Category: Garden

Windy night and a windy morning – 6 December 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We didn’t fancy going anywhere today which was lucky because I still had a fair amount of tidying up to do on the computer. It’s working, but things keep changing inside its silver box. I don’t know what’s going on, but it feels as if things are settling down. I hope that’s not Famous Last Words.

Leaving the computer aside, there were a few tasks in the garden needing seen to. Not a lot, but the sunflower that turned its back on us needed to be chopped down and the assorted miniature sunflowers around the edge of the raised bed had to go too. Not much else, but the place just looked a bit better after that. I passed my secateurs over to Scamp and she chopped down the dead stems of the geums.

After lunch which for Scamp was turkey sandwich and for me it was a sandwich with pastrami and mustard. It’s a long time since I’ve had pastrami. Anyway, after lunch I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was only about 2.40pm when I went out, but you’d have believed it was about 5.40. I don’t think the sun shone at all to day.

There were thin pickings out around St Mo’s, but my favourite by far was a shot I took on the way there. It’s a bush called the Snowberry and you can see from the photo that it’s well named. It produces the white berries in the autumn but they don’t last long and seem to degrade quickly.

When I got home I worked on the photos for a while before starting to get ready to go out to Bombay Dreams for dinner with June and Ian. I was looking forward to one of their famous curries. We had noticed that the quality of their take-away meals had slipped a fair bit the last time we’d ordered one, but tonight the service was really slow and my pakora was only part cooked. Portions were smaller than they used to be, but many restaurants are doing that now to avoid bigger hikes in their prices. However, the restaurant was about a quarter full which is not what you expect to see on a Friday night. Waiters constantly asking if we wanted more drinks became annoying too. This was not the Bombay Dreams we used to visit fairly regularly a few years ago.

Worse was yet to come. We’d been told there would be a special karaoke event. It was awful. One bloke attempting to encourage the participants to come up and sing, by singing off-key himself, there was no attempt to segue into the next track, just stopping in mid track and changing the music. I could go on, but I won’t. A totally wasted night. I don’t think we’ll ever be back. What a shame.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing at night. The last Evening Dance of the year. Wind and rain forecast! No karaoke!

We start the battle again tomorrow – 4 December 2024

Posted on by Zogman

My parting words yesterday were “… I will let the whole thing cool down until we start the battle again tomorrow …” and that’s basically what I did.

I have two SSDs which can run the iMac. One seems to be damaged, or mismanaged in some way, but the other, the older one, does work, although the operating system isn’t as up to date as the dodgy one. Before I went to bed last night I swapped the dodgy one for the less up to date one and it just worked.

It was a foggy morning and we drove up to Calders to get some compost and plastic pots to plant out some cuttings Scamp had ‘acquired’ from Jackie. She, Scamp, was booked to have her hair cut later in the morning , so on the way home we drove past Condorrat, where the hair dressers is, to ensure the four way traffic lights wouldn’t block the entrance to the hair dressers. They didn’t, thankfully. On the way past St Mo’s park the fog was turning to mist and rising very photogenically from the surface of the pond.

We parked at the house and I grabbed a camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Beautiful light and excellent shadows from the trees in the park. Plenty of subjects and when I’d done one circuit of the pond, I came upon a group of about a dozen Canada geese paddling in one of the channels that had been dug to increase the cover for the waterfowl. They took one look at me then turned a blind eye to me. I think they were pretending that if they didn’t look at me, I wasn’t there. I decided to do the same after I’d taken half a dozen photos, and walked on without looking in their direction.

Back home I uploaded the photos to the laptop, so at least I would have them saved somewhere on a computer and could retrieve them sometime.

Of course I couldn’t leave well alone and, started looking in detail at what was happening with the dodgy drive. None of it made sense and the more I looked the worse it became, and the more fankled I became.

The bright spot of the day was dinner which was Mince ’n’ Tatties. It gave me heartburn later, but that was a small price to pay for such a lovely meal. Thanks Scamp.

At night we went dancing in Kirsty’s class. Tonight was the last class of the year and hopefully the last time we’ll be on that tiny wee dance floor. Every dance tonight was a sequence dance, starting with the Sambarina which I hate. Then it was on to other dances. Some just silly wee dances, but some real sequence dances we knew. A lot of folk gave up on them but about six of us, three couples managed to finish them. Actually, if you ignore Sambarina, it was a good night.

Drove home and watched the penultimate episode of Shetland then we both went to bed to read for a while after another disappointing day.

Still no photos to show, but hopefully I’ll process some on the old drive tomorrow..

Tomorrow we may also go in to Glasgow.

Let it Snow – 23 November 2024

Posted on by Zogman

This is probably the first snow of the year, and it’s still lying.

I woke about 6am and there was no snow. I surfaced again about 7am and everywhere was white. The temperature had risen just enough to be in the snowy zone. Not long afterwards, Scamp’s phone started ringing. Every one a cancellation. It only took about 20 minutes for the final decision to cancel today’s dance class to be announced. We didn’t have a lot of snow, but we were both more worried about what we’d meet on the way to Brookfield and even more apprehensive about the conditions we’d drive into on the way back. It was a relief to snooze or read for an extra half hour in bed.

The snow continued on and off for most of the morning. I tried another variation on yesterday’s photo of the birds. This time, just the arial antics of the starlings dangling from the cages with the suet blocks on the tree branches, but none of them were clear enough for me.

After a plate of soup with a slice of toast for lunch, the snow stopped for the day and I got today’s real PoD which was a water drop hanging from a branch of the climbing rose at the front door. For once I captured the water drop forming a lens through which I could see an upside down but clear image of the house behind ours. That was easily the best shot of the day. I had thought of going out to get some snowy pictures, but decided what I had would be good enough. Besides, it was beginning to rain.

Dinner was Kashmiri chicken curry from a Holy Cow concentrate that claimed it was a heat level 2 of 5. It lied. It was very, very hot. I don’t want to know how hot a heat level 5 would be. Probably hot enough to melt the plastic bag it came in!

We watched Franco Colapinto demonstrate how to completely destroy a £12 million F1 race car in about 10 seconds. When the camera turned to views of the mechanics you could read their minds that said “Bang goes any chance of a couple of beers tonight.”

We will wait until tomorrow before we make any decisions on where we’re going, if we’re going anywhere!

Another cold morning – 22 November 2024

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Scamp caught the bus to meet Isobel in the morning, while I took the easy option and edited this week’s photos. I managed to pull four or five shots up from the depths of this week’s efforts. Usually I’m complaining about there being no direct lighting, but the harsh light from the low sun was a challenge in the last seven days. Never happy!

While I was making my coffee later in the morning, I spotted a blackbird pecking away at half an apple sitting on the compost bin. I grabbed my camera, but by the time I got back to the kitchen it had flown off. I left my camera waiting, just in case it came back. I think it might have because the apple was now lying on the ground. The blackbird might have gone, but five sparrows were now having a communal bath in the warm water of the bird bath I’d poured a jug of hot water into the frozen bird bath and by the time I’d had a quick look round the garden and replaced the fallen apple, the water was cool, but no longer frozen.

Once I was inside again and the coast was clear, the birds returned. I spotted half a dozen sparrows, a couple of dunnocks, two blue tits, a robin and a gang of rowdy starlings. Our garden must have been the only place for miles around where they could drink and have a splash. Poor wee things.

When Scamp returned, we walked over to Broden’s for what has become a Friday lunch. Not every Friday, but usually every second one, especially in the winter. Bumped into George Taylor in Broden’s, sneaking a pint after getting some messages!

When we were walking home there was just the hint of rain in the wind. The first rain we’ve had in about a week, which is probably another reason the birds find our garden a real asset.

Scamp took pity on them and hung up a couple of holders with slabs of fat and seeds inside. It wasn’t long before the starlings found them and started squabbling to be first to stock up on the food.

PoD was a robin. Maybe the one that was waiting impatiently for its turn at the bath.

The weather fairies are predicting wild weather when Storm Bert rolls in tomorrow bringing wind, snow, thunder-snow and rain. They have been warning about it for the last week, so we’ll take the warning seriously.

I’m not sure if we’ll be going to Brookfield tomorrow. It will definitely be a case of “It depends on the weather”

A working day – 30 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

I was making a bow tie today and Scamp was gardening.

In the morning, Scamp decided to go shopping by herself. I started planning out the making of the bowtie.

I was using what some Quilters and Crafters call “Fat Quarters” and the fabric was cotton with a repeating Star Wars stormtroopers patter n because I thought it would fit in well with an upcoming “Black & White” evening dance.

But first, Scamp had returned and it was time for lunch. Banana sandwich for Scamp, Sunday’s stew reheated for me. Then it was back to the bow tie.

After carefully measuring a previously successful bow tie, and checking it twice as all good craftspeople do, I cut out the four patterns needed for the tie. It was then I realised that maybe I should have been more careful with the orientation of the ‘Stormies’, but it was too late now.

I ironed on the interfacing which stiffens the tie on one side only of a matching pair of parts. From then on it was just a case of joining pairs of parts together (right sides together), stitching all round the perimeter apart from a pinkie length of gap on one side and easing the entire bow tie right through the gap and shaking it out. Ironed it next then sewed up the gap. Then it was time to see if it fitted, and if the storms would be sitting right side up. First attempt was a bit of a disaster when the tie unknotted itself. Second attempt was a success. I’d even managed to get the Stormies sitting the right way up!!! Delighted.
Although, if it had been Sewing Bee, the participants would have sewn a full outfit in the time it took me to make a bow tie!

Scamp had been strimming the edging of the front grass and was tidying the pots and together we put them back in their places.

There was just enough light left by then to have a walk in St Mo’s. Today’s PoD came from there and is Red Osier Dogwood (Cornus sericia)

Today’s sketch prompt was “Violin”. Not much leeway there, but luckily I’d drawn one before, although this is a poor comparison when viewed with the original. Still, it’s finished and just about to be posted.

Lovely piece of haddock for dinner tonight. Great fat chunky pieces of fish with some chips. That’s a good midweek dinner.

We were dancing Paso La Paz tonight. Lots of stamping of feet and posturing. The jury is still out on whether it was taught correctly or not. I’m not going to be drawn into that argument.

We may go dancing tomorrow or we may not. We’ll wait and see.

Dancin’ – 26 October 2024

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Off to Brookfield on a sunny morning in October wondering what the torturers oops, teachers would have in store for us today.

We didn’t have to wait long. The menu started with a Queen of Hearts Rumba we thought we knew, but obviously didn’t. After the second one we more or less had it.

Next was the October Waltz which was new to about half the class and nearly caused a fist fight between me and Scamp. As it happened, for one I was right. It was all about one back step which Scamp said I didn’t have to do, but on review later, I did have to do or I’d end up starting on the wrong foot. It was a simple wee dance with figures we already knew, just not in the order we were to do them in.

To cool things down, we did a Midnight Jive. Not my favourite by a long way, but at least we didn’t argue about the steps, because they are burned indelibly in to our brains.

The next dance was a Cha-Cha which deteriorated into a free-style Cha-Cha and one we stumbled through, or to be more correct, I stumbled through.

One more sequence dance and we were free to go. Can’t remember its name, but that’s no loss.

Drove home over the Kingston Bridge which allowed us to travel at 40mph all the way over. The easiest drive home from Brookfield we’ve ever had, I think.

The sunshine we’d had in the morning stayed with us well into the afternoon, but later everything dulled down and it felt like the sky was preparing for evening. PoD was a photo of a strawberry flower growing in the garden. I don’t believe it will ever produce fruit that will ripen, but the deep red flower held my interest.

Today’s sketch was Camera. I didn’t try anything fancy, like the camera obscura I was going to draw and instead just drew a fair representation of my A7iii with the kit lens that lives on it these days.
Half of the time I had one eye on the sketch and one eye on the progress of the dancers on Strictly, but, it being Halloween week, the antics of Craig Revel-Horwood and Anton Du Beke as two evil twin sisters really stole the limelight from the other two.

Up and out fairly early tomorrow because I’m booked for my combined Flu and Covid Jags. Oh what fun. At least I get an extra hour in bed because the clocks go back at 2am tomorrow. Scamp had her jags last week.

 

Rain, Sun and a gentle Wind – 22 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

So, a decent amount of Autumn weather, but it’s sad when the highlight of the day is going to Tesco for ‘The Messages’.
That’s what we did. We drove to Tesco in the afternoon and got the messages. Just a Monday shop on a Tuesday. Nothing fancy apart from four ice lollies and a bottle of wine.

I was determined to get a PoD and it turned out to be one of a few photos from the garden. A pink Astrantia trio looking good and brightening up the border.

Although we had a dull day, it was good to see some folk had a much better one. Hazy and Neil posted the first photos of their new car.  A nice bright red.  Hope it’s a good one and you get lots of use from it.

The prompt for today was ‘Camp’ and although someone in the house suggested I should draw a man with a limp wrist, and in fact some people drew that as a subject, I kept it PC and drew a well worn tent, with a coupe of patches, looking sodden in a rain soaked field. Another sketch that was good fun to draw.

Dinner tonight was an old faithful, Tuna Pasta. We both agreed it was lovely. The ice lollies, not so much.

Tomorrow we might go out somewhere, maybe for lunch, with just the chance that I can get some photos, that weren’t taken in the garden or St Mo’s.

Dancin’ – 19 October 2024

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But only dancin’ in the morning.

Tonight there was a dance in Brookfield in the evening, but we were restricting ourselves to only dancing in the class in the morning.

We started with a couple of waltzes, a White City Waltz and the Four Season Waltz. Both fairly easy, but still with some rough corners to rub off. Next was a Quickstep which I struggled with until Scamp explained that it wasn’t as difficult as I was making it. As usual I was getting myself in a knot. One of my problems is that I am the photographer. When there is a new sequence dance to learn or a ballroom or latin dance, in fact, any dance with a demo, I’m the one who films it and then the two of us can share it. The downside of this helpful bit of tech is that I don’t really watch the dance as it’s being done, I’m too busy getting a decent film made of it. That means when we “couple up” I have no idea what comes first, what foot I’m on and which direction I’m going. Well, that’s my excuse anyway. Eventually I did come to grips with most of the first part of the dance. Strangely, the quickstep is one of the dances we both like and one of the dances we’d like to become better at, but it never works out for some reason.
Anyway, after a while we started on some more sequence dances to finish off the class and the pressure eased considerably.

Drove home via the Kingston Bridge and traffic while not being in danger of breaking the speed limit of 50mph, was moving quite steadily for a change and we made good time. Drove to Tesco for bread and milk and then stopped for jam doughnuts at M&S. Awful jam doughnuts. I’ve a good mind to take them down to the shop and ask them to eat one, just to see how disgusting they were.

Back home I got PoD which is Schoolgirl flowering outside the front window. Taken through the window, the quality is surprisingly good. I wanted a shot of it and of my giant sunflower which is growing in the raised bed and is well over 2m tall with one flower that for some cantankerous reason points away from the garden! I thought it would be a good idea to photograph them before the first named storm of the season, Ashley blunders in. I hate strong winds.

Watched Strictly in the evening and tried to spot the dummy who would be leaving tomorrow. Dinner came from Golden Bowl, because nobody wanted to cook.

Today’s prompt for Inktober was ‘Ridge’. I don’t suppose this is technically a ridge, but it is a fair representation of Ben Bodach on Skye with the smaller Ben Cailleach in the background. The names sound authentic, but a Bodach is an old man in Gaelic and a Cailleach is an old woman. Who’s going to tell?

Tomorrow Storm Ashley visits us. It may be hang on to your hats time.

Another dreich day to begin with – 13 October 2024

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I think the temperature was around 3ºc when I was making breakfast, but that was from reading the temperature directly from the sensor at the outside of the back door.

Something had gone awry with the wireless connection between the sensor and the display. The sensor hangs on the door jamb at the back of the house and the display lives in the nice warm house itself. The sensor seemed to be reading, but the display wasn’t receiving. The repair is simple. It’s just a case of removing the old batteries and replacing them with new ones. The calibration isn’t so easy, although we’ve done it many times since we bought this usually trustworthy bit of kit about 30 years ago(?). A long time ago, anyway. After reading the instructions carefully, it all came flooding back and, as we watched the temperature drop outside the back door, the internal display followed it. Success!

Shocked to hear that Alex Salmond had died yesterday. Sixty nine is no age at all these days. I never really liked him, but he did seem to have the best interests of the nation at his heart. Such a shame.

I was staring into space after fixing the temperature gauge when I noticed the sun had crept round to light up the sunflowers Scamp had arranged in a vase. They really glowed in the sunlight, so I grabbed the A7 and took half a dozen, ok, nearer a dozen photos. One of them made PoD. Nice to see a bit of sunshine to brighten our day.

After an elegant lunch of fried cloutie dumpling, fried bacon and a fried egg I girded my loins and put on my boots, fleece and gloves and marched into the garden to do battle with the Teasels and Buddleia, then chopped them into easily transportable chunks that I could bag ready to go into the skips tomorrow. It really was cold and the spines in the teasels would have ripped my hands to pieces were it not for the gloves.

Jackie phoned Scamp just as I was debating a walk in St Mo’s just in case the sunflower photos wouldn’t quite cut the mustard once they’d been processed. I was halfway round St Mo’s when I realised I didn’t have my phone. It’s so strange and disconcerting when you realise you don’t have your phone with you. I just feel so disconnected from everything just because my lump of plastic, glass and some ’tronics isn’t in my pocket. I walked back and heard all about the goings on with the “Gorgeous wee baby” up in Skye.

Dinner tonight was Burrata and Tomatoes with Basil as a starter, followed by leftover Chicken breast and Spinach made into a pie with Potatoes on the side. Dessert was Apple slices in pastry. I thought it was lovely. Scamp wasn’t impressed with her work. Never satisfied!

Spoke to Jamie later and heard his planned holidays climbing mountains in Arran and later in 2025 a wedding in the highlands. We’d been planning holidays too. Some time in the new year hopefully, a week or so in the Canaries would be nice.

PoD was indeed,  the sunflower in the sun. Today’s prompt for Inktober was another uninspiring “Horizon”. What is the horizon, but a curved line that the human eye sees as a straight line. I gave a simplistic answer to a simple prompt, as you see here. The prompts this year are tedious.

I think I may be taking some garden refuse over to the skips tomorrow if the weather is good.

 

A busy day – 1 October 2024

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Lots done today, but lots more still to do.

Today was the first day of October and that usually means a lot of work. When you add in a hundred odd beginner sketchers trying to post their pictures in Inktober 2024 that starts today too, it becomes a bit hectic.

After I’d read the first few comments and fixed some Inktober problems, then had time to look at the sketches it was time to drive up to Jim Dickson’s garage to get someone to have a look at the blue car’s tyres and give me a price for them. I agreed the price and was told the tyres would be with me tomorrow (Wednesday). I’d already dropped Scamp off at the town centre where she was going to have coffee with Isobel. That left me some time on my own. I used that time to post my first Inktober 2024 sketch and to tidy up some of the problems that had cropped up with people lost as to how to post etc.

I got a message that Scamp was ready to come home and picked her up at the town centre where she won a prize by getting a bag of rolls and also well fired ones to boot. That was lunch sorted.

I like to be ahead of the game with Inktober and knew I had a busy month ahead, so I started investigating the possible solutions for day 2. I couldn’t decide what to do with the prompt, which was ‘Discover’, but if I added a ‘y’ to the end and made it Discovery, that was the name of one of the first Space Shuttle orbiters that NASA built. All I had to do was to find a decent photo of it on Google and fifteen minutes later I had a rough sketch completed and day 2 was in the bag.

The sun was still shining but the temperature was low, so I wrapped up well and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Just walking past our row of houses I saw it. Three sparrows sat evenly spaced on the fence of the corner house. The second of two shots was the PoD. I still went for a walk and got some more shots that looked great in the viewfinder, but were poor once I’d enlarged them on the computer. The sparrows were the definite winners.

Dinner was a ‘what have we got in the fridge’ stirfry. Scamp is the past master at making this and sails through it without any problems, while I always forget one ingredient or another and have to search the shelf while the veg is burning. Oh to be organised!

Fairly early up and out tomorrow. Scamp may be meeting Shona for coffee and I’m hoping to drop the car off for its ’new boots’.