Category: landscape

Fidgeting – 29 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

29-nov

Fidgeting:  To move about restlessly, nervously, or impatiently.
That sort of sums up me today.

After completing yesterday’s Sudoku (easy) followed by today’s puzzle (medium), I was stuck for something to do.  Scamp was going out to lunch with a friend, so I had an hour or so to do as I pleased.  I thought about starting a painting, but couldn’t settle to it.  Sketching?  No, that didn’t work either.  St Mo’s didn’t appeal today.  The final decider was that I’d agreed with Scamp that I’d bring back some messages.  Stuff like milk, bread and onions.  Stuff for dinner, that’s messages in Scotland.  This agreement forced me to go out.

I went to Auchinstarry on the off chance that I’d get another look at the kingfisher.  It wasn’t there, but a grey heron was.  It kept flying off whenever I took the camera out and although I wanted a static shot with the heron’s reflection in the canal, I realised that if I was going to get anything, it would have to be an action shot.  I got it, twice.  My favourite, though, is the landscape with the trees.  I like that view and this time I managed to avoid the power lines that usually deface this shot.  It was the light that made it special and that’s what it’s all about.

After the walk and the photos, I did go for the messages at Lidl.

No plans for tomorrow yet.  It depends, as Scamp would say, on the weather.

Cold and Frosty – 21 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

21-nov2

Yes, in the morning it was cold and frosty and it stayed that way for most of the day too.  Poor wee violas in the hanging basket at the back door.  They rarely see the sun in these winter days and today they looked wilted.  When they finally thawed out about 4pm, the sprung back to life as if it had never happened.

Today being Scamp’s ‘Gems’ group’s singing practise, I packed my bags and headed for the leisure centre where I intended to have a swim and a nice 30 mins or so in the sauna and the steam room.  That’s 30 minutes total, not 30 in each!  However, it was their turn for ‘essential maintenance’.  So far we’ve had the air-con in the changing room refurbished and the gym equipment replaced.  Last week it was the jacuzzi that was essentially being maintained and today it was the hot rooms time for an overhaul.  Next week the pool?  Who knows.  It always worries me when an establishment like this gets a complete facelift.  Usually it presages a change of ownership.  I hope I’m wrong, but I just have that feeling …

After the curtailed swim, I left and headed for Fannyside Moor, just on the outskirts of Cumbersheugh to get a PoD.  Actually I had one in the bag from earlier in the day when the bluetits found the bird feeder had been refilled, but another one or two wouldn’t go amiss.  I was armed with the old Sony F707 and the Furry Monkey.  Hoping his magic paws would do the needful with the IR filter again.  Well, he worked his magic, but there just wasn’t enough direct sunlight to give the necessary IR, so I resorted to a couple of landscapes taken with normal light instead, the best of which is above.

Salsa tonight was the usual mayhem with Jamie Gal forgetting his moves which “… worked perfectly earlier in the day in my office!” Then trying to make up a name for them, before attempting to translate the name into Spanish.  Great fun!

Kizomba?   Hmm, not a lot of fun and I sense a rant starting.
This was the last lesson of the block and I would have thought that Kay, the teacher, would have been pushing hard to keep us interested.  Instead she just tread water for almost all the class time.  Because her teaching assistant was absent, she had one of the class members run the guys through a ‘warm-up’ reprise of the last seven weeks’ moves while she did the same with the girls.  The ‘warm-up’ lasted for twenty minutes.  Twenty minutes of an hour long class.  Then she introduced a new ‘helper’ who either didn’t speak English or didn’t want to be there, because he hardly uttered a word all night.  You could tell the class weren’t too happy when she applauded us all after our first dance and nobody in the class responded.  I nearly left there and then when she attempted to introduce ‘Musicology’ as a topic.  I wasted two hours of my life with the dreadful Samira attempting to make this into a science instead of something that everyone can do naturally.  If you can’t understand the beat of the music, this time wasting exercise wasn’t going to help you IMO.
Scamp wants to go back for a second block of Kizomba, but I’m not so sure.  This is the second week we’ve been without a teacher for the guys.  I like the dance, but if there is no teacher for us, then I’m not getting value for my money and that’s not a good thing.  I’m suggesting we pay the class on a week by week basis to see what transpires and if it doesn’t improve, I’m not going to continue with it.

Temperature is rising and even as I write this at 11pm it’s warmer than it’s been all day.

Dentist tomorrow 🙁

Scraping the car – 18 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

18-nov

Yes, it’s that time of year again when you need to scrape the car in the morning.  No heated screen or heated seats luxury here JIC!

Scamp was going to the dentist this morning, so I helped her defrost her car while I ran the engine on mine and turned the heater up full speed, full heat and air-con on.  Mine was soon defrosting nicely while we scraped away at Scamp’s.  That’s where the pic of the frozen leaf came from that.  When Scamp left to get her filling done, I headed back in to have porridge for breakfast.  First time for ages, and it worked its warm magic again.

With Scamp’s tooth fixed, we all headed off to Loch Leven to have a walk in the cold, fresh air under a clear blue sky.  Perfect conditions to test the F707’s infra-red capabilities. Well, the F707 and a furry monkey. The furry monkey which usually sticks to our fridge has magnets in his/her hands and feet.  The magnets are fairly strong and are the only ones that have been able to overpower the spring in the solenoid.  For that reason, the furry monkey came with us today to Loch Leven.  He/she … Let’s fix this ridiculous he/she thing now.

In a book I’m reading (and eking out the pages to make it last) his/her references are solved by making it ‘XYr’.  The ‘XY‘ stands for the unknown chromosome balance so ‘XYr’ can be male, female or indeterminate gender.  That seems an elegant solution, especially these days with LGBTIQ.  Life used to be simpler with just  LGBT and it made sense.  I think the ‘I’ is for ‘Isnae Sure’.  I have no idea what ‘Q’ stands for.  It could be ‘Questioning the Magic Donkey’ for all I know.  Anyway, thank you Becky Chambers for solving that problem.  I hope I got that right Hazy!

Soooo, getting back to the monkey, remember the monkey?  XY seemed to enjoy the trip and is now happily back in place in XYr place on the fridge.

The selection at the top came from the 70 odd photos from the day, plus the one from the frozen car.  The IR images took a fair bit of post-processing to get the effect I was looking for and although the quality isn’t great, the effect is.  I’m not sure if I prefer the false colour version or the monochrome.  Mono looks cleaner, but the false colour is more interesting and alien.  Further experimentation is required if the furry monkey is up for it.

Lunch was excellent as usual in Loch Leven’s Larder although the shop seems to get posher and more twee every time we go there, which is a pity, but I suppose is inevitable.  After that we drove back home via the Forth Road Bridge to get an updated view of the new cable-stay bridge.  Dinner was a carry-out from Bombay Dreams.

A good day, most enjoyable.  Cold tonight.  Temperature just touching zero.  Hoping for another sunny day tomorrow.

A Day of Surprises – 15 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

15-nov

Surprise No 1

When I woke this morning, just after 8am, the sun was shining.  It stayed that way too.  Now after the last two days we’ve had, that was a big surprise.  I checked all five of my photo backup drives and with a combination of them all, I can account for all the photos from 2000 to November 2016.  Not bad going.  However, one of the big old Western Digital MyBook drives looks like it’s a goner.  That is a great shame.  I’ve always thought WD were a really good make, but I suppose the ten or twelve years I’ve had it, it’s worked hard and sometimes there has been the occasional accident, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.  Soon it was time to leave the photos and go get my flu jag.  That’s jab to some people, but jag if you’re Scottish.

Surprise No 2

When I got to the surgery they were just calling my name.  That was lucky.  When I went to see the sister, I recognised her right away as an FP (Former Pupil) of Cumby High.  I couldn’t think of her name, but I remembered the face, because last night when I was browsing the photos in the oldest collection, I came upon the poster I’d made for Bugsy Malone, one I was really proud of, and here was the female lead from the show wearing a nursing sister’s uniform.  We got talking and she asked if I had any photos of the show, because nobody in her family had thought to bring a camera to the show.  I told her that I probably had, but it would take me some time to find them.  I couldn’t believe that was away back in 2003!  Anyway, she said she’d just give me a gentle wee jag.  She lied.  It was gentle at the time, but it’s aching now!

Surprise No 3

After I got back and found the said photos, hundreds of them as it turned out, I got dressed for the weather which was still bright, but cold and headed to Auchinstarry.  Walked along the railway to Twechar and got some photos in the sunshine.  I’ve still to process them, but by the time you’re reading this, they will be done with a bit of luck.  Walked back and took a long cut – the opposite of a shortcut  and walked the last half of the path along the canal.  Almost reached Smithston when a kingfisher flew out from my side of the canal bank, across the canal and down towards the marina.  I was too surprised to grab my camera which was switched off in my bag.  Walked along to where I thought it had landed but couldn’t see it.  Then to my amazement, it shot out of the far bank and continued down the canal and away.  It’s years since I’ve seen a kingfisher on the canal and I was beginning to think they had gone.  Since this one is at least a mile and a half away from my last sighting, I’m hoping there are at least two of them now.  I’ll be ready next time with the Nikon and the 300mm lens.

Weather forecast for tomorrow is wintry with rain, hail and snow predicted.  We’ll just have to wait and see, it’ll be a surprise!

Thunderstorms, Blazing Sun and Airies – 5 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

5 Nov

This morning we had breakfast – a lighter breakfast than yesterday and retired to the pool. 

There are two pools one for each main building.  Both buildings have the same ground plan, but one has the restaurants and the reception in addition to apartments while the other is entirely apartments.  Ours is the second one.  This means that our building is a bit quieter than the other.  Unfortunately, half of our pool is currently being renovated so we don’t have the ‘swim-in’ bar which is perhaps a blessing in disguise. 

We grabbed a couple of sunbeds after breakfast and we sat and read for an hour, then got a sketch done,  before I decided to find out just how cold the water was.  It was quite cold, but I was prepared for that after last year’s cool pool in Tenerife.  Once you’re in it’s not so cold, and once you come out again it’s lovely and warm.  I read a bit more while I was drying off and then went up to the room to get yesterday’s blog finished and the photos processed.  When Scamp came up she said it was starting to rain and as we watched the clouds roll in, we heard the first peal of thunder.  Oh dear, there goes the day.  We waited a while and then went for lunch which for me was a thin steak, a hamburger, spinach and potatoes.  Lovely.  By the time we came out the rain was off and the sun was out again.

After lunch we went for a walk in the direction of the airport.  For those of a binary persuasion, this was Left along the front, not Right like yesterday.  We walked on and on until we reached the airport.  Not the actual airport building, but the very end of the runway which was almost within touching distance.  The sound of the airies taking off is surprisingly loud this close up.  It was actually worse further away because the buildings shielded us from the sound of the engines as the plane thundered along the runway and it was only when it rose above them that you heard the roar.  Actually it was worse than that because for a couple of seconds the plane lifted in silence, then the roar began.  Those of a mathematical and scientific frame of mind will tell you it’s all to do with the relative difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound.  It does look strange. 

While we were sitting a (French?) family decided to scramble down a steep ramp to the sand.  First the mum and wee boy tentatively edged down.  Next the dad, much braver, pushing the empty pushchair just ran down it.  The front wheels of the pushchair caught in the soft sand at the bottom and stopped dead.  Dad didn’t.  He did a clumsy sort of cartwheel before landing on the sand.  It was one of those things you see happening, but are helpless (with laughter?!) to stop.  The only injury was to the poor bloke’s dignity.

We watched a few airies taking off and then headed back with more than a few stops to rest our weary legs.  The promenade is mainly flat, but it is quite long and it takes its toll on the feet.

After dinner we went to see if the singing duet would perform any songs worth dancing to, but Scamp declared them unsuitable (both the singers and the songs, I think).  Since the dance floor was littered with weans running about while their parents watched from the audience, it was probably a good decision on safety grounds.  We retired to the waiting G&T in the room.

Sat on the balcony under the stars with a couple of G&Ts. 

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.

A Busy Day – 2 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

02-nov

Some days there are loads of things to write about and some days, like today, are busy, but nothing all that interesting is happening.

Out this morning to meet Fred and Val for a coffee and a catch up.  We were all pressed for time for different reasons and had to rush more than normal.  Still a good sharing of minds 😉

From there I drove back home to pick up Scamp and drive to Falkirk.  We were running a bit behind time and perhaps that’s why we didn’t notice the ‘Road Closed’ sign.  We did notice the barrier across the road a mile or so further on.  The only way I was sure we could use was back a couple of miles at the roundabout and that’s where we went.  We managed to get to the office just in time.  Thankfully this was good news again and to celebrate we went for a coffee in a new cafe just down the lane from Andrew’s office.  The decor was good with guitars and mandolins hanging on all the walls, the coffee not so good.  Maybe it will improve with age.

Drove back and dropped Scamp off at the house where she had some work to do.  Drove up to Argos to get myself a 32Gb SD card to replace the 64Gb one I had bought from 7 Dayshop.  It was a good price for 64Gb, but the speed was dire.  Nice surprise when I went to pay for the 32Gb as it had 1/3rd off.  Glad I went there.  Managed to grab a couple of sunset shots at Broadwood Loch on the way home.

Back home had birds to feed because the greedy things have eaten all the peanuts already.  Hopefully this lot will last a little longer.  It’s an expensive hobby feeding all these feathered friends.

Tomorrow?  Who knows.

Fish – 18 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

18-oct

This morning we drove to Linlithgow to get some fish. It was either Linlithgow (which has an actual fishmongers) or Morrisons in Falkirk (which has a good fish counter – no, he doesn’t actually count the little fishes, it’s not that sort of counter). We opted for Linlithgow because it’s quite scenic, if a little twee and I might just find something to photograph. It was a bad move.

I’d forgotten that Linlithgow actually welcomes people to park cars, vans and lorries at the side of the narrow road. It also encourages farmers to drive their massive pumped up tractors and slurry tanks at full legal tilt down the congested main street. Today, just to confuse the unwary and annoy me in particular, they also decided to start roadworks at the three way roundabout at the end of the town with three way traffic lights to raise the blood pressure of all and sundry. This meant a crawl behind a snaking caterpillar (is that mixed metaphors?) of cars, vans and buses through this historic town. We did eventually get to the carpark and the fishmongers and get the fish, but I couldn’t be bothered going to get some photos and end up getting mired in more traffic chaos to get back out of the town. I wanted to get the dinner on by about 5pm and it was already after 1pm. I wasn’t sure we’d get out of the congestion by 5. As it happened, the traffic heading west was easy peasy and we scooted home in double quick time.

When I took the shopping bag with the fish out of the boot there was a decidedly fishy smell coming from it, but hey, there WERE fish in the bag, what do you expect. It wasn’t until we were unloading the shopping bag that we noticed a few of the individual bags were leaking fishy juices into the shopper. Oops, straight into the washing machine with that then.

Since we’d made such good time coming home, I thought I’d take myself off for a walk before dinner and I’d drive down to Auchinstarry for a change. Dumped my camera bag in the boot – fishy smell still there, and off I went. Got to Auchinstarry and while retrieving my camera bag I spied the culprit. The lining of my lightweight rainproof jacket was soaked with fishy goodness. That explained the smell. Hmm, straight into the washing machine with that too when I get back.

Today’s photos:

  1. Young deer hiding in dried reeds. It didn’t run because it knew there was a 3m drop and a 5m wide torrent to cross before I’d be anywhere near.
  2. Two young horsewomen riding through the trees. Incongruously, one of them was smoking a fag (cigarette to any American readers who may be conjuring up very strange images 🙂 )
  3. Bramble leaves soaked with sugar (that’s what makes the colour). I promised myself that I wouldn’t photograph leaves this autumn. That didn’t last long.
  4. Abandoned farmhouse on the Campsie Fells. Lovely warm textures from the glancing sunlight attracted me.
  5. Crows and pigeons rising from their late afternoon feed in the corn field. A bit of fakery in this shot to lighten the corn without lightening the trees too much in the background.

img_3453-flickrToday’s Inktober is an old house near the railway walk. In real life, it’s gloomier than this sketch shows, but it’s a fair representation of this old and rather sinister looking house.  It sits behind a wood and from the path you are looking through the trees at it.  I only managed a quick, twenty minute max, sketch before the midgies really got to me and I had to move on.

So, back to the house and dump that waterproof jacket in the washing machine. Thankfully it’s made of nylon, so I’m hoping:

  • It will still be waterproof
  • The smell won’t he stuck in the fibres

I’ll find out tomorrow when it’s dry again.

Tonight’s dinner was Simple Fish Stew which came from BBC Good Food.  Recipe here.

More sunny spells expected tomorrow. Viva the Jet Stream!

PS To those who didn’t get the photos, but presumably have them now, the WiFi died last night and didn’t come on again until this morning.  Virgin Media apologises for the lack of connectivity – Aye Right!

Rain and Sunsets – 15 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

15-oct

The weather fairies were predicting a good day for tomorrow, with blue skies all around, but for today they were predicting blue as in the colour of water everywhere.  I don’t know about tomorrow, but they were dead right about today.  Scamp’s phone predicted that it would dry up around 4pm and it did.

Needless to say, there was very little chance of photos during the bulk of the day and no chance of any sketches, even with permanent markers.

We went to Stirling, because:

  1. It’s fairly near – This wasn’t a day for driving far.
  2. It’s cheap to park if you know where to go – £1.40 a day v £2 an hour in Glasgow.
  3. It’s still got a good curry shop.

Sorted then.  Had a curry in the Indian Cottage and a quick wander round the shops.  Coffee in Cafe Nero and then a browse through the gallery in Port Street then got tomorrow’s dinner in Waitrose on the way back to the car.  It wasn’t a brilliant day, but the curries were tasty and mine was super hot with loads of fresh green chillies.

Although the clouds were lifting and the rain was becoming more hit and miss, there still wasn’t a case for getting the sketchbook or the camera out of the bag.  It would have been a bit dangerous and maybe even illegal to do a sketch while I was driving anyway.  Just another of the restrictions being put in place by the Scottish government.  Can’t drink and drive and now you can’t draw and drive.  Whatever next?  They’ll be telling us we can’t use our phones while we’re driving!  Only joking, they’d never be able to police that, would they?

I started to get twitchy once we got home.  The rain was off, the clouds were lifting and there was a wee bit of light getting through, so I grabbed my jacket and ‘the big dog’, the Nikon and headed out.  I didn’t really want to go to St Mo’s because I knew the light direction wouldn’t make for a good sunset shot, so instead I took the longer walk to Broadwood Loch.  It’s not really a loch, it’s a big pond – manmade by ‘the cooncil’ who flooded a boggy chunk of land they couldn’t sell to house builders or to the industrial sector.  That’s all they did really.  They built a turf dam at one end and let the water level rise.  Initially there was talk of a sailing club and game fishing, but as usual, these ideas were shelved by ‘the cooncil’ as it would cost too much outside the limits of Motherwell, so we must consider ourselves lucky to have a path round the pond and some distance markers.  Compare and contrast with Strathclyde Loch with its Olympic rowing lanes, its sailing club, cycle track, multiple carparks … need I go on?  It couldn’t have anything to do with its close proximity to Motherwell, the centre of North Lanarkshire.  I digress – as usual.  I got a few decent sunset shots using the 10 – 20mm Sigma lens which is simply ideal for this type of shot.  I had something in the bag at last.

img_3445-flickrToday is ‘hump day’ for Inktober, 15 days in.  Pass this and you’re on the home stretch.  I chose one of my old shoes for today’s sketch and since a lot of people are photographing their pens with their sketches, I thought I’d do the same.  Today’s drawing was completed on 110gsm Fabriano Sketch using a 0.3 Micron.

Lets hope the weather fairies are as correct in their prediction for tomorrow as they were today.

The Sound of Silence – 13 October 2016

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ma133222-flickr

He came!  He actually came and within twenty minutes the aerial was down and dismantled.  The aerial man gave us back the sound of silence.  To paraphrase Stuart MacBride’s heroine Detective Chief Inspector Steel, “Seventy five quid plus VAT? My sharny 1 arse!”  This guy did the job and we thank him very much … we did pay him too.

Earlier in the day, Scamp met her aunt and managed to establish the identity of a great many people in a sixty year old wedding photo.  It made me think that in today’s world where so many of our photos, even wedding photos are not printed, how will we perform a similar task in the future.  Will we still be able to view those videos on their lovely shiny DVDs engraved with the movie highlights of today’s wedding groups?  Will the photos that are printed using ink on ‘archival’ paper last for sixty years?  Will the resolution of the full frame CCD be as good as the old fashioned 6×6 TLR?  Not a chance.  The other thing we need is to record the names and fit them to the faces of the people in those photos.  I realised too late, after my father died, that I’d lost touch with all those people whose faces I saw in the old photos.  They were also dead, but they had also taken their identities with them.  What I urge you to do is to record, preferably in ink and on paper, the names of the faces in your old photos, and if you don’t have physical photos, print them out on the best quality paper you can afford.  It’s not for you, it’s for the ones who come after you.  They are the ones who will be left scratching their heads after you can’t be relied upon to enlighten them.

Today’s PoD was taken on the east of Fannyside Moor looking towards Slamannan.  It’s a great place for Big Skies and this certainly was a big sky.  I like it because it’s a place where you can just watch the clouds rolling past without cars constantly zipping past.  The only traffic today was a lady on a bike who was riding a tail-wind.  I hope she had already cycled the head-wind part of the route and was on her way home.

img_3440-edit-flickrToday’s Inktober drawing was of the church in Cumbernauld Village and is a building I’ve been meaning to draw for some time.  It really is the most awkward shape with bits apparently added on at different times in its history.  The windows, especially seem to have been placed wherever the builder found a space for them.  Only the tops of the upper windows line up properly and some have lots of small panes of glass while others have fewer, larger panes.  In all, I was pleased with the finished sketch, probably even more so because I sketched it in the open air.  I’m not French, so why should I call it en plein air.  That’s just being a poser, or should that be poseur?

Tomorrow is unplanned as yet, but it will not include listening to the crows landing on that aerial or dreading the screech of it rotating in its rusty bracket.  The bracket is gone, the pole that held the aerial has been recycled and the aerial itself is in a skip.  I love the sound of silence.

  1. Befouled with dung.  Merriam-Webster ↩