Category: insects

First Full Day – 4 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

4 Nov2

A more relaxed morning than yesterday!  Unfortunately it was still raining.  Just a shower we told ourselves but the sky gave a lie to that.  Breakfast was the usual holiday hotel fare and of course we had too much of everything.  Notables were the big slab of butter you could cut for yourself to spread on the bread you also cut for yourself.  Butter was white and unsalted and also quite delicious. 

After breakfast the rain was going off so we waited a while and then headed off in the direction of Puerto del Carmen.  It’s a fairly long walk and the weather was improving so we took our time.  Our objective today was to find the cheapest bottles of Gin and Tonic.  Although we are all inclusive, it doesn’t go wrong to have the makings of a G&T for sitting on the balcony watching the world go by.  The hotel provides us with as much drinking water as we want, free of charge, which is an improvement on some places we’ve been to.  WiFi is also free, but only in the reception and only for two devices at any one time.  Not a real drawback.  To get back to the walk, we wandered down the road checking prices as we went.  Stopped for a beer in a wee roadside bar.  Checked that a really good Asian restaurant we’d been to was still there.  Usual holiday stuff.  Then we walked back, and it was getting real holiday hot now.  Forgot to get the gin and were appalled at the price they wanted for it in Hyperdino (usually the cheapest, so we hadn’t checked it).  I volunteered to walk back to the cheapest shop to get some and also some tonic.  Finally arrived back, just in time for lunch.  We were a bit more modest in our lunch selection, really just a salad.

After lunch, Scamp went to sunbathe and I went for a walk over the rough lava rocks to get some photos.

Booked dinner in the Asian restaurant in the hotel for Monday as Saturday and Sunday were fully booked.  At night we waited for a while for the Flamenco show to start, but gave up on it after a while.  Had a drink in the lounge and then went back to try again.  The show is supposed to start at 21.30.  At 21.45 they started the presentation of the awards of the day for the Kiddies Club.  That was supposed to happen at 20.30, so it looked like they were running at least an hour behind.  We, or to be more exact, I couldn’t be bothered waiting that long, so we headed for bed.  Scamp was keen to demonstrate that she, as Genghis Pathfinder had discovered a faster way to get from the main building to the room and, for once, she was right.  Full marks for Pathfinding, Scamp.

Less food tomorrow and hopefully some sunbathing with the possibility of a swim too.

Nursing – 25 October 2016

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It could have been my chosen career, but I chose a different path.  That, by itself saved the populace from a bad case of genocide.  Scamp has the cold and I’ve been doing my best be head cook and bottle washer.

As part of the nursing program, I was also the driver who took us to Costa Robroyston for a cup of brown water and a spot of Costa lunch.  Can’t say I was any more impressed with the coffee, but served as a skinny cappuccino, it’s almost palatable.  Hark at me, “Skinny Cappuccino” no less!  Quite the man about town.

After we came back I went out to get some photos and maybe, just maybe, a sketch.  The sketch didn’t happen, what I did do was get some photos of underpasses, of which we have quite a few here, to sketch from the computer later.  It’s a bit of a cop out, but it sounded feasible.  I took the shots and they looked ok.  I took some spiders’ pictures too in St Mo’s.  They seemed quite pleased that I was showing an interest in their web building and posed happily while I snapped away.  Mr Grey was sulking in the cold water of St Mo’s pond.  Do birds have nerve endings in their feet, I wonder.  I also wonder if there should have been a question mark at the end of the previous sentence.  That’s the sort of thing that I would know if I had been paying attention in English back in Larkhall Academy, but I didn’t and I don’t, know that is.  Strangely, my English teacher was a Mr Grey too!  I took this Mr Grey’s photo because of the reflection in the murky waters of the pond.

While I was taking my research photos of underpasses for the proposed sketch (it didn’t happen either), I turned a corner and almost bumped into a guy lurking in the darkness of the underpass.  At first I was a bit concerned, then I realised he was just a schoolboy, presumably from St Mo’s, also presumably ‘dogging it’.  In other words he was ‘bunking off’ school.  What we, in the trade, called a ‘school refuser’ and what the pupils called a ‘dogger’.  That has nothing at all to do with dogs and also nothing to do with secluded carparks after dark.  Or so I’ve been told!! Ahem, I’ve also been told that when one is in a hole one should stop digging, so I’m laying the spade down now.  Anyway, I marched through the underpass and got the shot from the opposite side once the boy had scuttled away in the general direction of the school.  He obviously hadn’t, to quote Guy Garvey, “perfected that simian stroll”.  What he should have done was amble on in the general direction of the school with that look that said “It’s alright mate, I’m just on my way back from an appointment with my dentist / my doctor / my social worker” (delete as appropriate).  Instead he just looked like he was a rabbit caught in the headlights.  Maybe it was the first time he’d done it.  Maybe he had a good reason.  Maybe he’s on the path to become a repeat offender.  That made me think of another musical reference:  “Razzle in my Pocket” – Ian Dury.  Listen and you’ll see what I mean.

img_3471-flickrAnyway, photos took and still no sketch for the day, because the underpasses hadn’t fired my imagination.  Also, I don’t like sketching from photos now.  They seem to lack the vitality of sketching from life.  After washing up, I took a cup of good coffee upstairs to read while Scamp was watching her Tuesday soap, and there it was, today’s sketch.  It’s a bit cheeky to title it as the First Coffee.  It was hardly the first coffee of the day as I’d had my Sudoku Cup at about 11am and you can’t count Costa brown water.  It was the last cup of the day though and, like the spiders, it posed very patiently for me.  It wasn’t even cold when I’d finished.  Success.  Just in case you’re interested the paper is 110gsm Fabriano Sketch and pen is a Micron 0.3 with a bit of shading from a pale grey brush pen.

Tomorrow?  It depends on how Scamp is feeling.  Maybe the gym for me, but we’ll wait and see how the invalid is.

Clingfilm – 11 October 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

The End of Summer – 17 September 2016

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Wandering around my own favourite wilderness and noticing the skies are empty of swallows. If it takes more than one swallow to make a summer, does a lack of them mean the end? I think it does. Then I spot a dragon. Is that the contradiction?We had intended going to Embra today, but it looked like being a nice day and I didn’t want to spend the day in a train or wandering around the shops. Too good a day for that and if the first paragraph is correct, we should make the most of the good days now. The upshot was that as usual, Scamp was in the garden and I did a wee bit of painting and grubbing around in WordPress without any great success in either. Eventually, I decided that the weather was settled enough for shorts and tee shirt cycling and went out to get some photos and also some brambles if there were any left.There were brambles a-plenty and I got just over 600g which is not too bad. Just over a pound in old money, or is that me mixing my metaphors or something? The sun was warm and although there were no swallows, there was a dragon later in the afternoon. I got some photos, but knew that if I went closer, my shadow would encroach on the insect and it would fly away. Dragonflies seem to be very sensitive to changes in light, or maybe they just don’t want anyone stealing their sun. I also grabbed a few shots of spiders, sorry arachnophobes, look away now. It’s the transparency of the body that I like about spiders, especially contré jour. I just had to experiment a bit more with the pinhole effect and got a shot of the Three Amigos with the camera sitting on a fencepost. The last shot was as I was coming home and the light was warming up. It took me some time to find the best VP for the shot of the hay bales, but I’m happy with this one. There was a fair bit of post-processing done to get it just the way I wanted it, balancing the light and dark areas of the photo without falsifying it too much.Came home and dinner was courtesy of Bombay Dreams. Great online ordering system and way too much for one meal. The rest for lunch on Sunday.Weather on the turn for Sunday with lots of widespread rain forecast.

[]: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ztf/

Sunny Sunday – 11 September 2016

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11-septWe went to Glasgow today. Since the buses run to their own timetable on Sundays, we drove in. It was a lovely morning and Scamp thought we might manage to have a coffee outside, but by the time we’d finished shopping, the wind was becoming a bit gusty and we settled for a coffee inside.

Dinner for me was a repeat of yesterday’s, Lamb, Chorizo and Puy Lentil Casserole, but this time made at home. It turned out as good as the Loch Leven Larder’s, if not better. Who am I kidding? Of course it was better! Slow cooked for six hours, it was great. Plenty left over for tomorrow’s dinner and maybe some for lunch later in the week.

I went for a walk to St Mo’s in the late afternoon and got a few shots, but the light was poor by that time and that resulted in a lot of digital noise which you can remove quite easily with Lightroom, but the price you pay is a loss of definition, so it’s a double edged sword. I did see a strange pink blossom at completely the wrong time of year. There were thorns on the stems and on the back of the leaves which look like bramble leaves. The plant seemed to be behaving like a bramble by climbing round other tree branches. Couldn’t believe this was flowering in September in Scotland!

No plans for tomorrow, because like most Mondays it’s eaten up with Gems in the afternoon and salsa at night. Might get some painting done. If not on canvas, then at least on the outside window ledges.

Loch Leven – 10 September 2016

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10-septWe’re sitting in the cafe at Loch Leven’s Larder. Been for a walk along the lochside and are both now ready for lunch.

Well the lunch was delicious. Mine was a Lamb, Chorizo and Puy Lentil Casserole. Scamp’s was a Smoked Haddock Quiche.

We had decided in the morning that it would be a sin to waste a good, clear sunny day like this, especially after yesterday’s rain, by wandering round the shops. We got the map out on the laptop and chose Loch Leven as the place to go today. It was a good decision. We parked at our usual place and walked clockwise round part of the lochside path. Walked a mile or two, had a seat, then walked back to the car. I managed to get a few photos of the corn fields on our way round the path. Scamp thought we might manage to get all the way to LLL, but it was way too far. Enjoyed the walk more than our usual anti-clockwise walk. Saw a powered glider. Not like a Grob, but with an engine on a pylon above the wing. Wish I’d got the registration letter, then I’d be able to look it up on the net

Drove home over the Forth Bridge and got a good look at the new bridge. I wonder what it’s name will be. Not the official name, but the one it will be known by, it’s Real name.

El Cap seems to be behaving itself much better than I’d anticipated. Got up this morning just before 6am and sorted the problem with the email not being recognised. Then I went back to bed. So far, touch wood, the new OS seems quite stable. Glad I did the upgrade.

Some say rain tomorrow. Some say sun. I’m voting for sun. Just like today.

Coffee, Dragons and Vitamin D – 25 August 2016

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E8251411- flickr--238On a cloudy day, I went for a coffee with Fred in the morning and we set the world to rights again.

Met Scamp afterwards and sorted out our winter, week-long Vitamin D supplement, sometimes known as a week-in-the-sun. For once the process of booking was much easier than it could have been, and has been in the past.

After that, the sun came out, and I took a walk as usual around St Mo’s. Still a few dragons flying around. None of them breathed fire, but I managed to get a shot of one, despite having completely the wrong settings on the camera. I don’t know what I did, but I was using ISO 100 with an aperture setting of f10 which produced a shutter speed of 1/40th. Luckily I set the camera down on the boardwalk to take a low level shot and this meant I had a really steady support, otherwise the shot would have been as shaky as the other 7 I took today. That’s what happens when you assume you have the normal settings and don’t check the info on the screen. Numpty. Still, it’s a good shot.

Physio to look forward to tomorrow :-/ Then maybe lunch out would be good. We’ll see tomorrow.

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

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22 augToday I did some gardening.

This is an example of forward thinking by Scamp:

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

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

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

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

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

Cake Today! – 15 August 2016

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15 Aug bWell, we did have cake today!  Woke to sunshine that didn’t really go away all day.

The sun enticed us out and into the wide world.  We couldn’t agree on a destination until Scamp suggested that we go a walk along the canal.  Now I go there quite often, but it’s a while since she’s walked along it, so it was decided that we’d drive to Auchinstarry and walk along to Twechar and back.

Today was the day the teachers went back to work after the summer hols and as we were walking along the railway, I was thinking about all the times I’ve sat in the assembly hall at school listening to head teachers and deputes droning on about grade averages, STACs, child protection procedures and other dry, boring paper-pushing nonsense.  They always started with a jolly “Well I hope you’ve enjoyed your holidays and are feeling refreshed.  Here’s the bad news …….. “.  Drone, drone, drone.  It was essential to get there early, not to show you were interested, although there were some that did.  No, it was to grab the seats at the back where you could doodle unseen on the hundred page handout you’d been given with charts and tables and mind numbing statistics that meant nothing to anyone but the bean-counter who had created them.  “Can you see this Powerpoint alright at the back?” some depute would ask. “Yes, we’re just not interested.” we’d mumble in reply.

Ah, but while all my former colleagues were enjoying this annual festival of figures and meaningless jargon, we were out in the sunshine, admiring the flowers and the light through the leaves and counting the wee fishes and talking to the ducks.  It was when we were walking back along the canal towpath I heard what I thought at first was a motorbike before I realised that although the pitch of the engine was rising, it wasn’t changing gear and it seemed to he coming from Barr Hill which has a roman fort, but no roads.  I knew what it was then, it was a Piaggio.  It’s an Italian plane type called a canard.  Which is a plane with a wing towards the rear and two little winglets just rear of the nose which makes it look as if it’s flying backwards.  Some people think it looks like a duck, hence the name ‘canard’.  Some have actual tail fins and tail planes like a normal aircraft and some have jet engines, but most have pusher props.  That is, the propellers stick out the back of the plane and push it through the air rather than pull it like a conventional plane. (I like planes, in case you hadn’t guessed.)  I’d seen one last year at almost exactly the same place, but hadn’t got a photo of it.  I started taking my camera out of the bag and tried explaining to Scamp what it was I was so excited about.  She didn’t share my enthusiasm and said “Oh, so it’s a plane?”  I managed two shots of the Piaggio before it disappeared into a cloud.  Neither of them very good.  I’ve never managed to get a good clean shot of this plane.  You can see today’s effort above.  Maybe one day …

After we drove home and had lunch, Scamp wanted to work in the garden.  I dumped my photos into Lightroom and let it get to work on them.  Then we sat in the garden and read until it was time to make the dinner and then get ready for salsa class.  I had done my exercises from the physio this morning under a hot shower and they paid off while I was in the class, allowing much more movement than I’d had last week.  We were able to complete almost all the moves tonight which is proof that we are moving in the right direction.

Beautiful sunset tonight which augers well for tomorrow’s weather.  We’ll see what the day brings.  If it’s as good as today it will be very welcome.

An Afternoon with the Beastie Boys (and Girls) – 4 August 2016

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4 augNow that was a much better day, wasn’t it. The answer here was a resounding Yes! Spent the afternoon finishing off my latest read, Cloud Atlas. Not the best book I’ve ever read. Five or six disparate stories that were tenuously linked. I’d previously read The Bone Clocks and enjoyed it tremendously, but apart from the cloned server, I didn’t like any of the subjects. Maybe I wasn’t concentrating enough, but I just couldn’t see the point of the whole thing. I’d made the mistake of buying the book – physical book, from a bookshop – without even flicking through it. It was a fairly substantial paperback, but when I opened it, my heart sank. Such a small font. It made it really difficult to read, even with my best reading glasses on. That and the silly phonetic spelling made we want to give up before I’d begun. However, Kindle to the rescue, I downloaded an e-book version and at least I was able to change the font size, if not the irritating attempt at an 18th century dialogue. It’s finished. I gave it only one star on Amazon and will do the same in Goodreads. I’m glad I didn’t read it before Bone Clocks because I would have missed out on an interesting and thought provoking novel. Sorry Hazy.

Today! Scamp was out in the morning having coffee with family. After finishing CA, I set to, to hoover, or to be more exact, Dyson the downstairs. That done and Facebook checked out, I attempted today’s Hard sudoku. It was certainly hard. Just after 10pm tonight I finished it using more than a few ‘hints’ from Enjoy Sudoku on my phone.  Anyway, it too is done. As you can imagine, I called a halt to the number crunching earlier, in time for lunch. Afterwards, the weather was still holding up so I went out on my bike, looking for beasties. Hoped to find some dragonflies in far flung places, but none were to be found. Instead, I found a couple of hover flies, a hungry damselfly, a crane fly AKA Jenny Longlegs and a Burnet Moth. I’ve not seen any Burnet Moths for the last couple of years and it was a pleasure to find a couple of photogenic ones today. It was a pleasant day for cycling. Not much wind, warm without being hot and with just a few rain showers to cool a lazy cyclist down without getting too wet.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, so I’m glad I got some relaxation time today.