Category: landscape

Broadwood – 7 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Out to the docs to get my BP checked.

Just the last of the checks to confirm that my BP had stabilised. Not just one nurse, but two. The sister and a student nurse checked my BP an gave me the all clear. All done in a 15 minute visit and I don’t have to come back until my annual review.

On the way home, I drove up to Tesco and got milk and rolls, just the real essentials today, then back home for lunch and a debrief with Scamp before we booted up and went for a walk around Broadwood Loch.

The weather wasn’t warm, but neither was it cold. Just a hoodie today for both of us, no need for a raincoat. As usual and against the flow of walkers, but with the flow of joggers, we walked round the loch clockwise. Because it had rained during the night, we didn’t risk the forest section. I know it’s been been cleared and drained, but I didn’t fancy going all the way round it only to find out there was a great long section that would be up over our boots in mucky water. Safer to stick to the path. I got some long lens shots of a cormorant stretching its wings out to dry and thought that would make PoD, but it was the first shot I took today looking along the loch to Blackwood and then The Campsies in the far distance that got the accolade of PoD.

I attempted a recipe for Linguine with Smoked Salmon and Spinach, except we didn’t have any Linguine because Scamp doesn’t like it and we didn’t have any Spinach either. There was a requirement for double cream and we had none of that or a hundred other things, but we did have the smoked salmon. The inevitable result was that it tasted awful and went in the bin.
Note to self: Before you start, read the recipe and check the ingredients!

We had pizza for dinner and it was lovely.

Today’s prompt asked for a Passport. I’ve now seen a few variations on Pass the Port with a glass of wine being passed from hand to hand. I tried a version of the British passport, and now that I look at it, it isn’t all that bad. But what I settled on was a pastiche of a passport. A Scottish passport with a bottle of Buckfast, two crossed thistles and an advert for Greggs. I’m sure Alex would approve.

I’m off to the docs again tomorrow. Just getting my money’s worth from the NHS before all their money disappears.

 

Out in the morning and in the afternoon and then again later – 19 August 2024

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Out in the morning to get my blood results. The good news is that I am no longer described as Diabetic. The bad news is that it was only by one point on the scale. I hoped it would be a better result, but I’ll take it and keep eating a healthier diet without sugar. Still, another possible step forward is there removal of Bendroflumethiazide from my daily diet of pills. It’s not a long term removal yet, I’ve another meeting with the Sister next week to check if that reduction is working for me.

Back home I had time for a sandwich. A piece ’n’ tinned salmon to be precise before I was off again to another health centre, this one in Muirhead to get an injection to prevent a virus called Respiratory Syncytial Virus, (RSV to its friends) from getting its hooks into me. Half an hour out of my day seemed a worthwhile offering for a better winter.

Since I was in the wilds of Muirhead, I drove home by the long road with a chance of some photos looking over to the Campsies. Not much to see today, though. Just half a dozen horses in a field on one side of the road and a farmer’s field of just-cut hay or silage on the other. I chose the second option, because I’m not that keen on horses and at least the landscape doesn’t walk away when you’re trying to photograph it.

We had been for ‘messages’ in between Nurse 1 and Nurse 2 and had stopped for petrol on the way home, but the petrol pump didn’t recognise my card, so I had to use my backup one, the one I made myself from an old bus pass and a bit of wire. That’s ok in an emergency, but I really needed to get the proper card fixed.

So when I got home from Nurse 2, I had a shopping list dictated to me and off I went again up to Tesco and the Bank. I tried the faulty card in their machine and it spat it out too, so the nice lady in the bank gave it the once over before telling me I needed a new one. Probably it will get to me some time this year. Until then I can just use the old bus pass with the bit of wire.

I got the ‘messages’ in Tesco and tonight I chopped them up, boiled them with some other stuff we had lying around and made something that didn’t taste too bad and hopefully will make a dinner for our visitors tomorrow.

The PoD was the photo of the landscape. A bit cobbled together, but not so much that you’d notice. Not my best work.

Various plans for tomorrow. Which one we choose is, as usual weather dependent.

Oh yes. I’ve been told to say that I was only joking about making a card from an old bus pass and a bit of wire. It was a pass from school I used!

Just another Sunday – 5 May 2024

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The luxury of a late rise after breakfast in bed and half an hour’s reading.

Almost every day last week was an early rise. Today was Sunday and that meant a lazy start to the week with the prospect of a F1 GP race, except, this race was in Miami and that meant different rules. Instead of being spread over two days, the Miami race was spread over three days. A bit of a pain in the backside, but we watched it anyway. Fairly exciting, but nothing stupendous.

After that boring start I went looking for a replacement bulb for the cooker oven. B&Q, as you’d expect didn’t have one, but they never do. If you want timber decking you’ll probably get it there. If you want a replacement tap, they won’t have it. If you want a certain colour of paint, you can rest assured it won’t be in the five or six shades they stock and they won’t have bulbs for ovens. It’s just part of the unwritten rules of B&Q. The assistant did direct me to Screwfix just down the road though.

Screwfix now no longer stock oven bulbs, I’m told, but thankfully across the road was Toolstation and they did have the exact bulb I was looking for and it only cost £2.50. I’m sure that if B&Q had it in stock, it would be in a blister pack of 50.

That done I detoured round the back of the industrial estate and parked in the blocked off road over the weak bridge. That gave me the opportunity to get some photos looking over the Antonine Wall and the remains of the actual wall. One of them made PoD. Drove back home via Tesco for a host of things we needed and I was just in time for lunch.

After lunch I got a garlic bulb and an onion and set them up as a still life for today’s prompt of Garlic or an Onion. It seemed a bit mean to only sketch one vegetable, so, being a generous person I give them both to critique. While I was painting, Scamp was busy in the kitchen making an Apple and Blackcurrant Pie. It looked good, as did her little throw-away Sliced AppleTart she’d made from the left over pastry.

Dinner was Cauliflower and Paneer Curry which was excellent, I thought and it was followed by the aforementioned Apple and Blackcurrant Pie and a piece of the the sliced apple tart. Lovely light pastry and little bits of blackcurrant to brighten the apples in the pie. She is a marvellous cook!

Spoke to Jamie and heard how life is beginning to return to normality after the months and months of uproar and noise of the restoration. Hope Simonne had a great birthday and that Vixen calms down again after all the commotion the restoration caused. Thanks, Jamie for the suggestion of the Kevin Bridges book. It’s on my ‘to-read’ list.

No plans for tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll get some planting done. Oh yes, and the first potatoes are poking their green heads out of the potato pot!

Downpours and Landscapes – 28 March 2024

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The downpours came first and the Landscapes survived them.

It was a dull start to the day, but about an hour after we woke the rain started lightly at first but soon it became heavier and heavier until it was thumping down so heavily, it was creating a mist when it hit the pavement. It didn’t last all that long, but it was longer than a usual downpour, but it did stop eventually. As we watched the weather forecast on TV where they claimed that the clouds would roll away we were a bit disbelieving. However, an hour later the clouds broke and the sun shone and I went out with a camera.

I’d bought a plant last week from Amazon and it was delivered yesterday, unfortunately in two pieces. I think the roots were meant to be connected to the stem and the leaves, but that was not the case. I found out the company who were selling the plant through Amazon were five miles or so down the M73. I phoned them and then emailed a photo of the decapitated plant as requested by the lady I spoke to. She replied asking if I wanted a replacement or my money back. I opted for the replacement and that was where I was heading with the intention of collecting the plant and then driving to Fannyside to grab some landscape photos.

After collecting a healthy looking plant and some apologies from the garden centre I headed over to Fannyside, only to find that some electricity blokes had parked their 4×4 in MY parking space while they repaired some overhead cables. Disgruntled, I drove past through some deep puddles and found an alternative view of a fairly new house that stands at the top of a steep hill, accessed by a rutted gravel path with grass tufts down the middle, where the tyres don’t go. The house is pure white against a dark sky. Stopped on the single track road, grabbed five photos at various settings and drove on before an irate farmer in a tractor saw me blocking the road. Prepared myself for the rattling climb up the hill and past the house, but the road had been repaired with a layer of tarmac! In retrospect, it has lost a lot of its character, but it is so much easier to drive up.

After cresting the hill, it was an easy downhill drive through the wee village of Arns and I only had one car in far distance in front of me. Then I noticed the plumes of what looked like smoke coming from both sides of the car in front. Then it happened again. It wasn’t smoke, it was a deep, long puddle, caused by that downpour in the morning. I took a more cautious approach, dropped down a gear, but still managed to make a decent bow wave through the puddle. It wasn’t as dramatic as the one Jamie saw last month, but it was deep enough. Got home without further incident and one the White House photos made PoD.

Dinner tonight was a Charlie Bigham’s Thai Green Curry. Delicious! Scamp was not so complimentary about it, so I don’t think we’ll have that again. Pity.

Some shopping to do tomorrow.

Dancin’ Class – 23 March 2024

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For four couples!

Only four couples dancing the Valentino Jive, Spring Waltz, Mayfair Quickstep, Jive and Tina Tango (to Shivers by Ed Sheehan, of course). Four couples and five routines, but, for me it was the Spring Waltz, or more correctly it was the details in the Spring Waltz we learned today that made me think for an hour I was “Dancing”. Both Stewart and Jane demonstrated the ’Sway’ technique that took the waltz from a walk round the floor to moving through the dance. It’s difficult to explain and will probably need a fair bit of rehearsing for us to get it right, but that simple technique took the waltz to another level. I’m really glad we went to today’s class.

Drove home and stopped at the shops to get the makings of tomorrow’s dinner which will be a reprise of Thursday’s Chicken Thighs with Leeks and Peas. M&S had no Skin-On, Bone-In Chicken Thighs but Aldi did.

After lunch I took a camera for a walk round Cumbersheugh and actually found a new vantage point to photograph the Campsies in some lovely light. The weather is best described as ‘changeable’. Rain one minute, brilliant sunshine the next, constantly changing. As well as that I also managed to get …

This section of the blog has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Friends and family will understand why this decision has been taken. It may be released at a future date.

With that completed, I drove back home in time to take Scamp to The Link for her final Shingles injection. She had her first one eight weeks ago and it was a dull dark night. Today the sun was shining. What a difference a couple of months makes.

She had requested Fish ’n’ Chips for dinner and we stopped at Condorrat on the way home to get some. Nice fresh fish and freshly fried chips too. Perfect for a Saturday dinner.

We watched a recording of Rocky Horror Picture Show we’d made around about Christmas. I think we both had forgotten just how funny it was.

Preparations are in place for tomorrow, bus some are still to be finalised. That’s where I’m going now.

I saw blue sky! – 18 December 2023

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We drove up to Costa today to have coffee with Isobel.

We spent an hour in a cold barn of a place with a really high ceiling that means any hot air collects under the manky glass roof and doesn’t warm those seated below it. Although, I think the air con was blowing cool air around us. We sat in this dismal place for an hour. Isobel eventually put her coat on. An hour was enough in the cooler and we parted to go our separate ways.

Scamp and I were going to Tesco to get a trolley load of messages which tested the suspension of the blue car. It was just a Monday morning shopping expedition with little to differentiate it from any other Monday, except, the sun was breaking through and a big triangular chunk of blue sky was in evidence! Miracles do happen, even in Cumbersheugh.

We drove home and unpacked the bags and then stashed them in cupboards, fridge and freezer until the bags were empty. Scamp was going to have lunch, but I wasn’t going to let the blue sky and sun get away lightly. I changed into boots and drove down to Auchinstarry to get some real outside photos.

A couple of landscapes were first on the list, taken on a walk along the canal towpath, then as I was crossing into the Plantation, the light was just scraping down the side of the Campsie Fells. Just as I took the shot a deer ran across the path and into my field of view, except that the fraction of a second it takes for the shutter to fire allowed the deer to get into the trees. All I saw on the shot was the white of its tail. Never mind, it was the landscape I was photographing this time, not the wildlife.

I crossed the River Kelvin on the bridge and turned right to head back to the car park and found PoD. It’s a snail complete with shell, paddling across the waterlogged path that used to be a mineral railway line taking coal to Glasgow. A nice low angle and a slow moving subject gave me ideal image for the PoD.

Drove home after visiting Lidl in Kilsyth and wishing I’d walked through the wee park where a bloke told me he’d seen a kingfisher about a month ago, but the light was failing by then and I had to leave the kingfisher for another day. I drove home and had a late lunch of a piece ’n’ cold meat.

Dinner tonight was more of yesterday’s Carrot & Lentil Curry. It had matured since yesterday. Not as sweet and with some extra garam masala, it was a bit spicier.

Watched the final part of Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 where the winning artist painted Dr Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE for the National Portrait Gallery. It was so good to see a portrait that ended up looking like the sitter for a change.

Tomorrow a bloke is coming to service the boiler and I’m hoping to meet Alex for a photo walk.

The yellow brick road – 20 November 2023

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No Scarecrow. No Tin Man. No Cowardly Lion.

The yellow brick road is what we used to call IKEA when you had to follow the yellow arrows round the store. Now it’s arrows projected on the floor from above and not even yellow ones. Not nearly as much fun.

We were looking for a rug for the kitchen, a hanger for holding socks and pants on the whirly and maybe a replacement light for my room. What we came home with was:

  • Two boxes of sealable plastic bags, the ones IKEA do so well.
  • Half a dozen new dinner plates.
  • The hanger for the socks and pants.
  • A portable phone charger.
  • A toilet brush.
  • Three rolls of Christmas wrapping paper.
  • A bag of IKEA Swedish meatballs.
  • A box of alphabet biscuits.
  • The light for my room (but no bulb).

No rug because we couldn’t quite agree on which one we liked best. Quite a restrained set of purchases though, even if I say so myself.

Earlier in the morning we’d been to B&Q because their websites said they had two CO2 monitors in stock. They lied. Eventually got them in Screwfix for less than B&Q wanted for them, even if they had them.

Drove home via Costa in Robroyston for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. Then continued on to Muirhead where I got today’s PoD which is a view over to the Campsie Fells with a lovely bit of golden sunshine lighting up the edge of the hills. The most amazing thing about it is that bit of sunshine is real! Not faked in Photoshop or ON1, although I admit there was some post-processing done on other parts of the picture, but that slice of golden light was real!

Dinner tonight for the first time in ages was pasta. My speciality, What’s In The Fridge pasta. Just using up odds and ends I found in the fridge.

<Technospeak>
One thing that’s been bugging me and I couldn’t solve was to create and install an SPF script into my email system. SPF is nothing to do with sun cream! Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is used to authenticate the sender of an email. I’ve struggled to complete the complex script that need to go deep into the email system to verify that an email I’ve sent to someone’s Gmail address is genuine and comes from me. Today I found a way to get that script written for me by the email system itself!
For my Webmonkey:
The answer was there all the time in Cpanel, and it was all done in less than a minute. I can now send emails to half the world without it bouncing back to me! I realise that now I’ve said that, the first email I send tomorrow will, indeed bounce! That’s just the way computers trip you up, isn’t it!
</Technospeak>

No plans for tomorrow, but the temperature is due to drop to near zero tonight! Brrr.

Soil – 25 September 2023

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We were meeting Isobel for a coffee and a long blether this morning.

We drove up to the town centre and found Isobel halfway through her latte. I imagine it would have been cold by then. She seems to like cold milky coffee. I can think of few things more disgusting than that, although cold milky tea must come close. My Cortado seemed to interest her, but as she said, it hardly even a mouthful. We sat and talked for over an hour and found out that her son had delivered a bag of topsoil for her. Scamp has been looking for topsoil to pack round her roses to give the roots more of a grip in their pots. After interrogating Isobel we discovered that the soil came from Dobbies in Stirling and was reasonably priced. So reasonable that she had decided to get her son to buy another bag for her. Scamp was telling her that she was needing some and we might just go to Stirling to get a bag or two. Then I said to Isobel, “why don’t you come along for the run” and she agreed.

So it was that we drove to Stirling. lifted three bags of topsoil into a trolley, paid and left. Isobel’s quip that “It’s the shortest time I’ve been in a garden centre in my life.” was true. They hadn’t been in that plant paradise for more than fifteen minutes! While they were in looking for the topsoil I had been taking photos of the Wallace Monument and the Ochil Hills through a two meter wire fence. A bit clumsy, but the photos worked. Half a dozen shots in the bag.

We drove home and the wee blue car was struggling on the hills going home. Three full 25litre bags of damp soil and three folk too, plus a heavy camera bag and a zimmer. That was straining its three cylinders to the max, but at least were keeping most thing in threes!

We stopped in the village and used Isobel’s zimmer to transport her bag of soil up the path to her house. Then we drove back home for lunch which today was pizza.

After lunch Scamp got her tools out and started filling the rose pots with the soil. It looked like good quality stuff with maybe more than its fair share of sand mixed with the soil, but it hadn’t been very expensive, so we didn’t mind. I did consider taking a walk in St Mo’s, but when I checked the clock, it was almost dinner time and as it was Monday I was pasta chef today. A sort of cross between Penne Arrabiata and Amatriciana. It tasted fine anyway.

A quick Wednesday Waltz practise tonight and I do believe we are beginning to lick this dance into shape, but whisper it, because I don’t want it to hear!

After a bit of photoshopping and some jiggery pokery I declared one of today’s shots to be the PoD.

We have no plans for tomorrow.

Heading North – 30 August 2023

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Both of us heading north, just not together

Scamp was going to Pitlochry with the rest of the witches on the bus and I was driving to Perth to get coffee, tea, lunch and Coltsfoot Rock. The only place I know I can get the rock is in a wee herbalist shop in Perth.

It was a fairly pleasant run up until I reached the roadworks. The works have been advertised for sometime, but were describes as being at Broxden. I assumed they were at Broxden roundabout. Not so, they were for a long stretch of the road before the roundabout and in actual fact, the roundabout was clear of any an all works. It was a 30mph speed limit on the single carriage way through the roadworks and the person in front, whoever they were was holding exactly to the speed limit. I’m guessing they were running on cruise control. It didn’t bother me because I wasn’t in a rush.

Parked at the multi-storey where we park when we’re going to the dance weekends and took too heavy bags of books to the Oxfam shop. Next stop was the coffee shop for beans and tea, then over to Nero for lunch which was a roll ’n’ sausage and a cup of decent coffee. Final task was to get the Coltsfoot rock and thankfully the shop had plenty. With that done, I managed to sneak in to the 1 hour parking category and happily paid my £1.49! At the coffee shop I’d made enquiries of the best way to drive to Kinnoull Hill which I thought I might just conquer in the afternoon.

I found the road up the hill using the directions one of the girls in the shop had given me and parked in a convenient parking place. It was a steep climb and I then realised that my troubled cycling the other day hadn’t been an isolated incident. This hill just got steeper and steeper and soon I had to stop to take a breath. That gave me a chance to check how far I’d walked and how much further I had to go. The answer was depressing. Surely I must be further on than that? But no. The OS map on my phone confirmed what Mr Google said and I’d a long way to climb yet. I thought I could remember driving along what turned out to be a private road with Scamp and both of us walking through some woods to the viewpoint. This was nothing like that path. Eventually I gave up and walked back in the direction of the car. I did find some brambles though. Nice big black fruit that’s now taking up 100g worth of space in the freezer. Back at the car I followed my nose and found my way back through Perth town onto the notorious A9 and after driving through two torrential showers, arrived back home. Conquer Kinnoull Hill in an afternoon? Who was I kidding!

I stopped in Condorrat for 500g of mince and 500g of stew. I vacuum packed the stew and half of the mince to put in the freezer. The remaining mince I turned into a bolognese sauce an ate half of it with spaghetti for dinner.

Not long after that I got the call to say that Scamp and Co were leaving Stirling and I drove up through the rain to pick them up.

It seemed that there wasn’t much to see in Pitlochry, however they had a posh lunch and enjoyed the walk around the town, window shopping. My lunch was basic, but was what I was looking for and I’d ticked off all my boxes apart from climbing Kinnoull Hill. Ill leave that for another day when I’m fitter, or more likely when I find that road we drove up the last time!

No real plans for tomorrow. The wee car is feeling a bit thirsty, so I might put some petrol in its tank.

Out to Lunch – 25 August 2023

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It was Scamp who suggested that we go out to lunch today.

In the morning she went to her FitSteps class and I did some housekeeping. Actual, physical tidying-up housekeeping, but also the more interesting and almost invisible housekeeping on the computer. I was searching for a sofa bed that I knew was in the back bedroom / painting room / spare room. I’d seen it recently under a pile of books, a rucksack and a blizzard of paper. After some rearranging of things, a disposing of rubbish and just finding better places for jackets and hats to live, there, under it all was the sofa bed. It’s not completely unearthed yet, but now I know where to look the next time I might need it.

The computer clean-up took longer, although there was far less physical work involved. It’s so easy to get sidetracked into looking at photos you haven’t seen for a while and then that leads to more photos that look interesting until nearly an hour has gone and you still haven’t accomplished what you set out to do. It was when Scamp returned I realised that I was only half way through the clean up or what became a clear out. However I did manage to get the required photos put in the bin and their replacement put in place. I’ve still to empty the bin, because, well, I’ll need to check that I wasn’t throwing good photos out with the bad, and you never know when I’ll need that one or that one or …

I shut the computer down. I powered it off and we went out to lunch, just as the rain came on. Thankfully it didn’t last long because we’d agreed to walk down to Broadwood Farm for a cheap lunch and a glass of something alcoholic. After all it was Friday and the end of the historical working week. Not that I’ve been involved in any working for a while now, but you have to keep these traditions alive! Fish & Chips for Scamp and small carvery for me. Small because that means two of the three meats that are always available, Gammon, Turkey and Cardboard. It’s actually advertised as Roast Beef, but it’s so dry the gravy won’t be absorbed into it and it tastes like cardboard, so let’s cut to the chase here and call it what it is – Cardboard. Some mixed veg and Cauliflower Cheese brightened up the plate and actually the food was good, washed down with a pint of Tennents for me and a glass of 19 Crimes Red for Scamp. The father of a family sitting on the other side of the room had a broad southern Irish accent, and although he was speaking quite loudly, I couldn’t understand more than about three words in every sentence. This got me thinking: Is that what I sound like to English folk? I must ask Simonne the next time we meet. Scamp thinks Simonne can probably decode my accent by now!

Back home the streets were drying, but not for long. I was just thinking I might get an hour in St Mo’s when down it came, straight down rain. As soon as it had disappeared to bother somebody else, I got my boots on and went for a walk with the A6500 and a 50mm macro lens. The 50 did its magic again. 50mm used to be the lens to stick on your camera. A general purpose go anywhere lens that could handle most things. That part hasn’t really changed, but having the ‘macro’ part means it’s possible to focus down to about 30mm from the front of the lens and still get super sharp images. Kind of two lenses in one. Today it took a photo of a swan drying its wings while standing on a rock in the middle of St Mo’s pond – the swan was standing on the rock, not me, BTW! Daft, but not stupid. It took a photo of a tiny, about 3mm long spider on a web. Last, but not least it took a photo of a Red Admiral butterfly sunning itself on a bush. First red admiral I’ve seen this year and even better, there were actually two of them! The butterfly got PoD and the other two are able to be viewed on Flickr.

Swans are sneaky things.  You’ve only got to ask Jamie about their wiles!  The one referred to in the previous paragraph successfully enveigled itself into the photograph, but it’s now been bounced out and replaced with the butterfly.  Swan’s! You can never turn your back on them for a minute.  Ask Jamie!

A thin G&T each tonight because we’re out early tomorrow intending to drive to Brookfield to demonstrate that we have been practising the Outside Spin, if not the Cross Basic.