Category: Ice

A bit more relaxed day – 30 November 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Done my bit for the ‘up early and out’ brigade.

Today was cold, really cold -3ºc when we woke. Sun was shining, but it wasn’t making much of a difference to the frozen cars in the street. Definitely a day for taking things a bit slower.

Finally in the afternoon we decided we needed the basics. Dinner for tonight, some veg and some bread. Dressed for the winter weather which was now a temperate one point something above zero and headed down to the shops. Got the bread, the veg and a chicken for tonight’s dinner and walked back.

After the walk, it didn’t seem all that cold, so rather than taking off all my layers, I simply changed my trainers for boots, grabbed a camera and went to St Mo’s to test out their new footpaths. Actually it was just a compressed hardcore base, not an actual asphalt footpath. Maybe that’s still to come, or maybe that’s as much as the finances will stretch to. After all, NLC councillors annual Christmas junket must be on the horizon now and of course that will take precedence. Anyway, the lighting was good and I got a few moody shots. Enough to give Lightroom and Photo Raw something to get their teeth into.

Got some more detailed shots of the Hair Ice I saw yesterday. Took a quick photo of it on my phone purely to get a GPS fix on it, but the phone placed it about a mile and a half away, in the middle of a housing estate. Weird! But then again, I don’t suppose Mr Android and Mrs Google had ever been to Cumbersheugh, so how would they know.

That was about it for the day. Chicken was lovely. The bread is uneaten as yet and the veg will hopefully go to making soup tomorrow. PoD was a shot of the lovely frosted reed stems poking from a frozen pond, looking like early Christmas trees.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to dance at the Sunday Social in The Record Factory, but it does depend on the weather.

Out before 11am? – 29 November 2019

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That’s just too easy!

I didn’t even bother to have a shower before I went out this morning (filfy beast). I just got up and went out and the first shot was taken at 9.39am. Unfortunately, at 9.38am I realised I’d forgotten to put the Oly in my bag and the camera I had, the Teazer2, wasn’t set to take sensible photos. I don’t know what buttons I’d pressed on it the last time I’d used it, but the ISO was set at 80 (just usable). The touch screen didn’t work (don’t know why). It wouldn’t focus any closer than about 1metre. Quite simply it was AAaaargh!!! Easiest way out of this mess was to use the magic 4K photo. That’s what I did. Once I had one in the bag that I knew was in focus somewhere in the fifty odd shots this remarkable camera takes in a second and a half, I applied logic and reset it to factory settings and once I’d switched on the RAW setting and switched off the annoying beep, we were sort of in business. First worthwhile shot was 9.51. Not bad after such a poor start. Of course what I should have done was go home, pick up the Oly and start again, but the light was changing and I didn’t want to waste it. I got a few shots that looked as if they’d be useable once they’d been Lightroomed into submission. Also saw some Hair Ice. Read about it, but this is the first time I’ve seen it. Strange looking and feeling stuff. Went home, cold but reasonably happy.

Back home Scamp had guessed that I’d want the coffee machine on and it was warming up nicely when I got in. Once I’d thawed out and had looked at the results of the mornings work, and with a cup of hot Cuban coffee in me, I felt more human and knew I had at least one shot in the bag.

After that I footered (another great word) about for a while adjusting that and pruning that and generally wasting time until lunch, because it was still cold. When I went out it was just cresting the zero line. Now it was a fairly tropical 4ºc. Scamp was going out in the afternoon with the witches to celebrate one of them being released from a life of bondage at HMRC. That meant I had the afternoon and early evening to myself.

First things first, after she left, I started cooking the mince for my favourite Mince ’n’ Tatties with a slice of beetroot, except there were no tatties, so I had to bundle up again and drive down to M&S to get some. I thought the new shops would be a flash in the pan thing, but it really is becoming a boon, not having to drive round the new traffic calmed roundabout and up the road to Tesco. Yes, they are a great idea.

Finally got round to programming the second light controller for the living room. We’ve only had it for about ten years! Now we have two controlled lights. Progress!

Watched another episode of His Dark Materials although the TIVO box nearly gave up the ghost the first two times I tried to view the recording. I think we may need a new one, or possibly a new provider. Virgin Media are not the most helpful company in the world. Brilliant computer graphics in the scenes of The North. Totally believable.

Scamp arrived back home just after 8pm, driven back with Jeanette by James. I wonder if Jeanette has ever said those famous words “Home James!” Must ask her sometime.

PoD was a shot from the morning. Camera placed gingerly on the ice of a frozen pond and shutter triggered by a 2 second timer. Great idea, old technology in a very able camera.

Hopefully going out to lunch tomorrow although temperatures of -4ºc predicted overnight.

Coffee – 4 October 2019

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Coffee with Fred and Colin

Coffee in Costa with Fred and Colin, Val being in Skye sampling their rain and beating off the midges I’d guess. While I was waiting in the queue I introduced a nurse to Cortados.  She asked what they were and when I told her, she said she’d never heard of them before, but would order one the next time she was out with her friends.  I told her it might be a good idea to try one first!

The boys and I discussed holidays past and plans for the future. Reminisced about school days our younger selves survived, (almost) unscathed. “I got belted at school but it didn’t do me any harm.” However we managed to keep of the topic of politics, otherwise we’d still be sitting there long after Costa had closed and still be nowhere nearer the truth. Books exchanged, we made our way home in the rain. It was a strange feeling having coffee with the boys on a Friday, because it’s usually a Thursday. Upsets you internal time clock.

Took today’s PoD when I parked the car under the big chestnut tree outside the house.

In the afternoon I struggled with a subject to fit with today’s topic of “Freeze”. I finally settled for a melting ice cube beside a freezer tray. Quite liked the linework with only minimal shading and no brushwork.

Out in the evening to Crawford & Nancy in Larkhall taking June and Ian with us. Really good relaxed evening and a very late arrival home which is why this is a ‘catch-up’ blog post. Finally headed for bed around 1am.

Driving home, and almost at Cumbersheugh I spotted two deer grazing at the side of the motorway.  Not surprising that you see so many deer carcasses at the side of the road these day.  These delicate looking creatures could easily be spooked on to the road and into the path of a car weighing in the region of 1.5 tonnes and travelling around 65mph and guess what comes off worst.  I’m mixing my units here, but you get the idea.

Out for a flu jag tomorrow morning. Really looking forward to that, as you can imagine. 😕

White Rabbits (x3) – 1 February 2019

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Traditional welcome to the first day of the month. Today it wasn’t just the rabbits that were white. Everything was.

It all started out so nicely with frost on the cars and therefore no great incentive to go out, so we just read for a while and then had a coffee. After that we simply had to drag ourselves out to buy Tesco.

After lunch I decided to try my luck in the bogs again and this time I found the dry path and still got some photos! Impressed with the ability of the ice to hold the weight of the Oly 10, if not me! Also impressed with the Oly app on the iPhone that allows me to control the camera through a private WiFi connection. That’s how you get these low down shots like today’s PoD.

It was when I was walking back that the snow came on and it didn’t go off for about four hours. Now we don’t just have frost, we have snow too. Maybe the snow has done its work because the temperature is no 0.7ºc. Positive 0.7ºc!

That’s about it for today. I’m off now to get a sketch done for 28 Drawings Later on Facebook. If I have time I’ll even add it to the blog.

As Promised!

Tomorrow it all depends on the weather. I looks like the sky will be clear, but we’ll see!

Electrifying – 31 January 2019

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We’d both postponed the clearing out of the electricity cupboard for far too long. We even tried to ignore it today too, but we both knew we’d have to give up the pretence and get started.

A cup of coffee each about 10.30pm and then we both decided at the same time to get started. The reason for the big clean out was nothing to do with a certain Japanese lady and everything to do with a strange smell that’s pervaded the house for a week or so. With so many “pellets of poison” (A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall – Bob Dylan) in various places in three houses I thought there might be a deceased rodent somewhere under the floor of the cupboard. However, if we found some items in the cupboard that were surplus to requirements, it would make sense to dispose of them at the same time.

By lunchtime we’d cleared the cupboard and filled the kitchen with the resulting detritus. I’d lifted some floorboards and checked for any dead rodents and there were none. I’d photographed in all directions under the floorboards and around the various pipes. Nothing, except some insulation, tar and heavy duty polythene, all held in place by plastic netting. Just to be sure, I lifted the floorboards in the toilet too with the same result. We did manage to fill a black rubbish bag with lots of stuff. Yes, there is still a lot of stuff that has been put back and needs to be looked through again, but the cupboard isn’t nearly as congested as it was.

Just as we were finishing, Hazy phoned and we caught up with things in the London area, then it was time for lunch. A slightly more down to earth lunch than yesterday’s posh lunch. Afterwards I loaded lots of bags into the Juke and took them away to the council tip. Some were probably antiques, especially cobblers lasts for repairing shoes, but I didn’t throw everything away. I kept a couple of lasts and some tools. I also kept a replacement heel for a man’s shoe. It was marked with the letters WD and an up pointing arrow, which I think was for the War Department.

When I came home I brought tonight’s dinner with me. A curry for two from Tesco. Good value for a fiver! With food sorted, I got my boots on and went for a walk in St Mo’s, hoping to get some shots in the mist that was descending. I think I achieved that with the PoD you see here. On the way back I tested the depth of a bit of bog and found it was up to my knee. Luckily only one leg went in and I could easily haul myself out, but wet trousers today with the temperature well below zero were not funny.

Curry was indeed good value and something I’d try again. Tomorrow we have no plans except we need to go for the ’messages’.

A non-dancing day – 27 January 2019

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I think after Friday and Saturday, we were well danced out.

Today we had a light breakfast at the hotel said our goodbyes to new and old friends, excluding Diane who was not in either of these sets and anyway, hadn’t surfaced by our 9.30am scraping of the car and driving home. Beautiful light and scenery as we took the Hamilton road home. Much quicker route, especially on a quiet, cold Sunday morning.

Just relaxed when we got home with a decent cup of coffee and solved today’s Sudoku while Scamp complained that there were pieces missing in her digital jigsaw. To clear this problem from her mind she went off to buy Tesco. After she got back, I grabbed my boots and went over to St Mo’s to get some photos. My favourite became PoD and is what you see above. It’s another Cladonia Pixie Cup with a bokeh background. Just out of focus shapes really, given a fancy Japanese name.

We had partly intended to go a Sunday Social at Mango tonight, but neither of us could be bothered and a little glass of Rhubarb & Ginger Gin followed by a glass of white from Michael’s hamper signed the fate of the evening. I’d be well over Nicola’s Abstemious Law, so couldn’t drive in to Glasgow, even if I wanted to.  Scamp made dinner and it was a belated Burns Supper i.e. Haggis, Neeps (mashed turnip) and Tatties (mashed potatoes).  Lovely wholesome food.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about all the things happening down in his neck of the woods. Other than that, watched a bit of fluff on the TV and now I’m writing this record of a relaxing, non-dancing day.

Tomorrow I get my annual diabetic retinopathy test. Hope I don’t get drops in my eyes, but I’m getting the bus anyway!

Out early – 17 January 2019

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Not very early, just after 10am, but much earlier than usual

Scamp was off to see Isobel for coffee at 10am and I was up and out a few minutes later. Just a walk over to St Mo’s to see if there was anything worth taking the camera out of the bag for. I’d put some beeswax on to my old Lafuma boots which are about twenty years old now. Not the best boots in the world, but they’ve a Goretex lining and they’ve a decent sole, so they’re better than my Clarks boots, just as long as I remember to wax them.

I was just walking towards the woods when I saw the three deer I was hoping to photograph, running away. Oh well, hopefully there will be other things to photograph. Despite the blue skies and the ice on the ponds, there was nothing that fired my interest and I was walking back home when I saw the opportunity to take another low level shot by resting the camera on some thin ice. It’s a view I couldn’t get any other way. The Nikon was out of the question. Too heavy and wrong lens selection. It had to be the Teazer today and it performed quite well. I’d cleaned it last week by using the Dyson to suck some of the dust from the lens. I hadn’t believed this would work, but it did. Best of the shots is above after a fair bit of work in ON1 2019 and Lightroom.

Got home just before Scamp and then we went out to recce tomorrow’s venue for dinner with Margaret and Billy. Their treat, their choice of restaurant. They’d chosen John Carrigan’s in Blantyre. Now I know where Blantyre is and I know how to get there, but just in case, I punched the postcode into the satnav and blindly followed it. It was a strange route that eventually took us within 100m of my Auntie Mary’s house. The last time I was there was easily 45 years ago, but I still remembered the geography of the place. Really strange seeing the changes that had taken place. Even stranger was when the satnav said “turn left then immediately turn right”. That’s when I saw a pub that I used to pass on my way to work 50 years ago!! It looked exactly the same and I don’t think it had been painted since. Despite the strange route, the satnav did bring us exactly to the restaurant. I decided to follow my nose to find our way back home rather than take the twisty turny road we’d come. My route took almost the same time, but was much easier.

Back home, there was just enough time for a cup of tea before I was out again to the doc’s. The doc hadn’t been happy with my last blood test and wanted another one now that a month had elapsed since the previous one. Unfortunately, just before it was my turn, he was called away on an emergency. I hate waiting for the doctor or the dentist but I dare say emergencies happen and must take priority. I was dealt with fairly quickly and then was ‘lucky’ enough to get an appointment tomorrow. So, after a busy day today, I’m off to the health centre tomorrow for a blood test at 8.50am no less!! I don’t usually surface until 10am! What are these medical people thinking, getting a pensioner up at that time of the morning?

Well, if I’m up that early, I might as well take my camera with me and hopefully get some early morning shots of those deer before they have fully woken up.

Frosty (no snowman) – 2 January 2019

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I woke around 4am this morning and looked out. I thought it had been snowing, but I was mistaken.

Although we were both up and about fairly early, we couldn’t get our little ducks in a row properly so wasted a fair bit of time, although I did make some bread. My main task today was to get the calendars sorted and hopefully posted. I managed the former with the calendars punched, clipped and bagged, but when Scamp took a walk to Condorrat to post them, the A4 parcels wouldn’t fit in the post box. Obviously our post boxes are Eurosceptic Remainer boxes, not happy with these new fangled European metric sizes. So she had to bring them back and hopefully they’ll be posted tomorrow.

When she came back, it was my time to get out. I took a walk over to St Mo’s to see if the frosty stuff was still there. It was, and it was everywhere. My favourite shot and PoD is of a little twig frozen to the surface of a wee pond. To take it, I set the ISO to 200 manually focused at about the right distance and set the self timer. Then I could rest the Nikon on the ice and press the shutter release. It’s a good method if the ice is thick enough to hold the camera! I was holding the strap all the time just in case. This was the best of about four shots. I saw some other potential images, but would probably use the Oly for them if I get another day like today, because then I could see what the camera was seeing through the phone app. I’ll keep it in mind.  It was cold out there.  Temperature was allegedly -0.6ºc when I came in, but it felt a lot colder than that.  It’s now 1.6ºc, but still feels cold.

Scamp claimed dinner tonight. ‘Rats’ for her (no pun intended) and mince pie for me. Beans and potatoes for me and just potatoes for Scamp. Simply superb! Then it was more of the crumble for pudding and it had significantly improved since yesterday, but alas it is now gone.

Tomorrow I need to get up early to fix the kitchen light and after that we’re going out somewhere. Cabin fever is setting in.

Another Good Day – 20 March 2018

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And I quote:

“Tomorrow, if it works out as the weather man says, will be another good day with more sunshine, temperatures scraping under double digits and light winds again. Scamp wants to go into the garden. I might get my bike out.”

Well, it did turn out as the weather man said.
– It was another good day with sunshine.
– Temperatures in the sun were probably scraping the double digits.
– The winds were light
– Scamp did go into the garden
– I DID take my bike out

Scamp started clearing up the front garden in the morning, the back garden is still under permafrost. I cleared the snow off the back step, finding the mat in the process. I then attacked the ice with a spade, but gave up when I got to the stuff that was welded securely to the concrete and resorted to a chemical attack. Instead of Novichok, I used table salt which melted the ice really quickly. Meanwhile Scamp was trying to eradicate an influx of tiny white maggots from one of her containers. She eventually gave up, washed the offending plants and dumped the compost in the brown bin (garden waste). Then she tidied up the front of the window area to let the daffodils have some air and light. The garden looked so much better after that.

The coffee I’d ordered from the Bean Shop in Perth arrived just in time for lunch and after sampling some, I got dressed to go out on my bike. Glorious day if you were in the sun, quite cool in the shade. Cycled to the old tip and that’s where I got today’s PoD which is the Kirkintilloch Volcano. One day I will climb the Kirkintilloch Volcano and sit like this person did, just enjoying the view. There, that’s a challenge for this year.  I also got a photo of a newt.  Not great or crested, but a newt.  I’ve never seen one in St Mo’s and this is the first one I’ve seen for years.  Stood and watched the trains go by and listened to the silence, if you know what I mean.  It was simply wonderful to be out in the air without that cold wind dragging you down.  Maybe spring is just round the corner.  Glad I took advantage of today because the weatherwoman says it’s going to rain tomorrow. Worse still, Wunderground says it’s going to rain tomorrow and I trust Wunderground more than I trust the weatherwoman, Kawser Quamer.

Made chilli for dinner while Scamp had Rats which is her shorthand for Ratatouille.

Tomorrow is Dancing, Dancing, Dancing day we hope because we missed it last week.

Coffee and dirty pictures – 1 February 2018

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We had a quick coffee this afternoon, Val, Fred and me to discuss Fred’s dirty pictures.

Not very dirty pictures, certainly not in the usual sense of the word. They were quite finger marked and smudged, but that’s part of the technique of sketching with sanguine chalk. He’d been to the first of his Life Classes yesterday and was eager to show us the results. They were all female nudes, but very artfully posed. It’s not a thing I’ve ever considered myself. I find it hard enough drawing the little matchstick men and women who inhabit my urban landscapes, but the thought of drawing all that musculature and skeletal framework just turns me off. Maybe that’s why I stick to urban and architectural scenes. You know where you are with buildings. Mostly they are composed of straight lines although with designers making more use of 3D modelling software, and the influence of CNC machines, more and more buildings are taking on curvaceous and sinuous lines. Anyway, both Val and I were impressed with his work and even more so when he explained that he was given 10 minutes max for each sketch. I imagine it’s difficult for the model to hold the pose for much longer than that.

When I got home, I grabbed my camera and walked over to St Mo’s and that’s where I got the shot at the top. A lovely sunset over St Mo’s pond.

Scamp was out for the evening at a dinner party for Gems. I’m taxi driver and am sitting here writing this and waiting for a phone call to say the “Taxi for Campbell” is required.

As well as that I got a first sketch done for 28 Drawings Later and that’s what you see below.  I was quite pleased with it.  The first one I’ve done in ages.  Hopefully I’ll manage to get the other 27 done and in on time.

No great plans for tomorrow.  Scamp’s out for coffee tomorrow.  I might go for a walk.