Category: Garden

Back in harness – 17 October 2016

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Today I returned to the gym for the first time in months.  I took it easy, not wanting to undo all the good the physio had done.  I did my 10 mins on the recumbent bike and 10 mins on the treadmill, although I did up the incline and the speed to get my heart rate up a bit.  I also did one of the arm machines and one of the leg machines, so not too much yet.  I even managed a swim as the pool was nearly empty.  Unfortunately, Mondays are busy days and I had to get back home to get the dinner made.  Then it was off to Kizomba and Salsa.

Kizomba was quite stressful for me as we had to work on foot moves and arm moves too on Saida and Cross Step.  If I continue with the class, as seems likely just now, and if I look back at these posts (DV), the Saida and Cross Step will seem very tame, I’m sure, but tonight they were tough.  Salsa was frantic as usual and also very enjoyable.  Nice to see Catherine Mc back.

img_3452-flickrToday’s photo was of the peanut thief caught raiding the bird feeder again this morning.  The Inktober sketch is of Scamp’s Venetian mask.  It was a bit out of my comfort zone because of the amount of curves in it and the fact that there was light and shade to deal with on those curved surfaces.  Still, it’s a fair representation of the article.  What will tomorrow’s be?

Don’t know what the weather is going to do tomorrow.  The majority of the votes are for some sunny periods but with the chance of rain and some strong winds.  That about sums up any day in Scotland.

Clingfilm – 11 October 2016

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11-oct-3

A strange title, but hopefully all will become clear – like the clingfilm 😉

Lazy start to the day, but that usually happens on a Tuesday after a busy Monday with two hours of dancing and an hour of driving, then preparing the photos, posting them and then blog writing.  I’m not moaning about, just explaining why we almost broke our self imposed rule of Up By Ten.  The light seemed to be improving in the morning and I grabbed a few shots of the Gazanias in the hanging basket with their covering of raindrops from the showers during the night.

What to do with the rest of the day?  We couldn’t decide where to go, because we had decided we’d go out.  Dinner was sorted and we needed nothing extra for that.  It was finally settled when Scamp said we didn’t have any cling film and that called for a visit to Lakeland.  Scamp also wanted to get some flowers to plant in my raised bed for some winter colour.  We could achieve both aims with a visit to Lakeland and Dobbies just outside Stirling.  What exciting lives we lead when our day revolves around Clingfilm and Pansies!

We came back from Stirling over the Tak ma Doon road.  Usually it’s a scenic road with plenty of opportunities for big-sky landscapes.  Today heavy clouds had rolled in and everywhere was dull.  Oh well, I still had the pics of the Gazanias to fall back on.  Just to make sure, I went out to bother the wildlife in St Mo’s when we got back.  Just missed Mr Grey, but he saw me and was off like as shot.  More snails up trees.  It seems that they favour Ash trees.  Disturbed a couple of deer and this time I got a shot I liked. One young doe ran when she saw me, then turned and watched to make sure I wasn’t following, giving me the chance I needed to take the shot.  I don’t know what kind of fly was on the tree in the other shot.  It looked a bit like a mosquito, but on closer examination, the head looks more like a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly).  Don’t know.

Today’s Inktober (Number 11) is of Monday’s Daily Sudoku which was completed yesterday (Monday) and was img_3436-flickrlying on the coffee table in front of me, so, like the hand yesterday, it wasn’t going to go anywhere.  Fred P can do quick portraits or caricatures of people sitting near him in Costa and they always look like the subject.  I just can’t draw fast enough to grab a likeness.  It’s all about confidence I think.  Anyway, I’m happy enough with today’s quick sketch.  Made some more fruit scones tonight.  I did think of sketching one of them, but they move off the plate too quickly.

Don’t know what’s happening tomorrow because we’ve got clingfilm now, so possibly no need to go out.  Jamie G our Salsa teacher is off on business tomorrow, and we don’t know who will be taking the class.  It’s not worth driving for an hour through Glasgow’s Wednesday evening traffic only to find it’s a, how shall I put this, less entertaining teacher.  Maybe we’ll stay in and watch a film instead!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting for Kizomba to begin – 10 October 2016

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10-oct

Sitting in the STUC building after another slow run in to town. Not much fun, but at least I’m in a better mood than last week and more prepared for the slow drag.

Physio said there was a definite improvement again this week again, but he still made me in to the human pincushion. Three weeks until the next appointment.

Finally got yesterday’s Flickr uploaded this afternoon. To the eagle-eyed, congratulations if you noticed the swap of the Inktober drawing.  Once I saw yesterday’s on the computer, so many things were wrong with it, too many things in fact, so I did another, more calculated version in pencil first and then with ink on top.  After that I rubbed out the pencil guidelines.  Today’s Inktober isn’t done yet,  I’ll do it later and add it in to the blog when I get the chance

Today’s shots were just grabbed when I was making dinner. The coal tits must have been waiting for the feeder to be refilled because they were down as soon as the back door closed. The crow just looked so depressed sitting on the fence in the rain and I managed to capture the raindrops too.

[Later that same day}
Ok we’re home now and Kizomba tonight was equally good, although it was moves we’d done before ie. Forward Travel with Cha-Cha and Ladies Saida.  Kizomba seems more like Ballroom dancing than Salsa or Bachata to me because you have hand movements and foot steps too and they must co-ordinate.  I still find that difficult, but I’m sure it will get easier with practice.

It was a day of mixed fortunes weatherwise.  There was sun, it was cold, there were cloudy spells and rain showers too.  A wee bit of everything except (whisper it) snow.

Pictures are up on Flickr, Blog is written, Mosaic is in place.  Just a bit of sketching to do and we’re done! So, here it is.  Hope it was worth the wait.  Hands are fiddly to do, but they’re patient, they don’t img_3434-flickrmove unless you ask them to.  They’re always there and although they look like five limbed octopi or spiders, if they’re drawn badly ( I don’t think this one’s too bad ;-\ ), they’re always happy to sit for another sketch … or five.  I even got the twisted knuckle in my pinky to look like it is in real life.  Such a pity I couldn’t spell Inktober!

Down The Green – 9 October 2016

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9-octIt being a lovely morning we got up and out fairly early and headed down Glasgow Green for a walk in the sunshine. Hunners of cyclists were also taking advantage of another unexpected sunny morning. Watched and listened in to some apprentice rowers getting loud and possibly expert instruction from the overhanging platform while their more proficient compatriots sailed gracefully past.  Thought we would go to the Wintergarden of the People’s Palace for our usual Sunday lunch, but it was closed for repair of the roof.  It’s been closed since July when a pane of glass crashed down from the roof.  Luckily nobody was hurt.  Unluckily Glasgow Council moved with their usual inefficiency and three months later, we seem to be no further forward.  No press release to inform the public about their progress.  A notice at the entrance says unhelpfully that the Wintergarden will be closed for the foreseeable future.  So much for the information age.

Today’s photos were taken around Glasgow Green, but don’t bother clicking on them as Flickr has decided that they aren’t photos at all and refused to load them.  It also tells me that the photos I uploaded yesterday aren’t photos either.  I don’t know what was happening in September with Flickr, because there wasn’t any outage that month.  I think every other month this year has seen at least one ‘down day’.  It usually happens at a weekend when there’s nobody available to fix it.  Yahoo, who own Flickr, don’t seem interested in maintaining it, but they still pester me to go to a Pro account.  I don’t think so.

Scamp and I planted allium bulbs today.  Two big pots of them.  It’ll be interesting to see how they fare.  One gigantic bulb in each pot, surrounded by five slightly smaller ones, surrounded by five even smaller ones.

Dinner tonight was Tuna steak for Scamp and Hogget for me.  Hogget was interesting.  A bit like lamb and also a bit like liver.  Tougher than I’d have expected, but that might just have been my cooking.

Another of those beautiful mornings that faded to cloudy skies in the afternoon.  Getting a lot colder too.  Scamp got some pictures of a squirrel this morning trying to steal some nuts from the bird feeder.  It sat for ages on top of one of  the high fence posts.  Quite comical.

Flooers again – 18 September 2016

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18-septThere’s not a lot I can say about today. It started off sunny then clouded over before raining in the afternoon which was a bit of a downer.

We went to the Sunday Social which was energising as usual.

Dinner was a re-heated curry and it was very good.

We watched a ‘really exciting’ Singapore GP.

Some days are like that. You can’t always have sunshine and great photo opportunities.

Coffee with Val and Fred tomorrow. The world needs fixing again and we’re the boys to do it.

Groundhog Day – 3 September 2016

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3 septToday we were planning to go to Dundee to the Flower Show. We’d been there long ago, maybe ten of fifteen years ago to be a bit more accurate, but when we looked out the back window this morning, the hills had gone. That’s an indication of low cloud and therefore a good chance of rain. The streets were wet although there was no rain falling at the time.   So, it had been raining, and it would be raining again. This was the hiatus between showers (or longer periods of rain). The upshot was we decided not to go to Dundee. Instead, we went to Vecchia Bologna for lunch and afterwards wandered round Dobbies in Stirling and came away with an armful of plants to provide some autumn colour. The place was undergoing a bit of a tidy up with great areas of empty space. Surely they’re not getting ready to put out the (whisper it) Christmas stuff already. Could be!

From Dobbies we went on a mystery tour to find something decent for me to photograph and I thought I’d found it when I saw a sign for the Sauchie Tower. We never found it. The signs just sort of faded out. We did see the ruined tower of a windmill on top of a hill that might have been it, but some eejit had allowed the area around it to be built up with a new housing estate that had masses of traffic calming ‘street furniture‘ and nowhere to park. Who employs these pinheads? When we got to Alloa we saw a sign for the Alloa Tower, but weren’t taken in by the direction post. We knew it was another wild goose chase. It might as well have had a red fish of the herring persuasion nailed to it. Instead we headed for Kincardine and went for a walk along the Riverside Walk out to the old pier. Got some photos there and that was it for today’s outing.

It was only as we got near to Cumbersheugh that the first spots of rain splashed on the windscreen. Typical, we could have been to Dundee flower show.  It just seemed like re-run of yesterday’s indecision that led to the failure to go to Ayr Airshow.

Tomorrow, we’re going in to Glasgow to see the start of the Tour of Britain. What will we do if it’s raining? We’ll go and get wet.

Any comments on the new galleries, anyone?

The Galleries and the Airies – 2 September 2016

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2 SeptScamp was out this morning having coffee with her niece.  This gave me time to sit and swear at both WordPress and Galleria.  WordPress provided the bad plugin I wrote about yesterday and Galleria is a gallery making piece of software I’ve use for a few years now.  Galleria works well.  WordPress works well. The problem is that they don’t work well together.  This morning I made them both shake hands and play nice together.  It took a lot of swearing and a fair bit of trial and error, but they did eventually produce a decent photo gallery in my WordPress blog.  Like my pal Val says, it was “a wee challenge”.  Now that I’ve managed to do it more than once, I’m quite happy to let it go and revert to the simple gallery I made last night.  Time wasted?  Yes, but a couple of lessons learned.  You should learn something new every day.

In the afternoon, I started cutting down a rogue tree growing out of the wall at the corner of the back garden.  Once I’d dumped the cuttings in the council dump, I went for a walk along the Luggie Water to find some photos.  I had thought to go to the free day at the Scottish Airshow at Ayr, but it was the thought of standing in the rain watching for the ‘airies’ descending through the clouds and then disappearing again into them, wishing that it was a lovely sunny day with the ‘airies’ shining against a blue sky.  It had rained on and off all day and there was no sign of a letup.  With that said, we decided not to go.  We should have, because at 4pm, the sky started to clear and the sun came out.  Unfortunately the show was due to start at 5pm and it was too late for us to get ready and drive down to Ayr to see the ‘airies’.  Oh well, a walk along the Luggie would have to do.  I liked the light on the ‘Bucky’ bottle under the road bridge and with a bit of post processing the gigantic ‘rhubarb leaves’ looked quite impressive.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow, because it looks like wall to wall rain.

Non-Stop – 27 August 2016

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27 augThat’s how it felt today. From the minute I got up until now 9.30pm, it feels like I’ve been on the go all day. Here’s how it happened:

Went shopping with Scamp in the morning through the dreadful traffic in Falkirk. In less than five hundred metres there are no less than five different sets of traffic and pedestrian lights. Come on, this isn’t central London or even Glasgow city centre, this is a small town in the central belt. What’s the story? Were too many traffic lights made that year and they had to put them somewhere? Away back in the dim mists of time not long after the UK joined what was then the Common Market, there were stories in the press about Butter Mountains and Wine Lakes. Is this the result of a Traffic LIght Forest? Rant over.

After fighting my way through this no-man’s land of tailbacks, not once, but twice, we drove home and dumped the hard won food we’d sourced at Morrison’s, had a very quick lunch then drove to Muirhead to Colin’s Flower Show. It’s not actually Colin’s. True, he is on the committee and enters an amazing amount of stuff in it, but other folk do to. Today’s show wasn’t quite as grand as some I’ve seen there, but most of the flowers were spectacular, and the vegetables were mammoth. I don’t know how these folk do it.

We left the flower show and went for coffee, then bought even more food in Asda. Still not satisfied, we stopped at Tesco to get the things we’d still to check off our list. Well, at least we spread our money around all the local supermarkets! Finally we headed home to try to find places to put all these consumables.

By the time everything was packed away and the fridge door closed on the groaning shelves, it was time to make dinner. After dinner, once we had done the washing up, I set to, to make the paste for tomorrow’s Thai Green Curry.

With that made, I grabbed a cup of Earl Grey and went to read for an hour before starting to tidy the painting room (back bedroom) for tomorrow’s guest.

Now I’m writing the blog and submitting the photos to Flickr, after which I may have a small libation. I think I deserve it.

Tomorrow will not be as frantic – please!

Birds and the Bees (and a Spider) – 22 August 2016

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22 augToday I did some gardening.

This is an example of forward thinking by Scamp:

  1. The weather forecast for tomorrow is rain, a few dry spells and then more rain, followed by rain.
  2. We have a bag of stone chips that we are going to put down beside the new tall fence to complete this area.  The stones when they are washed are basically a golden yellow, but with other colours through them, quite pretty.  In the bag they still retain the abrasive mix that they are tumbled with and are a claggy yellow ochre.

If you add these two things in the correct order, Scamp postulates that it would be good to lay the chips down today and then tomorrow’s rain will wash the claggy yellow ochre coating off them and reveal their true colour.  That’s why it was boots on, riggers gloves on and get yourself mucky laying down the chips.  Fine.  If only it ended there.  Scamp said: “Could we pot up this Hebe using the compost from the potatoes we lifted a week or so ago?”  Followed by: “We really need to prune the rose round the back door.” and “Maybe if we ….”  Oh, if you can’t beat them, then join them.  I volunteered to repot a wee rose that was being completely swamped by some wee blue bell-shaped flowers, that might be Campanula.  That’s as far as I went though.  This gardening can be quite addictive I’m told.  I’ll take their word for it, thanks.

Grabbed an hour and a camera and a new album from the latest John Connolly book and took them for a walk to St Mo’s.  I met a heron as I was walking over.  I’m not sure if it was Mr Grey or not.  It seemed a bit small for him, but I’ve only once seen him out of the water, so it could be.  He posed for some photos, then disappeared in a great flapping of wings.  The rest of the photos were bees and hover flies.  Hence the title of today’s epistle.  Birds and Bees and a Spider.  The John Connolly album was interesting as it always is.  Very atmospheric and all by artists I’d never heard of.

With Hazy’s help, we got Netflix to work tonight and after salsa class, settled down and watched A Royal Night Out.  Harmless fun.  Better than watching the highlights of this year’s Olympic Games.  Princess Margaret is a hoot!

Rain forecast all day tomorrow.  Hope it washes the stone chips clean again.

I didn’t know you could do that – 19 August 2016

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19 augI’ve had the Nikon D7000 for over three years now.  In that time I’ve settled on it as my ‘good’ camera.  The one to use when quality is paramount.  I use it in manual mode most of the time and allow the camera to decide the best ISO setting to use within the limits I set.  I also use it in AF-S mode.  Single servo focus because I mainly photograph still objects, landscapes don’t move much and flowers, although they do move, don’t wander far from their stems.  Maybe too it’s that I’m a control freak and like to know exactly what my camera is doing and can predict how it will react in any given situation.  Today I started using AF-C for probably the first time since the early days just after I acquired the camera.  AF-C is Continuous servo focus.  The camera continually focuses and if the manual is to be believed, “if subject moves, camera will engage predictive focus tracking to predict final distance to subject and adjust focus as necessary.”  I am so glad that was cleared up, I thought it was going to be complicated!  What I do know is that it works and it keeps things in focus while they are moving, and even if I am moving.  That’s what I found today.  It never ceases to surprise me what this camera is capable of and I’m sure there are even more surprises hidden deep in the manual waiting to be discovered.

I went to the physio this morning and felt a lot better once he had stretched, manipulated and massaged my shoulder and neck once again.  Maybe it’s just that feeling when you stop hitting your head against a wall.  It’s so nice when you stop.  Went swimming in the afternoon.

I’m becoming absolutely pig-sick of the Olympics on TV.  Events over-running and programme schedules being changed with no notice.  News when it arrives an hour late crammed with results and interviews with athletes before we get to the nitty gritty of what’s happening in the rest of the world.  Only two more days to go and it’s finished, because it doesn’t look as if the Paralympics will be covered in the same way as the able bodied version.  Don’t you feel so sorry for the athletes in the Paralympics who have trained for years, only to find that in the eyes of those running these games, they are second best.

Weather today at home, as predicted, was wet from about 12midday and it stayed that way until early evening when it dried up.