Category: insects

Put on your dancing shoes – 24 July 2021

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First time dancing in among people for a long, long time.

Another day to get up fairly early, have breakfast and get things organised for our first face to face dance class since March 2020. We left the house at about 10.15 to drive the 30 miles to the village hall in Johnstone, near Paisley. It took all of the 45 minutes we’d allowed for the journey. Google said 34 minutes, but Mr Google wasn’t driving today, I was.

There were people inside the hall, lots of people, around 14 people and we only knew two of them, the teachers, Stewart and Jane. Oh dear, I thought. Am I going to make a fool of myself here by not knowing any of the routines. Not to worry though, I had my magic Dancing Shoes and when I lace them up and tie them it all comes flooding back. The panic, that is. That’s what comes flooding back. Aha, but we knew the first dance, it was an easy one, a Rumba One. That built my confidence. The next one was the Foxtrot and we’d practised it hard and for a long time. We’re not exactly perfect at it, but we can make it look like we are. For those who saw us dance it on Thursday and are shaking their heads, we can do it. And we did. One or two little technical points were missed, but the majority of the dance was there and we were keeping fairly well to the music too. That’s the difference with Stewart & Jane as teachers. If they see you have the basic form of the dance and are keeping up with the rest of the class, they forgive some of the errors, knowing they can go back to them later and fix them. Others are perfectionist and we’ve suffered under them before.

The third dance was a Cha-Cha and we’d covered it well on Zoom, so it was fairly easy for us. The class ended with a sort of Jive routine we’ve done loads of times and we mastered it on the second music track. All in all it was great. We’ve signed up for a ten week course that will take us into October! Strangely, I’m looking forward to the challenges we’ll face.

Drove back home and Scamp went out to buy Tesco. I stayed home and did some creative writing, converting a week’s worth of bullet points into a week’s worth of blog. When Scamp returned and she’d done two loads of washing, I went off to find a photo in St Mo’s. Returned with a few hopefuls, but today’s PoD was the hoverfly on ‘final’ to land on a cow parsley flower head.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the garden soaking up what might just be the last of this hot weather.

Did you know that 50 years ago on this date (also a Saturday) we got engaged!

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere after we’ve given a man some snot and some saliva!

Rosemary from the garden – 21 July 2021

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Scamp wanted milk Sim wanted tonic JIC wanted rosemary, fresh preferably.

We drove down to Millom by the ‘high road’ which the sat nav doesn’t understand. Too small a road and with no road number. Once there we went to Tesco. Got the milk and some other stuff but no elderflower tonic to be found and no fresh rosemary.

Drove down to Broughton and parked down near the livestock market, then found the wee deli where we’d got the cherries earlier in the week. Woman said there might be rosemary in the chiller cabinet in the back of the shop. The guy who was serving went to look said if there wasn’t any there, he’s cut us a couple of sprigs from the garden. That’s good service. Scamp bought two bottles of wine and one of gin.

Came out and decided it was far too warm to walk anywhere, even through the avenue of trees to the pools we’d found a couple of days ago. Just came home by the new road and stopped at the bridge just before the zig zag through the farm. I realise that means nothing to everyone except those who have driven that narrow road. Got a few photos there of a couple wee cottages that stand by the side of a river, half covered by a stand of trees. One of those photos. Back in the car I though “Isn’t air-con a wonderful thing”!

Spent the rest of the day lounging around. Jamie made Fish with Carrot Chips and I made Cheesy Tear & Share bread. JIC and Sim are leaving tomorrow night. They have business to attend to at home and also it will be cooler driving in the evening.

I took some moody shots of the moon which was looking good tonight, but the midges were busy again so I didn’t linger.

May go looking for stones tomorrow.

Another hot day – 18 July 2021

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It was cloudy in the morning, but it cleared up quickly. It’s 10pm now and it’s still warm.

Because there was a bit of a breeze, I set up a tripod and tried a few slow shutter shots, but the Gorillapod was too low and the Benbo wasn’t quite stable enough, so they turned out a bit shaken but not stirred. This slow shutter thing needs more practise. Made up for my disappointment by taking even more landscapes.

Scamp started to make a Swiss roll in the afternoon. She called it a “Live Bake” after the disaster of Friday. Her technique seemed to impress the assembled audience with her rolling up the baked ‘cake’ in the silicone baking paper

After lunch we sat around the house and found cool places to be. Sim went for a run. In the heat! Down the hill then up through the fields to an old ruined house then back along a single track road to the house. She declared it a good run. We took her word for it.

Later in the afternoon Scamp and I walked for half an hour along the single track road with few passing places. Fairly easy going. Harder climbing the hills coming back

JIC went for his run on the same short route we took. He was much quicker than sim.

Neil D was on dinner duty.Turkey pilau. Rice maybe a little bit stodgy he thought – we didn’t. We thought it was lovely. Just blame it on that oven, Neil.

Scamp finished the Swiss roll and coated it in ganache. I helped with the decorative white chocolate dribbles after Scamp managed to burn her fingers lifting the cup containing the melted white chocolate out of the microwave.

PoD was a Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly that Scamp and I saw on our afternoon walk.

Sprite, Gin and Rum all round tonight and an early bed again.

A busy day – 16 July 2021

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Lots to do for both of us.

Best to talk about the afternoon, because there was a lot of sitting around in the morning. Those who need to know will discover why.

Scamp went out after lunch to buy some more supplies and I was told to go out for a walk and talk to the bees! I don’t usually have long conversations with bees, they’re usually too busy. What I did find was a Plume Moth. This is only the second one I’ve seen and the first live one. It’s a strange insect with impossibly narrow wings. Actually it rolls the wings up when it has landed and when they are unfurled for flight they look like little feathers, hence the name, I presume. While I was engrossed in photographing it striding around a cow parsley head, in flew a Soldier Beetle to see what was going on. The plume moth seemed quite dismissive of it.

On my rounds of St Mo’s I also saw a Common Blue damselfly which when I looked closely on the computer, seemed to be laughing! Either that or it was trying to get some cooling air because it was very hot today, well past the mid 20s by all accounts.

We watched the first of the new qualifying rounds of F1. It’s a confusing system where the first set of qualifying on a Friday gives grid places for a sprint race on Saturday and results from that will determine the grid slots for the actual F1 GP on Sunday. Confused? We were! Today’s qualifying was much like a normal Saturday race. Tomorrow is the interesting one with a 25-30 minute Sprint race run over 100km.

Tomorrow we are attending a funeral mass for Margie’s husband in the morning. We may go for a drive in the afternoon.

Walking in the woods – 10 July 2021

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We had a lazy start, but we were both eager to get out and about.

Neither of us was all that inclined to go anywhere today. It was one of those Scottish days with the milky white sky again. However, we did need something for tonight’s dinner and a walk to stretch our legs wouldn’t go amiss. So, with that in mind, off we trotted for a walk around Broadwood Loch.

Surprisingly, there weren’t a lot of folk out walking. It was almost as if we had the place to ourselves. I think we only passed three people walking through the wooded part of the walk. There were a few more on the usual circuit of the loch itself. In the woods there might not have been many folk, but there were lots of froglets or maybe toadlets, I can’t tell the difference. Luckily we managed to avoid stepping on any. Unluckily for me I didn’t get any photos of them because my camera was set to ISO 50 from last night’s testing sessions after sensor cleaning. With that sorted, we were back in normal business.

I don’t really like pylons. They are a blot on the landscape and the central belt of Scotland seems to be full of them. However, viewed as a subject in themselves and with a bit of help from Lightroom they become quite interesting structures. One is available for viewing in Flickr. We walked around the exercise machines path, following in the footsteps of a dad and two boys on bikes. One of the boys was berated by Scamp for leaving his bike on the path. The dad agreed with her and said he was trying to teach them good bike behaviour as well as how to cycle safely. “Good luck with that.” I told him as we passed on by.

We got tonight’s dinner in M&S. Stir fry. I chose half the ingredients, Scamp chose the other half.

Back home I had a look at the photos and knew they needed something better to put on Flickr, so I changed cameras to the Oly and went off hunting beasties in St Mo’s. I’d forgotten how useful a motor wind feature is on a neat little camera like the Oly. Great for the scattergun approach to macros. Get the subject framed and almost in focus and batter off ten frames or so. Move on and do the same again. I’d taken 10 shots on our 90min walk round Broadwood. I took 140 in less than an hour round St Mo’s and with almost the same success rate.

The PoD turned out to be the pylons but a furry hoverfly came a close second, as did The Caped Crusader. See Flickr to understand that title.

I overcooked the chicken in the stir fry, but we both agreed it was edible.

No rain appeared today although there was a very threatening sky for a while. Tomorrow we may get water from the sky.

Marmalade, Walking and a bit of DIY – 8 July 2021

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Since the morning was a bit dull, Scamp suggested we water the garden.

Sounded sensible. Why do we always wait until the sun goes down before we get the hose out. If the sun isn’t coming out to play, then there’s no chance of the plants getting burned by the water from the hose. Apparently that’s why you should never water plants in direct sunlight. Whether that applies in Scotland is not proven.

We dug the hose out and I started on the front garden, the easy one. Not so many plants and they are nicely arranged around the edge of the grass whereas at the back there are sometimes three rows of pots, one in front of the other. When I was done, Scamp took over and watered the back garden. She also managed to water the kitchen floor, but we won’t go into that here. When we were done and were putting the hose away, I unplugged the gun end from the hose carrier and that’s when Scamp had a good idea. Why don’t we put up a hook in the bin shed and hang the gun end of the hose on that.

I dug out my cheapo Black & Decker drill with the Ni Cd batteries that are always flat when you want to use them. Just to prove me wrong, today they had held their charge from about three weeks ago and proceeded to drill a couple of holes in the wall of the bin shed. I don’t know what the wall was made from, but it was hard and quite thin. Probably a cement tile. Of course the holes were too small for the plastic plugs. So I carefully checked and got a drill that would do the job without being too big, just a nice tight fit. Put the first screw in and it started turning the plastic plug because the wall was too thin to grip the plastic. For some reason the other screw went in fine. After tightening the first screw by hand It was feeling a bit more secure. It was only meant to hold a coil of hose anyway so it would be fine. I haven’t checked it, but I’ve not heard any crashes from the bin shed, so perhaps for once my DIY skills have won the day.

After lunch we walked down to The Shops to get some veg and stuff for tonight’s dinner which was to be a Veggie Sausage Roll for Scamp and a Mince Pie for me. Both of them home made.

After we came back Scamp started the ironing and I took the Sony for a walk in St Mo’s. It was going to be a Beastie Day. There were lots of Soldier Beetles on the cow parsley and a strange little thin bodied moth with equally narrow wings. I didn’t quite get a clear shot of it, but I’ll keep my eye out for it now. PoD went to a Marmalade Hoverfly, named for the lovely orange coloured stripes on its body, I presume.

We had a dance practise tonight and went over the Waltz, Catherine Waltz, Tango and Bossa Nova. A bit of hesitation with the Catherine Waltz where I forgot how to do the Telemark Turn and Scamp misplaced a couple of Spin Turns, but otherwise not bad.

Tomorrow I’m waiting in for coffee and tea to be delivered. I discovered back in May that I had oodles of points I could use a the Perth coffee shop, so today’s purchase came to just over £7! If the delivery comes early we may go out somewhere.

The Dewdrop goes out – 6 July 2021

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It was a much better day than we anticipated.

Scamp was off for coffee with Isobel in the morning and I wasn’t invited. I wasn’t particularly bothered by the non-invite because I had my own plans for the day.

I’d planned that if the day was set fair, I’d take Dewdrop out for a spin. Just a short run, nothing too strenuous because I’ve not been cycling since about September last year and I wasn’t entirely sure I’d remember how to ‘go a bike’. It was easy. Dewdrop was docile and put up with me missing gears and struggling with the SPD plates on my shoes. We soon covered the 3 miles I’d earmarked as our first day out in 2021.

I had to lift the bike over a five bar gate on to the rutted old path alongside the railway. I didn’t get all the way along the path because I could see in the distance a JCB working near the end and as this path is technically private land I didn’t want to have to explain my intentions. Those intentions were to get some insect photos. So I cut my journey short and went looking for something less interesting, but still photographable.

I found it. The ‘It’ in question was a Burnet Moth and not just one, there were hundreds of them some, three to a flower. I think they were 5 Spot although they may be 6 Spot. It’s difficult to tell because the spots sometimes merge and also somtimes you get misled and find you’re counting a spot on the underwing.  Burnet moths are day flying insects and despite their startling appearance, aren’t all that rare. However they only seem to appear around here for a few days. I must just have hit it lucky today. I grabbed a few shots of course.

The other strange sight was a black slug emerging from a puddle where it had been completely submerged. As far as I could remember, slugs can’t breathe underwater, but this one was crawling along the bottom of the puddle, before it hauled itself out and then crawled over to another puddle to cross it head just above the water. Such a strange sight. I took photos … of course (on Flickr), but now I think about it, I should have taken a short video too. Is this the true origin of the Loch Ness Monster?  Is Nessie a gigantic slug?

When I got home, Scamp was back from her ‘coffee’ outing, although she said there seemed to be very little actual coffee in her cup. Maybe it was a ‘babychino’ rather than a latte.

After lunch Scamp started defrosting the freezer. It was my fault. Last night I didn’t close the door properly after I took the last of the ice cream out. The door stayed open until Scamp was going to bed around 11pm. That would mean it was gently losing its ice for about five hours. When we opened the door this morning it looked as if Frosty the Snowman had been in the freezer all night. Everything was covered in a layer of white frost. The freezer was needing defrosted anyway, so this was the incentive we needed. That’s one way of looking at it, anyway. After about an hour this afternoon with both of us taking turns at the defrosting process it was deemed clear enough to restart the freeze process. We put back about 60% of the contents. The rest were either too old to be worth keeping or Scamp didn’t think they were safe to refreeze. I’ll check next and every time and close that freezer door properly now.

Scamp made dinner tonight, a Prawn & Pea Risotto. Really lovely. Just enough mint in it to flavour the peas without overwhelming the whole thing.

We had a quick dance practise tonight just to make sure we can do the basic rumba, cha-cha and foxtrot. After a bit of discussion we came to agree on the correct moves in the correct places!

Tomorrow we may go out for a walk if the weather stays dry. It almost stayed dry today, just a little shower to remind us it was still there.

 

 

No thunder, just rain – 5 July 2021

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Rain and lots of it for most of the day.

We kept waiting for the rain to go off, but it just kept coming. Sometimes light, sometimes a bit heavier, but generally just a constant drizzle that, while good for the garden, wasn’t much good for photography.

Eventually after lunch I did make the decision to go out and try my luck because the rain had nearly stopped. While I was walking, my camera, in my bag, managed to take over 100 shots of the inside of the bag. That’s what happens when you forget to switch off the camera. Then you wonder why you have no space on your SD card and also why your battery is nearly flat. However, under MY control the camera did manage to take a few decent shots. My favourite, and PoD, was the close up of the bluebottle. If you ever wonder why you can’t sneak up on a bluebottle, take a look at those eyes. The compound eyes of flies are made up from thousands of individual receptors each one covering a slightly different, but overlapping area. So what the fly ‘sees’ is the world around it as a mosaic built up from all those thousands of cells, covering nearly 360º in every direction.

Watched an old film on iPlayer tonight Down Among the Big Boys (1993) starring Billy Connolly and Douglas Henshall. Great fun trying to work out where all the street scenes were filmed and also trying to work out who some of the bit player were. Silly story line, but interesting enough for a Monday night.

Tomorrow Scamp has a coffee appointment with Isobel and I’ve got the morning off. It might be dry, the weather fairies say, so I might get out somewhere scenic for a change … might!

 

 

Thunderstorms and torrential rain – 4 July 2021

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Looks like that’s the end of the hot summer days for a while.

We knew it was going to happen. All good things must come to an end and so do the dry days. Today started out with lovely sunshine, but we knew it wouldn’t last. The weather fairies had been adamant that thunderstorms were on the way, blowing up from the south, but you always live in hope that they got it wrong. They didn’t and not long after midday the first peal of thunder sounded the end of the hot dry spell. It was followed almost immediately by a torrential shower, and that’s the way it proceeded for the rest of the day. A few rolls of the thunder drum and then the heavy rain. I’d put out all the plants in the greenhouse to grab some of that free rain and I’m sure they enjoyed it.

Although the sun had disappeared, the air was still that heavy, muggy way you get just before thunderstorms clear the air, so when there seemed to be a dry spell, I got my shorts and tee shirt on with a raincoat on top (because I’m daft, but not totally stupid) and took the weather sealed Sony and Sigma macro out for a walk in St Mo’s. I was hoping for some butterflies or maybe, if I was lucky, a dragonfly. Neither of these were forthcoming, but I did manage to grab some shots of a hoverfly, a Helophilus pendulus no less. Commonly known as a Footballer because of its striped thorax. There haven’t been many hoverflies about so far this year, so it was good to get a clean shot of one.

I was only taking an hour out today because I had been making some tear and share bread and it was due to go in to the oven fairly soon. As agreed, I phoned Scamp on my way home and asked her to put the oven on. My timing was good for once and I was in the house barely ten minutes when the next rain shower started.

Dinner tonight was steak for me and salmon for Scamp. Both served with potatoes, broccoli and a few mushrooms that were needing used up for me. The ‘tear and share’ bread was lovely.

Dancing was Queen of Hearts rumba followed by Foxtrot and finished with Cha-Cha to Jack Savoretti’s Dancing in the Living Room. The teachers put in some simplified chassis steps instead of the two half reverse turns for the Foxtrot and that made the dance much more danceable in our living room. The final cha-cha was fine, but the song was instantly forgettable for me. Still, a good work out and good news that there is more than a chance that we will be dancing (not in our living room) by the end of the month!

Spoke to JIC later and heard about Simonne’s latest 10k which was ‘just a trail run’.  Good to hear she’s doing so well and that JIC will be getting back to the gym soon.

Tomorrow looks a lot like today has been with heavy showers and the possibility of thunderstorms for most of the day. We might manage a walk in one of the dry spells.

Just an ordinary Friday – 2 July 2021

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We went for the messages, Scamp did some housework, I went for a walk. That’s about it really!

While I’ll admit that Scamp did some housework, I had hoovered the kitchen before I’d even had my breakfast this morning. Granted, when I’d been making the breakfast I’d accidentally spilled half a box of bran flakes on the kitchen floor, but that’s a mere detail. I hoovered the kitchen.

We went for the messages. Scamp drove to Tesco and we collected the usual essentials but also bought some milk to put in between the wine bottles to stop them clinking.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s later in the afternoon and PoD was a Red Admiral butterfly, although a Lacewing was a close competitor, as was a little Ringlet butterfly. These words, Red Admiral, Lacewing, Ringlet and even Butterfly are ones we only use for three or four months a year in Scotland. After that the most common word is rain. Which neatly brings me to the next topic.

All the way through my walk I’d been watching the black clouds that were looming from the south. Just as I was getting to the house, I felt the first drops of rain. Scamp was just hanging out the clothes, fresh from the washing machine and was loathe to bring them in again, but resistance was futile. The rain just got heavier. She brought them in. Strangely, about a couple of hours later the rain stopped, the sun shone and it was a beautiful evening, but it was too late to risk putting the washing out again.

I used the new toy on my wrist to log my walk today and was surprised at just how accurate it was. Not only that, the amount of data it collected and sent to its masters in China will all be analysed by their top scientists to try to steal even more of my identity. I now know how many minutes and seconds it takes for me to walk a mile and how many Kcal I burn in the process (not enough says Scamp). Still it’s an amazing piece of tech. It even has a torch built in. That’s a godsend if you want to raid the drinks cupboard while Scamp is in her bed and I’m supposed to be writing the blog!

We watched poor Bandy Andy doing his best to play against his younger, fitter, but less bionic opponent.  However, it was all in vain.  Proving that old age and treachery won’t always beat youth and exuberance.

Tomorrow we have rain, hail, thunder and lightning forecast for our entertainment. I think the shorts and the tee shirts will be in the washing machine and I’ll be looking out my jeans and my rainy coat. No real plans.