correspondence we get for British Gas is basically a photocopy with the date changed from the last one.  The smart meter is working for the electricity bill, but not for the gas!  Maybe we need someone to come out and read the meter! We’ll see what the Ombudsman can do to jolly them along.

After lunch we walked down to the shops for the makings of a stir-fry and some potatoes to make Potato and Leek soup.  There were a group of ‘workies’ cutting back the bushes at the front of the house.  I didn’t envy them their work in the cold breeze that was blowing.  We felt it too on our fifteen minute walk to the shops.  I’d intended leaving the bags with Scamp on the way back and going for a walk in St Mo’s, but they were quite heavy, so I walked home with her and then went out again to see what I could find. Not a lot was the answer, although I did startle a deer in the woods. It saw/smelled/heard me long before I noticed it and it was away like the wind.  I tried taking photos of some fungi but few of them were interesting, then I found a curvy looking flat topped mushroom just as the sun shone through the trees on it.  I think I missed the best of that light, but was happy with the image I did get.  That became PoD.

Back home the workies had finished and I could smell soup, so the potatoes had been used! I made a cup of coffee and uploaded today’s photos then worked on them for a while.  Then I remembered, or was reminded by the computer that there was an update to the iMac’s OS, so I put it in.  About an hour later I was walking past the computer and noticed the screen was still black with a white progress line half way along its slot.  Not long after an error message flashed on the screen.  The update had failed for some reason. On a normal week, I’d already have made a backup of the OS and would just have overwritten the OS with a new one, but I hadn’t made a backup and I didn’t want to risk losing the data as well as the operating system.  I tried a Safe Mode start and everything was still there, but I decided I’d wait until tomorrow to do a backup and then replace the OS.  Computers are a pain some times. Dinner was the stir-fry and it was quite good, but nothing special. Soup was kept for tomorrow.

Today was the last sketch in Inktober for this year.  The prompt was Fire. Instead of an actual fire I chose to sketch the vehicle that hopefully would be responsible for stopping a fire. It’s based on a Dennis F8 Fire Engine 1955. The group this year with a couple of headbanger exceptions has been really good and well behaved.  That made my life a lot easier!

I think a dance practise will be called for tomorrow.  Other than that, we may well be sheltering from the predicted rain!

Oh what a beautiful morning – 11 October 2023

Posted on by Zogman

And the makings of a beautiful day.

Scamp was out in the morning to have coffee with June. While she was out I found a subject for today’s Inktober prompt – “Wander”. I started work on it right away, drawing on a Seagate A4 sketchbook. I usually draw ideas to begin with in a cheap sketchbook, but have been caught out many times by working up a good sketch in them, then when I put a watercolour wash on them the paper soaks up the water, buckles and the sketch becomes a disaster area. Now I’ve learned to draw on decent quality paper that will hold the watercolour without falling apart. Yes, the paper is more expensive, but it saves a lot of swearing!

Lunch, when Scamp came in was, soup. Quite delicious soup. Then with the sun still shining I walked over to St Mo’s and found myself surrounded by dragonflies. Yesterday’s unseasonably warm weather coupled with today’s sunshine must have released a hatch of the insects. Mainly they were Common Darters with a few Black Darters too. I grabbed a few shots with the 85mm lens which performed really well, even if it didn’t allow me to get as close as a macro lens would. I also found a big clump of mushrooms that had appeared overnight. Again I think it was the weather than had encouraged them to sprout. This time it was the combination of warm weather and lots of rain, two things fungi thrive on. The mushrooms got PoD.

Back home Scamp was talking to her sister in Skye on the phone, but I didn’t hear much of the conversation because I was trying to scan in today’s sketch and post process the photos from the afternoon. We were going out to Kirsty’s dance class tonight, so I knew I had to get everything done as early as possible.

A photo of a tree beside the Luggie got ‘Explore’ on Flickr. I was quite impressed. It was almost OOC (Out Of Camera, meaning it had minimal processing). Second one in about a month!

Dinner tonight was a rather excellent fish ’n’ chips with beetroot. Not the best beetroot, but the fish made up for it. A lovely slice of cod!

There were only two couples for class tonight, but it was very useful. Plenty of room for dancing and also lots of tips from Kirsty about the little dance nuances I frequently forget. Lessons learned. She even got the chance to give us a quick and very short Quickstep routine to work on. Next week it’s Tango. Must remember a rose to hold in my clenched teeth!

Came home and opened the fridge door and the internal light went off. Oh No! Has the fridge been listening to us discussing replacing it? However, it was just the bulb that had blown. We’ll have to go out and source one tomorrow.

No other plans tomorrow. We’ll see what transpires.

 

An improving picture – 22 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Still being cautious about saying we’re on the mend, but I think we are.

It was a dull kind of day, even for a Sunday. Not really a day for going out if you didn’t need to, so we both stayed in to watch Laura Kuenssberg attack MP James Cleverly but the irresistible force met an immovable object in Nicola Sturgeon later in the program. Interesting wordplay between them.

After lunch Scamp decided on Paella for dinner and we had very little paprika in the tin. Something we’re hoping to remedy next month. For today, though, a walk down to the shops would suffice. I walked the long way, going round St Mo’s first. There was nobody about, so it was safe to crouch down behind the litter bin to take some close up shots of some fungi that’s growing out of the side of it. Two sides, actually, one south and one west. Nothing at all on the north or east sides. Something to do with the way the wind blows possibly. I don’t know. Mr Google was stumped by the fungi and thought they were sponges which I must admit they do resemble. Carried on round but saw nothing to compete with the fungi, so one of them, the crunchy looking one became PoD. I imagine the hairs you can see are dog hairs, they certainly are not mine!

Paella was passable but nothing spectacular. We ate about half of it and the rest went in the bin. I didn’t fancy making arancini with it tomorrow, besides I’m wary about reheating rice and chicken.

Spoke to Jamie later and he encouraged us to do a Covid test just to be sure. I’d suggested that to Scamp on Friday when I was feeling worn out, but she was reluctant to do it. I think it was the memory of our own bout of Covid back in the summer and having almost exactly that same feeling. Thankfully we both tested negative tonight. Heard that Simonne will have to go to hospital to have her tonsils removed after they found a possible lump on one. Nothing malignant, and it’s not an emergency, some time in the spring.

It was a warmer day today as opposed to a less cold day. The temperature got up to about 8ºc which is almost tropical for January. Hoping for a similar sort of temperature tomorrow and maybe a chance to get out for a walk together. Scamp may be having coffee with June, but that’s not confirmed yet. It’s a wait and see thing!

Heading North – 4 November 2022

Posted on by Zogman

A busy morning, then we’re off to Perth.

Scamp was out in the morning to her FitSteps class and I began my organisation. That meant I laid out the clothes I was taking, made sure I had all the camera gear I wanted and tried on my new dancing shoes for the first time. They fitted. That was a bonus!

Fairly clear in my head that I had everything sorted, I took the Sony A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s. Just for fun I took the Lensbaby 50mm lens and it did prove useful today. There was blue sky and the sun was shining. PoD became a low level shot of a couple of mushrooms poking through the larch needles.

By the time I got back Scamp had returned from her exercise class and we had lunch and got on our way. It was a beautiful day for a change with bright sunshine all the way up to Perth. Parked in the same place we used last year and booked in. Since we were on the third floor, the top floor, we took the lift. It sounded arthritic as it staggered its way down from the top and even worse on the way back up. I fully expected a pre-recorded voice to say “One at a time please!”. However it did get us to the top floor and thankfully our room was just across the corridor. Last year we almost needed a map to get from the stairs to the room and we found there was more than one way to get there. A bigger room than last year, but much the same quality of fixtures and fittings. But we didn’t come here for the view or the attractions of the room, we came to dance.

Tonight had a ‘smart casual’ dress code. We found our table and met our fellow dancers for the weekend, gave our names and instantly forgot theirs as I’m sure they did with ours. Four couples to a table, three of whom knew each other so we were left a bit out in the cold. This was going well!

Just as the food was being served, a lady at table 13 collapsed. The medics arrived promptly and although she was declared ok, she was taken to hospital for a full checkup. The food was ok, just ok, I thought. It was supposed to be a carvery, but ended up a ‘servery’. There were three items on the menu: Roast Pork, Pollock and Veg Chilli. Unfortunately when I got to the front of the queue, the roast pork had gone, one slice of the pollock was left, so it was veg chilli for us. I’d have chosen anything but veg chilli having had it three days this week already.

The dance floor was mobbed after the dinner tables and the serving areas had been cleared. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dance floor so full of folk determined to stake their claim on their square metre of wood. Too many people or too small a floor. After the first dance the floor got a bit less congested and we had our money’s worth of the dancing time. Ballroom, Latin and Sequence. I think we tried everything except Quickstep which we just haven’t mastered yet.

With sore feet we made our way up the wooden mountain to bed and slept like logs.

Tomorrow there will be a lesson or two and more dancing.

Last day of October – 31 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Not only the final day of October, but also Halloween and the last day of Inktober 2022.

It didn’t start well. At 7:30am our next door neighbour started banging nails into his wall, which is also our wall. I think he got a new hammer for his birthday and wanted to see how it worked. No point in complaining. He trained as a lawyer and became a taxi driver, or that’s the impression he gives.

It was hot last night, I was actually sweating in bed, in October. That’s just not natural. All the news reports are telling us that this weather is not normal for the time of year. Excuse me, but some of us have lived in this country for a few years now and know how hot or cold it should be, we don’t need some teenager to tell us. Y’see that’s what happens when I get woken up early by a hammer wielding ex-lawyer who’s banging nails into his wall. I just end up grumpy for the rest of the day.

Lunch was roast beef with garlic and coriander. It sounds awful, but usually it tastes really good. Not so today. The smell was starting to make me sick, but luckily I didn’t go through with it. I did chuck the offending remainder in the bin.

<Technospeak>
On the first of each month I back up my photos for that month onto a big 2TB or 4TB external hard drive. Today I thought it would be a good idea to check that everything was working after the upgrade of the OS. It wasn’t. The problem was I couldn’t see the external drive on the computer. I read about lots of different ways to circumvent the problem, but none of them worked. About an hour and a half later I found the solution. The drives were made by Seagate, and with no fanfare, I stumbled upon a patch on the Seagate site. Installed it then restarted the machine. It worked a treat. Both my external drives worked perfectly. It’s just another case of Apple wanting you to use their external drives and putting blocks in the way of you when you try to use PC hardware.
</Technospeak>

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s, partly to clear my head and partly to get a PoD. The PoD was easy. I found a patch of Candle Snuffer fungi on my way to the park. Another name for it is Stags Horn fungus, (Xylaria hypoxylon). I can almost see the Stags Horns, but have no idea what a candle snuffer looks like. Anyway, PoD found. I also got a very wide angle shot of a tree with a carpet of leaves beneath it. Look on Flickr for it.

When I got back I wasn’t feeling great. Sore back, a bit tired and aching. I took a couple of paracetamol with a cup of tea and didn’t feel much better.

It being Monday, dinner was pasta with tomato sauce and some bacon for extra flavour. Best I’ve made for ages, and I was beginning to feel better after that. Maybe the heat during the night, maybe the dodgy roast beef or maybe just being a bit cold coming home in the gloaming. I’ll take another couple of paracetamol before I go to bed.

So this is the last day of Inktober 2022. I’ll miss it. I always do, but it’s not been the same this year. Too many folk just dumping their paintings and photographs into Inktober and thinking they’ll get away with it. They won’t. They didn’t. Some complained and some just shrugged their shoulders and went to find the next new group. This is the first time, or maybe the second that I’ve had to ban someone from Inktober. I did it with mixed feelings, but they knew the rules when they joined.
Anyway, today’s sketch was of Matilda the tractor driving hen. There a nice wee nonsense story about her on the Inktober 2022 page on Flickr.

Some tidying up of photos and stuff tomorrow. Some messages to get at the shops. That’s about it. Not a lot, but enough to keep us both busy.

A wild morning – 26 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

A wild morning and a computing afternoon with a walk in the late afternoon.

Heavy rain in the morning, but by the time Scamp was driving to meet her sister, the worst of the rain had passed and the sun was beginning to shine on the hills. Scamp had put some towels in the washing machine and once they had run their cycle I was in two minds whether to hang them up on the whirly to dry in the breeze. I finally decided to just do it because although the clouds were still massing, the breaks were getting bigger.

I planted a pot of basil after the washing had been hung out. It cost virtually nothing, just a couple of quid for a packet of seeds. There is always some compost in the greenhouse, enough to plant the seeds in and lots of plastic pots. The seeds should germinate in about a week’s time and once they have their second set of leaves they can be divided up into individual pots. They seem to like to live on the window sills of the bedrooms. Not too warm, but plenty of light. Let’s hope they grow well.

<Technospeak>
With that done, I started to carve up the SSD that holds the new operating system for the iMac. I’d initially set up the SSD almost a year ago, before I knew what the APFS was all about and it ended up a confused mixture of partition and APFS filing systems. To get it cleaned out I had to be careful and take one piece out at a time and in the correct order, or I risked screwing the whole 1TB drive. Long story short, after about two hours I had the ‘easy’ stuff done. The next chunk of data was about 250GB in size and I was copying it off to an old spinning disk (scathing called “Spinning Rust by the SSD fanboys). The copy would take about an hour according to the info box. That left time for lunch with Scamp who had just arrived home.
</Technospeak>

After a plate of Scamp’s Just Soup I put a pair of boots on and went out for a walk around St Mo’s for the first time in about a week. Deep in the woods I found some delicate looking fungi growing out of a fallen tree branch. They made PoD. I’d made some changes to the colour balance in the A7 last night, but clean forgot to leave myself a note as to what I’d done. Whatever it was it seemed to have cleared away a green cast that had appeared on everything yesterday. Easily changed in post-processing, but better if it’s done in the camera instead.

Back home the backup was complete and I could continue with the last part of the clean up. I wasn’t entirely sure if the next bit would work, but was pretty sure the Mac would tell me if danger threatened. It went very smoothly in the end. I shut the machine down, then powered it up again and the operating system operated and it now had twice as much space as it had last night. Phew!

Dinner was Carrot & Lentil Curry and Scamp was chef. It was very good, but I just know it will be even better tomorrow. Curries are like that.

Prompt for today was another vague “Ego”. Now, in Latin, Ego means “I” or “Me”. That gave me the germ of an idea. After I looked through Google Images the germ became a reality, this is my interpretation of “Ego”.

No plans for tomorrow, but it looks wet … again.

Tidying up loose ends – 11 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Lots of little things to do after yesterday’s big sale.

The morning was dry but a bit dull. We’d half intended to go down to Auchinstarry and walk along the canal, but maybe we left it too long and the clouds got heavier and the the dull got duller and when I put some washing in the machine we decided to just switch it on and wait until that was done before we went out. Coffee time, then hanging up the washing and it was lunch time.

After lunch I got a message from the DVLA to say that the red car was officially off my hands and was now tender care of a member of the motor trade. That had been worrying me, but the bloke who did the paperwork was as good as his word.

We had received our covid survey boxes last week and today we were going through the usual procedure of sticking things down our throats and then up our noses. Actually, that procedure isn’t all that painful. The pain comes when you have to fill in the online form. It’s so stilted in its language and clumsy in its operation. I understand that it’s an important document, but it have to be so dull and does it have to offer to give the instructions in Welsh on almost every page? What about Gaelic speakers? Don’t they get an option too? Anyway, the physical bit was done and the online bit was completed too. So we just needed to post the box.

Scamp wanted to get a birthday card for Margie, so we headed off to Condorrat to post the boxes and get a card. We walked a long way back because, although the day had held on to that white Scottish sky, it was still dry ( I almost pressed the “S” key instead of the “W” key when I was typing ‘white’ – honest, it was an accident!). We walked the long way home and it gave us both an opportunity to stretch our legs.

I came home and changed my trainers for a pair of boots and went off to find something that wanted to be PoD. I found a little mushroom growing out of a tree stump and with a bit of jiggery pokery it became PoD.

Dinner tonight was an old favourite. Ham, cabbage and potatoes. We were discussing this and it’s never ‘bacon’, it’s always ‘ham’. Both our mums called it ‘ham’, never bacon, except if it came from Ayrshire, because that was posh and it was Ayrshire Bacon. Anyway Ham, Cabbage and Potatoes was lovely.

The prompt for today was ‘Eagle’. Now the Bald Eagle might be more common across the pond, but here in Scotland the leading raptor is the Golden Eagle. I’ve only seen one once in the wild and that was in the north of Skye. When you see one, you know it’s an eagle. It just couldn’t be anything else.

By the way, I kept forgetting to tell you, we had a duck in the sink the other day.  Honestly, a duck in the sink.  I took a few photos before it disappeared.  No photoshop, no fiddling about, just a quick (or should that be a ‘quack’) snap.  Amazing the things you see in the sink!

Tomorrow I’m probably going over to Motherwell to meet up with Alex. If the weather is fair, we’ll go for a photo walk. If it’s raining we might go for coffee and a blether. Scamp is intending to do some ‘tidying up’. That sounds ominous.

On the Green – 9 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

 

The morning was dry, but not all that bright, but we’ll take ‘dry’ and get out.

We drove down to Glasgow Green where there were big spaces in the car park. It soon became clear that the reason for the spaces was the ‘pond’ that had appeared after the days of continuous rain we’ve had. Nobody wanted to park in the ‘pond’ , and neither did we, but we were there early and found a dry parking space.

We walked down to the McLennan arch near the High Court and then turned back along the path beside the Clyde. We took some time on the suspension bridge to watch some of the rowers in their twos, fours and eights and even one or two sculls. From there we walked on to the new bridge over the Clyde that would take us to Richmond Park. Not nearly as well kept as its English cousin, it’s in a bit of a state, and has been for some time now. Half of the original park was chopped up and sold to developers who now seem to have stalled, leaving it as an ugly, half finished building site. The pond is clogging up with litter and other kinds of detritus. Still, it doesn’t stop the model boat builders who were there today showing off their boats. That was the good part of the pond. We walked round the less well maintained section where there is a jungle, honestly that’s the only way to describe it, a jungle on an island in the middle of the pond. Ignored by the council, because it would cost too much to maintain. False economy, because it will just get worse with every year that passes.

We crossed back over the Clyde and walked past more building work on a piece of spare ground. This one looked more organized with proximity detectors to prevent intrusion. I photographed one that looked like a robot. Maybe it photographed me too! After a while we were recrossing our steps back to the car park where that big puddle was still guarding a few parking places.

Back home I decided it was time I cut my hair. It took longer than I thought, even with two clippers and Scamp to help me. It’s great to have a shower and have dry hair after a few minutes.

Dinner tonight was Seabass with roast veg and roast potatoes. Eaten while we watched a very strong Japanese GP which Verstappen won. Also, after a few a few scratched heads by the officials, he was also crowned World Champion because of an infringement by Le Clerc that dropped the Ferrari driver down to third place. Verstappen never seems to win a clear victory, but he did deserve today’s award.

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard how he may have moved to his new company at the right time. Good luck to Simonne on her half marathon on Saturday.

Today’s Inktober prompt is “Nest”.  My sketch is of some wee hatchlings, what we in Larky used to call ‘Scuds” in their nest.  Not the best sketch in the world, but done and posted. PoD went to a “Meeting of Mushrooms”.  With all the UK parties having their conferences just now, maybe the mushrooms are thinking about having their own political party.  They couldn’t do much worse!

Tomorrow we’re going to see a man about a car.

Out looking for leeks – 2 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

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.

 

Another day of dropping drops into eyes – 19 February 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Or rather, eye, singular. The hard work probably starts next week when, hopefully there will be two to do!

Scamp wanted out today. She was fed up with hanging around the house and decided she’d risk a walk to take her new eye on a stroll around ‘The Policies’. We had a short jaunt around the torture machines then back up the hill and home. I think she enjoyed being out looking like a film star trying to look incognito with her dark sunglasses. They were necessary today. The optician at the hospital had recommended she wear them even if the sun wasn’t all that bright and it was really sparkly bright today, shining out of a blue sky and, because there was no wind, it wasn’t too cold either.

Back home and just before lunch, the second lot of drops went in. I remember having to put them in myself. Just getting excited about the clarity of what I was seeing, then having to put up with this milky white liquid blurring everything. It was only for a few minutes, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying.

After lunch I left Scamp to watch one of her Netflix movies and went out for a walk with the A6000. I’d taken the A7 in the morning walk, but didn’t take very many photos. The A6000 actually works really well with both the 50mm macro and the 28-70mm kit lens. Also, it’s about half the weight of the A7. I got a few photos, but my favourite, and PoD, was probably the fungus growing on an old dead tree. I say probably, because I’m thinking that one of the photos in the forest would look good too with a bit of work.

Dinner tonight was Fish ’n’ Chips from the Chippy in Condorrat. It was meant to be a Golden Bowl tonight, but they are closed for a fortnight for Chinese New Year and don’t open until Tuesday. Bummer. But the fish and chips were lovely. Two haddock fillets done in breadcrumbs. A ‘Special Fish’ in Scotland. It tastes great the first time, not so much the second and third time. After dinner, more drops. Then we watched To Catch A Thief. An ancient (1955) sort of whodunnit. The car chases were hilarious. Worth watching for that alone.

Today’s prompt was I Love Paris. I based the Sacré-Cœur sketch on a photo I’d taken in Paris in October 2003. I doubt if it will have changed much in the intervening 18 years or so. The line of trees will probably have grown a bit and there might be a few more tourists around it, but the building itself won’t have changed. I remember being mightily impressed with the architecture in Paris, although this one looks like a fire sale in a turret factory. “Room for just one more little turret?” “Yes, I think we can squeeze one in.” Still a beautiful building. I deliberately omitted the sky to let the building have pride of place. Also, I deliberately left in the pencil construction lines.

Tomorrow looks like it might be wet for most of the day. I believe the rain is practising outside as I write this. We’ll see what we get!