Category: Garden

That was a hot one – 14 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We’d intended getting the train to Edinburgh today, but waking late put the skids under that plan.

Instead of Edinburgh, we went shopping in Tesco. I’d a pile of books to give to Fred, because I often meet him in Tesco, but today, when I was prepared, Fred wasn’t there. Still, we did get a few things we needed and I got a Ginsters, half of which would provide my lunch.

After lunch Scamp was pruning bits off the big rowan tree at the back of the garden. She was complaining that the branches were hanging down over the pedestrian path. Then she mentioned that a bush that separates our next door neighbour from us was also becoming a bit of a nuisance and should be trimmed. I said I’d do that one and used a block of Imperial Leather soap to lubricate my old trusty panel saw and had the offending trunks and branches cut down in no time. Then we stripped the branches from the big trunks and heavier branches and piled them into one of our expanding nylon bins before chopping up the trunks and heavy branches. I volunteered to take them over to the council skips and empty the bin there. This must be pruning time, because the enormous skips were full of tree branches.

One of the reasons I volunteered was to give me a chance to get some landscape photos up at Fannyside Moor, and that’s where I headed once the chopped up tree and bush branches had been disposed of. It really was a lovely day. Blue skies and fluffy clouds with just enough of a gentle breeze to keep me cool. I did get a few landscapes and also some macro shots too, although I didn’t have a true macro lens with me.

After I came home I wasn’t feeling too good. Too much sun without a hat to provide some shade and probably not enough water as well. Scamp is always telling me I don’t drink enough water and she’s probably right. A rest outside, reading WITH a hat on let the worst of it disappear.

Scamp was making a fish curry for dinner using a Spice Tailor mix or one of its offshoots and while it wasn’t all that spicy, it had good flavour and the fish was delicious in it.

Last night we watched the first Mastermind of the new season and tonight we watched the first University Challenge. Both great standbys and so much better than Eastenders or River City. One is depressing and the other is just a packet of fairytales.

PoD turned out to be thistles entangled in barbed wire with a nice sky.

Tomorrow I’m intending taking the car in to Glasgow for its MOT, meeting Alex and hopefully bringing the car back home tomorrow night. That’s the outline plan anyway.

 

Gardening – 11 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Actually it was Scamp who was doing most of the gardening on this beautiful sunny day.

I think my contribution could be better described as “pottering”.

While Scamp was cutting the front grass and moving all the pots around herself because she knows exactly where they go and in which direction they face, while I’ll just plonk them in a spot with the same shape as the shape of the pot base. Unfortunately that doesn’t work with circular pots which have two axes of symmetry. I’ve given up offering to help, because I know it will be refused.

Anyway, while the cutting was going on, I was in the back garden photographing butterflies on the Buddleia bush. The bush has been flowering for about a month now and not one butterfly has ventured near it. Today, after I’d cut away a lot of the flowers that were going to seed, not one, but two butterflies were climbing over each other to get to this nectar rich plant. A Small Tortoiseshell butterfly got PoD.

Earlier I was spraying the big splat of seagull diarrhoea that had been dropped from height on the passenger side of the car’s windscreen. A few of scooshes of screen wash and it started to melt away quite nicely, but it left unsightly white streaks all down the bonnet. The easiest thing to do was to wash the car, and that’s what I did, the old fashioned way with buckets of water lots of detergent and a sponge. Buffed it dryish with those green mitts and left it to dry completely in the sunshine.

Back to gardening again and I emptied out our final potato bag and collected 650g of Charlotte potatoes. Scamp’s and my favourite variety. Since I had the garden table set up and the big black plastic tray, I potted up five wee chilli seedlings that were looking a bit poorly after being planted some time in the spring. I blamed the compost Tesco sold us to plant them in. It looked more like floor sweepings than compost. Anyway, they’re in better stuff now. Good compost mixed with sharp sand and Perlite for drainage. Hope they enjoy the view from the bedroom window.

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard about Simonne’s visit to the Olympics while Jamie worked from home and did some gardening. Good to hear that the green beans are growing and the cobs of corn are ripening hope the squirrels give them a chance this year.

Tomorrow I’m intending donating a thimbleful of blood for my three monthly checkup. Thunder showers are forecast for most of tomorrow.

Dancin’ again – 8 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

A day that started well, but inevitably the rain spoiled the afternoon.

Scamp was out in the morning to get her hair cut. I was stuck at home tidying up things I should have done last week. Not real things you can touch, just computer stuff. When Scamp returned looking beautiful, we got ready and drove in occasional sunshine to Glenburn. Our first tea dance in about a month.

It was more a blether than a dance. Lots of folk there, folk we hadn’t seen for ages. A few faces were missing, but this is still school holidays in Scotland and some folk had other places to go.

We did dance a fair bit. We struggled through the Four Seasons Waltz, but made a poor show in Kirsty’s Waltz Nioli. We were agreed that more practise is required. I think we danced more sequence dances that ballroom dances, mainly because the repetition in sequence means that muscle memory takes over after a while. Of course you still have to keep a watchful eye on where you are in the moves, because autopilot is not one hundred percent perfect, as we found out today.

It was a good day and I really enjoyed it. Company was good and we bumped, not literally, into a couple of folk we knew. By the time we were leaving at 3.30 the rain had drifted down from the Gleniffer Braes and a misty drizzle made driving a wee bit less enjoyable than it usually is.

Dinner tonight was an M&S stirfry. My turn to cook and for once I was quite well organised, with everything to hand more or less

By about 7 o’clock the rain had fizzled out and I was trying to get some moody shots of the wet rose leaves on the climbing rose, but for some reason, the focus ring was controlling the aperture. It happened on both cameras and I just couldn’t understand what was happening. A chance comment by one person online told me what was wrong. There is a three way switch on the Tamron that can be programmed and a month or so ago I’d set it to switch between focus and aperture control. Then I’d forgotten all about it. I pressed the button on the lens and everything went back to normal. So glad I found that because I’d have looked a proper numpty if I’d taken the lens back to the shop and told them it wasn’t working as it should!!
If none of the foregoing makes any sense, don’t worry, it’s just photog’s nonsense.

PoD was indeed a rose leaf, backlit and with raindrops still on it.

Hoping against hope for a decent day tomorrow, but it doesn’t look likely.

Wet and windy – 7 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

After yesterday’s beautiful clear skies, today was back to white skies and occasional rain showers.

The breeze was getting up too and the combination of all three gave me cause to forget any ideas of wandering the countryside looking for interesting views. I may have been completely wrong and the weather in St Mo’s microclimate might have been sub-tropical, but I didn’t think so.

We drove to Tesco, but the weather there was just the same as at home, but we got some milk and eggs and a couple of apples then drove home again. After receiving a royal wave from Sir Fred the artist as he drove away in front of us.

Lunch was beans on toast. Nothing wrong with that, but it was a measure of the day. Jackie phoned Scamp later in the afternoon and while they were having a chinwag I played around with a set of acrylic pens Fred had given me yesterday, or maybe the day before. I wasn’t really taken with them, but he had sent me a couple of pictures he had painted with them, so I felt duty bound to try them out. Maybe today just wasn’t the day for them. Instead I chanced a couple of photos during a dry spell and a Cerinthe flower made PoD. Strange purple/blue flowers that look a bit like Shrimp Plants. By switching to manual mode on the a6500 I managed to get a fast enough shutter speed and a deep enough aperture to get a couple of decent shots in the wind that was blowing.

We couldn’t decide on what to have for dinner, then one of us, probably Scamp suggested fish ’n’ chips from the chip shop. By the time we had decided to go to the chip shop, it was really too late. We decided to leave the food until we came home from dance class.

Tonight, Kirsty was revising the Rumba before turning it into a Cha-Cha, a fast one at that. Lots of lovely little twists in it that made the two routines totally different. Lovely, that is, when you could manage the switch. I think I have it now, but we’ll find out tomorrow. We’re hoping to go to the first tea dance in about a month. But back home and today, we had our fish ’n’ chips after dance class and it was delicious. I’ll probably suffer for it tomorrow, but tonight it’s fine.

Tomorrow Scamp is booked for an early session to get her hair cut, and as I said, we’re hoping to go to a tea dance in the afternoon.

Chiffchaff – 4 August 2024

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That’s what I saw this morning, although it might have been a Willow Warbler.

It was when I had filled up the birdbath in the garden that I noticed some small birds using it for their morning shower. Sparrows, Dunnocks and this other smaller pale yellow bird with a dark streak of feathers across its eye. I knew I’d seen it last year about this time and was certain it was a Willow Warbler. I grabbed the first camera I saw and put the Tamron lens on it. By the time I got back to the kitchen window it had disappeared, but the other birds were still there, having a great time splashing in the water. I took a few shots of them, but kept one eye open for the new bird. It appeared working its way along the rail of the fence and behind the Rowan tree. I’m not usually the most patient person, but I waited until I had a clear view of it and then rattled off four or five shots, one of which became PoD. One in the bag before lunch! That’s not bad going.

After lunch I processed the pictures and indeed I had a fairly clear view of the new bird. It was clear enough and that meant I didn’t have to go for a walk today, which was good because it wasn’t the most inspiring day with a featureless white sky and no sign of the sun shining through. Instead I started cooking today’s dinner which was diced steak that had been lingering in the freezer for quite some time. Just for a change I made it in the Instant Pot using a version of a recipe I’d found online. After a dodgy start where the meat had to be eased off the bottom of the pot, I set it to ‘Slow Cooker’ mode. I set for two hours, with half a bottle of beer to give it something to absorb while it was cooking.

Meanwhile, Scamp was in the garden chopping up a yellow Candelabra Primula into three separate pieces and then potted the pieces up into three separate pots because it was definitely restricted in the original one. After that she walked down to the shops to get some things for tonight’s dinner.

As the afternoon progressed, it seemed to get darker and the clouds got heavier, but the rain held off until much later.

The Instant Pot chimed to tell me that it was finished cooking and I set it to ‘Keep Warm’, which it did until dinner time. The stew was served with potatoes and was very good indeed. Scamp’s dinner was Ratatouille with potatoes. Dessert was Tiramisu which was delightful. Not long after that the rain arrived, which is good, because we don’t need to water the garden!!

Spoke to Jamie and he seems to have his week planned out with a day’s holiday and two days working from home. Good to hear that his garden is doing well, even if his tomato plants seem to have picked up blight from somewhere.

It’s still raining here and tomorrow looks wet too. The bird has been ID’d by a birder on Flickr as a Chiffchaff. Thanks for that Andrew.

Driving again – 16 July 2024

Posted on by Zogman

After yesterday’s driving extravaganza the last thing I wanted to do was drive today.

So I got in the car about 10am and drove to Falkirk. To the Ironworks Business Park. Nobody was about, so I phoned the bloke I spoke to yesterday. He said I was at the right place and he’d be with me in 10 minutes. He was as good as his word and he apologised for not speaking properly but he’d been to the dentist and one side of his jaw wasn’t behaving properly. Know that feeling? I do too!

I was there to get some coffee and he took my order and gave me a large discount for having come all the way from Cumbersheugh. I even got a free bag to carry the coffee home. I’ve since tested the coffee and found it just as good as I thought it would be.

Drove home and had a piece ’n’ banana for my lunch and Scamp copied me! I was just making the sandwich when I saw a magpie sitting on a branch of the rowan tree in the back garden. Usually I chase them off, but this one looked a bit sad, so instead I grabbed my camera with the zoom lens and got half a dozen shots through the back window. It’s always good to have a few in the bag.

I’d been worrying about the front tyres on my car, so I drove down to Jim Dickson’s garage in the village where ‘Young’ Jim pronounced them good for a few hundred miles yet. That set my mind at rest.

Back home I took the A6500 and the 70-180mm and went for a walk in the sunshine to St Mo’s. I got a few shots of insects and plants, but nothing outstanding. It was quite a muggy afternoon with hardly a breath of wind.

Dinner was pasta and tomato sauce with a whole bunch of basil leaves that I’ve been growing on the window sill. It was quite delicious, even if say so myself.

It’s just passed 9.30pm as I’m writing this and there is a lovely sunset building. After such an overcast, close afternoon it’s good to see a bit of sunshine.

No plans for tomorrow, but I might make a start on some stew.

Out for a drive – 15 July 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was actually intended as a drive to Stirling to buy some ingredients for next week, but then it got a bit out of hand.

Scamp wanted to get some rose food for her beloved roses. They have worked hard since spring, producing a continuous show of flowers. Now the plants need a little help with some nutrients to extend their flowering period. She was sure we could get the rose food in Dobbies at Stirling. When we got to the turn off to Dobbies, every other gardener seemed to want to go their too, but it was impossible to cross the road in to the garden centre because of a long, long line of cars, all going in the opposite direction. We decided to move on to task 2

Task 2 would be easy. We’d just drive to The Smiddy, a cafe/restaurant near Blair Drummond Safari Park where we could hopefully get some venison and definitely get some coffee. Unfortunately they had no venison and wouldn’t have any until next week sometime. They did have the coffee, but only the pre-ground variety. Not what I was looking for. Since it was heading for lunch time and the cafe was quiet, we had a coffee and a scone each and I bought two skinny bottles of Old Engine Oil, a lovely black stout that only rarely makes an appearance on shelves. I managed a couple of shots of the Gargunnock Hills with a beautiful sky.

Back on the road again and got parked at Dobbies this time. They didn’t have the rose food, nor the lawn feed that Scamp remembered she also needed. We did get other things, though, so our journey was not in vain.

Back in the saddle and on to Waitrose where they did have the venison. Hooray! One of the ingredients bought and ticked off. As usual we bought one or two other things too, just to make the stop worth its while. I also got PoD which was the Wallace Monument at Stirling with a nice bit of sun on it.

I suggested we go from there to Klondyke Garden Centre where they just might have the plant food. Hooray No 2! They had both foods. Not exactly what she wanted but a reasonable substitute. We were back on the road and on the way home. What had started as a beautiful hot morning had degenerated into a cloudy and muggy day. Thank goodness for air-con!

When we got home, Scamp scattered the rose food and the grass feed in the required places and by then it was time for dinner. After dinner which was burger for me and mushroom and pepper omelette for Scamp (with the half of yesterday’s trifle as dessert)

As I settled down to process today’s photos I noticed I had a message on FB. I’d almost completely missed my old pal Charlie’s birthday, and here was his reply agreeing that him, Steven and me really needed to do a catch-up. I don’t know if my two readers will remember Charlie and Steven, but Charlie was my apprentice many years ago and Steven and I used to drool over motorbikes we knew we could never afford. I’m hoping we’ll all manage a meet-up some time in early August. Charlie is a pensioner now. How in the name of the wee man did that happen???

So, almost all the boxes were ticked today. Only one more to go and I might be able to tick that one tomorrow, all being well.

Enjoyin’ Dancin’ – 13 July 2024

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Out to Brookfield to the last dance class for a while.

Three weeks off dance class. The teachers are off on holiday teaching on a cruise ship in the Canaries for two weeks and recovering for another week. I hope they have fun!

Today’s class started with the Butterfly Jive after a couple of walk-throughs. With a little bit of help, I sort of made my way through it. Two units at the end of the routine are still just beyond me, but I’m sure with Scamp’s help I’ll manage to get them sorted out.

Next we went straight into a technique session about the Foxtrot. Very technical in places, this pointed up where we were both going wrong with my favourite dance. Sometimes I felt I was doing something wrong and Stewart corrected it for me and sometimes Scamp was not quite in the right place and that was fixed by Jane. Altogether we learned a lot about the techniques. Then we had a strange practise session where we had to dance the same six steps over and over again while applying CBMP (Contra Body Movement Position) where your legs to in one direction and your upper body goes in the opposite direction. Difficult to explain and counter intuitive to dance, but once you get it, it improves your dance technique – or so I am told. I have enough trouble getting my feet to go in the direction I want without encouraging my upper body to go in a different direction!

The last half hour of the lesson was a refining of the White City Waltz and the Blue Angel Rumba. All in all it was a very useful morning and one I enjoyed. I think the fact that the class size was small and that allowed folk to ask for help and to correct problems.

Drove home through fairly light traffic, so light in fact that we took a shortcut through the Clyde Tunnel and merged back into the M8 without missing a beat. Scamp calculated that this was Glasgow Fair weekend, which might account for the light traffic. Whatever it was, it cut about 20 minutes from our usual commute.

We’d booked a table at The Cotton House for 2.15pm today and had a filling lunch. Thai Spring Rolls followed by Chicken Chow Mein for Scamp and Chicken Satay followed by Salt and Chilli Chicken with Noodles for me. No room for dessert, but I did have three jelly beans as my sort of dessert! Glad we booked, because the place was full.

I couldn’t be bothered going for a walk when we got home. Too dull and with rain predicted. Instead, I found the PoD when I was wandering around the garden and saw a Green Orb-Weaver Spider building its web on our gigantic Teasel plant. Meanwhile, Scamp wasn’t happy with the Berberis she’d replanted. It was falling to one side and just didn’t look right, so she dug it up and replanted it a second time.  Now it looks right. Scamp the perfectionist!

We watched two episodes of The Turkish Detective tonight. Interesting, but the Detective Inspector’s delivery reminded me of Columbo. Entertaining police drama with some elements of dark humour. Yes, I’d watch another couple of episodes.

I finished a book that Fred gave me, The Secret Hours by Mick Herron. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. It’s a spy story with so many twists and turns, it left me wondering who was following who. Jamie and Neil, I’d recommend it to you. Unputdownable is the only way to describe it, although as it was reaching its end I wanted to put it down, just so I could keep reading it later, if that makes sense!

No plans for tomorrow, but it looks like rain again.

 

Sunshine! – 12 July 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Today we had sunshine from first thing in the morning until early evening.

It was a bit of a surprise. We hadn’t expected such a warm, bright day. If past experience is anything to go by, it will all turn to rain tomorrow. However, we made the best of today.

While I was making breakfast, I watched a young blackbird having a bath in the bird bath tucked away among the vegetation at the back fence. It seemed to be really enjoying itself. Despite the rain, it’s been pretty dry so far this month. I think the rainwater has been sucked away into the grass.

Later in the morning we drove to Tesco where Scamp pointed at the bags of compost and I lifted one down from the top of the pile. How good it was that Tesco piled these bags in the foyer of the store, where they don’t get wet and don’t weigh twice or three times their dry weight. Such a simple thing you’d think, but hardly any of the garden centres think of it and we’re left to manhandle sodden bags of compost. We also got two pots. One to keep as a spare and one to transplant the Berberis plant into. It seems to be struggling where it is in an impractical pot with a wide opening at the top and a narrow base, leading the plant to be blown over in the gusty weather we’ve been having. After the gardening essentials were in the trolley, the rest was just shopping!

After lunch I drove to Fannyside and took a few photos of the sheep and cattle, but the PoD went to a fence post with Cladonia lichen covering the top and with a layer of spider webs over that. I saw a wee bird that might have been a Stonechat, but the new lens was just to short to get a decent shot of it, but a longer lens would cost more and weigh twice as much as the Tamron. So the Stonechat will have to come to me next time if it wants its photo taken.

Back home Scamp was enjoying the sunshine in the back garden and I joined her for a while, almost, but not quite finishing my book from Fred. I’m spinning it out, because it’s difficult to keep track of all the people in the story and they keep changing their names. I also don’t really want to get to the end, because I’m enjoying it so much.

Later we thought we should water the garden. Scamp did it, front and back while I made the dinner. I say “I made the dinner”, but to be honest, the oven made it. There was very little prep and very little skill in the Chicken and Pea Tray Bake. It was a bit salty, but definitely delicious.

We’re hoping to go dance class in Brookfield tomorrow, but don’t have any more plans.

Dancin’ – 11 July 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Today we drove to Glenburn for the first tea dance for a while, or what felt like a while to me.

Not a great turn out for the dance, but some folk will be on holiday and some will be on child-minding duty, I suppose. Not everyone lives such a free and easy life as we do!
There were a couple of strangers in the camp. One couple were apparently semi-professionals and boy did it show in their styling. Very much the lady with her head back and the man holding poses on his tiptoes before plunging into a ‘running step’ along the diagonal of the dance floor, while the majority of us were quickstepping carefully, keeping to Line of Dance.

For the first time in ages we stayed for the full tea dance. Usually we leave early to avoid schools coming out and the long queues of folk driving home after work. Schools aren’t in until the middle of August and a lot of folk are on holiday despite it not feeling like summer this year. We could actually have stayed on the M8 and driven over the Kingston Bridge today and been home even earlier than we did. Traffic had been light going to Glenburn and it was equally light coming back.

I didn’t bother going out for a walk when we got home, instead I just photographed some flowers in the garden. Winner, and PoD was a shot of Switch Ophelia which is a form of Hydrangea. Flowers start as pale green, then creamy white and finally pink. Beautiful flowers and, as you can probably see it attracts red spider mites too!

No plans at present for tomorrow. Weather looks ok, today was nice and warm, but no sun until after 8pm.