Category: Glasgow

Off The Leash – 30 June 2017

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Scamp was meeting the other witches for lunch. I was off the leash for the day.

We drove in to Glasgow together as I was heading there anyway, then we went our own way, except that when I was leaving John Lewis after perusing the ‘bargains’, who should I bump into but Scamp. We agreed to go our separate ways again. Later when I was going in to the art shot, there she was again, but this time she had the other three witches with her. Luckily she directed them into a bar for cocktails, so I was saved the ignominy of having to hide from four women. Thank you again Scamp.

I bought myself two sketchbooks in Cass Art. I don’t like shopping there, but they are the cheapest in town. The next thing to do was get some photos and a sketch. The first would be easier than the last. It usually is. I got the photo in Buchanan Street it was just an empty alley. I think it’s the emptiness and the perspective I like about these alley shots. The sketch was next and that was done at the entrance to Exchange Square, or Royal Exchange Square to give it its proper name. That’s June Ink or J’ Ink over for another year. Bring on the July challenge whatever it is.

Drove home and had lunch, then went out for a walk along the railway, hoping to get some more pictures. Unfortunately, the light was pretty low and I didn’t get much. Took about fifteen shots of a hoverfly and none of them were sharp. Ten of a ladybird and none of them were sharp. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how many shots you take or what equipment you have, it just doesn’t work out for you. You just have to accept it and move on. Tomorrow will be better.

Tomorrow may be better, but it WILL be raining again.  The weather fairies predicted it.

The search begins – 26 June 2017

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Scamp was taking her sister out to lunch today and I was heading in to Glasgow on the train.

First stop was the Nile Barber for a number 3 all over. So who would it be? The conspiracy theorist? The Everything’s Getting Older grump with a story? Or would it be the new guy who doesn’t speak, just cuts? It turned out to be Aidan Moffat Everything’s Getting Older, and he had his left arm in a sling, so that would be another tale to tell. As it happened, he had a torn ligament, but didn’t divulge the reason. He did moan about all the folk who were just getting in his way in the town today, and how loads of trains were cancelled this morning because of ‘an incident’. “That usually means somebody’s jumped in front of a train”, his words not mine. “Monday morning’s a favourite time to do it.” Again, his profundity. However, he did tell some jokes to lighten the mood and he got a decent tip for that.

With the number 3 completed to both our satisfactions, I walked up to the Nissan garage that looks like a gigantic Matchbox Toy© display. That’s where today’s PoD came from, in fact the only photograph of the day. It was quite formal inside and I was beginning to worry if I’d dressed too casually for the occasion and whether I should have phoned ahead to make an appointment. However, I needn’t have worried, the fact that I had money which I appeared to be willing to part with made me a suitable target client. After having a seat in both the possible replacement for the Megane, I was a bit bamboozled with the ‘new’ uses technology had been put to in the last eight years. A lot has changed in Facebook cars since you last signed in. The salesperson obviously recognised my confusion and handed me the brochures for both cars and as a final ‘go away and stop wasting my time’ said “Is that all you came in for today?” My reply of “No, I came in to get my hair cut too.” seemed to go so far over her head it was stratospheric. Her blank looks proved that she suffered from an extreme form of NSOH. Clutching my brochures I made my way back into the real world. The search has begun.

Going back on the train, the bloke across the passage from me dropped a folded up £20 note as he was sitting down. I decided to be ‘good Samaritan’, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed. What a look of relief on his face. Good deed done for the day.

At Salsa tonight the beginners class were even, then a late arrival made me surplus to requirements, so I took my leave and polished off the above sketch in just over 15mins. It’s a fiddly building with curved stonework and strange angular areas of roof. I’m quite happy with the result, but wish I’d taken a photo to check some of the details. The little A6 Moleskine book is great for these small sketches.

Tomorrow the rains will come with a vengeance. On June’s birthday too!

Down the Green – 25 June 2017

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We had decided to go for a walk down Glasgow Green this morning and that is what we did.

Usually the parking is quite tight at the People’s Palace, but either because we were there early or because the temperature had dropped significantly today and folk were just staying at home. I almost felt sorry for some French folk who had arrived at the People’s Palace in a tour bus, only to find a locked door. For most of the week, the building opens at 10am, but on Sundays it opens an hour later. They missed the opening by 5 minutes!

We walked around the usual circuit and that’s where my PoD abstract came from. Went in to the wintergarden for a quick coffee for me and peppermint tea for Scamp before going home. Unfortunately the barista(?) didn’t seem to understand “some hot milk on the side” and I got a cup of milky coffee. Not really surprising as two of the cafe assistants didn’t look as if they’d be able to spell their names correctly at the first attempt.

Back home we watched an enthralling and, I must say, interesting F1 GP from the street circuit of Baku in Azerbaijan. Thrill, spills, crashes, flaring tempers. It had it all. It even had a smiling winner who drank some of his champagne from his racing boot, but the best bit was when the 3rd placed rookie had to drink some too, from the same boot. The look on his face was a picture!

Today’s sketch was done on Pink Pig 150gsm cartridge paper and with an almost dry Derwent Graphik 0.1mm pen. I drew it as the race was nearing its nail biting climax and the flower head was drawn blind. I think this must be the most accurate ‘blind drawing’ I’ve done so far. I’m quite pleased with it, especially after yesterday’s effort.  The rose is Alec’s Red, Scamp’s favourite rose and it was a wedding present from Alex to us all those years ago.  Scamp cut the flower to stop it being battered by the high winds this weekend.

Tomorrow? I may go in to Glasgow to get my hair cut.

A day in the toon – 24 June 2017

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A bit later than normal, we made our way into Glasgow for a wee wander.

Started with pizza for lunch in Paesano and then a coffee in Nero. I was looking for a new sketch book, now that the Seawhite landscape I’ve been using has run out of space and the Paperchase book I was intending to replace it with has failed to hold a watercolour wash. I didn’t find one and think now that I may have to revert to the Pink Pig books I’ve been using for years. They have these three benefits:

  • I’ve used them before and they are smooth with good tooth.
  • They hold a watercolour wash with ease.
  • They cost nothing, because I already have them

They have one drawback and that’s the fact that they are wire bound, so you can’t simply open them out and draw across the fold in the same way that you can with a perfect bound book like a Moleskine. Ah, life is a set of compromises and so it is with sketchbooks too, it seems.

When we were walking back to the car I saw a bloke selling white beanie hats. Couldn’t understand why, then I noticed that they had The Stone Roses printed on them. So that’s why there were so many people wandering around ‘The Toon’. Then two blokes passed and one said to the other “… and there I was standing right next to Ian Brown.” Isn’t he the one who looks like a monkey? Ian Brown that is, not the bloke who passed, although he did have that simian look about him too.

The wind was getting quite fierce on the way home, but I didn’t have a photo apart from this controversial one from Buchanan Galleries carpark, so I went for a walk around St Mo’s with Big Dog and the 105mm Macro and the Teazer as backup. It was the Nikon that produced the pic of the bee.

We had intended to go dancing at night, but neither of us were that bothered, so we had a night in instead. I managed to get a very bad sketch completed. It won’t be vying for Sketch of the Week.

No plans for tomorrow.

Sunny Skies – 18 June 2017

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Sunday was a lazy day. Really, it was too hot to be anything else, and after our late night on Saturday a lazy day was called for. Scamp was doing some tidying in the garden and I was just footering around. Although I did prepare dinner which was also a lazy meal: Chicken Tagine. Just fry the onions and the chicken in the Le Creuset (other makes are available) add the spices, some chopped dates, dried apricots, orange juice and water then bung in the oven for a couple of hours.

After lunch I went for a walk down the canal leaving Scamp to garden and keep an eye on the tagine. Walked along the canal, across the plantation and onto the railway road then back to Auchnstarry. That’s where I found the lovely wee dog rose. Got passed by two guys on scrambler bikes, one, just a boy seemed amused that I was a photographer. He seemed to want his photo taken, but I had two extension tubes on the camera and I didn’t really want a macro of his face. Should probably just have taken it. He’d never know. The other guy, maybe his dad was a lot more sensible and just gave me a wave as he passed. Such a lovely day to be out walking in your shirt sleeves.

When I got back, I’d just missed JIC, so I phoned him back and we compared temperatures and had a quick catch up. Then I let him go to prepare his barbecue. Hope it worked out well J. You’ll see his card on the left above. Don’t know where he gets his sarcasm from! Hazy’s is on the right with your recommended text alteration. Hope you approve H.

We couldn’t decide whether to go to Sunday Social or not. We’d been out late dancing on Saturday. We’d have usual salsa class on Monday. Can we be bothered? Will we, won’t we? Eventually we decided; stuff it, let’s go. Driving this time. We’ve learned our lesson with trains.

Got parked no problem and had a great time at Arta. I’m beginning to like it. It’s more ‘grown up’ than The Garage. It’s just a bit dark and gloomy. Danced with four girls as well as Scamp! Feeling the effects of it now on my knees. Chicken Tagine was voted good by the Cumbersheugh jury, but both of us agreed that it was too sweet. Less fruit next time.

Preparing for another hot day tomorrow.

Derelict Decadence – 17 June 2017

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We drove in to Glasgow today. Me to see a photographic exhibition and Scamp to see a quilting exhibition. Both were interesting as it turned out, but mainly to the parties who attended.  The photo exhibition was by Alfonso Ramundo seen above with his partner.  The photographs were all monochrome and of dilapidated buildings, mainly in and around Glasgow, but also some from Czech Republic.  I spent a good half hour talking to the two artists and felt that they were both genuinely interested in their photography.  Very good show.  If you get a chance to see it anywhere, go.

Afterwards we went for lunch to Usha the tapas style Indian restaurant at the bottom of Byres road. Lunch was just as good as usual Patia Gosht an Achari Chicken for me and simply Saag Paneer for Scamp. Nan bread was cool but not cold as usual too. Still, the main food was good and hot so we shouldn’t and didn’t complain.

On the way back Scamp needed a single ticket on the underground as she’d used up her return and we waited a full five minutes behind a girl who seemed to be buying weekly tickets INDIVIDUALLY for her entire university class. Why she couldn’t just have bought them all with the one card swipe I’ll never know. She was english, so she probably didn’t know any better.

Came home and came over all exhausted. Must be the heat today, so went for a snooze.

Scamp is out at a concert which Nancy told her was in the Concert Hall, but turned out to be in the City Halls. Nowhere near each other. Must stop now because I need to get the train into Glasgow.

Didn’t have time to finish off the blog last night.  Didn’t get in until after midnight because of a 15 minute wait in Glasgow while they found a conductor for the train.  Delays like this give more weight to the company’s plans to have driver-only trains.

While I was walking back from the photograph exhibition to meet Scamp, I stopped to sketch this building.  Here’s what I wrote about it on Flickr:

Entrance to the Robertson Bio Incubator building (Glasgow Uni). Come on people, there must be a better name for this architectural masterpiece.

Today – because it is now Sunday morning – is warm and overcast.  It’s going to be a hot one I think, but not as hot as Hazy is predicting down England way!

Dumped – 9 June 2017

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Isn’t it nice when a plan comes together.  I don’t think that was what Theresa was saying this morning.

We went in to Glasgow today.  Went to Sarti’s for lunch.  So did about twenty other folk in what looked like an office party.  I think our order must have got swamped by that influx and first the waiter apologised, then the waitress apologised, then the chef apologised.  It was annoying, but I felt embarrassed for the poor chef.  It wasn’t his fault, it was the link between the till and the kitchen.  When the food came it was the usual high standard we expect in Sarti’s.  In the end, we got our coffees ‘on the house’, but I felt bad about that.  It was nobody’s fault and the food was good when it came.

While we were in Sarti’s we were watching the aftermath of the election unfold on TV.  When Theresa went to see Mrs McQueen we were discussing what the conversation would be like.  We decide it would be something like this:

“Your Majesty, I wish to form a new parliament.”

“ Eh,  ah don’t think so hen.  You’ve made a bit of a mess of this wan don’t ye think.”

“But we need a clear and strong government.”

“Aye, but ah really don’t think you’re the wan tae dae it.  Tell ye whit.  Ah’ll gie ye a chance, but realise that yer jaicket is oan a slack nail noo.  Right?  Oan yer way, ya chancer.”

Wandered up Sausage Roll Street and back down again, then drove home through torrential rain AGAIN!  What is wrong with the weather these days.

Sat on the back step (in the sun) and drew today’s sketch of the corner of the garden with its wonky clothes pole and containers, pots and alliums.  Quite liked the result with the reversed vanishing points (techy thing) and verging on spherical perspective (very techy thing!).

Today’s PoD is a jenny long legs sitting on Scamp’s car and is no way a subliminal message that Labour is on the ascendance and Conservatives are on the way down the tubes.  Not at all!

Rain forecast for tomorrow, so we may do lunch to cheer ourselves up.  BTW, Flickr is playing silly buggers tonight, so I’ll post the pics tomorrow DV.

Sew, Sew Good – 31 May 2017

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Today we woke to sunshine and it lasted all day, although rain is forecast just before midnight.  I’m hoping to be in bed by then, though, because I’ve been going to bed in the wee small hours for the past few days.

I had an appointment at John Lewis this afternoon for a guided tour round my sewing machine, not actually mine, by the same model.  The lesson took just under 45 minutes and I did learn a lot, like when and why you use stretch stitches, how to make button holes and how to clear that annoying birds nest I always get when I finish a row.  Simply.  Glad I signed up for it.

Before the lesson we had tea and a sandwich in the cafe at JL.  Such a lovely view up Sausage Roll Street from the JL building.  As Scamp said, you don’t appreciate the architecture from street level.

Walked down Bucky Street along Argyll Street and back up Queen Street and that’s where I saw my PoD.  Like I said in the Flickr description: “Saw the photo and knew the title before I took it.”  The man in the High Castle.  It was taken with the Teazer and I’m very pleased with it.

Back home for dinner, then we were out again to Salsa.  Great fun in the beginners’ class watching their faces when Jamie G showed them tonight’s surprise move (Sombrero) and told them they had just over 3 minutes to perfect it before they would dance it, but dance it they did and very well too.  There’s a time to be cautious and a time for just going for it and tonight they threw caution to the winds.  Great class, great fun.  Advanced class did Tornado which is Scamp’s favourite move of all time.  It was great to go over it again slowly and get the timing just right.  Sometimes I just bomb through it and it becomes a bit clumsy.  It was nice to see it with all its hard edges, clean and tidy.

Tomorrow?  Looks like rain.  Don’t know what we’re doing.

A sea of green – 28 May 2017

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I thought it would be a good idea to go down The Green this morning for a wee walk.  So did a few thousand others, it seemed.

I’d made the fatal mistake of forgetting that yesterday twenty two men had been running around a green field chasing a ball in the rain  Eleven of them got a trophy for doing the running better than the other eleven.  The ones who won the trophy were wearing green and white shirts.  The losers were wearing red.  Today we were driving against a sea of green and white tee shirts.  Luckily.  If we had been going the other way, in the direction the crowd were going, we would still be waiting in that traffic jam.  Also, we started out fairly early and the traffic was light.  Later, when we were coming home the traffic queue was from Parkhead to the slip road from the motorway, in fact they were queueing along the inside lane of the westbound M80, a distance of about 5 miles!  Fanaticism!

However, it didn’t really affect us.  We drove to the People’s Palace and parked there then went for a walk along The Green to the McLennan Arch and back along the riverside to the suspension bridge.  Along the way I spotted on Mr McGivern who was the bane of my life for the last two years as a PT.  He worked two days of the two years he was meant to be with us.  A ghost of a man who screwed the system and probably still does so.  I didn’t speak to him.

We stood on the suspension bridge and watched the people rowing up and down the river.  Young and old, fit and unfit, but everyone seemed to be enjoying the sunshine, especially after yesterday’s rain.  We headed for home after that, without even our usual tea ’n’ toast or roll ’n’ sausage.

It was on the way home we saw the extent of fandom for Celtic.  So glad we were going the other way.  After lunch and a pretty boring Monaco GP, I drove down to Auchinstarry and walked along the canal to Twechar and back along the railway path.  Saw a Humming Bird Hawk Moth.  The first time I’ve seen one in Scotland.  Photo wasn’t all that good, because I was using the Teazer and it’s not really designed for my kind of macro photography.  Should have taken the Oly 10 as a banker.  Next time, yes, next time.  It was when I was crossing the plantation I saw Bolt.  That’s his name and his photo is at the top of the page.  Cheery wee guy and PoD.

Dinner was roast chicken with cabbage (because it was there) and potatoes.  Lovely warm day and I well exceeded my step count.

Tomorrow, no Gems, but it’s forecast for rain.

The May Is Oot – 19 May 2017

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It’s been a bit of a flower centred week.  Since Tuesday there seems to be nothing but flower pictures imprinted on the CCDs of my cameras.

Today we welcome summer to Scotland with the Old Scots saying “Ne’er cast a cloot until May is oot.”  Which translates to english as “Don’t discard your winter clothes until the may (hawthorn) is in bloom.” Today’s PoD was of a cluster of hawthorn blossom frothing from a bush.  I had actually gone to this spot on the Antonine Way to try out the Teazer’s ability to produce a panorama in-camera which it did and also to check its in camera time-lapse ability which I failed to achieve.  Maybe I need to read the instruction book.  READ THE INSTRUCTIONS for what is basically a little point ’n’ shoot camera?  I think not!  Instruction books are for noobs.  Look, I paid good money for this camera and all its fancy modes, so it should deliver them without the need for an instruction book.  What is the camera world coming to?  It failed, in other words.  I didn’t fail, it failed.  Fin.

Made the strangest bread this morning because Scamp’s dad’s cousin was coming for dinner and she is a coeliac.  I’d never made a gluten free loaf before and when the instruction started with “beat two egg whites with two teaspoons of sugar, one teaspoon of vinegar, one teaspoon of salt, two tablespoons of oil and 400ml of water”  I thought ’What is going on here?’.  However, I followed the instructions and the bread rose and was baked for the required 55min.  That’s twice the time a ‘normal’ loaf takes.  Even stranger, it looked like a cake rather than a loaf when all was done, BUT it tasted like a loaf.  Like a pan loaf and it had risen perfectly.  No soggy bottom and Isobel who has is an expert on gluten free loaves gave it her seal of approval.  She got the remainder of the loaf away with her.  I may try it again, even with its strange very white flour (that isn’t really flour) and beaten egg whites.

Scamp, June and Isobel were going to a concert in Glasgow afterwards and I was nominated driver.  When I came home I tried an install of Lightzone which is a very able Lightroom clone.  It’s free as in legally free and is cross-platform which means it works on the Mac and also on the Win 10 tablet because it has 32bit architecture.  It’s not as polished as Lightroom and doesn’t do the cataloging that is at the heart of the Adobe prog, but it’s a great piece of software.  Best of all, out of the box, it supports the Panasonic RAW files the Teazer produces.  Amazing what a little piece of free software can do.

Tomorrow?  More Teazer Testing, but I refuse to read the instructions.