Category: Garden

Down on Glasgow Brown – 22 July 2018

Posted on by Zogman

It used to be Glasgow Green, but that was before the sun shone for a month while the council watched and did nothing.

This morning we went for a walk down to Glasgow Green. It’s ages since we’ve been there and had heard that all the grass had been burned away by the excessive heat and the lack of rain for the past month. We found a cordon running all the way around the frazzled grass from the People’s Palace to the McLennan Arch, while teams of gardeners worked at laying turf and watering the little bits of grass that have survived. Apparently they are preparing it for the 2018 European Championships which are due to begin on the 2nd August. I think they may be hiking to get it finished in time. However, if they had, during the dry spell, taken some time to assess the damage that was being done to the grass from all the events they were running and put in some work to repair it, there wouldn’t have been this last minute rush to fix things. Too busy rubbing their hands at all the money they were making. Shortsighted as usual. Still, we don’t live in Glasgow region, so it won’t be our Council Tax that will be paying for the re-turfing of The Green! One thing’s for certain, the money won’t be coming out of Glasgow Council coffers.

Back home and after lunch I took the Dewdrop out for a run again. While I was out the clouds did open for a while to deposit a gentle smir but it didn’t get as far as real rain. All it did was increase the humidity that was already making cycling uncomfortable. Did about 40 minutes of decent cycling at something approaching a working cadence. Maybe more tomorrow. Although, the first hurdle tomorrow is the visit to the dentist 🙁

Today we lifted our first tub of potatoes and got a fair few for our efforts. The variety was Charlotte. We forgot to weigh them, but our estimate is about 850g. Not bad from only three seed potatoes.

Today’s PoD is from the visit to The Green (or should that be The Brown) this morning and is a lone sculler on the Clyde. I liked the way the buildings in the background seem to rise up and dwarf her.

Tomorrow is the dentist and hopefully some salsa at night.

Turning the Tables – 20 July 2018

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Found some woodwork to do for a change.

Scamp was off visiting one of her old friends out near Denny which left me with nothing to do and all morning to do it. It was raining for a change, so cycling was out. I could have gone to the gym, but that didn’t hold any fascination for me, so I started to tackle a bit of homework that’s been on my to-do list for a long time. My dad had an old folding card table, beech framed and covered with a green baize top. I’ve used it as a computer table and a painting table for years now, but the baize was torn and peeling off and the top was sagging in the middle. It really needs a new top and a new piece of green baize. Today I stripped the green felt off then carefully removed the hardboard top. That left the rebate in the top filled with the glued on felt. It took me over an hour, working with a couple of chisels to cut, pare and scrape the felt off. Then I had to decide what to do about the top. I’m still not sure. It really should be replaced, but I’m thinking it might be an idea to use plywood in place of hardboard because it is more stable. Went to price 3 or 4mm plywood in B&Q. I need a piece 503mm square, but the biggest offcut they had was only 450mm wide. The only other option was a 2m x 0.6m sheet at an exorbitant price. I’ll have a look around. Maybe I’ll be able to find an off-cut down the Barras. Anyway, the hard work is done now, just the reassembly to do.

Did think of going over to St Mo’s to see if anything wanted its photo taken, but the day was unispiring with little directional light, so it was a last minute garden safari instead. It secured me PoD which is a flower from one of my Ambassador pea plants.

No plans for tomorrow. It’s forecast to be a better day than today, but we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

The day that the rains came – 15 July 2018

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It rained today, on St Swithin’s Day.

It hasn’t rained here for almost a month, then, today it rained. It was St Swithin’s day. If it rains on St Swithin’s, it’s supposed to rain for forty days. I suppose my shorts can go into the washing basket now along with the tee shirts and the short sleeved shirts. Might as well get the Bergy jackets looked out and the wellies. I should really start to sandbag the doors front and back to hold back the torrents. However, on looking on the bright side, I can put away the garden hose almost until September! If you believe the superstition, that is. What if you don’t? Does that mean it won’t rain on you? Will you have a little invisible umbrella shielding you from the downpour that’s soaking all the ‘believers’ ? I’ll go with that view. I’ll be an unbeliever, even if it means I have to keep watering the garden.

It was good to see the rain today, even if it wasn’t all that heavy. It was good to see the streets looking black again. Good to see the soil soaking up the moisture. I even put on my ‘rainy coat’ and went for a walk across to St Mo’s just to say I’d been out in it. The ground had that lovely smell of rain on dry earth that only comes after a long, hot, dry spell and the rain wasn’t cold. I even wore my shorts to better feel the warm rain. I managed to get some shots of a damp Soldier Beetle sitting on a Cow Parsley head and remembered that my mum used to call Cow Parsley, Dug’s Flourish. I never did find out why, but when I Googled the english version ‘Dogs Flourish’, back came confirmation from a few places on the Central Belt of Scotland, each with different possible reasons for the name. What’s in a name?

Under Scamp’s tutelage I cooked some stew using a combination of her mum’s and my mum’s methods. It worked, of course. With that lineage, how could it fail. That was dinner tonight. Something simple and homely. For me, Potatoes, Stewed Steak and Calabrese which is a variety of sprouting broccoli. Scamp substituted Ratatouille (or Rats) for the Stewed Steak. Both seemed to go down well, resulting in clean plates.

The rain persisted almost all day but is fading away now as darkness falls.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. No dancing because it’s Glasgow Fair Monday and although nobody bothers with ‘The Fair’, the STUC building is closed because it’s a local holiday. Old habits die hard.

What a Gay day – 14 July 2018

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Today we were going to Glasgow on the bus to watch the Glasgow Pride procession.

We decided to be extra lazy today and get the X3 in. That mean the least amount of walking for me. Had the traditional coffee in Nero with a shared apricot croissant to give us the extra burst of energy to fortify us for our walk around the streets. When we left Buchanan Galleries I spotted a neat bit of graffiti on the billboard for Victoria’s Secret. Well, the secret is now out Victoria. You just want us to “Buy ‘Hings” which translates to Buy Things for those of you living outside Glasgow.

With a photo in the bag, I could relax a bit and we walked down to Argyle Street – me to go to Millers Art Shop and Scamp to go to Next. Neither of us parted with our hard earned money and we met up again. As well as going to Millers, I’d also enquired of some multicoloured rainbow people where exactly the parade would be starting from and was a bit concerned when they told me they didn’t know. Hmm, this didn’t sound good. However, we needn’t have worried, the police van with blue lights flashing and the balloon truck behind at the far end of Argyle Street was a dead give-away.

The parade was a lot bigger this year, with an estimated 12,000 walkers, paraders, weirdos and general hangers-on. Right at the front was Nick the Chick (AKA Sturgeon). Scamp said Nick smiled at her. If she’d smiled at me I wouldn’t have been broadcasting that snippet of news. We watched it all from start to finish. Just about 45 minutes of lunacy, but good humoured and colourful lunacy. Contrast that with the Orange Walk last week which is also lunacy and colourful lunacy, but hardly good humoured. As well as the PoD there are some photos on Flickr of the procession and some of the characters, therein.  In total I took 361 shots today.  Most of them were taken in ‘motordrive mode’, where you just keep the shutter button pressed and hope for the best.  It works most of the time.  I’ve whittled those 361 down to 60 usable shots of which 5 made it to Flickr today.  Maybe I’ll post some more in the coming week, all being well.

After I bought a couple of watercolour paints, we went to Zizzi for lunch and were both disappointed with the quality of the food, but the two glasses of wine we had were lovely, although each of us preferred our own different choice of wine. Maybe it’s because it was white wine we were drinking instead of our traditional red, but we both agreed they were refreshing. Contrast that with two insipid pasta dishes. Oh well, a lesson learned. Should have gone to Sarti’s much better to go to a small restaurant than a chain.

Just managed get seated on the X3 going home when the bus left the stance. Good timing for once. Sat in the garden when we got back. Scamp finished off the remainder of a bottle of red we’d opened the other night and I had a bottle of cider. It was comfortably warm with a nice welcome breeze. Looks like there will be a fair amount of rain tomorrow. At last.

Don’t expect we’ll be going far tomorrow, but we’ll wait and see.

Pizza, roses and new specs – 13 July 2018

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Out at midday to catch up with Val.

Coffee in the usual place and an hour or two of chat, then back to pick up Scamp for a visit to Simpson in Larkhall to pick up new lenses for Scamp and new specs for me. Couldn’t decide on dinner and finally opted for pizza, home made of course.

After making the dough, I knew I had at least an hour to wait for it to prove before I could start, so that was as good an excuse as possible for a seat in the garden under a partly cloudy sky to read and drink a glass of wine. We even got a chance to use our Garden Scotland glass holders. Took some photos of flowers and things in the garden and the Ruby Wedding rose got PoD.

Pizzas were made and consumed and basically that was it for a warm Friday with just the hint of dampness in the air. I did detect a couple of tiny spots of rain on my Kindle, but it didn’t come to anything.

Tomorrow I think we’re going to Glasgow to see the Gay Pride march. It’s been quite an ‘interesting’ show for the last two years. Hopefully the rain will stay away for another day.

Larky for glasses – 10 July 2018

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Today we were going to the opticians in Larky.

Scamp was going for an eye check and because she felt her contact lenses weren’t quite right. I was going because I thought I needed a new pair of reading glasses. My reason was that the legs had fallen off, the frame was broken and there was only one lens in the frame. Yes, I think I may need new specs.

Thankfully, after inspecting my glasses, the optician agreed that it was probably time I had new glasses. Scamp also needed new lenses, but he also told her that she had the beginnings of a cataract and that although it would take about five years to mature, when it does and when she has the operation, she will be able to see perfectly for the first time ever without lenses or contacts! How amazing is that?

After that revelation, we drove down Clydeside for a light lunch. We ended up at Sandyholm which is now the ubiquitous Dobbies. I hesitantly ordered a pot of peppermint tea for Scamp and, hesitantly, an Americano coffee for me. My record on coffees hasn’t been all that good recently, but I needn’t have worried. The coffee was fine. So was Scamp’s sandwich plus my panini was just as it should be soft and warm. If anyone was needing nails hammered in they’d need to use a hammer instead or go to Craigend Nursery to get an alternative impelling agent. We’d already bought a couple of plants from what looked like a new nursery further along the road, with the unusual name of “The Flower Fairies”. That isn’t the kind of name I’d expect from a plant nursery, certainly not down Clydeside. Still, we had a look at the plants on display at Sandyholm and as usual with a Dobbies franchise, they looked a little worse for wear. Admittedly the weather has been unusually hot these past weeks, but that’s no excuse for not watering the plants you’re hoping to sell.

Drove home through Netherburn. The houses in the scheme had been tarted up, but the occupants still had those low brows and stared in suspicion at a red Juke driving round. You could almost see the brain cells working “That’s a STRANGER”. Drove out in the direction of Craignethan Castle and were surprised at the amount of new houses being built on what used to be the railway. Noted that the primary school was gone leaving only the iron railings. It’s amazing the changes in a place after thirty odd years.

Back home Scamp finished pulling the fruit from the blackcurrant bush and then started pruning it back. I finally watered the Vine Weevil nematodes into anything that looked like it needed it and then finished off with a feed of seaweed fertiliser.

Spoke to JIC tonight and exchanged views on our holidays. Ours was totally different from theirs, but both lots seemed to be satisfactory.

Today’s PoD is Scamp’s sweet peas, the second picking.

Out early tomorrow to see the physio and no ballroom dancing in the afternoon as it was cancelled by Michael. Maybe, just maybe going to salsa at night.

Cool? – 5 July 2018

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Today was supposed to be cool. Well, that didn’t work, did it?

Scamp was going to meet June and Isobel for coffee and a catch up. That gave me a few hours to do some painting. I attempted the sweet peas that were sitting on the table. I got completely lost in the complexity of the subject. Must try something simpler next time. Maybe just one or two blooms.

After lunch we went for a drive to The Fort to look for some cheap watercolour paint for me and also for something for dinner. I didn’t get the paint, certainly not at over £8 for a tube. We did get tonight’s dinner which turned out to be Sea Bass.

Drove home and sat in the garden for a while with a wee shandy each. Sitting in the sun soaking it up. Weather fairies said it would reach 20ºc today. Yes it did, but that was at 8.30am. By the middle of the afternoon it was in the high twenties.

I was cook tonight and the sea bass with broccoli and cauliflower was excellent, even if I say so myself. Just to round off the meal we had another wee seat in the garden before Scamp deemed it was time to water the plants. By then the sun was off the garden, so there wasn’t any point in sitting out any longer. Today’s PoD is a strawberry that’s growing happily in our hanging basket. A hanging basket that’s survived ice, snow, wind and now drought. Still the plant not only survives, but thrives and produces fruit. Brilliant.

While I’m typing this, I’m listening to Another Side Of Bob Dylan (1964). The songs, especially Chimes of Freedom and To Ramona take me instantly back 50 years to my bedroom in Scotia. The light tonight even enhances that, it’s the warm light you get just before sunset. It’s funny how music has that power.

Tomorrow night Scamp is going to a witches dinner. I’m volunteer driver, but looking forward to another chance to paint those sweet peas.

Just another Monday – 2 July 2018

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Woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so started the blog reconstruction.  That gave Scamp an extra hour or so in bed because it looks as if she’s picked up somebody’s cold in the recycled air of the bus yesterday.

Thankfully I’d a couple of blog posts written on the Linx 12×64 that were ready to post. Written on Live Writer, the best blog composer on any platform, it was an easy job to post it. Since the last two days of the cruise were sea days I wasn’t willing to pay the exorbitant price for the Maritime WiFi, so I saved the files and posted them when we were back home. Then it was down to writing a few more of the blogs from the bullet points I’d written while at sea. Catchup is the name of the game here.

After that, it was the inevitable trip to Tesco to refill the fridge, the vegetable rack and the fruit bowl.

A quick trip to St Mo’s got a few pictures to use and the dragonfly shot became PoD. While I was there I put on my Fireman Sam hat and doused a smouldering fire in the woods. What idiots thought it was a good idea to build a fire in pine woods when everything was tinder dry. I sometimes wonder if the numpties here just switch off their brains in hot weather to avoid the overheating.

That was about it for the first day back home. No dancing tonight as we didn’t know the whereabouts of our salsa teacher and I for one didn’t fancy the alternatives! Instead we watered the garden again and the refreshment seems to be working. Still hot here.

Probably more of the same tomorrow

Waiting, waiting, waiting – 15 June 2018

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… for the party to begin. Going to a wedding reception tonight.

There wasn’t much else to do today apart from tidying up and getting organised. It was a much more relaxed day than yesterday. Spoke to Hazy in the morning and admired the views from JIC and Sim’s holiday cottage. That was about it.

Today’s PoD was taken in the garden. My delicate little yellow aquilegia that has withstood Storm Hector and is still smiling.

Finally the time came to get dressed and go to the reception in Bearsden. For once, a suit I’ve not worn for a year was too bit for me. I’ll say that again, TOO BIG. I had a kilt taken in yesterday and now may suit trousers need a belt to hold them up. What is happening to me? Don’t worry, I have the antidote to this strange malaise. I’m sure in a couple of weeks it will all seem like a slim dream and I’ll be back to reality. Just wait and see.

The reception was quite like the one we had for JIC and Sim four years ago. It was a Scottish reception for a friend who got married abroad. Only close family went to the wedding with the friends and in-laws attending the Scottish reception. It was the full rerun of the Italian reception with speeches and a cake. It was a good night. Got my birthday book signed by Jo, the author. As I was driving, and the bar only had Becks Blue on the ’no alcohol’ list, it was the Orange Fizz (Irn Bru) for me. We did do one salsa dance for half of a track at the insistence of Anju. I was being very careful of the ‘bad knee’ and so was Scamp. Still, we can now say we danced at Mhairi’s Wedding!

When we got home I had a bottle of Old Engine Oil to take away the synthetic taste of the Irn Bru and went to bed. So this blog entry is actually written after the event. I’m sure there will be a few sore heads among the Bearsden population on Saturday.

Tomorrow (well, today in reality) we won’t be going far.

Beer – 12 June 2018

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Today me and the Auld Guys were having lunch, a liquid lunch.

It started with breakfast and a couple of paracetamol (other pain killing, anti-inflammatory medicines are available). When I got up proper, an hour later, my knee was sore. Went for a walk around the house and then phoned the physio, only to find out that today was his day off. Left a message and went back to resting my knee again while Scamp was off getting her hair cut. She’d left me with the firm instructions to wait for her return and she’d give me a lift to the train station for the more relaxed run in to Glasgow. Not driving today because this was the first UBI club meeting in over a year and ‘drink would be taken.’ We all know what that means. If you get the sniff of a pint of lager, that’s enough to put you over the limit, I mean if you even see a bottle of beer, that’s you risking points on your license. Today we were going to do more than look or smell, we were going to drink the stuff.

Got in to the HorseShoe Bar in Drury Street about half an hour late and had missed the first round, but I swiftly caught up. It’s a skill well learned. A couple of rounds later we had caught up on all the gossip and were ready for lunch. For lunch we were going upstairs to the ‘restaurant’ where we’d have the three course meal for a fiver. It’s not haute cuisine, it’s just hot cuisine. Good filling stodge. Two fiery chicken strips as a starter, followed by ham, egg and chips (wafer thin ham, one egg and about fifteen chips).  Everyone else had the almost obligatory fish ‘n’ chips. Dessert had to be Apple Betty and ice cream. I don’t know who Betty is, or was, but she makes a great apple sponge. After that, we dispersed. Colin was first to go, then Ray, and that left the Fantastic Four; Jack, Val, Fred and me. In a break with tradition, we went for a coffee rather than more alcohol to finish the day and ambled up West Nile Street to Laboratorio Espresso where we had a coffee, and I got the return call from the physio.

I’ve had work done on my shoulder by this guy and Scamp has had her ankle repaired. I trust him He doesn’t tell you to have a full consultation if it’s not necessary. For the second time in a year he talked me through what I should be doing about my knee and what I shouldn’t be doing too (dancing). It seems that my three professionals; JIC, the nurse and the physio are in agreement. REST, ICE, ELEVATION. Much like the acronym RICE, just missing out the C for COMPRESSION because there is no swelling. I thanked him for phoning on his day off and for his advice then went back and enjoyed my coffee that bit more. Good strong coffee it was too.

After that it was time to shake hands and head for home. Jack and Val were getting the bus, Fred and I were getting the train. Scamp picked me up at the station but Fred managed to catch the bus that drops him almost at his door. We’d all agreed to meet up again soon, hopefully sooner than a year from now DV.

PoD today was taken in the garden. It’s the first of the Boogie peas to sprout and it looks as if it’s ready to grab hold of something to haul itself up.

No Jive for me tomorrow. Too may experts telling me the same story. It looks like a wild day with high winds and rain, but maybe not until evening.  May go to the Forge and change my shoes, providing I can find somebody who “Does the Web”!