Category: Garden

Embra – 11 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Today Scamp suggested we get the train to Embra which I thought was an excellent idea given that the sun was shining and it wasn’t raining.

We drove to the station and along with half of Cumbersheugh got on the train to Embra (the other half were getting the train to Glasgow!). We were lucky and managed to get a seat across the passage way from each other. A family outing filled the other seats. I was sitting with the three kids who were all on iPhones and Scamp was with the mums and a bloke who, like us, was not in the family group. Scamp seemed to be enjoying being in charge of passing sweets from the mums to the kids and back again. I was listening to an interesting podcast about Mozart, the boy genius. With serious discussion and David O’Doherty providing the light entertainment. It passed the half an hour the journey took.

We did our usual walk up the hill from Haymarket and through Ladyfield to Nero for a coffee and a pastry. Then, instead of heading up and over to the Grassmarket, we went downhill and along to Princes Street Gardens. Walked round a display of high resolution photos about Space and listened to a piper who could play! I didn’t know that pipers could actually hold a tune for a whole series of for more than one piece of music. Thankfully he didn’t play The Sound of Silence. If that means nothing to you, see Monday’s blog.

We walked up through St Andrew’s Square and into the strange new shopping mall. We had a look at the tech in JL and came out without seeing anything we’d put money down for. Walked along George Street and down Rose Street to the end where Scamp was sure she knew where Whighams restaurant was. She was right and I’m glad she found it. It must be about five years since we’ve walked down the stairs to this restaurant, but it’s changed little in that time. Lovely lunch. Scamp had Goan vegan curry of cauliflower, butternut squash and chickpeas. I had tomato and prawn linguini. She had a glass of wine and I stuck to water. Even the coffee was good!

We walked back to the station via Waterstones, but I didn’t see anything that tempted me. Just managed to get the train back to Croy with minutes to spare and again, we got a seat across the passage from an american woman, a Scottish man, presumably her husband and two obnoxious children.

Drove home via Calders for Scamp to get a pot to plant out her newest acquisitions. Little pink flowers she’ll tell me the name of, and a bunch of pansies.

PoD was an arty photo taken from Ladyfield looking out over Embra with the curve of a concrete balcony sweeping overhead. Like I say, arty!

Watched the penultimate Apprentice, the interviews and found it less than riveting.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending to go to FitSteps and I may just relax for an hour and read.

A Dull Day in Scotland – 10 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

This is getting boring and repetitive, but … it rained all day today. There, it’s said. I didn’t even attempt a walk, it was so bad.

Instead of a walk, we cleared another corner of the bedroom which will allow us to slide the bed forward and get the back wall and the wall facing the window painted on the next wet day, which looks like it will be Friday if the weather fairies are correct and tomorrow if they are not.

Because of the weather, I did some catching up with correspondence and then had a look inside the laptop I’m typing on. When I say “inside”, I’m talking digitally, using a piece of software called Daisy Disk which scans my MacBook and finds how much space I have left and where the biggest pieces of clutter are. The SSD that is the storage for my Mac is nominally 512GB and Daisy Disk found that I’ve got just over 50GB free. That’s roughly a tenth of the total free space. That’s not good. A sensible size is around 25% of the total space. My SSD needs to go on a a diet and fast. Work starts next week.

I managed to get out and grab a few shots of the Pieris in the garden, in the rain. Its full name is Pieris Forest Flame and it is living up to that name this year. Last year we thought we’d lost it when it suffered badly during the two weeks we were on a cruise and no rain fell for all of that fortnight. We often complain about the amount of rain we get in Scotland, but it’s better than dying of thirst. Good to see it’s back to full strength. What looks like red petals are actually young leaves. The flowers are inconspicuous little waxy white flowers that look like Lily of the Valley. Just the leaves made PoD.

Dancing in Kirsty’s class was Tango. We had a new couple in the class, one English and one Scottish. Maybe a little younger than us. I couldn’t fathom the tango moves at all to start with, then muscle memory came in to play and things fitted together again. I think it’s doable. It’s just a lot faster than we are used to. Love all the flicks and kicks!

Drove home through torrential rain and our entertainment tonight was Glow Up, where the MUAs (Make Up Artists) compete to produce the most ridiculous make up. Just a bit of fluff.

Hoping to get out somewhere tomorrow in the dry. A little bit of sunshine wouldn’t go amiss too. Hope you’re listening, weather fairies.

Windy and Wet – 6 April 2024

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It was a strange day. No dance class in the morning, but a monthly dance at night.

We didn’t really settle down all day. It was a wild day. Very high winds and heavy rain lashing at the windows. In a fairly dry spell I took some photos of flowers in the garden to make a collage just in case I didn’t get out again!

One brightener was the bud on the Split Rock began to open and almost opened fully, but not quite. Maybe tomorrow when the weather is supposed to be a bit calmer it will open up and show its petals.

We did walk down to the shops in the afternoon to get some food to take to the dance and a pizza for an early dinner. Afterwards I went for a walk in St Mo’s with the A6500 and a couple of lenses. I also took my ziplock plastic bag that provides the camera and lens with a bit of protection from the rain. I got some photos of the clouds scudding across the skies, but nothing I was happy with.

After dinner we got ready and had an interesting drive through the wind and rain to Brookfield where we were surprised at how few tables were spaced round the room, much less than we expected. We shared a table with Barry, Cath, Niahmat and Audrey and a couple of others. That brightened the evening! It also kept us well fed with the amount of food Barry produced from what seemed a bottomless bag!

The dance finished just after 10.30pm which is much earlier than we’ve had in previous dances. However it gave us straight run home along the M8 and the Kingston Bridge. We eventually got home and parked just after 11pm.

PoD was the collage of garden flowers. Not my best work, but fitted the bill.

Tomorrow we’re hoping for a bit day that’s at least partially dry with less disruptive winds. Too much to ask for? We’ll wait and see.

 

The beginning of Summer – 31 March 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Allegedly the beginning of British Summer Time. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Having said that, today was a lovely day if you were in the sun and out of the wind. Unluckily for us, we were working in the back garden which is still in the shade and in the canyon the wind whistles through. Today’s task was to clean out the wee plastic greenhouse, clean and de-gunk the things that were going back in and to bundle up the pots and things that were going out. I spent most of the time scrubbing and cleaning the tools and the ‘keeper’ pots. I ended up smelling of Jeyes fluid. But as Scamp said, the greenhouse, which doubles as a shed, was looking a lot better. How long it will stay that way I wouldn’t like to say.

We started just after lunch and were finished much quicker than I’d anticipated. With the changing of the clocks very early this morning we ‘lost’ an hour, but had a lot more light in the early evening. It’s good to see the evenings lengthening, especially if we get some sun too. Scamp was delighted to see that some of her fritillaries in the front garden had flowers. We grew them some years ago, but couldn’t sustain them over the winter. Hopefully we’ll have more luck with these ones. I need to get some stakes cut to help prop up the old apple tree in the back garden. We found some likely pieces of wood today that might be strong enough for the job. Probably two will be enough to take the load, especially once the fruit starts to set.

I took a walk to St Mo’s later in the afternoon and one of the first shots I took got PoD. I thought it was just a big bud on a branch of a tree, but later noticed the telltale sign shaped like a horses hoof that tells you it’s a Horse Chestnut. Quite chuffed to find that there’s a horse chestnut tree nearby. Something to watch out for in a few months. When I was on my way back home I spotted two butterflies, probably Peacocks. Another sign that things are warming up.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Curry made with the leftovers from yesterday’s chicken and a Spice Tailor kit. Quite rich tasting with just enough spice to brighten it up.

Spoke to Jamie and heard that they now have a prospective date for the works to be completed around the middle of April. Glad they’re having a short holiday in the Lakes and using half of the time to go on a map reading course. Sounds interesting and very useful for the pair of adventurers and mountaineers.

Both Scamp and I are feeling better rested now even if we were working in the afternoon. We’re still a bit drained with all that has been going on at the weekend. Hopefully a ‘normal’ week will put us back on track to be ready for summer!

Rain – 25 March 2024

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Today was the opposite of yesterday. I think it rained from morning to night. If it didn’t, then it certainly felt like it did.

We finally got round to putting the cases into the loft again to let them sleep until our next adventure needs them to carry our load to some exciting place. Not exactly sure when or where that will be, yet. Hopefully it will be somewhere. Plans were made over dinner yesterday that may come to fruition.

There wasn’t much to do today after the cases had gone we had a bit more space, especially in my room. I planted some chilli seeds Scamp had bought me. The seeds came with a big metal pot and two bags of compost. They weren’t exactly pulling out the stops with the seed allocation. Six seeds in the packet. I arranged five of them into a pentagon with the final one taking up position in the centre. (I like to be accurate with these things.) I watered them and sat them on the bookcase in the back bedroom. According to the instructions, they were to be placed in a bright place but not in direct sun. The north facing window should be ideal. Good luck little chillies.

In the afternoon, Scamp brought out her mighty steam iron and got to work ironing everything she could lay her hands on. I took that as my cue to off for a walk in the rain, with the possibility of getting some photos. I’d taken a couple earlier just as bankers in the rain. They were Bellis flowers. What we used to call “Wee Daisies” before we got all technical and Latin. I did find a couple of worthwhile shots and one of them got into Flickr, but it was the Bellis that made PoD.

Dinner tonight was another “what’s in the fridge” pasta creation. It turned out quite well, but we both agreed that it cooled down really quickly.

Watched the semi-final of Mastermind and the first semi of University Challenge. I got a few questions correct, as did Scamp.

Hoping to go and get ericaceous (acidic) compost tomorrow to pot up Scamp’s new azalea.

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Scamp – 24 March 2024

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Scamp’s Birthday today.

A lazy morning for both of us. Lots of prezzies opened and lots of smiles. Hazy phoned in the morning and I gave them space to talk while I tidied up downstairs.

After lunch Scamp wanted to get her new plants into pots and distributed round the garden. I took a camera for a walk in St Mo’s. Not a lot to be seen, but I did get some photos of a bunch of dandelions sitting on a wall and with a fence to give them some extra support.

Scamp had requested that dinner should be, Chicken & Pea Traybake, to give it its proper name, The same meal we had on Thursday. I was chef, of course, but the real cook was the oven because it did all the hard work. Dessert was Viennetta. All washed down with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Jamie and Simonne’s Christmas parcel.

Spoke to Jamie later in the day and heard that the main works seem to be finished and now the push seems to be on to get the plastering completed. The hope being that when that is finished, they can move back it full time.

We watched the final episode of this season’s Death in Paradise. The story was dragged out even more than it usually is. Lots of old faces returning for this finale. Maybe this is, as one critic wrote, the Death of Death in Paradise. We can but hope.

I think Scamp enjoyed her birthday. I really hope she did.

Tomorrow we may tidy up some loose ends.

Driving in my car – 22 March 2024

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We set out this morning to drive to Bishopbriggs to get 2 cans of green paint. We got back home four hours later with only one can.

Wild morning after a wild night. Strong winds driving rain and hail storms all day. Got to B&Q and found the paint. Unfortunately they only had one can of silk finish, but loads of cans of matt. We bought the single can and left with that, some sealing strips for the shower and some sealant remover, also for the shower. Scamp was also looking for some flowers for her tub that hangs on the back fence, but they didn’t have the mixed pansies she was looking for.

I suggested that we drop in at Calders on the way home to get some pansies there. Again, there were no trays of mixed flowers, just plain colours. When Calders took over what was the Tesco owned Dobbies garden centre they set about enlarging the shop and the plant area. Today it’s become massive. The down side is that the folk who used to work there have almost all left now and it’s teenagers who are in charge of the plants and most of them have little or no gardening knowledge. The old shop itself was a bit crowd, but now it’s crammed full of display stands, to the point where it’s becoming a fire hazard. If there was a fire in that building, it would only need one person to panic, stumble into one of these displays and the exits would be blocked. We both felt uncomfortable in it.

Anyway, no pansies were for sale today, so I coaxed Scamp into going to Torwood garden centre, near Falkirk, just another 10 miles or so along the motorway. We still didn’t get the pansies, but she did get some Tiarella flowers which, apparently we say at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens a few years ago. Pretty wee pink flowers. We also got a Geisha Orange azalea to replace one we had a few years ago and also a packet Cerinthe and also Basil seeds. We stayed at Torwood for our lunch. Just a bite to eat in the middle of the day.

We drove home through more rain and hail and pulled off just after Castlecary to go to Tesco for the makings of tonight’s Fish Curry the recipe courtesy of Jamie. Just as well we took the slip road off, because ahead of us the main motorway ground to a halt. This looked more serious than the usual late Friday afternoon moving carpark. But we were off the motorway and driving up to Tesco where I spent about 20 minutes wandering round the shelves looking for Edamame beans. I’d given up and went to the checkout, but asked the lady on the till if she knew where we’d find them. She did, and got a runner to go and bring a pot of them. I was so grateful for that bit of help and now we just had to drive home, almost four hours after we set out.

Back home the skies cleared and the sun shone. I didn’t have to be asked twice. I put my boots on and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Dramatic skies all around and the occasional shower of rain but I did get a PoD which is a view across the pond to more incoming rain clouds.

Scamp made the dinner and I processed the photos. The curry was very tasty but it’s been repeating on me all evening. Other than that and a lack of salt it looks like another keeper from Jamie & Simonne. Thank you.

Tomorrow’s dance class was hanging in the balance, but it’s going to go ahead. More driving, although today’s was self inflicted. Hopefully the weather will have calmed down by then.

Painting – 18 March 2024

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Yes more painting, but no sketching first. Straight into the painting.

Not watercolour this time, nor oils. This was plain old fashioned decorating and the mess that follows. Scamp was out in the morning having coffee with Isobel, so that gave me about two hours to get the painting done. That was my secret plan. We’d discussed the possibility of painting our bedroom, but thought it would be better to start with the hall. The hall is a fairly small area to paint, but with a few hard to reach places tucked away in corners, so it had its challenges. It only took about an hour to get most of it done, then another half hour to get the ‘tricky’ bits finished. By that time, Scamp had returned and between us we got the kitchen tidied, but not before I took a couple of photos just to record the work. One of them became PoD. The walls in the hall have now dried and look better for their fresh coat of paint. The colour, just in case you feel inspired, was Apricot White.

I don’t know if it was something I ate, or the smell of the paint lingering in the house, but I felt a bit sick in the afternoon. I suppose I should have gone for a walk to clear my head, but instead I had a long hot shower because I knew I’d be aching tomorrow and the hot water might just stave off the worst of it.

While I was showering, Scamp was out in the raised bed, chopping down the remaining kale stalks that had gone to seed. Now we have to decide if we’re going to have a raised bed again or if it’s worth the bother. I’m not sure if it is worth making a new one, or even buying a purpose made one. For all I put into it, it’s a fair expense and maybe the space could be better utilised. The old one certainly won’t last another year. It’s about 10 years old and rotting away. We’ll have to discuss the possibilities and make a decision soon.

No plans for tomorrow for either of us, whether secret or not.

Just another Sunday – 17 March 2024

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A dull day with some rain and some sun. If you hit it right, it was good and if not you got wet. I, for once hit it right.

Scamp was desperate to get stuff cleared out in the garden. She cut down the Hydrangea because there were new shoots starting to appear at ground level and she wanted to encourage the growth. Next on the chopping list was the Penstemon which got a quick haircut because it was getting untidy and needed the crop.

I was more adventurous and went for a walk through the woods down by the main road and found some cherry blossom on the trees. I thought I was going too early, but it turned out I was almost too late as the petals from the flowers were covering the ground. I did get some photos, but I was kicking myself that I hadn’t taken the LensBaby 35 because the distortion it produces works well with blossom. Maybe tomorrow. Startled two deer on my walk too, but they saw me long before I saw them. PoD turned out to be a Larch Pineapple with a raindrop right on top!

Spoke to Jamie later in the day and heard about the progress on the house. It seems to be going well, despite the best efforts of English Heritage. Good to hear that the roof is now on and it’s mainly the internal plastering that need finishing.

No real plans for tomorrow. Well, I have a secret plan and Scamp is out for coffee with Isobel.

 

 

Out to lunch for some, but not for all – 14 March 2024

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Scamp was out to lunch with her pal today. I had stuff to do at home.

I drove Scamp up to the town centre and then came home via Tesco for my own lunch and to pick up some meds that had arrived in Boots while we were sunning ourselves in foreign climes. Then it was back to working out what we did, when and what new sights we’d seen since the last time we were in Fuerteventura. Actually not a lot had changed overall, but of course there were new developments as there always are when you haven’t visited a place for four or five years.

It has been a dull wet day with no real chance to grab much in the way of photos. What I did do was wrap the 24-105mm lens in clingfilm to keep it fairly dry while still being able to access the focusing controls as I took some photos of the changes that were happening in the plants in the garden. Because it was so dull, the ISO was quite high and that meant more digital noise than I had been used to in the last week, but with help from Lightroom and ON1 Photo Raw I think I’ve minimised it. POD turned out to be new buds on the old James Grieve apple tree. It really needs another stake to shoulder the increasing weight in its boughs. Something else to add to the ‘To-Do list.

Watched the unveiling of the winning painting from this year’s Landscape Artist of the Year and was impressed with the way the artist dealt with the landscape of Orkney, but didn’t think she rendered the clouds in a meaningful way. They looked too heavy and almost abstract. Also, for something that was intended to emphasise the importance of low carbon energy, the wind turbines looked like an afterthought.
It’s true that you can’t please all the people all of the time!

Scamp and I agree that this is the first day when we’ve felt ‘normal’. It’s strange that a relaxing holiday takes so much out of you!