Category: landscape

Kelpied – 24 September 2019

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Today we were all Kelpied!

Today dawned dry but a bit dreary. However, it soon brightened up and we thought we’d risk a run to the Kelpies. It all went well until we were almost at the M9 then the car seemed to be misfiring, which is strange because it had been running so well since its last service. I hadn’t bought petrol from anywhere other than my usual two petrol stations and I hadn’t run the level down until the red light came on. So that should rule out the possibility of a little bit of dirt getting in to the carburettor or the jets, whatever it is the Juke has. Made the decision to detour via the Nissan garage in Stirling, where the service manager came to see what the problem was. He gave it a fair run through the gears, fierce acceleration and gentle driving, but could not replicate the problem. There was little more the poor man could do, but he took it in to the service bay, put it on the computer and pronounced it clean. No problems listed. Finally he suggested we drive off and if the problem reared its head again, we should book it in for a full day check. Clive and I were puzzled. We couldn’t agree on a possible cause and he knows a lot more about cars than me. It ran perfectly for the rest of the day.

Got to the Kelpies and wandered round them just taking them in. Glad to see that Clive was equally entranced with these beautiful equine sculptures. We both took lots of photos of them from different angles and in different lighting conditions. Scamp was also taking photos, but I think we were the subjects. People are more important than places to her and that’s probably her greatest photographic strength. She captures people very much better than me.

From Grangemouth, we said goodbye to the Kelpies and headed round the outskirts of Falkirk to The Falkirk Wheel. The giant boat lift was one of the things that Clive had wanted to see and we arrived just as it was doing a lift, so he got to see it in action right away. I took the car away to park it and met them in the shadow of the great wheel where we discussed the mechanics of this modern wonder. We waited for another boat to be lifted and after a swift look in the visitor centre, I found the one ticket machine that was working and paid for our parking. For a visitor centre which was meant to show this wonder of engineering design, there were a host of machines with OUT OF ORDER signs on them. Almost nothing of any note was working. Poor show Falkirk. Drove home and arrived just as the rain was starting.

PoD was a view of the Kelpies reflected in the turning pool of the canal.

Tomorrow we may go to Glasgow, but it depends on the weather.

Today I peed in a bucket – 20 September 2019

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It was a bit more high tech than that, but basically that’s what they do for a ‘flow test’.

It’s the tech below the bucket that does all the clever stuff, measuring the rate of flow and producing a graph. Apparently I’d produced a classic bell shaped graph which is perfect. The nurse also gave me my PSA reading from the blood test and explained it all. The reading was 2.2 for those who understand such things. Way down the scale from the 5 I was producing back in February/March. She also showed me my blood sugar reading which was 47, but that was down from the 50 I’d had back in June, so it’s now off the Diabetic range and into the Pre-diabetic area. You’re never ever going to get off the scale. Once they’ve got their hooks into you, they don’t let you go.

So it was a Happy Boy who left Monklands with Scamp this afternoon. A little bit less to worry about. Back home I sorted out my car insurance which was another thing I was reminding myself to do before the end of the month. One thing left to do is pay the Road Tax. That has to be done before the end of the month too. September is always an expensive month. It used to be March, for the same reasons!

Scamp wanted to do some gardening when we got home, so I did the sensible thing and took the bike out for a run in the surprisingly warm sunshine. It’s not often I can go out on the bike with shorts and a cycling top. When I was out I got some more brambles, but I think this lot will be the last. I didn’t see any ripening fruit. It was either ripe or turning to mush. We’ve got a fair bit this year, almost 2kg now. Freezer is full of bags bulging with deep purple berries.

PoD was almost a tie between a macro of a Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum) and an HDR shot of some corn bales. The corn bales won. What surprised me about the HDR shot was the way the camera just took over and did it. So easy! (I’m not going to explain what an HDR shot is because JIC will just complain about technospeak!).

That’s about it for today. The day I peed in a bucket and got a bell shaped graph. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere. Tomorrow Scamp wants to go out somewhere if it’s ‘nice’. Neither of us have a clue where that place is.

Roundabout chaos – 23 August 2019

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It was one of those days that promised a lot but failed to deliver

In the morning, it looked like it would brighten up and be a lovely day. Good wind to break up the clouds and just the hint of sunshine and blue sky now and again. However, it didn’t quite make it and it all degenerated into a dull, cloudy day.

It didn’t keep us in, not us. We were out and ready to buy a new strimmer cable and were driving merrily along past St Mo’s school when the traffic all jammed up. The lights had been switched on and they weren’t properly phased in. Confusing signals from the lights on the roundabout and drivers unsure of what was being asked of them brought the entire roundabout to a halt. Really and truly, in this day and age I’d have expected a computer model to have been built to check the traffic flow. Yes, it would have cost money, but so do six technicians wandering around with their chins on their hands, looking at the carnage on the roundabout and pretending they were thinking about it. What they were really doing was waiting for someone, anyone with a plan to tell them what they’d done wrong. Most of them were wearing brand new Hi Vis jackets, not a mark on them. These weren’t workies, these were managers, consultants and planners and all of them numpties. We managed to get through the mess and bought the strimmer cable then drove home. It was still the same when we drove round the roundabout a second time. Six numpties without a clue how to fix it. Oh dear.

We drove in to the new shops and this time we were buying!! Prices weren’t too bad. Haven’t checked the quality yet, but it’s another option for shopping and a competitor for Tesco can’t be a bad thing.

After lunch I went for a run and avoided the roundabout from hell. Drove over to Fannyside and got a few photos, but it’s just not the same as Venice or Dubrovnik, it’s just Fannyside. The best of a bad lot got PoD. On the way home, just for the fun of it, I drove round the roundabout which was doing what it says on the tin, making the traffic travel round it. Somebody, somewhere had found the solution. Ask a workie who would actually know what they were doing and get him to fix it.

Couldn’t be bothered going to the Balloon Festival tonight. No other reason, just couldn’t be bothered.

Tomorrow we may go out to lunch somewhere nice.

Out to lunch – 5 July 2019

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Dull again with the threat of rain. A Scottish Summer.

Didn’t have a lot planned today, in fact we both had nothing planned. Did a bit more to the waistcoat in the morning. Stitched the welts up and then stitched them on to the waistcoat front. Such a lot of faffing about just to make two fake pockets. I ask you. Do these designer people have so much time on their hands, they just make tricky things like this simply to make the sewing difficult? What’s the point in taking an hour to make a pocket that you can’t use? Nonsense! Ought not to be allowed, if you ask me. Anyway it’s done now and they do look good even if it’s just a place to keep your you odd 20p. If tomorrow is as inviting as today, I’ll start the belt up the back, if that’s not a rude expression!

Went out to Milano Express for a lunchtime pizza each. I had a ’Meat Feast’ and it was good, but got a taste of Scamp’s veggie pizza and it was really nice. May try that some time. Very tasty. Dropped Scamp at home and took the Juke for a drive looking for a view I’d seen from the motorway one day. It was burned in my memory. A yellow field on a hill with a small stand of trees at the top. Took me ages to find it and by that time, what good light there had been had disappeared and there was rain in the wind. Took the photo of course, but will try again on a better day, DV. Today’s shot is on Flickr.

Today’s PoD was taken on a walk around the block to get my 250 steps per hour done. It’s a dog rose (Rosa canina) or what’s left of it once the petals have fallen. I always think they look so much more interesting and ‘graphic’ with just the bare bones of the flower showing.

Highlight of the day was those pizzas in Milano Express. Cheap and cheerful.

Tomorrow we may go in to Stirling or Glasgow. Not too far anyway.

A Stitch in time – 4 July 2019

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Today was dull. No sunshine. A very short sprinkle of rain. Nothing for it but to get the needles and pins out.

After breakfast I took the scissors and cut out the front of the waistcoat complete with all those strange wee triangles that stick out of cut out patterns. After consulting with Scamp and also after watching a few YouTube videos I was prepared to mark the darts with needle and thread. I’d also seen a video that recommended using a chinagraph pencil to mark out the lines. What it failed to mention was that when you iron the darts flat, the heat melts the marks made by the chinagraph pencil and they disappear. Numpty. I forgot the three rules of watching YouTube videos:

  1. Don’t believe anything you see here.
  2. Don’t try this at home.
  3. If you must ignore Rule 1 and Rule 2, test it on a scrap piece first.

Luckily the iron wasn’t quite hot enough and I could see the marks faintly glowing on the dark material. Then I used tailor’s chalk to complete the marking.
Later in the morning, I fired up the sewing machine and after a bit of jiggery pokery with Thread Tension, Stitch Width and Sweary Words, I’d stitched the darts to my satisfaction. Later I made a Welt (No, I don’t know what it is either). Exhausted, that’s where I left it today.

The DPD man came to deliver my new batteries for the new toy. Hopefully they’ll be more successful than the other lot and I set them to charge while I took the old Oly 5 for a walk around the pond. Not many beasties about, but I did get a moody shot of an old apple tree growing all by itself in the park. After a bit of work in ON1, that became PoD.

Dinner tonight was a delicious piece of smoked haddock with chips. Watched the tennis, well it was on everywhere by the look of things, and eventually managed to get the TV to respond to the Red Button to allow us to watch Andy Murray and his partner win their doubles match. Doubles is so much more interesting than singles. No long tedious grunt punctuated rallies. Much faster and good fun wondering what they were whispering to each other between shots of banging the ball over the net. Probably just deciding who’s round it is in the bar after the game.

Hoping against hope for a nice sunny day tomorrow to brighten up the end of the week and for a chance to take the OM D E-M1 (Now renamed Oly 1) out for a few shots of somewhere nice.

A New Toy – 2 July 2019

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Ordered on-line yesterday, delivered free to the store today.  Impressive.

Ordered a second hand Panasonic 14mm lens on-line from WEX at lunchtime yesterday and got an email from them today, just 24 hours later, to say it was ready for collection in their Glasgow store.  Impressive service.  So, I drove in and picked it up.  I could have waited until tomorrow, but I was doing nothing else today and it seemed a pity for it to be cooling its heels in a store room when I could be putting it through its paces in  the sunshine.  Drove home via B&Q to get some black Sugru to try to fix the battery door on my old, but good Oly E-PL5.  However, as usual with this branch, they had blue, red, yellow and white Sugru, but no BLACK.  Left disappointed and drove over to the Antonine Wall and got some landscape shots of the hay bales under a blue sky.  The above shot made PoD.  I must admit I’m impressed with the lens.  In case you’re interested (I know you’re not). It’s a Silver Panasonic 14mm F2.5 Lumix G II ASPH Lens.  It came in its original box with the instructions and warranty still in their sealed wrapper.  Nobody reads instructions these days.  If in doubt, Google it.  What do you mean you don’t have a computer?  How the hell are you going to view your photos?  Take the disk in to Boots and ask them to print them?

While I was out doing the rounds, Scamp was at lunch with her pal.  She should have gone last week, but uncharacteristically, forgot.  By the time I got back, so was she.  Basically, that was the day.  Highlight for me was the new lens.  Highlight for Scamp was lunch and a natter.  We’re easily pleased, you see!

Tomorrow we’re probably going dancing in the afternoon at Michael’s Fun Palace, and he better be on his best behaviour or fur will fly! Then intending to go to Jamie Gal’s Salsa class at night.  Should be a fun day!!!

Home Time – 15 June 2019

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Time to say our goodbyes and point the Juke’s red nose north.

Up about 7am and got the last of the stuff packed into the juke’s boot. Wished everyone a safe journey home and headed for Aberystwyth one last time go stock up on essentials before we set the sat nav for Home.

Drove through some beautiful countryside I’m told, although I didn’t see much of it. I was two busy watching the grey asphalt run under our tyres. Saw a friendly group of cyclists going our way and a load of others with racing numbers on their bikes going the other way. I didn’t envy them their run through the mountains. Stopped at Chester services and grabbed two clean shots of an Airbus Beluga. It must be the ugliest aircraft ever built. Only had my iPhone to record the shot, but at least I got it. That wasn’t the best shot of the day. PoD went to a shot taken from the house looking up through the garden to Sim taking her last shots of the landscape round the house, and there was blue sky and sunshine too.

The rest of the journey was uneventful and we arrived home in sunshine at around 5pm

Tomorrow will be a lazy day. No driving.

A day at the seaside – 11 June 2019

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The young ones were off for a walk round a pond. We were going to the seaside

JIC, Sim and Sophie were taking Vixen for a walk around a couple of lakes with unpronounceable Welsh names. Madeleine and Jaime were staying at home. We were off to Aberystwyth. The first problem was getting the car’s sat nav to recognise Aberystwyth. It seemed to be fascinated by somewhere called Aberri… something. Finally tricked it into accepting the proper spelling and off we went into the rain. Driving around on these narrow roads with the high hedges was bad enough in the dry, but in the pelting rain it was a whole new challenge, but the sat nav lady did talk us through the rain and the narrow roads to get us to Aberystwyth, so it did know where we wanted to go all the time.

We went to Morrisons because it was the first supermarket we passed, then drove in to the town. We parked down by the harbour on one side and one of the beaches on the other side. Neither was very inviting in the torrential rain, but we zipped up our rainy coats and walked out into the wet stuff. About twenty minutes after we left the car, I discovered that my rainy coat was no longer waterproof. We ducked into a Nero for lunch and a chance to dry out.

When we came out it was drying up nicely, so we went for a walk up the main street and then back down towards the other beach, although it wasn’t really dry enough for a walk along it or a paddle in the water. Took a few photos of the headland and the funicular railway framed by grey sea and slightly lighter grey sky, and also the lady on the pillar that Scamp felt looked like Mary Poppins.

Our parking ticket was up, but we’d used up almost all of it anyway and so we drove off and found a Tesco the sat nav didn’t know about (ha!) and a very posh one too. Then we drove home through the rain that had returned.

Chicken on peas and leeks for dinner. Our chance to cook.

Driving, driving all the day – 8 June 2019

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Left the house just after 10.30am. Arrived in Wales at about 6.30pm

Actually left the house at 10.15. Couldn’t remember if I’d lifted the MBP power supply. Decided to check. Thankful that I did, because it was still plugged in to the multi point socket in the livingroom. Finally on the road at 10.30, but without the Aeropress or the breakfast cereals or the beer, but we didn’t know that until around 6pm when we were 300 miles down the road.

Fairly easy run down until we reached junction 26 of the M6. Warning signs for the last 30 miles telling us about a 90min delay after junction 26. Decided to take a diversion through Liverpool. Lost our way despite using two phone sat navs and the in-car one. Finally drove along narrow lanes with 2metre high hedges on the outskirts of Aberystwyth and actually found the house with little problem after that. It was signposted just as the letter had said.

Dinner and chat for a few hours, plus a few drinks and bed.

Weather driving down was terrible for the most part with torrential rain, but for once, there were almost no roadworks.

We’re walking, not driving tomorrow.

A non dancing Monday – 3 June 2019

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Dancing with some teachers isn’t dancing, it’s repeti-ti-ti-tion.

The day began with me finding the first tick of the year. I was reading last year’s blog last night, and would you believe it, a year ago on the 1st of June I found a tick. I make the solemn pledge then “No more walking through long grass until the first frost.” Today I made the same pledge. While a nasty surprise, it gave me a chance to try out the tick remover Scamp got for me last year. First time I’ve had cause to use it. Hopefully the last for a long time. Unfortunately the wee bugger landed on the carpet when I pinged it off and that meant I got to hoover the carpet to make sure it didn’t reattach itself to me or anyone else. Then just to make sure it was definitely gone, I sprayed the carpet with fly and insect killer. Probably took a few days off my life too, breathing in the noxious fumes.

With that done and with the carpet hoovered, I phoned the butcher to order some meat for the weekend. Scamp was out visiting one of her friends who was just out of hospital. She was also taking here sister to the docs after Gems, so I was given the job of taxi driver for the other two. Not a problem really, I hadn’t intended going out. The weather was hit and miss today and that’s why I gave it a miss. Too many heavy showers and a (very) few sunny periods. Instead I headed upstairs and did a sketch from my June list. Topic was An Umbrella. It’s finished and looks ok, but not great. Actually, the practise sketch was better. That’s quite often the case with me.

After my taxi job was done and Scamp was back from the docs, having dropped June back home (she got a course of antibiotics for a chest infection), we had to decide what was happening about salsa tonight. Last night Shannon had said she was taking Jamie G’s advanced class tonight. After much soul searching and discussion we decided not to go. It’s about 40 minutes driving there and back with a boring waste of an hour dancing the same move over and over again. I know Scamp still feels bad about it and deep down thinks we should have gone, but we agreed not to and it’s done now. After dinner I finished another swift watercolour sketch of mushrooms. That the first two done. The sketch for today (3rd June) is A Bird and for tomorrow itself is A Weed. Plenty of them to practise on!

Today’s PoD is a landscape taken from the top of the Whin Edge Brae above Mollinsburn, and was taken just before one of the heaviest rain showers I’ve nearly been caught in. Luckily I was just home before the clouds broke. Scamp wasn’t so lucky and was driving through it. I’m still trying to find out what all the buttons and dials do on the new toy. It’s amazing how much it can do.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow looking for a new pair of boots. Although if I’m not walking in the long grass until the first frost, I may not need them for a while.