Glasgow Green – 25 November 2021

A bright day, but a cold one. You can’t have everything.

We drove down to Glasgow Green today, Scamp’s suggestion. It had been quite a while since we’d been there. These days you have to be very calculating or very lucky to get to walk an unmolested Glasgow Green. It seems that every weekend there is preparation for, or demolition of an ‘Event’. We must just have been lucky, because we didn’t do any research for today’s walk, and the ’green’ part of Glasgow Green was just as it should be, empty of scaffolding or wire fences. Wonderful. The old boathouse was being renovated, but that’s ok, because it’s on the edge of the green and didn’t inconvenience anyone.

We walked a fair bit of the periphery of the park as did quite a few others, but the feeling of space today was cheering. It was a shot from The Green that I got today’s PoD which was the reflection of the chimney and the smoke from the Strathclyde Distillery reflected in the Clyde. Another day with that strange yellowy sky. I’m guessing it’s because the sun isn’t rising very high in the sky and is therefore shining through a thicker layer of dust and smoke than in the summer.

We walked almost as far as the bridge over the Clyde to Richmond Park, but we were both feeling the cold by then and decided a warm car would be a better choice and left Richmond Park for another day. We stopped on the way home to have a coffee in Costa at Robroyston and then stocked up of essentials (which didn’t include a bottle of gin, this time) at Lidl before driving home.

After we’d unloaded the car I changed keys and drove Scamp’s Wee Red Car to Boots at Craigmarloch to get Scamp’s prescription and also to give the wee car a run. I made sure the heat was flowing before I made my way back and got home before the St Mo’s weans came out of school.

I was half way through making Fish Curry for dinner when a strange message appeared on the TV. Something about the program being suspended, then Scamp noticed that the modem was off. I checked the electricity hadn’t tripped, but it hadn’t. Then the modem’s lights came on, but stayed at a flashing green. That’s not a good sign. I couldn’t get through to Virgin on my phone and I feared the worst. Eventually, after an hour, I got the message that there was a problem in our area, both Broadband and TV. Nothing to do but wait. Now I know what cold turkey feels like, even if I was eating hot fish curry. Then everything started up again. The electricity had gone off yesterday, for the whole street. Today it looked like the broadband had been the victim. Now, there is a group of council workies digging holes and doing some ‘repair’ work in the next street. Now call me suspicious, but … !

Tomorrow looks stormy. We look as if we’re on the edge of the ‘amber warning’, but that’s by no means certain. We’ll hang onto our hats and hope for the best.

 

A day at the gee gees – 21 November 2021

It was a beautiful morning. Too good to sit in the house.

I enticed Scamp out, telling her we’d go for a walk. Well, were going for a walk, but we’d to drive to the Kelpies first. I felt sure they’d bring a smile to her face and they did. Helix Park, where the Kelpies live was busy and with half the car park cordoned off for resurfacing I wondered if we’d get parked, but we were there early enough for that not to be a problem. Paid our £2 for our right to park there all day if we wanted, then we went for that walk I’d promised.

One of the first things we saw apart from the gigantic horses heads was a bloke on a paddle board posing on the water and being photographed. He even did a headstand on the board. Poor bloke was wearing a wetsuit top, a life jacket and a pair of shorts. No leggings and no trainers. The temperature was around 7ºc, he must have been freezing. Luckily he didn’t fall in.

We walked round the massive statues and found new angles to view them from. Lots of other folk were doing the same. Some with their hands out pretending to feed the beasts, others just getting family groups set up to record the visit. We even saw a wedding photog taking the opportunity for an interesting backdrop for an Indian couple. The groom in a dark suit and the bride in the most glorious ivory coloured wedding dress I’ve ever seen. So much heavy brocade, it must have weighed a ton! They had a great day for it.

It was cold, but Scamp wanted to have a coffee outside where the view was better than in the cafe. Yes the view was good and the ‘millionaire’s shortbread’ was good too, but cappuccino really should have coffee in it, somewhere. I think I got hot milk. After a while we headed home. It really was getting a bit cool as the sun disappeared behind a big cloud, but we’d had a walk in the sun and visited the Kelpies again.

Back home and after lunch I declared the photos good enough to exempt me from a walk in the cold wintry air, so I started a backup of the iMac before I upgrade it to Catalina tomorrow, hopefully.

Dinner was Cauliflower Cheese with potatoes for Scamp and Mince ’n’ Tatties for me with a bit of the cauliflower cheese added in. Scamp had made a Bruschetta for a starter and it was very nice indeed. We had our first Tesco delivery of the autumn/winter season. The first since the late spring. It made sense with all that’s going on in the house to get someone to pick it and someone else to deliver it.

We watched the Quatar F1 GP and saw more of the politics rearing its ugly head in the sport. Too many egos in F1 now. But I’m just going over old ground the same old ground I ploughed through yesterday.

I had a great day today and I hope Scamp had a good time too, apart from the coffee. PoD was a backlit Kelpie throwing shapes on the walkway.

No plans for tomorrow. Weather looks not as good as today.

Another early one – 28 October 2021

Taking the wee red car to get its yearly checkup. Always a case for heart in the mouth.

Drove down to the garage and waited. It was supposed to open at 9am, and although one of the mechanics appeared, it was still locked up. Eventually we left the car key with him and just at that moment someone arrived with the key to the garage, so we headed off home for breakfast, stopping at Tesco on the way for milk and bread. Unfortunately it was still before 10am so the other essential (alcoholic beverages) weren’t available.

A while after breakfast I eventually decided that it was dry enough to risk a walk in St Mo’s to get some photos. If the day brightened up later I’d get some more, but that looked unlikely to say the least. I did get some photos, but none of them were really contenders for the PoD.

Came home and we had lunch. Finished today’s Sudoku and started investigating the possibility of getting my phone to get itself an upgrade. I’d put a dodgy piece of software in it about a year ago that would prevent Samsung doing upgrades every second day. Now that software had disappeared, but its effect was still there. Eventually after consulting with the inter web I found that it hadn’t really gone. It was just hiding deep in the settings. When I too the plunge and switched it off the updates screen lit up. BUT I needed the phone because that was the number I’d given the garage, but once I got the word that the car was ready to pick up, I’d start the installation.

Hazy phoned not long after and she and Scamp had a long discussion about dresses for weddings. You will notice that the ‘wedding’ word is in the plural and it’s no surprise then to discover that the ‘dress’ word is also in its plural form. After the fashionistas had completed their discussion I managed to get involved in the conversation too. We talked for a while about family stuff, just catching up, really. Then my phone rang. The car had passed and been serviced, so was ready to collect. We talked to Hazy for a while longer then said our “cheerios”. Drove to the garage, paid our dues and drove home.

When I was driving back, the sky was definitely clearing from the west. By the time I got home blue sky was visible. I waited for Scamp to return then took my camera for its second walk today in St Mo’s. It was quite warm with beautiful light and I did manage to get a PoD. It was just a little weed that had been washed for days by the torrential rain and all its neighbours had been washed clean at the same time. They really sparkled in the late afternoon sun.

Dinner was Bubble ’n’ Squeak, a long time favourite of mine, but something I haven’t had for years. I even learned to make it myself a long time ago. I may have to relearn it.

The prompt for today asked for ‘Crispy’. I gave them a Crispy Cake. Made with Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies, it fits the bill for me. One of the few cakes Hazy can eat. It mush have been your phone call that put it in my head.

Tomorrow I go to see the health centre vampires who will want to take some of my blood. It’s almost Halloween, so it’s quite fitting.

Driving, Walking and Raining – 12 August 2021

With a few sunny spells too.

We’ve promised John and Marion that we’ll be at her dad’s funeral tomorrow in High Blantyre at 10am. We were up fairly early today, so we left the house at 9.30am to do a trial run to the crematorium to check out the traffic at about the time we’d leave tomorrow. We arrived almost at 10am, so our intended leaving time of 9.15 tomorrow looked ok.

Instead of coming straight home, Scamp suggested we go to Drumpellier for a walk round the loch. She hasn’t really been out of the house since Monday, so a walk in the park would do her some good, and do me some good too. This is the last week of the school holidays with teachers going back to work today and tomorrow and those lovely children (yes, that was sarcasm!) going back on Monday. There were quite a lot of children making the most of their last few days of freedom accompanied by mums, dads, grans and grandpas, all glad to see them going back to school. Add in the usual pensioners getting in their daily exercise and you can imagine, it was a busy place.

We walked the usual “travelator” circuit for a bit and then took one of the paths into the woods just to get out of the crowds. We walked through the Peace Garden which was looking a bit sorry for itself with long grass, weeds and overgrown bushes. Such a shame that the council doesn’t do more to keep these places tidy. Yes, I know they are strapped for cash, but it isn’t until you work for a council that you see the money that’s wasted every year. I guarantee there are ways the council could redirect some of that wasted money to make these places look better. However, in doing that, they’d be admitting that the money was wasted in the first place, so it’s never going to happen.

We left Drumpellier to the mums, dads, grans and grandpas, plus the weans, of course and headed for Morrisons at The Fort. Just messages today. No time for essentials like gin or whisky, so no fun either. From there it was back home.

After lunch I spoke to Fred on the phone for about an hour and heard his news.

Up until then it had been a fairly pleasant day although the clouds were gathering now. I was just putting my jacket on to go for a walk in St Mo’s when the rain started and it was heavy rain. The shower lasted about half an hour before it dwindled away to just the occasional spits and spots. I took that as a sign that I’d get a second walk of the day. I was walking over to St Mo’s when I saw a woman waking her dog on the footpath through the trees. Once I’d retrieved the Wee Dog from my rucksack and focused I had a chance to get three decent shots. In one of them the woman was standing in a patch of sunlight. That became PoD. A bit of ‘shopping’ to get it from the raw image to the one you see here.

Some recipes are fickle. You make one mistake and the whole thing turns to a tasteless mush, or a bitter inedible mess. Carrot and Lentil Curry isn’t like that. I used the wrong seeds. Should have been fennel and I used cumin. I used double the amount of lentils. I missed out the garlic that should have gone in. I even allowed it to burn dry. However, it turned out really alright! In fact it tasted better than alright and that wasn’t just my description, Scamp agreed. That’s a good standby recipe, one you can work with.

Quick dance practise tonight because I really need to concentrate a lot more on steps and frame and a hundred and one other things. Tina Tango was looking better after some help from dance maestro Scamp.

Tomorrow a funeral in the morning and then the rest of the day will, hopefully, be our own.

Irvine No More – 1 May 2021

Driving down to Irvine, but not to the seaside, well not right away.

In the morning Scamp was off to the hairdresser. I was just messing about, checking the fennel seeds I’d planted last week and they were shooting up! Then I gave the rosemary in the garden a feed of Miracle Grow. I’d to make up a gallon and I finished off the can by feeding the kale and peas in the raised bed, then sprinkled the rest on random flower pots in the garden.

By the time Scamp returned with her hair carefully coiffed it was time to get ready for Peter’s party. The party was in Irvine and it would take us the best part of an hour to get there. Of course, that would only happen if I stuck to the route the sat nav gave me and didn’t find myself on a slip road leading to a traffic jam caused by road repairs on a bank holiday weekend. After a lengthy delay and failing to avoid potholes, we finally got back on the right road and arrived at Peter and Gillian’s earlier than the other couple who were also in our slot.

The party was a relaxed affair with copious amounts of food, some of which we took home with us as did the other couple. She was fine. She (can’t remember her name) was a cancer nurse who explained what the real truths are about numbers of patients during the pandemic. The number of patients seeking and getting treatment had increased which is in direct contrast to the story the BBC are putting about. But as always with news, good news doesn’t sell newspapers. Or increase ratings, it would seem. He was a bit of a pain. An architect, which set my teeth on edge right away. Architects are always known to the draughtsmen as “… that fuc*ing architect …”. Apparently he was a comic too with lots of really funny stories, well, he thought they were funny anyway. Oh yes and they were always accompanied with funny noises. Oh what fun he was.

Actually the time passed quite quickly and although there was a cold wind blowing, it wasn’t really too bad sitting in the garden under a gazebo. Peter’s story of their night of Prosecco at a hotel on the Royal Mile WAS funny. A hotel with a Prosecco button you could press and a waiter appeared with two glasses of fizz! Now that sounds like fun. Fred gave me a Beer Button for my birthday once, but it didn’t work as well as Peter’s!

I could see Scamp wanting to go for a walk in their garden which was, shall we say, extensive. Gillian didn’t quite explain how far it extended, but they have a sit-on Husqvarna lawnmower to cut the grass. That should give you an idea of the size we’re talking about.

When we left, Stewart and Jane were arriving for the second session of the day. More food, more cakes and more Prosecco would be brought for them too.

When we left, we drove to Irvine harbour for a walk. It was cold and we could see the rain clouds blowing in from the direction of Arran. It was a short walk and Scamp wasn’t shod for the rough paths, so after a few photos, we headed home following directions this time. PoD went to a picture of the harbour with a bloke hurrying home ahead of the coming rain.

I do have a painting done for EDiM it’s two apples. I’ll post it tomorrow. Too late tonight to do that.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk. Day two’s painting will hopefully be Bananas. Do you see a pattern forming? ‘E’ is the hard one!

 

Morning walk at Fannyside – 9 April 2021

A quick visit to Val than a drive in the country.

I was checking out my Tamron (not my Tampon as my spellchecker thought it was) 70 – 300mm lens on Val’s old Nikon D70. The lens did work, if sporadically. At different times during the five minute test, the focus worked and the anti-shake worked, but only once did they both work together. It looks like it’s not going to be saleable, which is a shame. How it came to this sorry state, I don’t know, but it has and now I can only use it as a manual lens without anti-shake. I think, instead, I’ll just replace it.

I didn’t want to linger at Val’s because I knew he was busy today and also I really shouldn’t have been in his house at all with all the Covid restrictions. So, I made my excuses and left to take a drive up into the country behind Fannyside Loch and parked up by the sheep’s field where only the wind through the trees created any sound. That’s where today’s PoD came from. I was just walking and taking the odd photo when a little spot of sunshine lit up the hill and I grabbed the shot without thinking.

Drove home and had lunch. That’s when we heard the news that the Duke of Edinburgh had died. What should have been the news at midday was extended. In fact it might even have segued into the evening news. It made me wonder how they’d managed to fill the hours with news that had broken only a few hours before. I presume that since the last time the Duke had come home from hospital there had been an unofficial leak about the real state of his health which allows all the news channels to gather all their clips and photos to build these obituaries that they show with such sad faces. Scamp says that she’s sorry for Mrs McQueen because a death of anyone is a great loss to someone. I’d agree with that.

We walked to the shops to get some creme fraiche for tonight’s dinner which was Haddock & Cabbage Risotto. We also got other stuff that wasn’t essential for tonight’s dinner, but did make the pudding better. Ice cream, just in case you were wondering. It was cold walking down to the shops, into the wind, but was almost warm coming home with the wind at our back. Even so there was just a light sprinkling of that fine snow, almost like tiny polystyrene beads. Strangely, when we did find a weather forecast tonight in the midst of all the sad faces of the royal correspondents, there was mention of the white stuff making a reappearance tomorrow or Sunday night.

Apart from my lens test and the walk in the country we didn’t do much today. I don’t think we have any plans for tomorrow, but it looks cold again.

Happy Birthday to me – 8 April 2021

Today I added another year to my account.

It was a wild day. Gusty winds and occasional blashes of rain. It didn’t look like a good day for a walk, unless I was walking in the house.

Breakfast in bed and then a lazy morning. For the second day this week I got the Sudoku out without having to resort to checking my mistakes on my Sudoku app. Either things are looking up or the Birthday Fairy is looking out for me.

It was a relaxing day. There was little chance to get out and go for a walk. After lunch I did drive down to the shops to get today’s dinner. Tonight we were having an M&S curry which meant that nobody had to cook. I wasn’t going to walk down in a gale and horizontal rain. That’s what I bought a car for. I did come home via St Mo’s hoping to get a PoD, but there was little of interest with such low light. I came home almost empty handed.

While there was very little light for most of the day, later in the afternoon the sun did shine for a while and it lit up a wee bunch of yellow flowers sitting on the kitchen windowsill. That was just enough to give me a subject and the unnamed little yellow flowers became PoD.

Hazy and Neil D had set up a Zoom chat with us and JIC and Sim for 6pm. We had a long chat and a good laugh with them. Good to get everyone together again, just talking as if we were all in the same room. Just as we were bringing the chat to a halt, JIC and Sim disappeared when the battery on Sim’s laptop gave up the ghost. We said goodnight to Hazy and Neil D and closed the connection. Thank goodness for the folk who invented and run Zoom. It’s a terrific lifeline, even in these days of greater hope.

The curry was hot tonight and I was glad I’d opened one of the bottles of beer Jackie had sent me today. Pudding was another M&S offering, an Apple and Bramble Pie served hot with cream. I may need some of my Gaviscon tonight with a buttery tear & share, a creamy curry and a pie with more cream. It was a great day. Thank you all for your organisation, your good wishes and your prezzies. I enjoyed it tremendously.

Funniest card went to Jackie’s “Let’s face it. Even the bin has more chance of going out on your birthday this year!” Very apt as it arrive just after I’d brought the bin in. Did you know today was bin day as well as my birthday, Jackie?

Tomorrow it’s my dad’s saying “Back tae auld claes and purrich.” Back to normal. It looks like the weather will be calmer, but not better.

Baking – 7 April 2021

Today I was making Cheese & Garlic Tear and Share.

First thing to do today was make the dough.

Kneading, for some reason is good for increasing your step count. I think it’s the constant rhythmic movement of the wrist when kneading the dough that makes the Fitbit think you’re walking, when you’re actually standing on the spot. Ten minutes of kneading for the dough then an hour and a bit of rest for the dough and the baker. That gave me enough time to get the majority of today’s Sudoku done.

By lunchtime it looked as if the dough was about to burst out of its clingfilm covered bowl, but I let it stay there until I’d finished my French Toast or Eggy Bread to some. Scamp was off to meet Veronica and go for a walk with her round Broadwood Loch. I was keeping up my virtual step count with an extra bit of kneading. The next bit was a bit dull. The big ball of dough had to be divided into 24 equal balls and each one was to be filled with some mozzarella. Actually it was quite relaxing once I got into the zone. Packed twelve of my cheese stuffed balls into two round tins, left one to rise and put the other one in the fridge for tomorrow. Baked the tin of doughballs that had now risen and merged together after drizzling them with melted butter, garlic and parsley. This is definitely not a low calorie bread. The bread looked exactly like the picture in the recipe. I was impressed. So was Scamp. The only thing wrong with it was that the cheese I’d so carefully hidden in the balls, had disappeared. Maybe tomorrow’s will be better. Still it was a tasty tear and share. Thanks again JIC and Sim.

Just as it was coming out of the oven, Scamp appeared. I guessed I’d have time for a photo expedition to St Mo’s, so with a newly cleaned sensor and a single lens I went off to seek some subjects. There wasn’t much directional light and you know how much I like Light! I did however find today’s PoD on my weary plod home. It’s a Horse Chestnut bud recognisable by the scar just beneath the smaller buds. Seen from the front it looks like a horses hoof print with little nail holes too. Hence the name Horse Chestnut.

Dinner tonight was fish ’n’ chips. Fish on a Wednesday is a tradition in the house and tonight was no exception. Scamp has cleverly found a way to reduce the smell of the cooking oil, by lighting a scented candle in the kitchen. It works wonders.

We had a quick practise of the three dances we know and without a word of lie, we hardly put a foot wrong.  Why does it all go to pot when we’re dancing in (virtual) class on Sunday?  It must be the pressure of dancing for the teachers and knowing they are watching.

Watched Line of Duty tonight and am still looking for the User’s Manual to explain exactly what is going on!

A parcel seemed to arrive today but seems to have been spirited away. Also spirited away is the Fairy Garden. In my St Mo’s walk today I wondered if it had been vandalised, but no. Every single piece of the garden had disappeared, including the stars hanging from the trees, all the little doors and even the washing had been taken in! All gone back to fairyland I presume.

Must get this blog posted and get to bed. No plans for tomorrow, other than breakfast in bed.

 

 

Welcome to the fairy dell – 30 March 2021

We have twinkling lights all round the garden. Now it’s a veritable fairy dell.

This morning we were working in the garden. Scamp was doing the directing and I was doing the heavy lifting and the digging. We were moving pots around to make better use of the space we have. One of the Azaleas was travelling out near the back fence to provide some colour until the Buddleia comes into flower. That left more space between the other two azaleas. The space where the plant was moving to was very uneven and it took a bit of spade work to level it off, but that little bit of earth shifting helped provided a more stable bed for it. The place it’s in was once hidden by a metal clothes pole which I cut down last year. This new planting makes good use of a bit of wasted space.

Still on a garden theme, I got my old multi-meter out and checked the voltage of one of the batteries in the solar powered lights that ring the tree. They seemed ok and the solar cell was producing just under a volt, which should have been enough to charge the single 1.2v NiMh battery. I replaced the battery and put it all back together. Weeks ago I bought Scamp some warm white lights to run along the fence. Today I tacked them to the fence with the staple gun. With the electrical work and the landscaping done, we had lunch.

After lunch we walked down and around the boardwalk at Broadwood Loch, then over the dam and back up home. Three goons were flying kites with SNP logos from the path across the dam. That about sums up the SNP it these, its troubled times. Flying a kite indeed!

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s because I didn’t have many photos from the Broadwood walk, but found very little to interest me. That seems to be a theme these days: “very little to interest me”. I blame the restrictions on movement. I think I’ve photographed every interesting thing in St Mo’s. We need to get out somewhere else. I ended up taking the PoD in the front garden. One of the flowers on our Forsythia bush. It’s the bush where the flowers appear before the leaves.

Interesting microwave curry ready-meal from M&S tonight. Really very tasty. Must look for it cheap again some time.

Watched Line of Duty and am still confused about who did what, when, to whom and why. Are they all lying, and why does this new DCI Davidson sound as if she’s English, pretending she’s Scottish when she is actually Scottish?

It’s all too much for me, but the fairy lights are looking good. Scamp likes them. Tomorrow we may go for a walk somewhere south.

A taste of Japan – 20 March 2021

Have you ever had one of those days when you wake up feeling that something’s just not right and it follows you all day? I had one of those days today.

Oh dear, milky white sky, but the clouds were low too. The Campsie Fells were covered to about halfway down, but from the cloud line down they were in beautiful sunshine. Very strange indeed.

The clouds seemed to take a long time to lift and disperse, in fact it wasn’t until after lunch that things began to clear and we felt able to go out for a walk, but still that strange feeling irritated me for most of the afternoon. Scamp tried her best to lift it, and eventually a walk round Broadwood Loch and her constant chipping away at it finally broke through and the sun shone. From then on life returned to normal. We walked round the loch, but didn’t venture into the woods because I was pretty sure the path would be flooded and that would be no fun. Instead we walked clockwise against the flow of anticlockwise walkers with their dogs, around the edge of the loch. Then it was up the gentle but continuous climb past the exercise machines and on to the shops.

I suggested to Scamp today that we should perhaps declare Friday and Saturday to be no-cook or easy-cook days. When you’re retired you don’t have weekends. Heavens, many people who are working from home during this pandemic don’t have weekends either. So, to give us something to look forward to and to give the week a structure we should treat dinner at the weekend as a stay-home restaurant meal. Sometimes we should get a take-away delivered or walk over to the food outlets in Condorrat to collect a meal, or like today, we could get an easy-cook meal from M&S. Today’s meal was a Japanese food box with Chicken and Teriyaki sauce, Katsu Chicken Curry, Chicken Miso with noodles and a well named Firecracker Chicken. All served with rice. Sounds complicated, but basically you pierce the film on all the trays and bung the lot into a pre-heated oven for 20mins or thereabouts while you relax with a nice glass of red. Pudding was Bramley apple sponge from the same shop. That worked for me.

Between returning from the shops and cooking this complicated meal, I went over to St Mo’s to see what happens when two tribes go to war, and also to get some photos. Lots of rubber-men and rubber-girls staggering around but nobody seemed to be wearing any warpaint, so I presume:

  1. Peace had been declared.
    Or
  2. The batteries had run out on the ghetto blaster.

Perhaps even both. The woods were silent. The woods I went to were at any rate. Earlier I’d photographed some Flowering Currant bushes (Ribes sanguineum) almost exactly a year after my last Flickr picture of them. I also found some larch pollen buds just opening with a nice bit of side lighting and that was the shot that got PoD.

Altogether, my day was a bit like the weather. It started off cloudy but soon the sun shone and drove the clouds away. Thankfully Scamp has that effect.

Maybe a walk down the Luggie tomorrow. Haven’t been there this year I think!