Category: landscape

Leaves, Friends and Glenmorangie – 16 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Too many of our days are spoilt by reading in bed.

Today the light was good, so after breakfast I got up, dressed and took my camera out for a walk. Yesterday, on the way back from our walk I saw a little clearing in the woods beside Broadwood Loch, covered with golden brown sycamore leaves. That was my target for today. When I got there the clouds had already rolled in and it didn’t look as if I was going to get a chance to take the photo. But I was there with a camera and I wasn’t going home until I had at least one shot in the bag, and this time it would be in focus. I got quite a few shots looking in both east and west directions. I walked round the boardwalk after that took a few shots of the padlocks rusting together on the square link fence. No great sky, no directional light. I don’t know if there would really have been any because at about 9.30am the sun wouldn’t have risen much and the area I was in would have been in shadow anyway. That was about it for photography. I really need to put that little battery powered light in my bag to give me some portable directional light.

Back home the shots looked ok. Not great, just ok. The main problem apart from a lack of shadows was the white sky behind the trees. Luminar 4 is a great bit of software for adding interesting skies to bland landscapes and it came to the rescue with today’s PoD.

Time to get ready for lunch. Today we were booked for lunch with Crawford and Nancy at The Cotton House in Longcroft. Lovely lunch and a great laugh with the other pair. My Salt and Chilli Chicken with noodles is fast becoming my go-to standard for Chinese / Thai food. Scamp has gone back to the old favourite of Chicken Chow Mein.

When we came out, Nancy had a Christmas parcel for Scamp (a bit early, but who’s counting) and Crawford presented me with a bottle of Glenmorangie as a belated birthday prezzy. I was flabbergasted. I totally hadn’t expected that. We did elbow bumps and left for our respective homes.

The weather was closing in as we neared Cumbersheugh so we waited a while before walking down to the shops for staples which this time included iced buns, chocolate and pancakes. Only the iced buns and the pancakes have been sampled, the chocolate is hiding in the fridge.

The golden leaves and the subtly added sky finished off the PoD and I was happy with it. Must try out PhotoPills on the iPhone to find out if I can indeed get light onto those trees on Thursday, because tomorrow and Wednesday are definitely out with heavy rain both days.

Doesn’t look like we’ll be going far tomorrow.

Mountaineers – 12 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Well, that’s how we felt today.

It was such a beautiful morning, it seemed a shame to waste it just sitting around. I suggested we climb Bar Hill. We had completed the Croy Hill ascent last month and it seemed like a good use of the clear, dry weather.

We parked at The Hebo House and walked up the hill towards Croy, crossed the road and started on the path to Bar Hill. Through two gates and when the road curved to the left we went right, following the John Muir Trail arrows. They took us along a wide grassy area between banks of trees, gently climbing, but we could see ahead of us the climb growing steadily steeper. It was also a lot soggier underfoot and pure mud in places. Scamp wasn’t sure about this part at all, but we found a way through it. We’d brought our walking poles and they helped a lot, giving the security to plant our feet firmly, knowing that the poles would support us.

Once we were past the boggy area, the slope got a lot steeper. I was pretty sure the view from the top would be worth the climb and I was right. Well, I thought it was worth the climb anyway. Scamp was more worried about getting back down, but I didn’t intend to retrace our steps. I was almost sure we could take a gentler way down. That last climb took us to an Iron Age fort of which nothing really remains. There is a trig point and we stopped to take some photos. A hundred yards further on was the ruins of the Roman fort, and then I realised that the gulley that we had kept on our right hand side on the climb was actually the ditch that had contained the earth used to build the ramparts that protected the wall itself.

We walked round the ruins for a while noting what went where and wondering how they managed to dig a well deep enough to find water on the top of a hill. I suppose it’s all to do with water tables and stuff. I vaguely remember being taught about it in geography in school, and that was only a couple of years after the Romans left. Then we headed back down by the “easy” military route which is probably the way the Romans with their horses pulling carts of provisions. It was still fairly steep, but there were ruts cut perpendicular to the direction of the path and these would help with traction, but it must have been slow progress from the level of the valley up to the fort. The ice cream would probably have melted by the time they got to the top.

Just because we could, we took a new path back to the car. Bits of it reminds me of the second day at Cautley Spout in Yorkshire where we were walking on what seemed like a stream bed. This was similar in places with water running off the fields on our left and then being channeled down the path and not across it. It looked treacherous, but was actually quite easy. “Quite easy” because we had walking poles to give us support again. Back at the car we booked a table for lunch tomorrow at The Hebo House. A review will hopefully be posted in due course.

Apart from a quick visit to Tesco for messages that was the excitement over for the day. On the way down the hill the clouds had been gathering and the sunshine less often breaking through. By the time we got home it was gathering gloom and by about four o’ clock it was getting dark.

PoD turned out to be a shot looking down the hill we’d struggled up. In the pic it looks like the fairway of a golf course, but you can see where the ditch is and where the earth has been piled up to form the ramparts.

It was a good idea to go out in the morning. We had the best of the day.

Tomorrow, hopefully we’ll be going for lunch to The Hebo House.

A dull day in the morning – 5 November 2020

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Blue sky looking out the front window but really black at the back.

We decided to wait it out and see if the blue sky or the black clouds would win. Eventually the blues did win the day, but it was lunchtime by then and we stopped our cloudgazing to have a Bruschetta each for lunch. Sounds very posh, but the bread was going stale but would make good toast and the wee tomatoes were just past their sell-by date. A good way to use them up. Full marks to Scamp.

After lunch Scamp decided to make a chicken curry for dinner in the slow cooker and headed off to the shops to get a couple of chicken legs. I gathered my camera gear together and took a walk over to St Mo’s. Today I was mixing my cameras. I had my Oly with a macro lens and the Sony with the kit lens. I was fairly sure the Sony would produce the best landscape shot, and I wasn’t wrong. But I was equally sure the Oly would produce the best macro and again I backed the right horse. In fact, the Oly won the day with PoD going to a conifer trunk with a pattern looking like the flatworms from MC Escher’s lithographs. Google “Escher Flatworms” to see what I mean. I think the tree was a Larch because it was starting to shed its needles.

Back home the chicken curry was beginning to scent the air in the living room, because the great thing about slow cookers is they’re portable. You can plug them in anywhere there’s a power socket and they’ll do their job as well as sitting on the kitchen counter.

For a while we watched the antics of a couple of 70-somethings arguing about who won and I thought: Would I really want either of them to run my country? Boris is a bumbler, but these two are zoomers.

Tonight was Guy Fawkes Night, but since he was a bit of a terrorist and it’s not the done thing to glorify terrorists, the celebration has been renamed Bonfire Night.  That’s what we used to call it anyway, so it’s obviously the right name.  Although we didn’t have an official fireworks display this year, or maybe because we didn’t, there were loads of rockets flying through the air and explosions all around us.  Certainly one of the noisiest Bonfire Nights for many years.

Tomorrow we go out for lunch, but still stay within the boundaries of North Lanarkshire.

The Chicken Curry? Of course it was beautiful. Tasted as good as it smelled!

A busy day – 3 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

The Gas Man was coming today, but we weren’t sure when, exactly.

So we did what we usually do in a situation like this:

  • We got up early
  • We emptied the boiler cupboard
  • We waited
  • And waited
  • We gave up!

I went upstairs and started building the bookcase we’d got yesterday. It would never hold books, but would make a decent sized small cupboard to relieve give us some floor space in the ‘wee bedroom’. It was much easier to build than it looked and will probably hold enough stuff to make it a worthwhile investment. Scamp seems happy with it and that’s what counts.

After lunch we got the call to say the man was on his way and he arrive about 20 minutes later. We got the usual warning that the boiler was running about 80% efficiency and there was a problem getting replacement parts. We’d been expecting that and we agreed to an online discussion of a replacement. He had a problem getting connected, but we have that too. It’s one of the annoyances when you live in the valley between phone masts. We’re not sure now his message to his HQ went through. Unfortunately we can’t access the British Gas website since we got our new superfast modem. We always get a DNS error now. Since we can connect perfectly well from our phone using our feeble 4G signal, the problem would appear to be with Virgin. I spent over an hour tonight trying to find a way to speak to someone there, on live chat or by landline, but they seem to have dropped the portcullis, raised the drawbridge and blamed Covid. I wonder how many other businesses will claim that same excuse.

We went out for a walk after the man had gone. It was still a lovely day although it seems to be getting colder now.  We walked down round Broadwood Stadium and along the boardwalk beside the loch. That’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s one of the pylons that circle the loch, looking like one of the Martian war machines from War of the Worlds with its deadly Heat Ray. On the way back I went for an extra circuit of St Mo’s and Scamp headed for home but bumped into Chris’s mum, Carolyn. They hadn’t seen each other for years and I was glad I’d chosen the St Mo’s circuit otherwise I’d have felt like the (actual) odd man out. Back home I’d left some stew on the slow cooker, but it turned out really tough. We’re not sure why. It might be the meat itself or maybe it wasn’t cooked for long enough or the temperature was too low. It’s had another four hours tonight, so I’d imagine it will be well cooked for tomorrow’s lunch.

Not sure what we’re doing tomorrow. We might make a big break for freedom and go in to Glasgow or we may be like little good mice and do what our mistress tells us. (Aye Right!!)

More junk goes – 2 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Even more junk will arrive to fill its place, that’s inevitable, of course.

The junk in question was my Linx 12×64 laptop(ish) computer. The (ish) refers to the fact that it won’t sit comfortably on your lap, because it takes up a fairly large footprint with its kick down stand extended. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but like all ‘good ideas’ there were drawbacks. It was fairly light with a decent sized screen. It wasn’t fast, but I knew that at the time. It could run from an emergency phone charger battery quite happily. The killer was that it was Windows 10 and constantly wanted to ”Get you going again” only it didn’t. The downloads nearly always failed for some unexplained reason and with every successful download it got slower and slower. I finally decided it had to go and today was the day. Scamp was out having coffee with her sister in the morning, so I’d plenty of time to get it organised. I did my final check to make sure the battery was 100% and that it would charge if needed, polished the screen, swept the crumbs out of the keyboard (terrible keyboard) then packed it in its box, ready to go.

It was still looking good outside when I was finished, so I grabbed the camera and headed off to see how much water was in St Mo’s pond. The answer was really quite a lot of water. In fact, all the weeds and assorted rubbish in the pond had blocked the outlet and the pond was overflowing onto the path and cascading down the other side into the gulley that takes it out to somewhere else. I have no idea where. Didn’t get many photos because the trees were looking a bit bare after the buffeting they’ve had from our recent gales. I did try a few landscapes, but I wasn’t impressed with the look through the viewfinder.

Back home, Scamp had arrived just before me and we had lunch. My first look at the photos on the computer confirmed my suspicions that quite a lot of work would be needed to find anything worthwhile there. Took the Linx up to CEX which are the easiest company to deal with for small electrical and electronic gadgets. The next best, I’ve found, are the workers at the council skips, but CEX give you a few quid more for your unwanted electronic junk, and there’s not such a big queue. Left the Linx to be checked and GS23’d and came home to close down Inktober 2020 on Flickr. It hasn’t been such an easy job being admin for the group this year. Too many punters seem to think that slapping some coloured ink on a page is drawing/sketching. It’s not, it’s just being a poser and if you keep doing it, I will remove your ‘artwork’. That’s what happened to an irate Italian bloke last night who seemed to think that he could unload his entire back catalog into my Inktober site. He got barred.

With Inktober sorted, Scamp and I turned our attention to additional storage space needed in the front bedroom. I suggested we get another bookcase and create an organised shelf system. That seemed to meet with her approval.

Back up at CEX the nice lady handed over the readies and I took some of them round to B&M where I exchanged them for a cheap chipboard bookcase. Strangely I met Emma, an FP (Former Pupil). I’d been reading last year’s blog the other night and had written about meeting her in the Beech Tree restaurant a year ago last week. She was one of my nicer FPs. I stopped on the way home when I saw what might just be a decent sunset forming. It got a few shots, and that’s what you see here. Sunset over the Pylons! Scamp approved the purchase of the bookcase. We’ll build it tomorrow.

Watched and interesting video on YouTube tonight that showed how to adjust lens adapters. The first one I bought was very loose. I fixed it tonight after watching the video. Very happy with it now. I’ll be able to use my Nikon lenses on the new camera until I save up enough pennies to buy Sony ones.

Tomorrow the Gas Man is booked to do the maintenance on the boiler. We know he’ll probably try to encourage us to get a new one. We may just let him make an appointment for us. Don’t know how that will work with Covid restrictions. We are now in Tier 3 of the Scottish system. England go into full lockdown later in the week for a month. Wales are just coming out of a ‘Circuit Breaker’. It’s complicated!

Oh Summer’s gone – 25 October 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Early in the morning, too early for us to know about it, the clocks silently went back an hour. Summer’s gone and winter’s in the meadow.

Because we’d had an extra hour in sleep, we took the lazy approach to the day. So lazy that we did hardly anything. The furthest we went was a walk down to Broadwood Loch after lunch. We continued down to Blackwood and up past the stadium. Dropped in at the shops for essentials, milk, a bag of mixed veg, a packet of sticky buns, a box of Turkish delight (mine) and a bag of chocolate raisins. Essentials, like I said. By the time we were heading home it seemed to be growing dark and it was feeling a bit cold in the strong west wind, even with my big ‘Bergy’ jacket on.  Connolly was right. “Nights are fair drawing in.”

Spent an hour afterwards playing a brilliant new time waster I’ve found, called Numbers Game. Deceptively simple concept but totally engrossing. Lost a couple of hours already to it. After dragging myself away I worked on PoD which is a view across Broadwood Loch. This isn’t the photo that came out of the camera, it’s the view from my mind’s eye. I know it’s a bit fake, but I like the lighting.

Topic for sketching today was “Buddy”. I’d roughed out a face on portrait of Buddy Holly that looked ok. Today I inked it in and it looked, not quite as good as the rough pencil sketch, but Scamp said it was a decent likeness and that’s good enough for me.

Watched a boring first competitive episode of Strictly. Well, actually I watched half an episode before giving up and posting the photos for today. It really was that riveting.

Spoke to JIC and heard about chlorine in a hot tub and rodent saboteurs. Not both together. The mice weren’t in the hot tub, just in case you were wondering.

Tomorrow Scamp’s car goes for MOT, so it’s an early rise to drive down and either walk back (if it’s dry) or drive back in the more likely event that it’s raining. Then we have to wait for the phone call.

One of those mixed days – 23 October 2020

Posted on by Zogman

A day that could have been lovely and one that could have been rained off. We took the chance.

Before anything else today I drew yesterday’s sketch which is now on yesterday’s post and I was happy with it. The theme was Chef, so the chef’s hat and knife are part and parcel of his or her trade.

If you just sit there and say “It might clear up”, it never will. We’ve learned that. Take the chance and seize the day. Scamp suggested we should go to Drumpellier and she was driving. It was the right thing to do. We had a walk round the loch. I think it’s big enough to call a loch, not a pond. Lots of people walking round the loch in ones and twos and even in groups of four, but we didn’t stop them to interview them on how many households were involved and was this their region. We leave that to the FM, should she dare to do such a thing. We must have been striding out at a fair pace, because we covered the distance in no time. We did stop a few times to watch the duck, geese and swans, oh yes and I took some photos too! Quite a few. There was nowhere to have a coffee or something to eat, because it’s Coatbridge and they don’t do hospitality. Everywhere was boarded up and barricaded. It’s a virus, not the return of the Visigoths! There was an ice cream van, but with a temperature hovering around 7ºc we passed on that option and Scamp drove us home.

Back home, after inspecting today’s photos and having lunch, I walked down to the shops to get some peas for tonight’s dinner via St Mo’s. Got another couple of decent shots there. Light was that lovely golden hour just before the sun truly sets. One of them almost made PoD, but it was beaten by a gull sitting on a sculpture of a whale’s tail, taken at Drumpellier.

After dinner we did a short ballroom practise ahead of tomorrows Zoom dance. We’re not absolutely certain sure that it’s going ahead, but it’s best to do a bit of practise just in case. We were both a bit rusty on the exact moves that were joined together to make the Waltz, but Scamp was on the button with the ‘ring a ring a roses’ dance she calls Sequence. We finished up with a fair chance of not making complete idiots of ourselves tomorrow, if the dance goes live.

Today’s sketch topic was Rip. I drew a pair of ripped jeans. Everyone has a pair, I think. They are usually the most comfortable pair you’ve ever worn and it’s not that you’re mean and don’t want to spend the money on a new pair. It’s just that it took you so long to get them as comfortable as this. They have character.
Fashionable ripped jeans are a totally different thing. Not worth talking about.

Tomorrow looks like rain. We may stay in at least in the morning.

Wet Ones – 21 October 2020

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That used to be the name of hand wipes. Now it seems an apt description of the days this week.

The sun was splitting the trees this morning and we took a chance on it staying with us when we drove over to Mugdock Park. It was a bad choice. At least, for the choice of weather it was a bad one. It rained on and off all the way there, but we’d come prepared with raincoats and boots. We needed them. It was just liquid air we were walking through for a while. Down past the old ruined ‘Big House’, then down the hill to the tree lined walk. Crossed the boardwalk over the bog to Mugdock Castle on the banks of Mugdock Loch. We were in and out of the trees all the way, but I did get a few shots through the trees and of the trees themselves. It was a bit dreich, but the colours were beautiful and the company was good. We continued round the loch in the hopes of getting a cup of coffee in one of the wee cafés, but one only had outdoor seating with no available umbrellas. One only had uncomfortable bar stools available and by that time the notion had left us. We changed our footwear and went home. Annoyingly, the closer we got to Cumbersheugh, the better the weather became and when we arrived home, blue sky was showing through the clouds.

After lunch Scamp drove to Halfords to get a rear wiper fitted. I told her I could do it. The biggest problem was taking the old one off and I’d done that at the weekend. Not without a fair bit of wrestling. With the wiper in place we tackled the scrubbing down of Scamp’s car. It needed it. One of our neighbours who was watching the action said “Oh, so it’s a Red car then!” That is its first wash this week. It’s going to need at least one more, probably in a carwash before it goes for MOT next week.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Tikka Masala and I was chef. It was a slightly less than successful curry. I don’t think I’ll be using that recipe again.

Today’s prompt was “Sleep”. Another vague request. Thinking along the lines of “Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?”, I asked the question:
“Do insomniac sheep dream of counting humans?”
Answers on a postcard please.

PoD was a grab shot walking through the avenue of trees at Mugdock. I don’t know who the bloke was wearing the red jacket, but thank you sir for providing my focal point. ARPS = A Red Point Somewhere!

Tomorrow we’re booked for breakfast at Calders with Isobel. Let’s hope the rest of the day is not another Wet One!

Just walkin’ in the rain – 20 October 2020

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Locked to the house again this sometimes sunny morning until yet another parcel arrived from Amazon.

After the wait and after lunch and after the sun had disappeared again we decided to go for a walk just to be out of the house. Of course it rained as soon as we closed the door, but we’d agreed we would just get wet. Drove to Auchinstarry and parked at the park. After we crossed the road the rain came down even heavier. Even so, walking through an archway of autumn coloured trees was very nice. I’d been dying to try out the new 18mm lens and this would have been a good place for it, but I’d the long lens on the camera and wasn’t going to change lenses in heavy rain. Got a few moody shots of wet weeds and a nice one of a thorny bramble stem, you can see it on Flickr.

I was keeping a weather eye on the time as I had an appointment at the makeshift clinic in the town hall at 4.30 for my flu jag. I thought we might manage to get along the old railway to Twechar and back along the canal towpath by about 4pm, but it didn’t happen. The pathway was blocked by by a fence and a council notice said no through road. Apparently they were rebuilding the pathways. Luckily we had the opportunity to cross over the plantation and back via the canal. That’s where I did manage to change lenses with only a single drip on the rear element of the new lens. It was quickly blotted off and we were in business. Took a few shots of the trees across the canal in their autumn garb and one of those became PoD. Then the rain came down again. I must go back soon on a dry day to get some quality shots of that avenue of trees.

Back home and just enough time to dump the photos before I went out to get my flu jag. Five booths operating and no waiting. In and out in a flash. Scamp made a veg stirfry for dinner and it was lovely.

Watched Bakeoff and sketched today’s prompt which was Coral. We’ve a few wee pieces of coral we picked up possibly in Tobago and possibly in Corralejo in Fuerteventura. Their source is immaterial, they were coral and that was good enough for me.

We’re hoping for a slightly drier day tomorrow and maybe the chance for a walk again.

Another up and out day – 16 October 2020

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Or maybe more of an ‘out and up’ day.

A more gentle start though. Spoke to Hazy who seemed impressed with yesterday’s Blog warning. First warning she’s had that there’s something she might not want to see. It’s usually JIC that gets the ‘Technospeak’ fake HTML meta text. We both enjoyed the wee chat this morning Hazy.

Today Scamp suggested we tackle Croy Hill. Not a great ascent, nor a very long one, but steep enough in places to challenge us ‘auld yins’. Stopped quite a few times to admire the view and the way the light was changing as it swept across the land. Good to see the colours in the trees turning golden brown and the low autumn light picking out the textures. While we were up at the site of the Roman fort, we could see the heavy grey clouds sliding in from the east and decided it would be a good move to make our way back down to the car. We still took our time, enjoying the scenery as we walk down.

By the time we got back to the car the clouds had indeed rolled in and banished the blue sky. As an introduction to walking in the hills (not hillwalking) it was fine. Not too demanding and the ascent and descent took about an hour and a half. It gave us the incentive to try another hill soon. It looks like we may try the new path up Bar Hill, which has a more complete looking ground plan of a Roman fort. I climbed it many years ago from the other, steeper side. The path from the Croy side looks a bit easier, but we’ll see.

Not much else of interest today. I raked the leaves from the back garden (these trees are SO untidy). Scamp made the dinner which was a Cauliflower and Potato Gratin. All her own design and it worked really well. Another to add to the recipe list.

PoD was a view from near the top of Croy Hill looking over to Bar Hill, probably our next target. It’s the only Bar in Central Scotland that’s open this month!

Today’s prompt was ‘Rocket’.  I could have drawn a spotty wee ned in a baseball cap shouting “Ha! Ya rocket!!”, but that would have required too much translation for anyone outside the Central Belt of Scotland.  For those outside that region, it means “Oh you stupid boy”.  There is a female form of ‘rocket’, but it would … require a Parental Advisory label. For those reasons, I chose to draw a cartoon rocket instead in the style of Hergé.  It’s so much easier to draw nouns than verbs or adjectives or transferred epithets (no, I don’t know what they are either). So my answer is a simple drawing for a simple request.

Tomorrow we might just be able to go for a walk again if our legs haven’t seized up with today’s ascent!