Category: insects

Hot! – 25 June 2020

Posted on by Zogman

We were warned it was going to be hot today. They weren’t wrong.

First job was to get my hair cut. Number three all over followed by a number two to clean up the fluffy bits at the nape of my neck. I’m always amazed at the amount of hair that falls in clumps on the carpet as I’m cutting. A bit thank you to Scamp because she did quality control on the operation and was the one who used the number two cutter to achieve perfection on the neck line. It’s such a great feeling when you step out of the shower and dry your hair in about 20 seconds flat.

With the big job over, we walked down to the shops and bought a new set of coloured lights to go round the tree in the garden. It brightens up the place and although the last lot hardly lasted a month, it was worth the fiver. It wasn’t until we got home we found that someone had swiped the solar cell from the box. Not only that, they’d just ripped it off the cable, so it would be almost no use to them.

After lunch Scamp was going to see her sister, so she got her money back on the lights. While she was off to see big sis, I walked round St Mo’s and got today’s PoD of an Azure damselfly. I also saw three dragonflies doing circuits and bumps at the pond. I imagine one of them was the one I saw emerging yesterday. Walked over to the shops and bought some pineapple cakes sweets and ice-cream, The healthy option.

Dinner tonight was smoked salmon and broccoli quiche with a salad. Very nice indeed. Sat in the garden and listened to the bloke next door pontificating on a range of topics, but mainly The Eagles. We discussed Scamp’s idea for a storage unit for the paved area of the back garden, but mainly we just soaked up some rays. It seemed sensible because it doesn’t look as if there are going to be many sunny days for a while. Thunder and lightning forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Heavy rain too, which should mean we don’t have to water the garden.

Today’s painting was a watercolour of a plantain flower. Not the Caribbean green banana, but an insignificant little plant that produces a brown and white flower on a long stem. If you live in the UK you’ll have seen them on any patch of waste ground.  They are also known as Ribwort.

As usual, no plans for tomorrow. It definitely depends on the weather!

Disobeying orders – 24 June 2020

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Well, not really. We were travelling more than 5 miles from home, but not for exercise or leisure, we were going shopping. Honest!

In the morning we did a bit of cutting and cropping of various bushes. Scamp was dead heading anything that didn’t move and I was taking cuttings from a rosemary bush, then giving it a more serious short back and sides. Might have to do my own hair tomorrow if I can find the time, but I’ll use a pair of clippers, not a pair of secateurs.

We drove to The Fort after the gardening was deemed done and walked around shops that were now coming out of the mothball stage they’ve been in since March. There was a lot more activity in them than I’d anticipated. All sorts of shops, too. It seems that Nick the Chick has turned a corner and is actually taking steps to get people back to ‘normal’ and perhaps trying to kick start business into life again. Let’s hope it’s not too little, too late.

However, this was not leisure or exercise although to the casual observer it might have looked like that. No, we got back in the car and drove on to Morrisons and bought such essentials as yoghurt and fish plus a couple of bags of Yorkshire Mixture sweeties. The place was busy but not overcrowded. We did, however, have our masks on, unlike most of the Glaswegians who are made of sterner stuff and don’t need such fripperies.

Back home lunch was two ‘pieces’ on corned beef with a fair dash of brown sauce for me and one ‘piece’ on cheese for Scamp. Then it was out to sit in the sunshine for a while. I chose not to take the lazy route and went for a walk round St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a dragonfly emerging from its nymphal stage. They can live for about two years as a nymph in shallow water before emerging and turning into the adult flying insect. They only live out of the water for about two months maximum. It’s a hard life being a dragonfly.

No sketch today. Too warm, couldn’t find anything interesting, just couldn’t be bothered, to be honest. Maybe I’ll do catchup tomorrow. No other plans for tomorrow, but it’s going to be hot we’re told and with the threat of thunderstorms too.

The postman knocks – 17 June 2020

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Well, not actually the postman, it was the Amazon man and he brought a parcel!

This was the first part of this week’s order. It turned out to be a bottle of Smidge, insect repellant and very good stuff I may add. Thank you Sim for recommending it – a year ago almost to the day! Also in the parcel was a pack of ten refillable fountain pen reservoirs. I only ordered one, but that gives me nine spares!

Drove down to the village after lunch to visit Isobel. We had a wander round her garden then we sat in the sun on her drying green, or drying asphalt as it actually was. She got us up to date on all that was happening in the village, in the garden and in the family. Then she kept us amused with tales of her life when she was a wee girl during the second world war. A very entertaining afternoon. Unfortunately there wasn’t much shade from the sun, and Scamp hadn’t put on sun block this morning, so we had to give our apologies and make tracks for home.

We’d watched a gang of four guys stripping the roof of one of the nearby houses in the morning. By the time we got home the entire roof had been cleared, including the sarking, back to bare rafters. New sarking had been nailed on and that was covered with roofing felt with strips laid for the new roof tiles which were neatly stacked on their slightly dodgy scaffolding. Maybe cowboys, but hard working ones

We’d stopped at M&S on the way home to get provisions for tonight’s dinner which was a fancy version of spaghetti with prawns. About half an hour after we got back, the Tesco order got delivered. Dumped it in the kitchen and Scamp told me to leave the rest to her and sent me out to get photos. The best one I got was of the butterfly. Still to ID it, but I remember taking photos of its aunt or uncle last year, so it will be in Flickr somewhere.

Today’s topic was Draw a Power Plug. Not riveting, but worth doing just to check your observation skills. It’s things we see every day that are the hardest to draw because we tend to draw what we think we see, not what we are observing.

Big day tomorrow, because we’ll find out what Lockdown Release part 2 brings us. Other than being glued to the TV for that, we have no plans.

Brighter Later – 16 June 2020

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A dull start to the day with this week’s white cloud hanging over us.

Spent the morning spending money on Amazon. Nothing specific, but lots of little things that all mounted up, then there’s the inevitable delivery costs for the items that aren’t covered by the free delivery con. Eventually we agreed that it was worthwhile taking on another month or two of Prime. I just have to put a reminder in my calendar to make sure I cancel it when we’re finished spending!

After lunch I took the Oly E-M1 with the new lens and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Lovely warm weather much nicer than it had been in the morning because that white cloud had burned off. The new lens worked much better today with decent light. Still not that fast to focus, but the results are worth the small inconvenience. Lots of damselflies round the wee pond by the boardwalk. One dragonfly that was cruising round and round, either looking for a likely mate or for some tasty morsel for lunch. Saw a fairly large grasshopper sunning itself on the edge of the boardwalk and got a few closeup shots of it. One of those got PoD.

Back home we sat in the garden for a while before Scamp went in to start tonight’s dinner. We’d pulled some rhubarb earlier in the day and she was making a rhubarb pie for pudding. I’d asked for macaroni ’n’ cheese for dinner and that’s what we were having. It was delicious and served with tomato ketchup. Scamp of course had brown sauce. Rhubarb pie was just excellent. Her shortcrust pastry was just perfect.

The Lockdown Library topic for today was Something You Have Made. I’ve made a lot of things, mainly mischief, but one of the things I’m most proud of is my waistcoat. Complete with dummy pockets, lining, button holes and buttons. I made it all. It was a bit of a trial at times with a whole new language to learn. Interfacing, darts and basting, but it was worth the effort. The first ‘rough’ turned out really good and by comparison it’s better than the ‘finished’ sketch. That’s often the way, but I’d used it as an experiment to find out what medium worked best for the yellow check, and it wasn’t fit to be shown. The final painting is ok, but not much better than that.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but we’ve a Tesco delivery scheduled for between 5pm and 6pm. Chance of rain and thunderstorms during the night and again tomorrow afternoon. If the rain doesn’t come we might need to water the garden.

Another dull day to start with – 14 June 2020

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We’d hoped for a brighter start, but the weather fairies told us to wait and all would be sunshine an light.

Dull milky white sky, but Scamp got an email that put a smile on her face. It seemed that her new tablet case would be delivered today. We waited for a while and still the white cloud persisted. Finally after lunch the parcel arrived and so did the sunshine. Once again the weather fairies had proved that all those expensive computers were worthwhile and that we should have patience and wait for the good weather to appear.

After lunch and after watching Andrew Marr try to antagonise Rishi Sunak without success (He actually answered every question Marr fired at him) we decided what to do with what remained of the day. The walk or cycle debate was solved by me saying I’d take the sunshine as a sign that it would be a good day to cycle. Scamp did some dinner preparation and then relaxed in the garden after some ‘essential gardening’. Rearranged pots to her satisfaction. I went in search of something worth photographing using the Teazer 90. I couldn’t find it to start with, but after searching all the likely places, stated looking in the unlikely, but possible places. Finally found it in a Bergy jacket in a cupboard. Not only that, I thought I’d found my glasses that I’d lost a week ago in the same jacket. That didn’t seem likely, because the jacket had been in that cupboard for at least a month. It appears that I’ve found a pair of glasses that I thought I’d lost around Christmas last year. Still haven’t found their replacement. If its taken me six months to find one pair, and I lost the replacement pair a week ago, does that mean I’ll find them (the replacement pair) somewhere around Christmas 2020? Time scale seems to work, not sure the logic does. Personally I blame the Hortus gin!

Cycled to the waste ground near Drumgrew bridge and watched the bees gathering nectar from the flowers. Found a conducive Small Heath butterfly which sat on a Marguerite flower for enough time for me to focus and grab a few shots of it. Its wings were a bit battered and bruised, but I’m happy that my ID is correct

Back home we had some time sitting in the sun and drinking non-alcoholic Lime cordial and water while the sun slipped down the slope of the afternoon. Dinner was fillet steak from Lidl for me and salmon for Scamp with Jersey Royal potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. Coffee in the garden afterwards. Tried Amoretto coffee for the first (and last) time. One of Scamp’s favourites. It tastes like I’d imagine liquid marzipan would. Such a waste of good coffee.

Not a bad Sunday after all, especially given the poor start. Tomorrow we have no plans, as yet.

We went shopping – 13 June 2020

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We even travelled further than the statutory five miles, but don’t broadcast that.

It was a dull old morning with milk white skies the glowered over us. The hills were shrouded in the stuff, so the only thing to do was go out, and that’s what we did. But first the coffee machine had to be warmed up to dispense some Sumatran joy! A sudoku had to be started and some mind bending puzzles had to be completed on a new tablet. A big tablet with thousands of colours and big icons that deafened the eyes with their brightness. Scamp was getting used to her new toy. Me? I was wondering if I should get myself a new tablet too. My ‘new’ tablet is six years old now, stuffed to the gunwales with games and rubbish. I still use it because it has a lovely screen, but it’s getting slow, you can’t update the OS and, well, Scamp’s got a new tablet and it’s better than mine. Couldn’t quite square the ‘want’ with the ‘need’, so it ended up in abeyance … for now.

After coffee and puzzles, came lunch which was scrambled egg with smoked salmon on toast. Another cup of coffee for me and a white tea for Scamp then the decision – where to go. We settled on Kilsyth for a bottle of Hortus Gin from Lidl, some veg, some chicken breasts, pastries to go with another coffee, milk, chocolate raisins and beer, but mainly Hortus Gin! Scamp had wanted to go to the Kilsyth fish shop, but Lidl managed to supply enough fish to satisfy her. Dinner was discussed, but we settled on eating out of the freezer. Chicken Tikka curry with a starter of cauliflower pakora and fish pakora. Never made fish pakora before, but it turned out to be quite simple.

Before the dinner could be begun, there were photos to be taken. Walked over to St Mo’s then followed the path behind the school and found a great mound of Flag Irises growing there (I checked and Irises is the plural of Iris, just so you know). Managed to get a few shots of bees bums as they plundered the flowers, but the almost symmetrical yellow bloom got PoD.

Back home, dinner went well. I made the starter and Scamp did the main. Shared the washing up. The gin was just as good as I remembered it and just about the same price too. I commend it to you. Sketch today was “A Tree, A Branch or A Leaf”. I was late getting round to starting it and it ended up being a trio of of bramble leaves in autumn regalia. At least I think that’s what it will be. It’s still drying as I write this and won’t be posted until tomorrow, hopefully. In the intervening twelve hours or so the situation may change. Like the very wet watercolour, it’s a bit fluid!

Tomorrow we have no plans, but if it’s dry it may be a walk or it may be cycling. At present it’s still a mystery!

Out for a run – 8 June 2020

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On four wheels and then on two.

Scamp wanted some pots for the front garden and some compost. I wanted some Polyfilla and something to kill the bugs that are becoming a pest in the front garden.

When we went out, George was washing their car and cursing the bird crap on it. I gave him my anti-birdcrap spray and told him it worked well if you give it some time to soak through. They have a Toyota Aygo and I’d read good things about it. I asked him what it was like, knowing that he doesn’t drive, but his partner does. He said “It’s ok, but it’s a woman’s car.” Oh dear, wrong thing to say. Scamp was talking to Angela next door and both heads went up at the same time. “What did you just say??!” I think he was outnumbered and knew it. He changed the subject double quick.

We drove to B&Q, but the ‘Q’ in B&Q obviously stands for Queue, because this one stretched all the way along past Halfords. I think there must be a lot of Lockdown DIY fanatics out there, desperate for a chance to redecorate their entire house or, maybe even to build a new one. With all the money they’ll be saving by not going on holiday and all the spare time they have on their hands, why not? We weren’t that desperate, so we went to Calders instead.

Queue there was zero. We walked straight in and I got lumbered with one of their unwheelable, unsteerable and heavy low trolleys. They really are a nightmare, but I knew I needed one of these clumsy behemoths to carry the compost bags safely. We got the pots and compost and a bug spray to kill off whatever it is that’s destroying Scamp’s eryngium buds in the front garden. Loaded up the Juke and off we went home via the new shops. Scamp went to get lunch and I went to get some lock ’n’ lock storage alternatives and some jammy cakes and oh look, a Toblerone fell into my basket! Also noted that Home Bargains were selling the same bug killer for half what we paid. Bummer!

Lugged the compost and stuff in and had lunch. Then organised a photo of the car to draw later. Scamp had started repotting a rose and splitting up a heather plant, so I thought it was high time I was out of there and getting photos. Cycled to the off road path beside the railway and stood, resting my bum on the crossbar of the bike while gazing across to the Two Amigos (the two beech trees that used to be three) and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. Sometimes that’s what you need. Just some quiet time in the sun. No need for foreign holidays and the stress of air travel. Just some time in the sun.

Got back home and made Pesto Pasta for dinner. It was lovely at the time, but the garlic is beginning to make its presence felt now.

PoD was some foxgloves glowing in the sun. Three sketches added to the Lockdown Library on Instagram. All caught up and once this blog is posted I’ll be off to bed.

Tomorrow? Looks like it will be decent for most of the day, but deteriorating in the late afternoon.

Domain disaster averted – 5 June 2020

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You’re lucky to be reading this!

It all started with an email this morning telling me that my domain name (the bit that starts ‘dhcampbell’) had expired and if I didn’t do something about it, i.e. pay them money, I’d lose the website. Well, that was a nice thing to read on a Saturday morning. I checked the address the email had come from and it was genuine, so I tried to contact my domain name provider, but couldn’t find an email address for them on their site. I did find a ‘chat’ box, but that timed out after a few minutes. After waiting for 20mins on the phone to them, I gave up on that too. Long story short, I eventually found that I could log a return call from them and did that. Had lunch and then Scamp and I went out for a walk. A very quiet walk on my part. Came home and checked for a reply, but there were none. Then I found a message to the effect that the message that started it all off was not about my domain at all, it was about a site they’d held for me “as a goodwill gesture”! It would have possibly have been an good idea to tell me that some time in the last year. I got the phone call from the help line exactly on time and the person on the other end confirmed what it said on the message. A message that had only been posted at 3.08pm today. I think I now know why. I’m guessing their switchboard was jammed with irate callers wanting to know what the hell they were doing. I may be looking for another domain name provider soon.

Our walk in the afternoon was round St Mo’s pond and then Scamp told me she was going to go to the butchers to get me a steak for dinner and I was to walk round the pond again and get some photos. There was nothing really worth photographing today, but I went anyway. It was only on the way home I found today’s PoD when a bee landed on the Marguerite flower I was photographing and made it much more interesting.

Scamp potted up her new rose today and it does look very elegant. Beautiful big pink flowers and what a perfume. I think she likes it!

Steak was very nice. Just on the over side of medium rare. Juicy and just what I needed to calm down.

Quick sketch today of two garlic bulbs. Couldn’t find anything I wanted to draw, so I reverted to another list. An old EDiM list this time. Looks much better than the 2020 list, although it was written at a time ago when we were free, there were shops, great metal birds flew in the sky and every year we were allowed to go on holiday. Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it.

Tomorrow looks a bit warmer and calmer than today. It was a bit breezy!

Up early again for the last day in May – 31 May 2020

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That didn’t mean that we were doing much more than getting up, but it was a start.

We finally chose to go for a walk after Scamp had spoken to her wee sister and told her she’s been talking to her big sister yesterday. Also after I’d hung out most of the washing. It was much cooler and much breezier than yesterday with the wind coming from the east. We walked round St Mo’s and then paused for fifteen to twenty minutes watching half a dozen dragonflies, not damselflies, big dragonflies clattering about the wee pond. Some were obviously females, busy egg laying and some were males chasing off the competition, but they all combined to show off their aerial skills as they flew round and between the various obstructions in their path, which included us. Utterly fascinating and perfect for taking you out of yourself and the problems of this new world we are living in.

Back home and time for a Sunday lunch of eggs, black pudding, beef-ham, sausage and tattie scones, all fried. It’s ok to eat healthy six days of the week but on the seventh you can fry your food.

We knew the good weather wasn’t going to last, so Scamp made the most of it. She slapped on the Factor 50 and took herself and her book out into the garden to soak up some rays. I adjourned to the ‘Painting Room’ to sketch today’s drawing which was ‘A Phone’. My choice was an old black bakelite rotary dial phone. They have so much more soul than the black glass slabs we use for everything from sending messages to photographing everything and occasionally even speaking to people. The old black bakelite phones were used for speaking to people and nothing else. I got the basic shape drawn and photographed, then put some black watercolour on it to give some tonal gradation. Happy with the result, I went out for a walk with the ‘big dog’ to see if the dragons had calmed down.

Thankfully they had calmed down and I did get a handful of decent shots, but only after rejecting a bucket load of junk. Today’s PoD was one of the best. It’s a Four Spotted Chaser and it was resting after a strenuous morning.

Got back just in time for dinner to be served. It was Neil-D’s lovely summer style rice and chicken with a variety of veg and condiments. Avocado as starter and Churros as a dessert. A nice bottle of Malbec to wash it down and then a seat outside to watch the sun go down. That’s what the last day of metrological spring is made for.

I watered the back garden afterwards while Scamp fed the front garden plants with some seaweed fertiliser. Coffee to finish off, with a drop of alcohol to take the edge off it.

Not a bad day, all in all. Hopefully we’ll manage one more day of this early heat before the rain comes in the middle of the week. May go and see a man about a bike wheel tomorrow.

Lockdown release begins – 29 May 2020

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It was true, we were allowed to go out today. Nominally 5 miles, but who was counting.

We were very cool about it to start with, as you sometimes are when you’re desperate to do something, but don’t want to show it. Scamp did some washing and hung it out. I started my Sudoku and made some coffee. We watched a rather boring webinar from our man in Falkirk. We had a spot of lunch too. Moved stuff around the garden and planned some repotting. Eventually we just decided we had to go out. Somewhere … ANYWHERE!

Scamp suggested Fannyside, but we though we’d do a drive past the garden centre anyway. Again, playing it cool and saying that we’d maybe go there during the week. We drove up to B&Q, but the queue there was looooong, so we turned around and drove up the long way to Fannyside, up past Arns forest and round the top of the road. Stopped at the draw in by a stand of Scots Pines and just listened to the silence. Hardly a sound, hardly a breath of wind. We heard a cuckoo. First time I’ve heard one this year. It was miles away, but it was a measure of the lack of noise that its call came over so clearly from its perch about a mile away. Got today’s PoD which just had to be a landscape. I’ve taken so few over the last couple of months that had become a thing to savour. Got a little macro of one of a trio of flies that had socially distanced themselves on a fence post.

Drove back by the moor road and then the unspoken agreement was that we were going to Calders garden centre. Scamp wanted pots and I wanted seeds and then it seemed churlish not to buy a couple trays of cheerful red flowers. Smiles on faces all around. Not all the shelves are full and the variety of plants is still a bit poor, but it was good to be able to browse around outside without a mask. Yes, we used them inside, but for a while, outside we felt like the world was returning to normal, the old normal.

Back home I grabbed two carrots, three tomatoes an onion and half a head of broccoli, arranged them tastefully on my painting table and produced today’s sketch ‘Vegetables’. I was quite pleased with it. Really need to have a look at what paints I need as a lot of them are going down quite quickly. I should be able to get them from some online art shops.

Later it was dinner in the garden and a glass of wine to wash it down. Couple next door were having a noisy dinner with some of their relatives, but although I moaned about the noise, it was just ordinary folk letting off some of the steam they’ve been bottling up for the past couple of months.

We had our first taste of Scamp’s “Westfield Gin Company”distillation. It was very nice. Reminiscent of Elderflower Gin. We only had a small sample, then we had to try it against a commercial variety just for comparison purposes!

All in all, a good day for what might be the beginning of the end of Lockdown and a really hot one. Tomorrow is to be slightly cooler which will be a good thing.