Category: Mono

A new member of the club – 11 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

My pal John joined the retirees club today, so I went to see how he was settling in.

Actually he’s settling in quite well and seems perfectly happy with the prospect of all those workless days stretching out before him. We tackled about old times, friends and colleagues we’ve known. “Some are bad and some are good, some have done the best they could. Some have tried to ease my troubled mind” Lyrics are like a form of modern poetry for the masses. That one was from Tom Paxton.

After an hour or so of walking down memory lane I took my leave and drove home, stopping on the way to see if Currys in Hamilton had the Sony camera I’ve been looking for. They had Canon cameras, lots of them, but little else. Of course, none of them had batteries in them. Either that or the batteries hadn’t been charged this year. Looked at a couple of tablets too, but wasn’t impressed. I was even less impressed with the traffic jam of people trying to get out the retail park. Roadworks. That bane of everyone’s life these days, and this in a 28º heat. Thankfully the air-con took most of the sting out of that. Had a quick look in Hobbycraft at the fort to see if there were any bargains – there weren’t, despite plenty of posters saying there were. Final stop was the ice cream shop in Muirhead for a litre tub of Scottish Tablet ice cream – That’s your fault Hazy for sending the WhatsApp message!!

After dropping off the ice cream, I went for a walk round St Mo’s because I’d nothing in the bag, photo wise today. Got a photo of my dragonfly model from yesterday, still posing for me, but PoD went to a mountaineering snail I saw. Not a lot else was moving in today’s overpowering heat. Humidity was high and the wind was very light, so I left a bit earlier than I’d intended and went home.

Dinner was Chicken Kebabs on a bed of Cauliflower Couscous. Sounds strange, but it tasted great – so did the tablet ice cream.

I enjoyed seeing Teflon John make a grovelling apology to all the pupils whose last week of the holidays he had completely destroyed with his decision to make the posh kids look smarter and the poor kids look stupid.  It didn’t work John.  They stood up to you and you had to back down.  Just shows that people-power does work sometimes.

Tomorrow I’m intending to meet Val for coffee and a wee chat about what’s new in the world of computers! Ah, normal service is being resumed at last.

And what of the day then? – 11 May 2020

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It was to be a busy day. Not hardly a minute to spare.

Can’t say much about it though. It’s all under wraps until 13th May when all will become clear.

Spent part of the morning planning out what today’s sketch would be. The prompt was “Illustrate a Recipe”. I did really try out different ideas, but none of them worked and as the day wore on, the chance of it making it to paper were getting slimmer and slimmer. So slim in fact that it became lost and I’m leaving it until tomorrow to finish (i.e. Start).

Tesco delivery arrived early and it looked as if we were back to our old ways of buying the entire shop. I pitied the poor bloke having to transport all those boxes from van to door on his porters trolley.

I left Scamp to deal with the storing of the mountain of stuff. If I’d tried to put things away, she’d only have gone back later and rearranged everything, so instead I walked over to Condorrat and posted a parcel to West Ewell. Sorry Hazy, it’s not for you, but be warned a small package will be dropping through your letterbox soon, maybe even tomorrow. IT HASN’T GOT YOUR NAME ON IT!!

Walked around St Mo’s a couple of times and took today’s PoD which, probably nobody will like and I agree it’s a bit dull, but I like it. I’m not certain the sepia treatment worked, but I’m trying to get out of the straight macro mode and become a bit more creative. It was a cold day. Allegedly it was just into double figures of degrees C, but when you were in that wind it didn’t feel like that at all. That’s wind chill, though. In the sun and sheltered the wind it was pleasantly warm … if you were wearing a thick hoodie over a thick shirt and a tee shirt it was pleasantly warm.

Not a lot more to say about today. Spent most of the evening trying to remove DRM from one of Scamp’s books without success. I’ll try again tomorrow, maybe once I’ve caught up with the sketching.

And that’s the plan for tomorrow. To catch up, then to fix the DRM.

Brendan Blunders In – 13 January 2020

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Do these weather chappies think if you give a storm a ‘human’ name, it makes it less scary? Somebody should tell them it’s not working.

Today’s storm was named Brendan and it was a stoater. It blundered around, knocking down bins and firing the rain in your face when you weren’t expecting it. It was just an awful day. I don’t like the high winds. I don’t like thunder either. Maybe it’s the noise, I’ve never thought about it really, but I never did like high wind or thunder. I don’t mind rain or sleet or snow. They’re really just different varieties of the water that falls on you after all. Despite all that I took myself out in the wind and rain that was Brendan to get a photo or two and a writing pad. As it turned out I got four photos, all of trees blowing in the wind. All pointing straight up. All with a really slow shutter speed. None with the camera resting on the Beadbag™ which was designed for such a situation! Needless to say one of those shots became PoD.  It looks as if its been converted to mono, but it’s actually just a combination of the contrast and the dull day that leaches away all the colour.

Have you ever tried to buy a pad or writing paper. Nobody seems to write letters anymore. Yes, you can buy envelopes in all sorts of colours and sizes, but no writing paper to make the letters to put in them. I tried all the shops in our new retail park and not one of them had writing paper. A reporter’s notebook was the closest I came. I dare say email had put paid to actually writing to people. Finally I tracked down a writing pad at a wee newsagent’s in Condorrat. I’ll use it carefully and then store it somewhere safe, for the next time I need to write a letter.

After dinner we drove up to the Town Centre to go to ballroom class. Tonight we were tackling Waltz Across Texas as a sort of warm up, then it was into the waltz proper. The routine we’d started to learn last week. This time Scamp filmed the whole routine, both the ladies and the mens parts. The second hour was foxtrot. Neither of us had ever done foxtrot before, so this was all new. I think we may have about 75% of the routine in our heads now. It’s just the part where we teach our feet how to actually execute the moves that we need to perfect. We did also find a ‘bad part’ of the dance floor where we always got things wrong. I think we should mark that area with red spray paint to make it easier to avoid, and therefore make fewer mistakes. After Mr Fox’s Trot we reprised the Blue Angel Rumba. One of the expert couples even offered to take us through it and that made it a lot clearer. We have a video earmarked on YouTube for that one already, so it just needs a bit of careful watching to identify the individual parts, then they should be easier to join together. I think also I need a new pair of dance shoes. The ones I have keep making the same mistakes over and over.

Tomorrow it’s coffee with the guys. Scamp’s out with Annette in the morning for coffee too. I think we both need some adult conversation!

Dull, Dull, Dull – 7 November 2019

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That sort of sums up the day. Dull with the chance of Brexit.

I’m getting fed up with the amount electioneering we are getting on the (supposed) news. The first thing they talk about is the election or Brexit. No news there. We know there’s going to be an election. We’ve been saddled with Brexit since 2016. Why is the important stuff always playing second fiddle to this nonsense.

Then it’s Labour slagging off the Conservatives. Conservatives slagging off Labour. Lib Dems labouring under a delusion that they’re going to oust both of them and the SNP slavering for another referendum. Then there’s some poor reporter who’s sent to some god-forsaken town to try to drum up some interest in the whole shebang. Haven’t you heard yet? Nobody’s interested, and apart from the party faithful, nobody has found any party in the whole mess worth voting for. For what must be the first time in my life I don’t want to vote. Scamp even suggested that I should spoil my ballot paper and I might just do that and write “NONE OF THE ABOVE” at the bottom. There, I’ve got that out of my system.

Today was a dull day, but it brightened up in the afternoon and the rain dried up too. I managed out for a walk in St Mo’s and came back with the monochrome offering at the top of the page. Walked on down to the new shops and got a nice wee bottle of wine to go with the dinner. I’d made some soup and Scamp made Chicken and Mushrooms. The wine washed it down beautifully.

After talking to Val in the morning I gave Linux on the Linx another go, but I’m getting tied in knots with it now and beginning to think that it’s more trouble than its worth. I’ll just put Windows back in, reset it to factory settings and sell the big black slab. It’s always been ok, but not great. Windows 10 kills it. Might get a few quid for it and put that to getting a replacement for my dust ridden Teazer.

No plans for tomorrow other than hopefully going to Milano Express for lunch.

Another dull day – 13 October 2019

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Not really raining, but not really not either. One of those days just made for being lazy.

A day when I did nothing. Well, I made a loaf and hand kneaded it, but that was all the constructive work I did. I flew a couple of planes and added an airport to my world. I didn’t actually make it, I downloaded it and plonked it in place. It’s called Portmoak, and it’s a gliding centre. I did add a couple of huts and a hanger to the airport, because for some reason X-Plane wants me to download some stuff from a Russian site, as if I’m going to do that after Russia trounced Scotland at football the other day. Worse than that it was eleven Russian grannies who beat them.

Watched the Japanese GP and though Verstappen was hard done by at first, but then I have to admit that he’s been guilty of trying the same tactics against others, so he has not right to complain about being run off the circuit.

PoD was taken late in the afternoon and is the flower on a spider plant with the ribbed window of the toilet in the background. Nothing startling, but a neat mono image.

Spoke to JIC on the phone and agreed with him that we really need to get moving. This laziness is getting to be a bad habit. Unfortunately we don’t have Salsa tomorrow because Jamie G is on holiday.

Today’s topic for Inktober was “Sunglasses”. Sunglasses? In October? In Scotland? Almost as bad as butterflies. That’s what you get when you tweak a list that was originally meant for May and make it fit October. Tomorrow’s prompt is “A Rowing Boat”. Not a lot of them in Cumbersheugh.

Tomorrow is a Gems day, so I may start the week with a walk just to get out and about.

A day at the seaside – 11 June 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting out of the house – 7 May 2019

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Today we went for a drive and got a table.

It wasn’t the brightest of days, in fact it was a bit overcast with a hint of rain in the wind. I’d thought of going to Bowling near Dumbarton, but I reckoned I wouldn’t get very interesting photos with the lack of light in the morning, so we went to Ikea instead. I wanted to get some of the drawer dividers we’d been using for the Marie Kondo stuff and Scamp just wanted a wander around looking at nothing in particular and everything in general. We ended up buying a garden table for a knock down price, a wooden one that looks as if it will be useful, not only for eating off, but also as a potting bench. Had lunch in Ikea and got a quid or two off our meal with the Family Card. A pain in the backside to fill in the detailed application for and they must have been hewing the card from a solid block of plastic, judging by the time it took to come. However it saved us money, so we shouldn’t complain.  We both had the fish ‘n’ chips.  It was supposed to be cod and I’d guess it swam in the same sea as the cod, but that’s as close as it got to being that fish.  Chips were good.

The rain got heavier after we left Glasgow and it looked as if it was settling in to be another dull day. I moped upstairs for a while trying to find something to draw to fulfil the brief of “Something that makes you sad”. I though of an empty bottle of beer which usually makes me sad, but I just couldn’t get it to look like I wanted it to. Decided that the rain had lessened to a drizzle and went for a walk in St Mo’s as much for a break as for any inspiration. However, on my way back, I passed the burger van that’s parked over there and saw the sign for the umpteenth time. This time I took a couple of shots. The one you see here is the best one, I think. Processed in ON1 2019 and then just a little bit of levels in Lightroom, it became PoD.

With the photo done and posted, Scamp and I shared the last two choc ices and that’s when I saw my sketch. To quote from the title: “I’m always sad when the last choc ice is gone!” I posted it in FB and then had a look at what everyone else had done and it was “Saving the planet”, “Protect the Bees”, fluffy bunnies, kittens and babies with tears in their eyes. It seems that I’m the only one with a sense of humour.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing in the afternoon and in the evening too.

Out to Lunch again – 5 March 2019

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Today as I expected we were going to look for more flowers and have lunch too. Both these things are becoming habit forming.

In the morning I broke my rule and painted a bunch of grapes instead of an apple. I hope that won’t cause any great rift in the space-time continuum. When I came downstairs Scamp broke the bad news that there was no Glasgow flight for any of the cruise holidays we had on our short list. Not to worry, I’m sure something will turn up.

Scamp wanted to go out to Torwood Garden Centre to get more flowers for some spring colour. I suggested that on the way back we could go to The Boathouse, the new improved Boathouse which seems to have changed its name to Hebo House. Look on Flickr to find out what I’m talking about. She even offered to drive us there, which made it an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Drove to Torwood, loaded more plants of a flowering persuasion into the car and drove to Hebo House. It’s a much more welcoming place than the one that was there before. It was all style and no substance as I recall. As usual when testing a place we had our standard lunch. No starters, Fish ’n’ Chips for Scamp and a burger (no mayo) for me. I hate mayo on a burger. It just makes the whole thing slippery and difficult to hold, not to mention the mess it makes on my jerseys. Both meals passed muster, although the mushy peas with Scamps F ’n’ C were inedible and the coffee was poor. We’ll go back all being well. When we were going in I noticed a photogenic tree on the far bank of the canal and was going to take a quick snap, then decided I’d get one on the way out. When we were leaving, it was bucketing with rain, but I stuck to my guns and grabbed two quick shots. One of them later became PoD after a fair bit of work.

Back home I made some beef olives, froze two of them and the rest go in the fridge for tomorrow’s dinner. I was just finishing when Scamp shouted that she’d found a cruise with a Glasgow departure. Superb! We booked it on the spot. We shall sail the seas again. Not for quite a while yet, but that gives us something to look forward to. Not only that, we’ve got a balcony cabin!! I can’t wait, but I’ll just have to. The booking this year was a joint effort with both of us looking and poring over web pages for hours.

Went back upstairs and painted a poor effort of a couple of apples and some grapes. It covers the remit, so the space-time continuum should be ok, but it wasn’t a great painting.

Tomorrow we are intending to go dancing in the afternoon and at night. We’ll see how it pans out. We also need to get some practise done in the morning.

Back in the old routine – 16 January 2019

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Back dancing again.

Down to Blackfriars again to begin year two of our ballroom and jive dancing. Thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I couldn’t remember Spin No 5 and then got the sequence wrong too! Waltz was good, not perfect, just good. Even Quickstep was recognisable as a dance. That’s the first class over and we survived it. More importantly, the dances survived it. Lots of folk there. Four couples which is an improvement in what we had before Christmas. I was beginning to wonder if the class would survive with so few people on the dance floor during the class.

Coffee and a discussion afterwards and Scamp agreed that we’d been ok. Room for improvement, but we hadn’t lost too much ground with our three week lay off. I tried to grab a shot outside the GOMA, but with the zoom on the Teazer at maximum and a shutter speed of 1/15th, it was doomed to failure. Luckily I’d taken a couple of shots of clouds banked over the cityscape earlier when we were leaving the car park. What you see above is the PoD which came from one of them. I’d half intended to go out early over to St Mo’s to get some ‘banker’ shots. I wish I had. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do that, because tomorrow will be a busy day too. Hopefully not as busy as today, but still busy enough.

Drove in to Glasgow tonight and for once, the 6.30 class had too many men, so Scamp got an extra half hour’s dance and to refresh her memory of Vacilala Con Paseo. In the 7.30 class we covered Estrella Complicada and the Rueda move, Bocadillo

Tomorrow, Scamp has a meeting with Isobel in the morning and I’ve got a meeting with the doc in the afternoon.

Adding up the numbers – 15 January 2019

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Highlight of the day was a visit to Falkirk.

First things first. Before we went our exciting trip, I fixed a dodgy wire on the plug that supplied electricity to the light in the loft and that allowed me to clear out some more junk. As a result, we had a place to store the Christmas decorations and that’s what we did. The decorations are now in their storage area and the spare room is a lot tidier.

Time to get ready to meet Andrew, the FA. Nothing to do with Football or Associations. Everything to do with numbers. The numbers were good. Some tweaks had been made and were explained, graphs were demystified and the bottom line was a very acceptable number. Andrew threw in his usual deliberate mispronunciations, today best one was Angela Meerkat, thrown into a serious discussion of global finances in such a deadpan way that you wondered “Did he really say that?”. It’s just one of his eccentricities, that and his shirts. Today’s flamboyant example was covered in large wine coloured roses. His prediction that the pound would rise tonight after the vote for/against Theresa May’s Brexit bill no matter what the result, has just been proven correct. An astute man with a wicked sense of humour. Always worth listening to.

A quick visit to Morrisons for essentials, but no strawberries and churros today. Real essentials, for a change. Then it was home. The headlights came on as we left Morrisons and it was just before 3pm. It was a dull, drizzly day, but the clouds were thinning as the light was disappearing. I decided to drop Scamp off and go for a quick drive down to Broadwood Loch to grab a shot or two. As it turned out it was nine shots, and the best one was what you see above. I liked the ball sitting on the great expanse of dirty concrete under a gloomy sky. The curved railings are due to the shot being taken with the Samyang fish eye lens.

When I got back, there was a message on the phone from Pest Control at NLC to check if we still had a problem and I told him we did have last night.  He then set out the steps the council would take with the council houses one either side of us and said that we would be advised what repairs needed done to our house.  No date was given for the examination, but I think sooner rather than later given the MSP’s email.  We’ll see.

So, Theresa has lost the vote by the biggest majority in history. Will it make any difference to the price of fish? Maybe, but we’ve got enough fish in the freezer to see us through for a week or two. Interesting times ahead.

Tomorrow we may be dancing in the afternoon if Michael is fit. He texted Scamp to say he has the flu. My heart goes out to him.