Category: Music

When the cactus is in bloom – 10 December 2020

Posted on by Zogman

When there’s nothing else to photograph, you have to resort to flowers.

Today was another dull day. Not surprising, just disappointing. We had to wait in because I was getting coffee delivered from The Bean Shop in Perth and I didn’t want it to be left in the bin shed. It’s far too important for that, besides, I had lots of stuff to do. Computer stuff.

I was going to try to access that bloody Linux based hard drive – Now don’t switch off JIC. There is going to be the barest minimum Technospeak here. I won’t go into the details of what I was going to do, just that I was going to get the MacBook Pro to speak Linux for a while. To do that I had to clear away a bit of its memory so I could fit in some Linux language there. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all do that. Just clear away a bit of our brain and put in, say, a French module and then we’d be able to speak and understand English and French. I think it’s a great idea. Maybe I should suggest it to Boris Johnson. Then he’d be able to understand what the French are really saying about him. That might make him sit back on his heels for a while instead of just bumbling on.
I didn’t actually get the task completed, although I’m in a better place to ‘Get Linux Done’ tomorrow, to quote the aforementioned Bumbler.

We went for a walk after the coffee arrived, just down to the shops for the essentials for dinner which strangely enough contained a bottle of wine! I wonder how that happened. On the way back we split up. Scamp went home and I went to walk round St Mo’s. I took a few desultory shots of cow parsley, but didn’t notice that I was shooting wide open – never a good thing. I stole ‘desultory’ from a Paul Simon song “A Simple Desultory Philippic”. Back home I decided on the Christmas Cactus as a subject. It usually manages to keep its flowers until Christmas Day. I wonder how it knows. Maybe it’s a Christian Cactus.

After dinner, Bacon and Borlotti beans thanks to the Stotfold duo’s recipe, I set up a still life in the painting room. I’d bought a little hand held LED light at the shops and it proved very useful for creating directional shadows on the white background of the still life. I actually intended to put it in my camera bag to use for when the light was poor like most of this week. It might just work in to open air too. I’ll probably get plenty of chance to test it in the next few days. I liked the finished photos and one became PoD.

Tomorrow it looks like more rain is on the way, but the good news is the non-essential shops are going to be open. Restaurants have to wait until Saturday, though. Scamp is not pleased. We’ve agreed that we won’t be going crazy in the shops at the weekend but we’ll go and have a look next week, all being well. Until then we’ll stay in, stay safe and ‘Get Linux Done.’

By the way, John Fahey has a guitar piece called “When The Catfish Is In Bloom”. I paraphrased it for the title of today’s blog.

A stinker of a day – 27 October 2020

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Not the best, but probably nearly the wettest of days.

It was dry in the morning, but not for long. Every time it teased us with the possibility that it was drying up, it started as soon as it heard the key turn in the lock. By the time we were outside, it was on full again. No respite all day.

Scamp was out with Annette whose turn it was to wait for her car to pass MOT today. I moped around the house deciding, will I, won’t I go out and get wet? Eventually I settled for NO, I won’t. I tried to get today’s sketch out of my head, but that didn’t materialise until much later. I tried reading a book that John had given me but gave up. I’m almost halfway through it, but I just can’t follow, or be bothered to follow, the plots. Too many words and too little going on. Thankfully Hazy agreed with me when she phoned later in the day. Life’s too short to waste it on poorly written books.

Finally gave in and took Blue out to Muirhead to get some carnivore food at the butchers. Hoped I’d see something worth photographing on what’s usually the scenic route home. Today everything was grey and wet and boring, so I didn’t even stop to say hello to the horses in the field. They looked as fed up as I felt. However, at least I’d done something constructive.

The next constructive thing to do was make some soup. Using Scamp’s (and my mum’s) method of a handful of this and a pinch of that, but with slightly more veg that I intended, the soup was simmering away quietly when Scamp arrived home. At least she’d had a decent day and kept Annette company while her car was undergoing its examination. It passed, but it’s a Juke and only about four years old, not like Scamp’s red OAP.

Spoke to Hazy about this and that. Heard her good news. New cars are always good news. Got a recommendation for a new book and warned her off my half finished effort.

In between rain showers I managed to grab today’s PoD which turned out to be two nasturtiums growing in a pot at the back door. They’ve flowered all summer long and are now flowering into autumn. No variation in colour. They’ve all been yellow, but at least they bring a bit of colour to dull days like today.

Finally settled on a sketch for today’s prompt, Music. It’s my old MiniDisk recorder/player. Brilliant machine that’s about 25 years old now and still works a treat. The disks hardly ever jump and the music sounds as clear today as when it was recorded. I’m sure you remember a certain choral concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Hazy!

That was about it for the day. The soup was good, thick, but good. It will probably be better with some water to thin it down. As far as tomorrow goes, hopefully it won’t feel the need for more water. I think it had enough today. We’re hoping to go for a drive tomorrow.

Last Dance in The Weavers – 4 March 2020

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Thankfully the last dance in that pokey little room, but we beat the corners.

First we got a phone call from Isobel to say that she was indeed getting out today. Although she’d get transport from the ward to the car, she would need a wheelchair to get from the car to the house, because the hospital wouldn’t load us a chair. Absolute nonsense, but totally in keeping with expected NLC policy. Scamp was not to be fazed by this problem and phoned one of the Gems singers and an hour later we had a wheelchair in the back of the Juke. You don’t realise just how much room a folded up wheelchair takes up in a car. I see the problem now Hazy.

By the time we’d worked out how to transport Scamp, Isobel, me and the wheelchair from the hospital to Cumbersheugh, Isobel had phoned to say she’d been told she was going to get hospital transport. Because she had more than one step up to her door and also she only had one handrail, she needed an ambulance person to get her safely into the house. One problem solved, but now we had to return the wheelchair and also return our life to what sometimes amounts to “Normal”. We went to lunch.

Lunch was in Craigend Nursery which used to be a decent sized plant nursery with a small tearoom bolted on. Now it’s very large tearoom with a nursery bolted on almost as an afterthought. Lunch was a beef burger and chips and salad and a dollop of ‘coleslaw’ that looked like a dog had been sick on my slate (no plates, just slates. Retro chic). Scamp had a very greasy looking Mac ’n’ Cheese. I don’t think we’ll be rushing back there.

Drove back and Scamp went to offload the wheelchair while I went to visit the ducks in St Mo’s. I also walked to the shops to try to get lemongrass for tonight’s dinner. Met an old friend of ours from salsa. Haven’t seen her for years, five years at least, according to her. How time flies. Didn’t get the lemongrass, but I did get today’s PoD which looks as if it’s been taken with flash, but it was just low afternoon light. A lucky shot.

Tonight we were dancing for the final time in The Weavers. I won’t be sad to leave that horrible room with its strange angles. What we did do was produce a decent foxtrot and another ‘work in progress’ quickstep. After a long explanation of how to dance in any shape of room, we even managed to remove the corners of the room and turn them into gentle curves, just by altering stride length and not dancing in entirely straight lines. It worked!

G&Ts tonight to remove the rough edges of an awkward day. Much like The Dukes of Hazzard song “Staightenin’ the curves Flattenin’ the hills …”. Exactly like tonight’s dancing.

Tomorrow more dancing in the afternoon hopefully. In a proper room this time.

Perf – 15 February 2019

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My coffee mountain was being eroded and in need of replenishment.

It was a lovely morning. Blue sky and just a few thin white clouds. A perfect day to travel up to Perf for some coffee beans and some loose tea. A long way to go for coffee you say when you could just drive up to Tesco. Hmm. Does Tesco offer Cuba Turaquino? Or Honduras? Or real Columbian? Does Tesco sell loose Assam Long Leaf tea? Hmm. I didn’t think so. I could have ordered online, but the Cuban is the problem. The Bean Shop uses PayPal for online purchasing and PayPal being american can’t be used for purchases from Cuba. Obama was heading in the right direction and it looked as if he was going to remove the blockade from dealing with Cuba. The blond combover president stopped that and the upshot for me is that I can’t buy my Cuban coffee from The Bean Shop in Perf online. I can buy it perfectly legally and without problem over the counter, so that’s why we were travelling up the M9 to Perf today. Well, that and the fact that it was a lovely spring-like day for a run.

Got there and after a Nero coffee to refresh us we went for a walk to ‘The Ship’. The bit of the pavement that overhangs the Tay and always reminds us of being on a cruise. There were loads of folk there today. I managed to get PoD which was a bloke gazing out over the river. Then we walked through the riverside park and across to the playing fields, a bit we’ve never been to before in all the time we’ve walked through the park. From there it was a short walk to The Bean Shop and the coffee. With it safely in the bag we walked back through the town and drove home. The blue sky was still there and so were the few white clouds.

The sun was so welcoming, I went for a walk in St Mo’s to feed the ducks and get some more photos. Light was beginning to fade as I was heading home to more pakora and then Scamp’s Prawn Curry.

Today’s 28 Drawings sketch was done just after midnight last night and was done from a ‘Photo Booth’ shot taken on the iMac. I think it’s a fair representation of the bloke who looks out at me when I’m shaving in the morning.

When we were talking to Hazy this morning I said I’d note the music I’m listening to while I write the blog.  Today it’s Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate

Tomorrow is Saturday and we have no plans.

Stirling – 1 December 2018

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Today we were going shopping for food. I like food, I just don’t like shopping.

We drove to Stirling and parked in the ridiculously inexpensive council carpark. A whole day’s parking for £1.40. Where can you get value like that today? The answer, of course, is Stirling. From there we walked in to the town. Yes, I know I’ve said it before, Stirling is a city, but it’s not really a city is it? Cities are big sprawling places with high flats and brash city centres. Stirling is not like that. It doesn’t sprawl. It sits up straight in an uncomfortable dining room chair and listens to you as you walk its streets. Its cobbled streets in places. You don’t get cobbled streets in a city. Stirling is your posh auntie. Slightly disapproving, but still family and will protect you whatever happens. I like Stirling. We wandered round the Thistle shopping centre that’s constantly re-inventing itself, then had our usual coffee in Nero. Real coffee that tastes like coffee. No fancy stuff like Special Christmas Blend that tastes just the same as the normal stuff that Costa sells. We’d already decided that we’d have a panini for lunch and dinner from Golden Bowl in Condorrat later. GB is probably the best Chinese take-away in the world, if not the universe.

After we’d had lunch we walked back to Waitrose and bought most of the shop, including two Pig Cheeks and two pieces of Pork Osso Bucco. Haven’t had either for a long time. Carpark was rammed full, but the Juke managed to squeeze into a space just big enough to allow us to pack the bags and make an older couple smile as they took our space when we left!

Back home via Lidl at Kilsyth for cheap, good beer for me and cakes and finger food for Scamp’s Gems Christmas Party on Monday. I have plans in place to avoid it.

I’d taken a few shots of an underpass in Stirling for an ON1 project, but it just wasn’t working, so when we ordered our Chinese I took the Teazer with me. Plugged myself into A Momentary Lapse of Reason and Pink Floyd accompanied me on my walk over to Golden Bowl. Halfway there I got today’d PoD which is headlights and tail lights on the M80. Isn’t it amazing the distance a car can travel in four seconds at 70mph!

Chicken Chop Suey and Fried Rice x 2 was delicious, we both agreed. Watched Strictly and then listened to a few hours of music on Spotify. Lovely Saturday night.

Tomorrow I intend baking a couple of loaves for Monday and not much more. Big day for someone special tomorrow!! YKWIM!

Cool? – 5 July 2018

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Today was supposed to be cool. Well, that didn’t work, did it?

Scamp was going to meet June and Isobel for coffee and a catch up. That gave me a few hours to do some painting. I attempted the sweet peas that were sitting on the table. I got completely lost in the complexity of the subject. Must try something simpler next time. Maybe just one or two blooms.

After lunch we went for a drive to The Fort to look for some cheap watercolour paint for me and also for something for dinner. I didn’t get the paint, certainly not at over £8 for a tube. We did get tonight’s dinner which turned out to be Sea Bass.

Drove home and sat in the garden for a while with a wee shandy each. Sitting in the sun soaking it up. Weather fairies said it would reach 20ºc today. Yes it did, but that was at 8.30am. By the middle of the afternoon it was in the high twenties.

I was cook tonight and the sea bass with broccoli and cauliflower was excellent, even if I say so myself. Just to round off the meal we had another wee seat in the garden before Scamp deemed it was time to water the plants. By then the sun was off the garden, so there wasn’t any point in sitting out any longer. Today’s PoD is a strawberry that’s growing happily in our hanging basket. A hanging basket that’s survived ice, snow, wind and now drought. Still the plant not only survives, but thrives and produces fruit. Brilliant.

While I’m typing this, I’m listening to Another Side Of Bob Dylan (1964). The songs, especially Chimes of Freedom and To Ramona take me instantly back 50 years to my bedroom in Scotia. The light tonight even enhances that, it’s the warm light you get just before sunset. It’s funny how music has that power.

Tomorrow night Scamp is going to a witches dinner. I’m volunteer driver, but looking forward to another chance to paint those sweet peas.

At sea – 29 June 2018

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Today in art class we were painting a pig. Let’s face it there are plenty to choose from on this ship. There are fat pigs, male chauvinist pigs, ugly pigs and just plain porkers, but this was a happy little pig leaning on a fence. I tried to follow Easa, the teacher’s, instructions, but found it difficult to start with painting the eyes first. It goes against all the watercolour rules of leaving details to the end and also of painting light to dark. However it worked better than I thought and his colour combinations and mixing instructions worked well. I liked my little pig. It should appear soon on Flickr, but not until the blog is complete and the PoDs are in place. I’ll let you know when.

Salsa class was more turns, which give my knee gyp, and more additions to the routine. The sad thing is that this is ballroom salsa. In Cuban salsa, and even in LA as far as I can see you never dance a routine. Yes, in class, in a learning environment you dance in a circle (rueda) and all do the same moves, but not when out dancing. Then it’s freestyle, so we’d never use the kicks and flicks. Still, it’s good fun and with such a camp and fun teacher you can’t help but think it’s “FAB!”

Dinner was booked for 7pm in Sindhu, the Indian restaurant on board, but that didn’t prevent us from having some Aloo Saag and Muttar Paneer for lunch. Lovely stuff.

Later, once we’d given it a chance to be digested, we went swimming in the inside/outside pool. Later when Scamp had gone to the cabin to get ready for tonight, I did a wee sketch of the pool area. Again, it may appear on a blog posts or Flickr later TBC.

Sindhu dinner which was also the last of the formal (AKA Dress The Dolly) nights was disappointing. There was nothing really wrong with it, it was just not as good as the last time when we’d been overwhelmed by the range and quality of the food.

Afterwards we went to the show in Arena. It was a life history of Burt Bacharach (!!) We rated it as ‘poor’. Certainly not one of Headliners best performances.

All at sea – 20 June 2018

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IMG_4962- blogThere’s not a lot you can write about sea days other than you are at sea for a whole day.

It started off with some sun and a bit of haze on the horizon, but soon that sun was disappearing and the clouds were rolling in.  One of the benefits of being on a P&O ship is the variety of things to do on a sea day.  Today after breakfast I took a trip to Metropolis on Deck 18 for the Art class while Scamp went to the line dancing class.  Today we were painting penguins.  A strange subject given our position just off the south of Spain.  As the last class, Easa had provided us with a wee photo of the subject.  A mummy and baby penguin.  After we sketched it, he took us through the process of painting it.  I believe that each subject concentrates on a particular skill.  Today’s was mixing a black.  It’s fairly simple if you know your colour wheel and is usually a blue and a brown.  That’s what he recommended and that’s what I used.  Unfortunately, there were too many diddies in the class who couldn’t find the blue and then couldn’t find the brown, so a lot of time was wasted.  As a result, the class over-ran and I had a salsa class to go to at 11am and had to give my apologies and make a run for it.

Salsa was a fun class.  Great fun.  The leader is as gay as a gay thing and is constantly encouraging everyone to “Get your hips moving.”  It’s pretty basic stuff for us, but at least we get a chance to dance afterwards when everyone gets a bit of ‘practise time’.  After lunch we sat and listened to frau Sturmbahnfuhrer screaming at the poor people whose only fault in life was a desire to learn Cha – Cha.  We couldn’t help but compare and contrast our teacher with this demon.  One making dancing fun, one making it a drudge and a competition.

Outside things were looking grim.  Grey cloud and a very slight wind that wasn’t going to shift them very much.  Never mind, there were things to do.  There were brides to ooh and ahh at and lots of rubbish oops, bargains to be bought.  Also, tonight was a Gala Captain’s Reception.  We’d no intention of going to meet the captain who is apparently on the short leet for the most boring speaker on P&O.  However, it was a chance to wear my kilt and cause a stir.  As it happened, one of the people at our table was from Aberdeen.  Maybe it was a long time ago, but at least he was Scottish and the accent was there.  Like a lot of folk, the more we spoke to him, the stronger the accent became.  Pleasant enough crowd.  One woman was from the afternoon art class.  She talked about going on P&O in the ‘60s when there was a severe demarcation between First class and Second class passengers accommodation.  It still exists.  There is an area cordoned off at the front of the ship for those who are willing to pay the subsidy.  They have better sunbeds, their own pool and sauna.  They don’t tell you that in their fancy brochure. 

Tonight’s show was the best we’ve seen by far.  Brilliantly staged with a ‘roadie’ entertaining the crowd at the start.  Then, near the end the lights went out and a message came over the system saying that there were technical difficulties and the program would proceed as soon as possible.  After the spoof at the start, everyone thought this was just another joke.  It wasn’t.  Some folk left, but we waited for the finale.  I think they sang every rock anthem that was written.  Silly wee story, but nobody noticed because the production was so slick apart from that one problem.

That was it for the day at sea.  Sat and finished my painting of the penguins and went to bed.

It Rained – 30 March 2018

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All day it rained.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and that may just have been the high point of the day.

After lunch we drove to Bishopbriggs to get some messages. While I was reversing into a parking space there was a bloke behind driving into the space behind. He got a bit voluble on the horn when he thought I was going to bump his shiny gunmetal sports car. I had it covered. I’ve got a reversing camera and was nicely placed in my box. He chose to reverse. When I looked, I realised why he was a bit nervous. It was only an Aston Martin he was driving. Lovely looking car, but absolutely no use to me. Too low. I could never get out of that. Probably that’s why it wasn’t on my shopping list when I bought the Juke!

By the time we got back to Cumbersheugh it was raining again. Got today’s PoD on the doorstep. Scamp’s wee violas have been a riot of colour all through the winter. They’ve been rained on, been almost blown away in the gales. They’ve had about 20cm or snow dumped on them, then frozen solid, but still they come up smiling. Lovely flowers.

This strange looking sludge isn’t the head on a pint of Guinness, it’s a shot of my active sourdough starter.  We spoke about it this morning, Hazy.  I haven’t got round to playing it some music yet.  Maybe Pink Floyd’s ‘A Saucer Full Of Secrets’ perhaps. or something from ‘Bitches Brew’ by Miles Davis?  Suggestions on a postcard please.  If this means nothing to you, read “Sourdough” by Robin Sloan and all will become clear!

Sorry folks, but that’s about it for the day. There’s not a lot else to say about the day, other than we’re going out tomorrow. Somewhere. Anywhere!

Go out walking in the rain – 6 August 2017

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It wasn’t the most inspiring day today. It had been, earlier on. Then we had hills from the back window, but later in the morning the hills had disappeared under a sheet of white, low lying cloud and the rain looked as if it was just about to appear. It did, and it stayed for the rest of the day.

We didn’t have any decent bread, so when I was getting the lunch sausages out of the freezer (fried lunch on a Sunday) I pulled out a 500(ish)g piece of frozen bread dough and set it to thaw out. After lunch the rain got a bit lighter, then the sun tried to come out, failed and the rain took its place again. It was about then I decided I was going out to take some photos, in the rain if necessary. So dressed in an old pair of jeans and my trusty rainy coat, I walked over to St Mo’s to feed the ducks and hopefully get some photos. The one above is my favourite. It was taken with the Nikon and a Sigma 105mm macro lens. A beautiful lens designed for taking close-ups. No zoom. It’s a Prime and with a maximum aperture of f2.8, depth of field is minimal. If none of that makes sense to you, then I’m sorry. Let’s just say this is one of my oldest and most favourite lenses.  Brilliant for beasties!

When I got back and got changed out of the sodden boots and jeans, I started to solve a puzzle that has appeared since I started using El Cap. The problem is Photos. It’s an app that is part of OSX and every time you plug in an SD card it pops up wanting to handle your photos for you. Well, actually I have my own software to do that, thank you very much, so bog off Photos. Except, it won’t, or should I say it didn’t until I fixed it today. You see, because it’s part of the operating system, it can’t be uninstalled. Actually it can, but apparently that causes more problems than it solves. I used Keyboard Maestro, a clever little piece of software that allows you to write ‘macros’ that can go behind the Mac OS and make things happen for you. What my macro does is wait until it senses that Photos has been triggered. When it has, it immediately shuts it down. It was with great satisfaction that I watched that colourful wee icon appear on the task bar, bounce a couple of times, then bog off! Isn’t technology wonderful when it works?

Went to Salsa at La Rambla. Had tapas first and it was very good indeed. Sat with Ronnie, Sharon and Peter and were entertained all through the meal. Dancing was good, but with Cameron in charge of the music, there were a few too many bachata tunes. Glad we agreed to drive instead of getting the train. About 25 minutes journey time instead of an hour and a half. Would certainly go back.

Tomorrow? More rain I think, so more walking in the rain perhaps. Today’s title is from Alex Harvey – Faith Healer.