Category: Garden

Ok, you can turn the rain off now! – 28 June 2020

Posted on by Zogman

It was raining at 8.30 this morning at 11.40 tonight it’s still raining.

I don’t think the rain has stopped all day. We did expect some heavy rain from the forecast yesterday, but we also expected some dry spells. The heavy rain came, but the dry spells went somewhere else for the day. Because of that, there wasn’t much to report.

Scamp watched a bit of TV and did a bit of tidying around the house. I made a three layer mask prototype.

Scamp spoke to Shona for a while on the phone. We both spoke to JIC later and found out that his new car, his first Brand New Car was ‘nice.’ A nice car.

I sketched a couple of apples for today’s sketch using my 49year old Parker fountain pen. I photographed our yellow nasturtiums for PoD.

Today we should have been sailing away from Southampton on our Med cruise.

Those were the headlines. Tomorrow will be better, surely. I’ll hope I’ll be able to tell you that tomorrow.

Hot! – 25 June 2020

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We were warned it was going to be hot today. They weren’t wrong.

First job was to get my hair cut. Number three all over followed by a number two to clean up the fluffy bits at the nape of my neck. I’m always amazed at the amount of hair that falls in clumps on the carpet as I’m cutting. A bit thank you to Scamp because she did quality control on the operation and was the one who used the number two cutter to achieve perfection on the neck line. It’s such a great feeling when you step out of the shower and dry your hair in about 20 seconds flat.

With the big job over, we walked down to the shops and bought a new set of coloured lights to go round the tree in the garden. It brightens up the place and although the last lot hardly lasted a month, it was worth the fiver. It wasn’t until we got home we found that someone had swiped the solar cell from the box. Not only that, they’d just ripped it off the cable, so it would be almost no use to them.

After lunch Scamp was going to see her sister, so she got her money back on the lights. While she was off to see big sis, I walked round St Mo’s and got today’s PoD of an Azure damselfly. I also saw three dragonflies doing circuits and bumps at the pond. I imagine one of them was the one I saw emerging yesterday. Walked over to the shops and bought some pineapple cakes sweets and ice-cream, The healthy option.

Dinner tonight was smoked salmon and broccoli quiche with a salad. Very nice indeed. Sat in the garden and listened to the bloke next door pontificating on a range of topics, but mainly The Eagles. We discussed Scamp’s idea for a storage unit for the paved area of the back garden, but mainly we just soaked up some rays. It seemed sensible because it doesn’t look as if there are going to be many sunny days for a while. Thunder and lightning forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Heavy rain too, which should mean we don’t have to water the garden.

Today’s painting was a watercolour of a plantain flower. Not the Caribbean green banana, but an insignificant little plant that produces a brown and white flower on a long stem. If you live in the UK you’ll have seen them on any patch of waste ground.  They are also known as Ribwort.

As usual, no plans for tomorrow. It definitely depends on the weather!

Another dull, wet one – 23 June 2020

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Much the same as yesterday. Woke to grey skies and wet ground.

Scamp was feeling much more like herself today and we went out for a walk in the afternoon. It was dry almost all the way down around the exercise trail behind Broadwood stadium, then just a little way round the side of the loch. That’s where we bumped into David, the bloke who used to own the garage I we got our cars serviced and MOT’d in. He ran a good business and I could tell he’d hated having to retire from it. It was him who suggested, four years ago, that it might be time for me to let go of the Renault Megane, because I’d guessed, but he knew it was going to cost me a lot more in time and money to keep it on the road than it was worth. We stood and talked for about twenty minutes, observing social distancing as just about everyone does these days. It was good to speak to him and find out what he was up to now and how they were coping with lockdown. When we left him and headed up the hill towards home, we both suspected there was just the hint of rain in the air and it did actually rain for the last hundred yards to the house, but just enough to dampen our hair, not actually get us wet.

I’d taken some photos in the garden earlier in the day and I took some more when the rain eased off. It was one of the early ones that got PoD.  It’s a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly) dangling on my pea netting. Poor wee thing. I quite liked a close-up shot of one of Scamp’s favourite roses, Remember Me. It didn’t quite make PoD, but it is on Flickr.

Scamp was chef today and Carrot & Lentil Curry was on the menu. Always a firm favourite in this house. I made the flatbread, but it turned out a bit salty. The curry was fine, but more fiery than Scamp had intended. Still worth going for seconds, because there was ice cream to cool our mouths afterwards. More curry in the fridge for tomorrow, but unfortunately no more ice cream!

Tonight’s painting was going to be a landscape, but it just didn’t work out right. It was overworked and you just can’t do that in watercolour. I gave it up and changed completely in the second painting of an anemone flower. I liked it, although there are a few errors I didn’t see until I photographed it. Still, it’s done and it is miles better than that landscape was going to be.

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere just to get one of the cars moving and to get ourselves out again.

The day the rains came – 21 June 2020

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Thankfully they did remember a previous appointment and left us after a while.

It was a wet start to Fathers Day. However a couple of cheerful cards and a useful prezzy that I’d quite forgotten about, but someone had remembered brightened the day. Thank you both. Also the offer of a Zoom catch-up later in the day since actual face to face connection is still a promise for the future.

After lunch and after watching Nick Robinson gently take apart the Health Secretary in as skilful a piece of interrogation as you’re likely to see on TV, I started on a final sketch for yesterday’s drawing assignment which was still in the outline sketch stage when I went to bed last night. Eventually I gave up on it and started another, simpler, sketch that is viewable on Instagram and Facebook, but not here. It’s not that good IMHO. With that done and posted, and with my dinner of stewing steak bubbling away, I was ready to face the rest of the day and was actively considering a walk in the rain when I realised the big hand was at 3 and the little hand had slipped down just past 5. Where had the day gone? I decided to take my time as Scamp poured a small glass of Rhubarb & Ginger Gin and sat with my sudoku of the day for the remains of the hour.

Got Scamp’s computer set up for Zoom and we had about 45 minutes of worthwhile three way chat with the three families. Whoever invented Skype and Zoom deserves all the praise for a wonderful way of bringing families together in these trying times.

Then it was dinner and my stew was lovely. After dinner and Scamp’s fruit crumble, the coffee and a tot of alcoholic relaxant I inked in today’s sketch which was of the handlebars and headstock of my Dewdrop. Couldn’t quite decide whether to leave it as a line drawing or add a wash, finally chose to add a part wash and leave the rest as a line drawing. Probably the worst of both worlds. Not to worry, it’s done and on time.  PoD went to a grab shot this morning of the pansies in the elevated tub hanging on the fence.

Tomorrow is Monday and we have no plans. Nowhere we need to go and nothing we need to get. That’s what retirement is all about.

Thank you to Hazy, JIC, Neil-D, Scamp and Sim (alphabetical is the fairest way) for a lovely day.

Out for a run – 20 June 2020

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We went for petrol today, the first since March!

We went to Tesco. Scamp was scouting around for the best deal in mobile phones and Tesco is usually up there with the best. It took us a long time to see just the extent of the queue to get in and when we did find out how long it was, we went for petrol instead. One of the advantages of being in Lockdown is that we don’t use much petrol. The last time I filled the tank was in March! From Tesco we drove to Calders where there was no queue to get in. Scamp wanted some begonias to fill up some empty tubs and, of course, some compost to help with the filling up. Got what we needed and left to see what the rest of the day offered.

It offered me a run out on the Dewdrop. For Scamp it was a seat in the sun and a Pimms to cool down with. My run took me the backroad to Kirkintilloch, then the main road back to Cumbersheugh. That’s not a road I’ll travel again on a bike if I can avoid it. No lorries, but buses and nutters doing what must have been 80 on something that is really a country road. The back road may have been a bit hilly in places, but it was much safer than the wider roads.

Back home I sat in the sun with Scamp for a while and had a glass or two of soda water and lime. Felt really dehydrated. She’d been working while I was away. There was a pot holding four begonias and another one with a heather plant and another two begonias.

We’d already agreed that we’d have a Golden Bowl dinner tonight, so after I came out of the shower I phoned our order and half an hour later, after a walk to Condorrat we were sitting down to Chicken Chop Suey (Scamp) and Special Chow Mein (Me) and Prawn Crackers to share. Lovely meal, cooked perfectly. My compliments to the chef.

Lovely email from JIC this morning asking if we’d like to join them at a farmhouse they’d booked in the Yorkshire Dales in September. That really did bring smiles to our faces. With a bit of luck, we’ll be going on holiday this year after all.

PoD was taken on that bike ride this afternoon, proving that Cumbersheugh is not always as grim as I sometimes portray it. No sketch yet, an early night for once. My aching bones need the rest.

Well, it’s been another lovely warm day, but tomorrow is forecast to bring wind and rain.  The gardens need it.

Demolition Man – 19 June 2020

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Yesterday I was a joiner. Today I was a demolition expert.

I have a certain expertise in destroying things, but mostly it’s an accidental destruction. Today it was planned. Scamp and I had discussed removing the old clothes pole from the corner of the garden. It isn’t used much and it makes access to that corner of the garden difficult. Today she suggested that we might need to reorganise the garden and with that in mind, it would be a good idea to remove the clothes pole. I’d been expecting this and really didn’t think I was up to breaking up the great block of concrete that’s been holding it (nearly) vertical for the last thirty odd years. It was different when I was working and had access to a sledge hammer. I didn’t think the claw hammer and mole grips would be up to the job. What I did have as a nearly new hacksaw and a pack of blades. What if we just simply cut the pole down at or near ground level? Sounded like a plan, so I set to it there and then before I got to the what if’s. Cut halfway through the pole which was hollow, of course and released a flood of water, some of which was about thirty years old! You could actually see it squinting as it emerged into the sunlight. The second half should be a lot easier, but I didn’t want to cut that last five millimetres and have to shout TIMBER! so I hammered a couple of staples into the fence and tied it off to them to stop it falling. Just as I predicted, the second half was much easier than the first and with a new blade in the say, we made short work of the pole which is now having a wee lie down in the garden until we can cart it off to the skips. That corner looks so different now! With the demolition done, it was time for lunch and I felt I’d earned it.

After lunch, Scamp went for a walk round Broadwood and I settled fairly comfortably in the back room, put my feet up and proceeded to draw them, because today’s prompt said Draw Your Feet (with or without socks). I chose naked feet and that rough sketch made SoD.

PoD was found in St Mo’s because once Scamp had returned from her walk, I went over to walk round the pond and grab some macro action. What I found was a Wolf Spider and that was PoD.

Dinner tonight was two of the best pizzas I’ve made in a long time. Tuna ’n’ Sweetcorn for Scamp and Anchovy ’n’ Olive for me. Both made with well proved pizza dough and marinara sauce. Very nice. Just for the record, 20 mins at gas mark 9 on the pizza stone covered with semolina.

Rained heavily tonight, so no need to water the garden. Thunder storms predicted for during the night. If we have a decent day tomorrow we may go somewhere in direct contravention of Nick the Chick’s five mile mandate.

Joiner – 18 June 2020

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Text this morning from Shona looking for a bit more security work in the flat.

It seems that Ben has been playing in the bathroom and splashing water everywhere, so much so that it was dripping through the ceiling of the flat below.  Could I fit a hasp or a bolt to stop him getting in?  Would it be possible to have some form of lock?I went to have a look and it was a fairly easy job to fit a slip bolt.  The other option was to put on a hasp and staple.  That would be more difficult, but would allow a padlock to be fitted to secure the door more effectively.  Drove up to B&Q and walked straight in.  Almost no queue.  Hooray, things must have calmed down.  Got what I wanted and joined the long queue to pay.  It was well policed and the queue went down quickly.  Walked out and saw that there was indeed a queue now.  In the twenty minutes or so I’d been in the store, the queue had grown from 0 to about 300m long.  It pays to shop early, it seems.  Back at the flat, I got the door secured in about fifteen minutes.  Back home in time for lunch.  My only fear now is that with Ben being almost a teenager, he’ll be strong enough to pull the hasp off the door and I’ll be back fitting a lock with big bolts holding it in place!

After lunch, despite parts 2 & 3 of my Amazon delivery arriving,  a black monkey appeared on my shoulder and I couldn’t shake it.  It might have been partly due to Nick the Chick’s latest pronouncements about entering phase 2 of The Release.  It appears that we are still expected to travel no further than 5 miles for leisure and exercise.  She also said that outdoor outdoor markets, playgrounds and sports facilities will reopen on 29th June, along with some visitor attractions such as zoos – although visitors should still not travel more than five miles from their homes to visit them!  Do the people who make the rules even talk to one another?  Does anyone know of a zoo that is within five miles of Cumbersheugh (Carbrain doesn’t count, because it is part of Cumbersheugh).

Scamp suggested a walk and that was probably what what managed to shift the black monkey.  It’s a long time since I’ve had one and I hope it’s a long time before one returns.  Spoke to Lynn D and her husband when we were out and we both bemoaned the missing overseas holidays this year.  We should have been off next week to the Mediterranean on a cruise ship and she should have been jetting off to the Canaries the week after.  Hopefully the weather will stay warm and sunny at home and we’ll get to go to Scotland this year (if we’re allowed to extend that five mile rule).  No photos taken on the walk, but it contributed a great deal to the 10,000 steps I’ve just recorded.

Sat with a beer in the garden when we came back and took a few shots of the flowers.  Favourite was the seeding Geum with it’s chaotic tendrils.  I made it PoD and called it Boris!  I don’t know why.  Second place went to a macro of a Lupin flower.  Both will be accessible on Flickr after I post this. Sketch today was Something Sweet.  I chose some Rowntrees Pastilles.  Much more difficult to draw than I thought.  The light was fading when I was sketching them, so I took a photo and sent it to my tablet, then drew it from the image on that.  Cheating slightly, but it worked for me.

Tomorrow we have no deliveries, so hopefully we can go out somewhere 4.99999miles away.

The postman knocks – 17 June 2020

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Well, not actually the postman, it was the Amazon man and he brought a parcel!

This was the first part of this week’s order. It turned out to be a bottle of Smidge, insect repellant and very good stuff I may add. Thank you Sim for recommending it – a year ago almost to the day! Also in the parcel was a pack of ten refillable fountain pen reservoirs. I only ordered one, but that gives me nine spares!

Drove down to the village after lunch to visit Isobel. We had a wander round her garden then we sat in the sun on her drying green, or drying asphalt as it actually was. She got us up to date on all that was happening in the village, in the garden and in the family. Then she kept us amused with tales of her life when she was a wee girl during the second world war. A very entertaining afternoon. Unfortunately there wasn’t much shade from the sun, and Scamp hadn’t put on sun block this morning, so we had to give our apologies and make tracks for home.

We’d watched a gang of four guys stripping the roof of one of the nearby houses in the morning. By the time we got home the entire roof had been cleared, including the sarking, back to bare rafters. New sarking had been nailed on and that was covered with roofing felt with strips laid for the new roof tiles which were neatly stacked on their slightly dodgy scaffolding. Maybe cowboys, but hard working ones

We’d stopped at M&S on the way home to get provisions for tonight’s dinner which was a fancy version of spaghetti with prawns. About half an hour after we got back, the Tesco order got delivered. Dumped it in the kitchen and Scamp told me to leave the rest to her and sent me out to get photos. The best one I got was of the butterfly. Still to ID it, but I remember taking photos of its aunt or uncle last year, so it will be in Flickr somewhere.

Today’s topic was Draw a Power Plug. Not riveting, but worth doing just to check your observation skills. It’s things we see every day that are the hardest to draw because we tend to draw what we think we see, not what we are observing.

Big day tomorrow, because we’ll find out what Lockdown Release part 2 brings us. Other than being glued to the TV for that, we have no plans.

Another dull day to start with – 14 June 2020

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We’d hoped for a brighter start, but the weather fairies told us to wait and all would be sunshine an light.

Dull milky white sky, but Scamp got an email that put a smile on her face. It seemed that her new tablet case would be delivered today. We waited for a while and still the white cloud persisted. Finally after lunch the parcel arrived and so did the sunshine. Once again the weather fairies had proved that all those expensive computers were worthwhile and that we should have patience and wait for the good weather to appear.

After lunch and after watching Andrew Marr try to antagonise Rishi Sunak without success (He actually answered every question Marr fired at him) we decided what to do with what remained of the day. The walk or cycle debate was solved by me saying I’d take the sunshine as a sign that it would be a good day to cycle. Scamp did some dinner preparation and then relaxed in the garden after some ‘essential gardening’. Rearranged pots to her satisfaction. I went in search of something worth photographing using the Teazer 90. I couldn’t find it to start with, but after searching all the likely places, stated looking in the unlikely, but possible places. Finally found it in a Bergy jacket in a cupboard. Not only that, I thought I’d found my glasses that I’d lost a week ago in the same jacket. That didn’t seem likely, because the jacket had been in that cupboard for at least a month. It appears that I’ve found a pair of glasses that I thought I’d lost around Christmas last year. Still haven’t found their replacement. If its taken me six months to find one pair, and I lost the replacement pair a week ago, does that mean I’ll find them (the replacement pair) somewhere around Christmas 2020? Time scale seems to work, not sure the logic does. Personally I blame the Hortus gin!

Cycled to the waste ground near Drumgrew bridge and watched the bees gathering nectar from the flowers. Found a conducive Small Heath butterfly which sat on a Marguerite flower for enough time for me to focus and grab a few shots of it. Its wings were a bit battered and bruised, but I’m happy that my ID is correct

Back home we had some time sitting in the sun and drinking non-alcoholic Lime cordial and water while the sun slipped down the slope of the afternoon. Dinner was fillet steak from Lidl for me and salmon for Scamp with Jersey Royal potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. Coffee in the garden afterwards. Tried Amoretto coffee for the first (and last) time. One of Scamp’s favourites. It tastes like I’d imagine liquid marzipan would. Such a waste of good coffee.

Not a bad Sunday after all, especially given the poor start. Tomorrow we have no plans, as yet.

Another gardening day – 9 June 2020

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For Scamp it was. I was only the labourer.

Scamp set out in the morning with her tool belt on ready to do battle with the Pieris and the Rhododendron. She worked like a trojan scraping away the moss and compacted top soil on both, then pruned the pieris then together we hauled it around until it was sitting in a better position. My job for the day was to repot the Rosemary which had been stuck in a rather small pot for quite some time now and we’d been promising it a new pot with fresh compost for a while now. Today was the day. Again, it was moved to a sunnier spot in the garden, although there wasn’t a lot of sun for it to sit in today. It was all a bit dull and grey.

After lunch we walked to the shops to get tortilla wraps, broccoli and smoked salmon for tonight’s dinner which was to be quick quiche. Found the recipe in an old newspaper where they used a tortilla wrap instead of shortcrust pastry for the base and sides of the quiche. What a difference it makes. Done in half the time with no faffing around chilling the pastry or blind baking.

Walked back and it felt like there was just the hint of rain in the wind. I decided to ignore it and go for a walk in St Mo’s just to make sure I had a photo for today. I saw a bloke fly fishing in the pond. I’ve heard of Fly Fishing in Yemen, but this must be the first time I’ve seen anyone fly fishing in the pond at St Mo’s. I suppose it’s possible to catch perch or maybe even a small pike with a fly, but usually it’s blokes with umbrellas, gigantic bait boxes and a six pack of Tennents or the sneaky little bottle of Bucky who sit there all day. This bloke was standing and moving. He was doing some nifty casts too. It might take you some time to see him, he’s well camouflaged! That photo got PoD. Those eagle eyed out there might have noticed in the photo that there were a lot of rain splashes in the water. I decided to cut short my walk and head for home, only having a hoodie as rain protection.

The quiche was lovely. Broccoli and smoked salmon. Something Jackie taught me up in Skye. It’s a very good combination. Scamp made another quiche, a Quiche Lorraine, but the flavours weren’t as strong as the first one.

Target for today was to Draw Something Huge. After a great deal of thought, I decided on the head-up kelpie. I can’t remember if he is Duke or Baron, all I know is that the head-down kelpie likes to be called Harry the Happy Kelpie, but that’s something he told me and it’s supposed to be a secret, so don’t go blabbing it. Pencil rough then Lamy ABC kids fountain pen (great for sketching), then a gentle water wash to give some light shadows. Always difficult to sketch such an icon, but I think I got away with it.

Tomorrow it looks wet for most of the afternoon. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong. I hope I am.