Better than we expected – 12 April 2020

We had expected a cold, cloudy day, but we got quite a lot of sunshine.

Scamp managed to grab a delivery slot for Saturday 18th from Tesco. Isn’t it strange that something so mundane as ordering a grocery delivery can bring a smile to our faces? It’s a measure of how our lives have changed. Anyway, while she set up the Saturday delivery, I amended our Tuesday delivery, adding a few things. Mainly because I’d never done that before. It’s also strange that something that’s being done by all the supermarkets is slightly different in all of them.

Both tasks completed, we went for a walk in St Mo’s. I took the Nikon and the little Oly 5 which doesn’t get out much now. I know how it feels. The Nikon produced some brilliant macro shots of furry looking ferns, a bright green blob (also known as a moss fruiting body) an a nesting coot. The Oly 5 with the fish-eye lens attached captured a wide angle view of St Mo’s. The PoD went to the furry fern crozier. The remainder can be seen on Flickr. The park wasn’t too busy today, just a few weans on bikes and a couple of adults taking their daily exercise. Scamp took my photo on the bench I’d earmarked for last Wednesday’s shot, but I’ll keep it on my phone for now, because I look guttered. It was meant to show off the tee shirt I got from Canute, but you can hardly see it. Pity, because I quite like it.

Scamp spent a half hour or so talking to Shona on the phone. I can’t imagine how that girl copes with Ben in a flat on lockdown. Anyone who has kids at this time must be absolutely round the twist trying to find something, anything, for them to do while they’re not at school.

We both spent half an hour speaking to JIC later and marvelled at the amount of gardening they’re getting done in the warm weather they get.  Got a fair bit of slagging from him for not being able to get a delivery from Ocado.  OK JIC, I walked into that one!

One idea I’ve had started from a picture I saw on Flickr. It’s an Instagram challenge to complete a drawing a day for the lockdown period. I’m a bit late coming to it, but it sound feasible. Starting it tomorrow. Small sketch posted from my phone.

That’s it for today. A bright, sunny, spring day in lockdown. Tomorrow will probably feel more like winter if the weather fairies are to be believed.

The day that never really began – 2 April 2020

Some days are full of things to do some are not. Today was in the latter group.

It was a cold day with strong winds in the morning and early afternoon. It didn’t lend itself to gardening or to photography, so Scamp resorted to dusting the bedroom furniture. I started tidying up the back bedroom, but soon tired of that. Spoke to Colin on the phone and found that he didn’t do “the what’s appy thing” so I didn’t go as far as trying to talk him through Zoom™. Did find out that his son-in-law is volunteering to deliver folk’s Click and Collect groceries in the surrounding villages. We agreed this was a very useful task, but only if you can actually get a C&C slot. The problem seems to be people block booking slots and the supermarkets are unable (or unwilling) to do anything about it. Still, an admirable use of time and labour.

After lunch, Scamp wanted a loaf, so I offered to make one, rather than wait in a long queue to get one loaf and feel foolish, having waited all that time with just a loaf to show for it. I knew I’d end up buying a basket of stuff we didn’t need. We have loads of flour, some of it getting close to its Use By date, so this was an ideal way to do something useful with it. Made the dough and left it to prove then went out for a walk just in case there was anything interesting out in the Coronavirus world, because although there were scattered clouds, the wind had died down. I did get a few pictures of some dogwood branches with the buds just opened and the leaves caught in the transmitted light of centre-jour (backlighting). Interesting, but not brilliant. It was only when I got home I saw a wee daisy just starting to shut down for the night because the sun was dipping down behind some houses. That became PoD.

Scamp made a lovely Chicken Stir Fry for dinner. No sticky chilli sauce, just veg, rice, chicken and a great deal of skill. A little soy sauce just as extra seasoning and it was perfect.

We had a dance practise tonight. Foxtrot, Quickstep and New Waltz with some jive routines we hadn’t practised in too long a time. Really enjoyed it. Sometimes it’s the practise at home that burns the routines into your memory. At least it’s that way for me. I won’t claim that I got it all right, but the majority of it worked … eventually. Before that we joined a straggling few at 8pm to clap for the NHS. Not nearly as many as last week.

Watched the national news tonight and oh my they are so depressing. Such a difference from the Scottish news who are quite upbeat by comparison. Scamp thinks it’s because the geography is so different in Scotland in that we have a lot of open space around us, unlike London where everyone lives in each other’s pockets. Whatever way it finally turns out, we can only look after ourselves and try our best to keep healthy.

Tomorrow, getting colder according to the weather folk. Maybe even snow.  Probably stay in and eat the bread I made.

The man who worked in the garden – 29 March 2020

Today I became that man, the man who worked in the garden.

I didn’t do it for very long, you understand, just long enough that it was noted, and I wasn’t alone. Scamp was making sure I didn’t do anything stupid, like dig up any of her plants. I dug up two leeks for her to put into soup, gently forked over that area of the raised bed and planted some Ambassador peas in their place. After that I hoed over the remainder of the bed to break up the soil and displace the weeds that were beginning to show themselves. It looked a lot better with the soil broken up a bit, so I then turned my attention to the flower bed beneath the window and broke up the soil there too with the hoe. I’d forgotten how satisfying it was to use a dutch hoe to get rid of weeds and to aerate the soil. While I was there, I cleared out a few pots from the greenhouse leaving more space for the pots with actual plants in them, not just weeds. Scamp was busy planting pansies in a long trough that hangs on the fence. With that all done, I felt I’d actually done something in the garden for a change. It was a cold day, although the sun was warm. We don’t get much sun in the back garden and today was worse with a north wind blowing right into it. We adjourned for lunch.

After lunch I went for a walk over to St Mo’s. Scamp encouraged me to go, but stayed inside herself. I think she needs just as much ’me time’, as I do. St Mo’s wasn’t too busy today, I think that north wind again kept people inside, using the ‘self isolating’ excuse reason to stay warm. There wasn’t much to see, but I did get a chance to take a three frames focus stack of a fly basking in the sun with the hedge sheltering it from that wind. Other than that, there wasn’t much to recommend it today, so the fly grabbed the PoD. Still can’t find those bracket fungi with the oyster shell pattern.

After dinner I slapped more oil paint on the acrylic underpainting and have now just the tree to add. I say “just the tree”, but it’s not as simple as that. Trees are difficult for me and as this is the focal point of the painting, It has to be reasonable accurate. A bit of practise needed tomorrow before I take the plunge. The lack of a ‘CTRL Z’ button really is an oversight on the part of the people who design paint brushes.

Other than practising painting trees, we have no other plans for tomorrow. Maybe a walk if the weather is decent? Maybe dancing practise if it’s not? Who knows.

“The man who worked in the garden” was the unseen gardener in Bill & Ben the Flowerpot Men. Just incase you didn’t know.

Breaking the rules – 25 March 2020

We walked to the shops today, but I broke the rules by going out for a second walk later! Rebel!

We didn’t need much at the shops, which was just as well really. Like Sim has been complaining, no flour to be had anywhere, and of course, no toilet rolls. Well, not at the new shops anyway. They did have milk and they did have pancakes. They also had salt which has been in short supply too, so we got all three. That was about it. Walked back through very fine rain. That terrible wetting rain that just soaks you without you noticing it. It wasn’t cold though, the weather machine said it was over 12ºc for a while, so I gave my big Bergy jacket a rest and took my rainy coat instead. Much more comfortable and a lot lighter than the Bergy with all my odds and ends in the pockets. While we were at the shops, I saw a VW Campervan with two surf boards on top! I kid you not. Where were they off to I wondered? Maybe Tiree to catch some wild waves, or maybe just driving around looking cool.

I made a sort of pizza for lunch. It was the remains of yesterday’s flat bread dough, with some fresh flour, yeast, salt and water added. I think Scamp was right, I should just have made a proper pizza and been done with it. As it turned out, it wasn’t all that great. A bit doughy in places, but excellent in others. Baked it in the microwave using convection oven setting for about 12minutes at 220ºc. I’ve written that so I will remember it the next time I want to make a pizza in the microwave. I might not remember it, but I’ll know where to look to find it. That’s one thing Google has taught me.

After lunch I got itchy feet again and went out looking for something interesting. Yes, I know you’re only supposed to be out ONCE a day for a walk, run, jog or cycle, but I’m a rebel and I was going to tear up the rule book and put it in the bin. I wasn’t going to throw it away, I’m not that much of a rebel. I found a use for all that rain, it gave me a chance to capture today’s PoD. Just a little grass stem holding all those raindrops on its hairy surface. It would only work with that fine rain we’d been having. Heavy rain would have wetted the surface and prevented the surface tension on the raindrop from forming a shield for the enclosed water.
Then when I was coming back, I spotted a little ladybird, the first I’ve seen this year nestling under the cover of a leaf and spotted with raindrops too. Two good subject in one day.

We did a bit of a dance practise later in the afternoon. Waltz Nº1, Waltz Nº2, Quickstep and Foxtrot. Not all perfect, but adequate, considering that this is the first practise of the Isolation. Possibly Jive tomorrow.

No real plans for tomorrow, so if you’re reading this Boris, I don’t expect to be breaking the rules tomorrow. I’ll be a good little prole and not go for more than one walk.

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl – 24 March 2020

Today is Scamp’s birthday, but because of Covid 19 we stayed at home.

Breakfast in bed for her, and for me. Actually that’s nothing unusual for us. One thing that retirement has taught me is that there’s no need to rush anymore. If it needs done, it will get done. If it didn’t get done, then it wasn’t needing done in the first place. After Scamp opened her parcels and almost choked at the antics of her ‘Dancing Cat’, we both finished the chapters of the books we were reading and got on with the day.

I sewed a torn seam on two of my shirt pockets, caused by stuffing my phone and my glasses in there. After finishing one shirt and starting another I promptly lost the needle and panicked because a lost needle can be a really dangerous thing in a house. You’ve heard the expression “Turned the house upside down” when looking for something? We turned the three seater sofa upside down … and then shook it, but no needle. We hoovered, we tentatively searched between the cushions. Finally, I went upstairs to carefully strip off all the clothes I was wearing to see if the needle had become lodged in them, and that’s when Scamp shouted that she’d found it. It was still tacked into the shirt I had finished repairing. We’d both looked and looked at that shirt without finding it, but there it was. Thank goodness.

By then it was coffee time and after calming down and some discussion we chose to stay at home today. Nobody, but nobody was moving their cars out. Maybe we stayed at home, but that didn’t mean we didn’t go out. Scamp planted out her two boxes of pansies in the front garden. She also did a bit of weeding and some feeding of her plants. She did a bit more pruning of bushes and plants in the back garden too.

<Technospeak>
I must admit I was tempted to go out for a walk, but I thought I’d better obey Boris’s Rules and stay home. So I took the Benbo out to the garden and set up the E-M1 and macro lens on it, turned on ‘focus stacking’ and took some 15 shots of a crocus flower. The focus stacking allows you to take a rapid number of shots, all at slightly incasing focus distances. My aim was to get a set of shots with focus settings from the very front of the nearest petal to the furthest back petal. Eventually I worked out it should be about 9 shots, not 15. Focus stacking works best with a totally still subject, and just as I pressed the shutter button each time, a tiny wee breeze would blow and start to make the crocus nod its head. I finally got the sequence I wanted without the breeze and could pack up and go inside. There I squirted the shots into the piece of software that does the magic and merges the 9 shots into one. The result you see here is what it looks like. It was done using Affinity Photo. Thanks again Hazy!
</Technospeak>

I became so engrossed in this process I forgot that I was making dinner tonight. Carrot & Lentil Curry. A long time favourite of ours. Got it made and left it to keep warm just in time to go and speak to Hazy, Neil-D, JIC, Sim and Vixen. We didn’t actually speak to Tilly and Penny, but we knew they were there too. All through the magic of Zoom™. We were very impressed with the software. Scamp was desperate to show off the Dancing Cat. I think Hazy & Neil-D thought it was funny. JIC & Sim not so much. I could just see JIC mouthing “What the hell is that” or something similar. It didn’t matter, the main thing is Scamp thought it was brilliant!

That was a good day. Curry was good. Flat bread was better and even better still was the orange and rhubarb jelly, which was superb! Best of all was the look on Scamp’s face when the Dancing Cat started his routine this morning!!

Tomorrow? Possibly more of the same, but without Zoom™.

One Week In – 23 March 2020

That’s us one week in to Self Isolation and we’re not at each other’s throats yet!

Today Scamp went out in the morning to walk to the shops to get some essentials, real essentials this time, no gin was purchased. I stayed home and removed certain articles that had been secreted in the hidden compartment of the Juke’s boot. I had been beginning to sweat about how I’d get them into the house without prying eyes catching me. It was a strange Monday. No Gems and no dancing. However, that’s one down and only eleven to go.

We decided not to go out walking together today. Scamp did a bit of gardening. I messed around with Affinity Designer which is a vector graphics app from Serif. It’s a bit like Corel Draw for beginners. Fairly easy to use, but powerful enough to be useful. I’ve got it on 90 day trial. We used to use some of their software in school, but it was always crashing and the kids got exasperated with it. Eventually NLC bought us a fairly up to date version of Corel Draw and we forgot about Serif. They (Serif) were a bit of a pest, they used to phone you up every couple of months wanting you to but more stuff. They didn’t seem to realise just how tight a technical department budget was. Anyway, I quite enjoyed making raised, sunk, fielded panels. Don’t ask, believe me it’ll bore the pants off you.

I went out for a walk in the afternoon to see if there was anything worthwhile to photograph. The best I got, and therefore PoD was a shot of daffodils on the banking of the M80 slip road. I don’t suppose I should have been there, but I got the shot and only one car blasted me with its horn. I don’t think it was the polis! Also got a nice wee shot of some fungi that looked like oyster shells, they even appeared to have a pearl at the centre. It was actually a pebble!  While I was out I saw a bee!  We’d seen one in the garden at the weekend, but this is surely proof that spring is on  the way!

Scamp showed me how to make Portobello mushrooms stuffed with cheese and wrapped in Parma ham. Delicious. I made Lemonade Scones which I thought were going to be underbaked in the middle, but they were perfect, at least the one we shared was.

Tomorrow, Scamp’s big day, we’d intended going to The Kelpies, but I fear the car parks there will be closed and the horses will be off limits too. It’s such a shame that this plague has hit us at the time of both our birthdays. However, we’re both still here and plodding on. We’ll find somewhere to go with a flask and a box of ‘pieces’.

Mothers Day – 22 March 2020

I made the breakfast. I even sliced up a banana for Scamp, with none for me. I did this only for Scamp on behalf of the weans … and because banana on my porridge would be a step too far.

Today was shearing day. The thatch that’s been growing under my nose and around my mouth was getting far too lush. It had to go. So I took it upon myself to give it a quick Number Four. I possibly could have gone to a number three, but it was just 1.9ºc when I was making breakfast and, at my age I need a bit of insulation on the upper lip and the chin, so a number four it was.

After hacking away for a while and washing all the clippings away I felt ready to face the day. Scamp was already speaking to Hazy on the phone when I went downstairs. She didn’t even notice my carefully sculpted facial hair. Neither did Hazy, but as this wasn’t a video call or FaceTime, I’ll forgive her. It was only hours later when I told her about my barbering skills she looked and said “Oh, yes”. That’s all you get for all the planning and careful cutting then. Hmph!

It being Mothers Day, Scamp had the choice of where to go for our daily walk. She chose St Mo’s surprisingly. I thought she’d want to go to Broadwood, which I find boring, but she likes. No, she thought there would be fewer people at St Mo’s after yesterday’s crowds at Drumpellier. It was another beautiful day and there were a few folk, mainly mums and dads with a single wean. They weren’t observing the proper social distancing rules, but I suppose they were all living under the same roof, so what’s the point of maintaining the 2m exclusion zone when you’re outside if you’ll be sitting in the same room when you get home. I did get what turned out to be today’s PoD on our walk, it was another of those flowering currants, but this time about half of the flowers had opened. I was hoping to get a chance to take some more later in the walk or even later in the day, but technology got in the way. After we’d done our circuit of St Mo’s, Scamp suggested we walk down through Condorrat and over the ‘Red Bridge’. That extended our walk a bit, even if it was beside a busy road, still quite busy even with so much isolation going on. The motorway however was almost deserted. I’m pretty sure we could count on the fingers of one hand, the number of cars and lorries that passed under our feet as we crossed the Red Bridge. The M80 was carrying its lightest traffic load for a long, long while.

After we got back, Scamp took the bull by the horns and instituted a video call to her sister in Skye. I was most impressed with the ease she did it with. A real tech genius Scamp is. I’ll be going to her for help with all my problems now!

Later, I thought I’d go for a solo walk around St Mo’s to see if Mr Grey had returned. He had, but he was away on the far side of the pond, well out of reach of the 200mm lens. I tried to get some macro shots of some nicely lit moss spores, but for some reason still to be explained, the shutter seemed to fire, but no photos were recorded. That’s the reason we ‘chimp’ (check the image on the back screen of the camera) but I had confidence in the ability of the E-M1, misplaced confidence it seemed.

Dinner tonight was the second half of the Thai Chicken Stir-Fry for Scamp and the first half of a Beef Stir-Fry for me. Both with egg noodles instead of the usual rice for a change. Scamp’s was fine, if a bit oily. Mine was so hot it would have set the oil on fire. The girl in the butchers said it had “a bit of a kick”. I’d say! A kick like a mule. I’ll treat it with caution when I get round to eating the other half. It’s in the freezer at present, I hope it hasn’t melted anything in there!

Spoke to JIC later and got his take on Covid 19. He’s much more down to earth than the BBC. It’s good to hear a more reasoned, grounded voice on the subject.

Tomorrow we may go for messages. Just ordinary messages and if we find toilet rolls, buy lots and lots of them!

The new reality – 17 March 2020

We’ve decided that we just have to get used to this new chapter in our lives. It’s not of our making, and there’s nothing we can do to fix it. We can, however make the most of it. As Scamp says, at least we’ve got a garden we can work in while we’re not allowed to travel or to go dancing. The occasional walk will also help keep us moving and motivated. Today, though, it was preparation for the gardening.

Went out in the morning to get some compost and some seeds, veg seeds. Just peas, kale and rocket and two bags of compost. I know that a lot of that compost will find its way into flower pots and flower beds, but some of it will also help bolster the worn out compost in the raised bed. I’m seriously thinking of lifting the remaining leeks and using them for soup. Both the black kale and the curly variety are just about finished now. I’ll maybe use them up in the soup too. If there’s any left, I’ll bag it and freeze it. That way nothing is wasted and I can work at replenishing the compost in the bed. That’s the plan. However, rain put paid to any sensible work today and the compost is stacked in the back garden covered with a tarpaulin to keep the rain off and also allow it to dry out a bit.

After lunch Scamp encouraged me to go out for a walk while she watched some of her pre-recorded programs. It was dry when she suggested it, but by the time I had my boots on, there were raindrops on the window again. It didn’t really matter, I wanted an hour to myself, just as she deserved an hour to her self. I walked to St Mo’s but there were no deer and no frogs to commune with. I found an interesting bud just bursting on a stubby tree. It reminded me of a lucky rabbit’s foot I used to have on a keyring when I was a teenager. Then someone told me it hadn’t been all that lucky for the rabbit and I decided it wasn’t a very sensible thing to have in my pocket and put it in the bin. The furry bud became PoD and the rain didn’t go off, in fact it became straight down soaking rain an my jacket was dripping wet by the time I got home

Dinner tonight was the Thai Chicken Stir-Fry I bought yesterday. I bought 500g of it and that was too much for the two of us, but when we halved it, that wasn’t quite enough. I realise now I should just have cooked the lot and then we could have eaten what we wanted and chucked out the rest, but in these straitened times it seems such so wasteful to throw stuff out. Maybe we’ll use it for lunch tomorrow instead. That might work. Anyway, I thought it tasted fine although Scamp said she felt it was too spicy. I got the idea from a meal at JIC’s where he had bought and cooked a similar stir-fry with beef as the protein. I’m guessing you have to trust your butcher when you’re buying pre-assembled food like stir-fry and we both trust our individual butchers.

Nowhere to go tomorrow, but the weather looks kinder than today, so we may go for a walk. Ordered coffee from Perth and was told it should be delivered tomorrow, so may need to work around that.

Freedom! – 1 March 2020

Sketching is fun and so is painting, but when you have to do it every day and also dance to someone else’s tune, it becomes work.

Today was the first day of March and that meant the inaccurately named 28 Drawings Later and Every Day in February were finished for me. It was fun for most of the time, but when it starts to resemble work, I have to draw a line (no pun intended). I’m quite happy to do the odd sketch as the notion takes me, but I’m also happy to let it lapse for a few days. All being well, I’ll probably take up the cudgels again in May for EDiM.

It seems the news people are having a field day with all the Coronavirus stuff. They’ve found a perfect way to take up hours of screen time giving us updates and filling our screens with stats and visual representations of how bad this virus thingy is. Most folk don’t really care all that much. Until it actually affects them, it’s just another blah blah blah that takes up too much time and deflects the serious news to the last five minutes of the program. The gigantic map behind the presenter with whole countries splashed in RED don’t really tell the whole story. Yes, there’s a case of the virus in Scotland, but because of that, the whole of Scotland is painted red. Someone somewhere has read and applied “How to Lie With Statistics”, a brilliant book written by Darrell Huff and as valid today as it was when it was first published in 1954.

So, today, after lunch I went for a walk in a soggy St Mo’s. Got today’s PoD which is a dried up looking hummock of moss growing on a branch of a dead tree. It’s amazing what interests photogs with a decent camera and a macro lens. Apart from startling a couple of deer, that was the only interesting thing that crossed my path today. A dull windy day which eventually turned to sleety rain, but not until much later.

Curry from the Spice Tailor range for dinner. I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad one. Didn’t read the instructions properly for this one and left the chilli in for a bit longer than necessary, but it was fine, just spicy enough.

Drove in to the Record Factory for Salsa tonight, but the music was so dire we left earlier than we’d intended. It wasn’t just us, either. Almost all of the ‘old school’ were complaining too. It seems that a lot of Jamie G’s ‘Advanced Class’ have now gone over to The Opposition, Sergio & Patricia. I can’t say I blame them. The move from the STUC building out to the West End hasn’t endeared Shannon to a lot of people and the fact that Jamie seems to be away from class more than he’s there is bound to affect the continuity of teaching. At least they now cancel his advanced classes when he’s not going to be there. That is a move in the right direction.

Spoke to JIC tonight and found out all about his short trip to Boston. Poor soul hardly got to see round the city at all. All work and no play by the sound of it. Never mind JIC, you have a week to enjoy the peace between studying, working from home and looking after Vixen!

Tomorrow is a Gems day, but we also need to cram in some dance. Hoping we make a better show of things tomorrow night.

The Messages – 20 February 2020

Today we planned to go somewhere to stock up on messages.

We drove to Falkirk and just managed to miss seeing a gigantic tractor lose its trailer which was now lying on its side blocking a roundabout at the entrance to Falkirk Hospital. Police and a heavy breakdown truck in attendance trying to keep the roundabout clear. Luckily we were on the other half or the roundabout. Further down the road a fire engine was heading towards the roundabout with blue lights on. I said to Scamp “I think we’ll take a different road home.”

We bought Morrisons today. I quite like Morrisons now. They have a totally different selection from Tesco and they also sell Yorkshire Mixtures sweets. I get a bag about once a month. Today they also had £10 off my whisky of the moment. Lastly they do one of the best Roll ’n’ Sausage for a knock down price. So after we’d bought the shop and I’d headed into a snowstorm that lasted about 5 minutes to fill the Juke’s boot. After that, we had lunch.

Back home and before I sat down, I got a message again to phone the surgery. What was it this time? One of the vampires had phoned in sick with anaemia and needed a quick fix? They’d got the labels wrong again and they wanted to tell me I was pregnant? Neither of the above. It was just to tell me that the doctor had left a prescription for me at reception. They couldn’t tell me what the prescription was for or why the nurse hadn’t mentioned it to me yesterday. I just left and drove up to the health centre. Discovered that the prescription WAS for me and it was because my urine sample had shown a slight infection. It must be something to do with my age and the fact that I had a severe infection last year. They’re being ultra-cautious. Well, better to deal with it than to have the pain I had last time.

Home again and the rain that had been pelting down had stopped, so I took an hour to myself in St Mo’s and managed to catch some late afternoon sun. Favourite shot was of a multi branch Cladonia lichen. That became PoD.

Today’s SoD was to be “Sparkling”. I chose Mrs McQueen’s favourite hat. It’s got lots of sparkly bits and bobs on it, so it fit the bill perfectly. I’m quite impressed with my render of the velvet in it. It seems to hold the creases and folds well.

Tomorrow, for once, we have no plans.