Category: Light

Another day on Planet Ice – 24 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

24-nov2

Temperature this morning at 8.30 was -4.7ºc.  That’s cold when you’ve come down stairs to the cold kitchen without your slippers.  Frozen tootsies.

I thought that by the time I was going out around 11.30 to meet Val that the car would have thawed a little.  I forgot that where I’d parked it last night would remain in the sun’s shadow all day, so no luck with the auto-defrost.  It was down to manual scraping of the windscreen.  Then by the time I got in the car and turned on the ignition, there was a new film of ice on the glass.  Finally got it defrosted and headed for the town centre.  One great thing about this car is the air-con, which in the winter defrosts the windows PDQ.

Over coffee, our conversation ranged through the usual topics of computers, cameras, more computers and moans about everything else.  Along the way I picked up some useful tips from the computer genius.  Really, that’s not sarcasm.  What Val doesn’t know about computer hardware and low level programming in DOS is not worth knowing.  I learned a lot about his experience of external hard drives and gave him some pointers on camera lenses.  As usual I gained more than I gave back.

After we we had had our caffein hit for the day we parted company.  Him to wander round the shops and me to get some photos.  Today’s walk through the winter wonderland was along the Luggie Water, part of which was frozen white and part was steaming away nicely in the warmth of the sun.  Got a barrel load of photos and reduced them down nine and from those nine, I chose my favourite six.  I’m really trying to reduce the photo overload these days.  It’s all right to take lots of photos, in fact I recommend that you do, but it’s also essential that you store only the ones that are worth storing.  I have to be more brutal or I’ll be filling the house with storage disks, even more than I do already.

By the time I was getting back to the car, the light was fading rapidly and it was time to head for home.  You forget just how short the winter days are, so it’s really important to make the most of the good light.

My maxim for the week is get out early and get the shots in the good light, even if it 4.7 degrees below zero.  Let’s see how long that one lasts!

Design Obsolescence – 22 November 2016

Posted on by Zogman

22-nov

My car is just coming up for eight years old.  Its had a few bits and pieces replaced since new.  The usual consumables like the oil filter and the air filter every year at servicing time.  Every couple or so years it also has needed new tyres when they run a bit thin on tread.  More expensive items like brake disks, wheel bearings and CV joints have also been replaced when necessary.  Sometimes I use good quality third party replacements, but manufacturers parts are always available at an extra cost.  Occasionally I use them when it seems prudent to do so.  All based on the trusted advice from my local garage.  It’s a good car and runs perfectly well.

My Macbook Pro is also coming up for its eighth birthday.  It’s also had a few ‘improvements’ over the years.  It’s had a memory upgrade and a new hard drive installed, then last year I added a super fast Solid State Drive.  Some from Apple and some from third party alternatives.  Now its battery is failing, so I went to the Apple store in Buchanan Street to find out how much it would cost for an Apple fitted new battery.  I was shocked to hear them claim not to have replacement batteries for “such an old computer”!  Really?  A company the size of Apple can’t source the parts to repair its own computers?  I was told by a ‘Tech’ that I would have to phone technical support to see if they still had any in stock, and if they did the repair would cost around £160.  I don’t think so.  Amazon are advertising a replacement battery for £40 and I’m not so ham fisted I can’t fit it myself.
Since I’ve had the Macbook I’ve become a great fan of Apple, but my allegiance is fading after this example of Designed Obsolescence.

Right, now that I’ve got that out of my system, here’s a synopsis of the day:

Had an entertaining phone call with Hazy in the morning (yes, I did look up the Hive – impressive structure, H), then out to visit the dentist and no fillings, no scale and polish, just a cap replacement and no charge.  What a nice man.

After lunch Scamp and I drove in to Glasgow for some pre-Christmas shopping.  Better to go mid-week when the crowds are at work earning the pennies to spend at the weekend when we head for the hills, literally.  Parked in the Buchanan Galleries carpark with its wonderful panoramic walkway to the galleries proper.  Such a great view of Glasgow (and carpark is cheaper than Concert Hall!)  I headed off to the book shop for a couple of books I’d my eye on, but which turned out to be less than enthralling.  Scamp went looking for girlie stuff.  Met up later and had my introduction to the wonders of Designed Obsolescence – Apple style.  How to kill of a potential sale in one easy lesson.

Coffee and then trudged back homeward, but not before Scamp noticed that Jacques Vert had a sale on.  I’ll give her that, she always makes it look as if it’s a great surprise to see the sale posters in the window.  More girlie stuff bought.  Walked back across the bridge to the carpark and the light was just marvellous, so I had to stop to take some photos.  Such a beautiful sunset and one you knew just couldn’t last, so I made the most of it.  If I’d hurried past I’d have saved myself £1.50 in parking money, but I’d have missed today’s PoD (I’d also have brought the price of an Apple replaced battery down to £158.50, but I’m not bitter!)

Back home I found out that the books weren’t as interesting as I’d thought and have decided to return them (in pristine condition) tomorrow.  After a lovely stirfry cooked by Scamp I made some scones that turned out the best yet!  No eggs Hazy!

Was posting a condensed version of my rant on the Buchanan Street Apple shop page on Facebook when my eye was drawn down the page to a bloke complaining about exactly the same thing.  So, I am not the only grumpy old man then.

Travel clinic tomorrow to book our jags for foreign climes and maybe take that book back.  Unless Apple phone in the morning and offer me a brand new Macbook Pro – top of the range and an iPhone 7 to go with it to make up for their shocking customer service today.  But then I’d wake up and it would all be a dream  😉

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.

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

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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 ↩

Embra – 8 October 2016

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8-oct

Embra was the choice today.  Now I won’t go in to the semantic arguments, the place is called ‘Embra’ and that’s it.

The train was fairly busy, but not excessively so – there’s a reason for this sentence.  As usual we got off at Haymarket and walked up towards the tea shop.  It was shut!  I should have checked his website, it was there in black and white, or red and white actually.  Go there, you’ll understand.  At the top of the road was the Exhibition Centre and also an enormous queue of middle aged and older folk.  Behind us too was a long train of people of that same demographic, most of whom had filled the seats on the train.  When we got to the Exhibition Centre the explanation was plain.  It was a Tesco wine tasting.  The early arrivals were already getting pissed oops, sampling and this lot seemed to be waiting for the first lot to be poured out the door.  We moved on.  Coffee in Cafe Nero then a walk through the farmers’ market.  I got some hogget for dinner tomorrow.  I suppose this is where farmers’ markets win.  Hogget is a lamb between a year and two years old.  I’ll taste it tomorrow.

On the subject of food, we went to a wee French place on the Grassmarket for lunch.  We’d been there a few months ago, well February actually, I hadn’t realised it was that long ago.  French Onion Soup again for me – creature of habit and Toulouse Sausage with mustard sauce and mash.  Scamp had Crayfish in a Garlic butter, a very garlic butter followed by Chicken Supreme with six thrice cooked chips.  Foodies? Us?  Surely not!  Both meals were voted excellent and I’ll say it again, we’ll be back.

Walked round to John Lewis and went back to 1984.  Not the date, the book!  Apparently the St James Centre is being … refurbished … reimagined. Perhaps demolished is a better description.  All the shops are now closed and shuttered, except John Lewis.  They didn’t get that memo, it seems.  It appears that it will remain like that until 2020 when, overnight, a new great new ‘retail opportunity’ will rise phoenix-like from the ashes.  Whether it will include John Lewis we’ll have to wait four years to find out.  For now, it feels as hopeless as the novel 1984 did.

Got the train home and, if you remember back to the second paragraph, first sentence of this epistle, it was a fairly busy train in the morning.  The afternoon train to Glasgow was mobbed, by a much younger contingent, mainly young men dressed in tartan and with lion rampant flags tied round their necks.  Yes, Scotland were playing football in Glasgow.  It turned out they were playing Lithuania (I think it was a Lithuanian school team – a primary school team).  The fans all seemed excited and were guzzling Becks like there was no tomorrow.  It might have been to induce a coma that would prevent them from seeing the game which was due to start at about 7.30pm.  This was the 3.30pm train.  The game ended in a 1-1 draw.  It’s easy to become cynical about football fans, especially Scottish football fans.  Too easy.

One sketch done for Inktober.  I’m happy with it.  Done in public in Princes Street Gardens.  Another step forward.

Windy & Bright – 22 September 2016

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Sitting in the Coffin House in Skye. Having coffee, eating a brownie and gazing at a wide, wide landscape. Scamp is eating something unpronounceable (Pear and Almond Streusel I’m reliably informed!) with coffee. What a place to build your house! Just imagine waking to this view every morning!

At least, that’s where we were. Now we’re in Cafe Arriba in Portree. Globetrotters that’s us.

Or at least we were.  Now the big hand’s almost at 6 and the little hand is heading rapidly towards 12, that’s 12pm!  It’s been a lovely day and I’m trying to catalog it before it becomes tomorrow.

22-sept

After we left the Coffin House or Turf House to give it its proper name  and to be absolutely perjinct, the house is called the Turf House, but we were in the adjoining coffee shop and its proper name is Single Track.  It’s in Kilmaluig on Skye.  It was Murd who christened it the Coffin House because of the elongated hexagonal plan view of the house itself, although the coffee shop is actually in what is the studio of the house, not the house itself.  They tried to name it Turf House, but to the locals it will always be the Coffin House.  Inside the cafe it’s warm and quite spacious with that wonderful view out to the sea.  I went there hoping to see some of Wil Freeborn’s watercolour paintings, but they were almost all sold.  Only one left and priced at £90 was outwith my pocket money.  I wasn’t all that impressed with it either.  The two ladies who run the cafe were very forthcoming about Wil and told me that the paintings had almost sold out within a week of opening.  His stuff is good, well, I like it.

After Coffin Coffee we went on a run to Aird.  We’d been there in March?  The last time we’d been on the island anyway and found a fairly sheltered parking place out of the worst of the wind and sat there watching the world go by.  Scamp wanted to go there again today and we spent another hour and a big bit watching the world go by again.  I got a fairly decent watercolour done of the wee white house in the mosaic above.  I’d painted it the last time we were there too and I don’t think today’s effort was better.  Only had one interruption by a bloke wanting to get directions to Flodigarry.  We sent him in roughly the right direction, hoping he’d bump into someone who would give him a more accurate road.

When we left Aird, we headed south to Portree for more high jinx trying to second guess what the stupid motorists would do before they did it.  You can never tell when some people want to drive at 10mph through the town, signal left then go right while others are trying to perform a 93 point turn in the middle of the main street with a camper van.  I really do despair of the intelligence of these drivers.  I’m sure they’re the ones who voted Out at the EU referendum.

Lunch was at Café Arriba in Portree and I’m suffering for it tonight.  I don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve been to the toilet.  Maybe the last time for this lunch venue.

After lunch we went to Braes which is out on a headland just south of Portree.  We managed to go on another new road!  Got some photos and came back by a really dodgy under maintained road.  Not very funny at all.  However, we didn’t meet any of the stupids this time … thankfully.

Coming back north we stopped at Storr Lochs and grabbed a few more shots before dropping Scamp off at Burnside and heading down to the shore to get the last few shots of the day.  Saw a strange looking lorry down at the slip with a wide door in the side and what looked like a stage or a catwalk extending from it.  A mobile theatre perhaps?  On Skye??  Got a few shots of Staffin Island and then the rain came on, right on the forecast time.

Tomorrow looks like rain all day.

Sunny Sunday – 11 September 2016

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

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

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

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

The Accidental Selfie – 7 September 2016

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7-septSorry JIC, but we went to Helensburgh today. I thought it was only fair since we went to your sister’s least favourite place last week, we should go to your LFP this week.

It’s not my favourite place to drive to because it always seems such a dreary journey. Nothing much to see until you get past Dumbarton. As an aside, this is another Scottish anomaly. The town of Dumbarton is the county town of Dunbartonshire. That’s not a typo, Dunbartonshire with an ‘n’ and Dumbarton with an ‘m’. Why? Because that’s the way it is. Back to the story. Once you get past Dumbarton the scenery gets a bit more interesting with great views across the Clyde estuary to Greenock and Port Glasgow. Before then, it’s just motorway. Helensburgh is a very run-down looking version of its former self. Too many shops closed or in the process of closing on the main street to impress any passing tourists and although the front has undergone a bit of tidying up, it’s not the place it used to be. We walked along the front and I took some photos because the light is usually good there with the estuary and the hills in the background. After we walked back, we had chips and a pizza. Even the pizza wasn’t as good as it used to be. A sad state of affairs.

When we had stopped at the carpark there was a bus parked there with its engine chug, chugging away. It’s driver reading the paper Three hours later when we left, it was still chug, chugging away and he was still reading the paper. He must have been a very slow reader. Wasn’t there a law passed recently that banned drivers from having the engine running while the vehicle was stationary. Probably doesn’t apply to bus drivers. Either that or he hadn’t managed to finish reading that whole memo.

Helensburgh pier used to be a great place for sea fishing. I’ve fished there myself a few times. Like the town itself, the pier is looking a bit worse for wear now with more bits cordoned off or barricaded off than are actually useable. There were very few fishermen on it today, it seemed to be attracting more jakies than fishers.

The titular photo was indeed an accident. I was in the process of taking off the 9mm fisheye and had the 12-32mm zoom ready to go on when I inadvertently pressed the shutter. I like the finished article. It would be useful for keeping the weans away from the fire, if we had any weans or a fire, that is.

Went to Salsa at night. One class of sort-of advanced and one beginners. Great exercise. Bummer of a drive home. Motorway closed right through Glasgow. No warnings. No diversions. Just find your own way out, we’re not helping you. It took almost an hour to find our way home. A journey that should take 15 minutes.

Rain forecast for tomorrow. Don’t mind because today the weather was lovely, if a bit too warm for September.