Category: Panorama

A Late Lunch – 28 June 2024

Posted on by Zogman

No, we didn’t sleep in. This late lunch was planned.

Crawford and Nancy asked us over to Larky for a late lunch, around 2pm. So after watching different weather patterns moving across the sky and still not being sure which one would run the day, we got ourselves decked out in our going-out clothes and drove to Larky.

It turned out a really nice day, as long as you were inside looking out. I reckon it wasn’t quite so warm on the other side of the glass walled conservatory. Lunch was Butternut Squash soup, followed by a Slice of Salmon fried and dressed with Philadelphia Cheese and Roasted Peppers with New Potatoes and Asparagus. Dessert was Bramble and Cream with a drop or two of alcohol to spice it up. Last, but not least was a sponge cake topped with Philadelphia and white chocolate. The whole lot washed down with a Americano coffee.

We sat and talked about where we’d been and what we’d done since our last meeting which wasn’t all that long ago, but we’d all covered a lot of ground since then. C&N had been using their Historic Scotland and National Trust cards to gain access to a host of places as well as a we-got-lost-and-found-this visit to the Japanese Garden near Dollar. We had been places too, using our Senior Rail Cards, we’d travelled to Stirling and its castle and Edinburgh and on to Leith. So, we had a lot of things to talk about.

When the ladies retired to the conservatory afterward, Crawford and I struggled to find out how to get photos on to an advertisement he was making using his new Chromebook. I’d never used one, but I was sure I could work it out, but I was wrong. It must be the most annoying piece of useless tech. Impossible to navigate without swearing. Eventually I had to admit defeat. Then he told me he had actually built the advert already on his iPhone and it was much easier that using a Chromebook. I could believe that. After about an hour, we were back where we started without having put anything onto paper. We gave up and joined the ladies.

Drove home and got parked after a bit of coming and going with four cars trying perform a ballet routine so that two could leave and two could park at the same time. Eventually it worked out and we even had a spare space!

PoD went to a photo I saw building as we were driving home. It’s a view looking over towards Lenzie from a single track country road near us. It’s actually two photos joined together to make a panorama.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing and on the way home, pay for and pick up a lens. Apparently it arrived in the shop in the late afternoon.

 

Bloodletting again – 23 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The vampires weren’t happy with my last cup of blood and asked if I had any different flavours, so I had to donate some more today.

First there was shopping to do. Just a gentle amble around Tesco, filling a trolley. Nothing exotic, mainly food and some soft drinks. We were very restrained for a change.

Back home I exchanged my trainers for my boots and went for a short walk. Not a very inspiring landscape today, with very few trees holding onto their leaves in the recent strong winds. A total change from yesterday with its rain, but bright colourful Christmas decorations. However, I did get three shots that, bolted together in Lightroom, became a decent panorama and that became PoD. When I walked back, Scamp already had the remains of Tuesday’s mince heating nicely on the cooker for my lunch. I just had time to eat that before changing back to trainers to go and visit the vampires.

The bloodletting was almost painless and I was back quite quickly. I do hope they enjoy this latest special Xmas edition blood, but I can’t afford to keep feeding these people.

After post processing today’s meagre collection of photos, I started making dinner which tonight was fairly easy. It was Cod and Cabbage Risotto. All the hard work was taken out by baking the risotto in the oven, not standing for twenty minutes, stirring the thickening rice mix on the hob. If the easy way works, use it. That’s my maxim.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending going to FitSteps and I think I will be making tomato soup with tomatoes and peppers I roasted in the oven today. Again, do it the easy way. There will, of course, be hoovering and cleaning too and there’s no easy way to do that!

Fifty years – 17 February 2023

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Fifty years ago we got married in a wee church in Shettleston in the east end of Glasgow. After the service we went back to Scamp’s mum and dad’s with a few friends and relatives for a Co-op purvey.

I hope you’re sitting comfortably because this is a long blog post!

Today we were blessed with sunshine. After we opened the cards we’d brought with us and had breakfast, we went for a walk. We walked down the slope to the coastal path and turned right. This would take us away from the commercial areas and out to pastures new, an area we hadn’t walked to before.

Scamp was feeling the after effects of yesterday’s longer than required stroll in the other direction and her knee was beginning to give her gyp, so we took it easy on today’s walk. Thankfully I was better dressed today with my baseball cap to protect my head and I’d remembered to put sun cream on before we left the hotel.

We walked for a fair distance out past the viewpoint for the blowhole where, if the tide is right, the incoming waves fill a hole in the rocks and blow up out of a fissure above. Quite impressive if you’re there at the right time. The tide wasn’t far enough in today, unfortunately. Further on we crossed a dried up river bed that’s now home to a host of balancing stone monuments, thousands of them. Then we found a viewpoint near the beach where the paraglider come in to land. That’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s a five frame panorama built in Lightroom to give a really wide view of the mountains and the hotels around here.

We decided to walk back and found a cafe that had some shade and a young bloke took about half an hour to make us a jug of sangria. He was working alone and was having a hard time keeping everybody refilled. The sangria was really good. Freshly made and full of fruit.

Then we met The Man from Salzburg. Scamp wanted to have lunch at a wee restaurant we’d eaten at the last time we were here, and was partly the reason for our walk today. There was queue and we waited patiently (impatiently for me) for a table to become free. Eventually one of the waiters pointed to a table and told us to go there. But there weren’t any empty tables where he pointed. Then the bloke who was smiling at us from a table waved us over. It seems that he was happy to have someone else to talk to while he finished his Barraquito (like a Cortado, but with added condensed milk and Liquor 43). He seemed a happy bloke and when we told him we were from Scotland he explained that he’d travelled all over Scotland on holiday. The only thing he didn’t seem to like was haggis after someone had told him what was in it! He said that he was from Saltzburg in Austria and was on holiday in Tenerife for four weeks. He scoffed at our one week and said “That’s not enough!” After a while he said he had to go and left us to our lunch which was a Chicken Milanese for Scamp and Thai Chicken Curry for me. Service was slow at this restaurant too, but we weren’t in a hurry. When we left we passed the table over to another man, German this time. It’s a strange way to run a cafe.

We were walking back towards the hotel when we noticed the paraglider were all coming off the mountain and we turned round and found a place to watch them land. Some of the landings were a bit clumsy and some were downright scary. Then there were the tandems where the poor person in front had to bicycle his or her legs to keep from falling when they landed on the rough sand of the beach. £100 for a flight!

Back at the hotel, it was ’School Dinners Food’. Not one of their best days. But we did have our photos taken by the one of the hotel resident photographers who would have taken more photos today if we’d let her, than we had taken at our wedding, fifty years ago! We chose a small selection from the ones she took.

We listened to the worst singer ever in the Piano Bar. He was playing guitar and ‘singing’. However, it was when he attempted to ‘sing’ What A Wonderful World while mimicking Louis Armstrong. That was creepily awful and, that’s when we left. I think he went to the Billy Connolly school of music where he lampooned country and western singers. The difference was this bloke was serious. We played Rummikub in a different area of the piano bar.

We’re sitting on the balcony of the room now drinking G&Ts and reviewing the day.

My Fitbit says 17,900 steps, 8.05 miles, 153 floors.

 

A late start and a lovely day – 25 January 2023

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I must have been tired, because it was well past 9am when I woke today.

Scamp was already awake and reading her Kindle. She too must have had a good night’s sleep. It’s good to see her beginning to improve.

I though we might go for a walk today because it was a bright winter’s day. Scamp said we needed some shopping, so I suggested we drive to Lidl in Kilsyth to get the shopping then go for a walk along the canal. Just a short walk along the canal cross over the Plantation and back along the old mineral line. That would cover both options. So that’s what we did, kind of!

We drove to Lidl and got the messages as usual and also as usual we bought more than was absolutely necessary. We even found they had Neapolitan ice cream wafers! Sharp eyed Scamp spotted them in a freezer. When we came out Scamp asked if we could go to Colzium instead of the canal. The suited me too, so we drove in to the parking area that has more craters than the moon (I’ve never been to the moon, but I’ve seen pictures and Colzium wins on crater count). Parking was easy, it was just the driving that was dangerous!

We walked a slightly shortened version of our usual exhausting climb along the banks of the Colzium Burn and Scamp managed it easily. I got lots of photos, from little pockets of snowdrops to rushing waterfalls the burn was tumbling through. PoD was a 15 frame panorama that was eventually cropped down to a 12 frame. I felt the sky was a bit bland, although it was a beautiful blue, so I slipped in another one, one of my own from a few months ago. It seemed to suit the picture. It’s a view across the farmland of the Colzium Estate.

Back home it was Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, because it was Burns Night tonight and Haggis, mashed Turnip (Neeps) and mashed Potatoes (Tatties) is traditional. It was absolutely lovely and as Scamp herself remarked perfectly portioned. Not too much of any of the constituent parts.

I forgot to mention that my new driving license dropped through the letterbox this morning. Once you reach 70 you have to update your driving license every three years. My update is now almost complete. I still have to post off my previous license which I have cut in half as required by the DVLA. Scamp got her first one a week ago.

Tomorrow we may be driving to the Fort to visit M&S and Waterstones. I’ll let you guess who goes where!

 

What a delightful day – 5 January 2023

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Yes, that was sarcasm!

Dry early in the morning, but after that the rain came and forgot to leave. Also the rain slid in quite quietly, but got stronger and heavier as the day progressed.

I suggested that we go to The Bothy near Stirling for lunch and Scamp readily agreed. It’s a nice wee cafe/restaurant at the foot of the Ochil Hills. We’d been there before and I had great memories of the Sri Lankan Lamb Curry. Maybe I’d have something different this time.

The place was busy when we arrived and they were handing out buzzers which isn’t really a good sign. We were told a wait time of about fifteen minutes. Half an hour later our buzzer buzzed and we were shown to our table for two. A quick glance at the menu while Scamp was looking for her glasses confirmed my choice. There it was on the menu Sri Lankan Lamb Curry. My day was going to be fine and hang the bad weather. Scamp chose Mac ’n’ Cheese, her second favourite on the menu. We weren’t disappointed.

After our I grabbed a few photos of the Ochils with the rain clouds misting them and a massive flock of geese in the field at the bottom. A panorama made in Lightroom from three of the frames got PoD. I had another try at photo of the Wallace Monument without the irritating electricity lines catching the eye, but it didn’t work, so I went with the geese on the grass at the foot of the hills. Then it was time to drive through Stirling because Scamp wanted to visit Dobbies. However, the shop was doing its Twelfth Night changeover from Christmas to Valentine’s Day, so it was, in a word, shambolic. We drove home.

For a three cylinder car the Micra fought its way through torrential rain and standing water to get us home safely and in good time. We stopped off at Tesco for a bunch of flowers for Scamp (it was Thursday, remember) and to see if the rum tanker had made it through. Flowers were bought, but no sign of the rum yet.

We watched the first episode of The Apprentice tonight, but it was more of an advert for Antigua than the usual contest, but the usual n-hopers were there and one of them got fired.

It’s a windy night tonight, but it might be a dry afternoon tomorrow.

Dancin’ Class – 4 December 2021

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“Hooray!” Said Scamp.

This morning we drove through sleet and rain all the way over to Brookfield for the Saturday morning dance class. We got a rousing reception from Stewart and Jane. Maybe that was partly because there were only a few of us dancers there, five couples in total, not counting the teachers. We started with a couple of sequence dance tracks to get us warmed up, then it was into the Christmas Pudding Rock. I was glad of yesterday’s teaching session from Scamp and even with that it took me a few dances to get into the swing of it.

Next was the Rumba. What we’d started calling the Lockdown Rumba, but this was a more polished version of that dance and it had also been lengthened too with some tricky steps, mainly aimed at the ladies, thankfully. We made not a bad fist of it all in all, but with lots of phone videos to fall back on, I’m sure an hour of so’s practise at home will help us put it all together for next week. We finished off with another sequence dance and we were done for today. It’s not often I say this about dance class, but I did enjoy today.

Drove home through traffic that was just a little worse than our usual return journey. Weather was poor again, but I think the Christmas ‘run to the shops at the weekend’ has begun in earnest now. However with a bit of judicious lane changing we managed to get back in about an hour.

After lunch, the light was disappearing fast, if it had appeared at all. I gave up any hope of getting an outside photo today, then Scamp commented that there was a lovely break in the clouds, over to the west. I knew I didn’t have time to kit up and go looking for that light, so I had a look out the back bedroom window and that’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s a four frame panorama of the Campsie Fells bathed in the light from the ‘golden hour’. It only lasted about fifteen minutes and it was gone, but the photos recorded it.

Dinner was Sweet Potato, Chilli Flakes and Lime soup. It was a bit thin, but tasted fine, if a little spicy. More in the pot for tomorrow. Scamp had made Sultana Cake yesterday and pudding was that cake with custard. Just a Saturday night dinner.

Watched an interesting Dubai GP. Lots of thrills and spills. Driving like it should be without too much politics.

I think the iMac has just finished backing up to an external SSD drive. I’ll be interested to see how fast it boots from that.

We have no plans for tomorrow but I hope it’s a bit warmer than today when the temperature rose to a magnificent 5ºc.

Another beautiful autumn day – 3 November 2021

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Beautiful, but cold.

About 11am I finally relented and we went out for a run to Torwood garden centre. Scamp wanted a bag of compost, a pot to transplant the sempervivum collection and some autumn grass feed. I was just going along as driver. On the way back I suggested we go for a walk round Colzium. It’s a big house in a fairly large estate on the outskirts of Kilsyth. It’s famed for its Acer displays, especially at this time of year. We parked in the ‘car park’ which is a flat area of compacted earth, served by a dirt track road with pot holes that are more like bomb craters. Really, they are a danger to springs and shock absorbers. I really wish we had a council, one that works. NLC is BER.

Anyway, we went for a walk. I think every photo I took today had a tree or a leaf in it. The sun was shining and the trees were glowing in every autumn colour you could think of. Glory Be, even the walled garden was open! That indeed is a strange occurrence. OK, the cafe was shut, but it is November and a weekday. I don’t suppose there is much passing trade in Colzium. PoD was a low viewpoint photo of some acer leaves, just glowing in the sun. An against the light shot that made them sparkle. I just beat a panorama of the curling pond for first place. Go to Flickr and you’ll see the state of the curling pond, reputed to be the first curling pond in the world, now a silted up wasteland. NLC again.

On the way home we dropped in at Lidl to get some things and the makings for tonight’s dinner which was going to be quiche. Oh yes, and also a bottle of gin! I like Lidl gin, but keep it for weekends.

Back home and after lunch Scamp did think about going out and feeding the lawn, but it was cold and the temperature had reach its peak of about 9º around midday and was now starting to drop away. I don’t blame her for leaving it for another day. I was no better, I was happy to sit in the warm and finish a tough Sudoku. What exciting lives we lead sometimes.

The first attempt at the quiche was a disaster as the eggy mix started to leak through the bottom of the dish. Shouldn’t have used a dish with a removable bottom. Gave up took out the smoked trout and broccoli and binned the rest. Started again with a solid dish and that one worked well.

Watching a recording of Bake Off tonight I wondered why these people put themselves through it. All that faffing about just to get your face on the telly. The ignominy of getting it all wrong is fine when you’re at home, but in front of the viewing millions? I think not.

That was about it for the day, except on FB I read that the Aurora was visible in Glasgow tonight, possible something to do with COP26. Unfortunately now it’s gone quiet again. I’ve got the app now, though, so I’ll be checking for it.

Tomorrow were off to East Kilbride to see a man who will hopefully help Scamp to see better.

 

Out to lunch – 2 August 2021

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Away into the country.

Drove out to The Smiddy near Blair Drummond and accepted the last table they had. Not really a table, more like a shelf with two high seats to sit on. We were lucky to get it because not long afterwards people were told there was a 20min wait for a table. Also, others seemed to waltz in, have a few words with the manager and jump the queue, no questions asked. I don’t think that’s a good way to run a restaurant. At least not if you want the jilted customers to come back.

Despite the poor managerial skills, the food was good. Scamp had her usual Mac ’n’ Cheese, but a much improved cheese sauce she said. I had the fishcakes and although they were a bit small, they tasted great with big chunks of fish and floury potato. Also, they were surprisingly filling, although that could have been down to the chips I snaffled from Scamp’s plate.
All in all, a good lunch if you can get a seat.

Instead of driving straight home we took a detour further out into the country on a road we’ve been on before we think, but couldn’t recall any of the scenery on it. Driving on ‘B’ roads in the lakes may have inspired my choice of narrow roads today, but the sun was out and we were away from the towns for a while. Our detour eventually took us through Thornhill and back to The Smiddy. We didn’t go in though. We’d been lucky once today, we didn’t want to have to wait 20mins for a table and then find some friends of the owner got seated before us. We drove home instead.

I’d taken some photos before we left the restaurant and today’s PoD is the result of eight of those frames being seamlessly joined into a panorama of the Carse of Forth. The ‘Carse’ being the name given to the low lying fertile land either side of the River Forth.

Watered the garden tonight and included our next door neighbours flowers in the deluge because he’d watered ours last night. Scamp watered the back garden. We may have another good, dry day tomorrow, but after the middle of the week, things will go downhill. With that in mind, we may go out somewhere tomorrow before the rains come.

Shopping at The Fort – 23 June 2021

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Today Scamp wanted to visit The Fort in Glasgow. I went along to have a browse in Waterstones.

I also wanted to have a look for a new pair of trainers. My old, much maligned Merrills are beginning to fall apart. That seems a common occurrence for me and Merrills. The boots are heading the same way, in fact they are leading the race to the tip. I didn’t see anything that inspired me to pull out my wallet and commit some of my hard earned cash to JD Sport or any other footwear purveyors. Not a total surprise to Scamp or I.

I did have a browse around Waterstones and noted a few book titles that I might add to my reading list. However, I’ll probably wait a month or so until the prices come down to something more like reality. The price of books these days!!

Met us with Scamp again and went food shopping in M&S. The till was run by someone who looked disdainfully at all these shoppers waiting for her to scan their miserable food items. Eventually, when the time came to pay she attempted a smile, but I think she needs more time in front of the mirror, practising it.

When I was wandering around this fortress earlier I noticed that almost an entire row of premises were closed and boarded up. Or, as the sign said, just ready to become “New stores you’re sure to adore”. It’s the effect of the pandemic on shops. Topshop, TopMan, Dorothy Perkins, Wallis, Evans and Burton all closed for good. Only one left in this block.
Who’s NEXT?
This retail disaster became my PoD. After a bit of manipulation in Photoshop, the three frame panorama looked pretty much how I’d seen it.

Back home and after lunch I started to cut down a rogue tree that has appeared between us and our next door neighbour. I asked her last week if she was really attached to it and she said no, so today I took the loppers and with help from Scamp we got about half of it cut down, chopped up and dumped in the Garden Waste bin. Thankfully it should get uplifted tomorrow, because it’s nearly full now. Scamp went off to visit her sister and while she was away I potted up a sickly looking chilli plant and half a dozen aquilegia seedlings. I had just finished and left her a note to say I was off to St Mo’s when the lady herself returned. There was nothing of note in St Mo’s. I’d seen a Fire Bug yesterday and was hoping to be able to grab a shot of it, but it was nowhere to be seen. Maybe tomorrow.

For dinner tonight Scamp made Pulled Chicken and Chipotle Black Beans. The last time she made it, there was very little chilli heat. There was tonight! Hope the remainder doesn’t get hotter for lunch tomorrow.

A quick dance practise tonight and I think we may have ironed out one of the sticky bits in the Slow Foxtrot. It’s all to do with a little twist before the second Whisk. That probably means nothing to you, although JIC may know what I’m talking about. It’s really just a little reminder to us that might explain how we’ve solved the problem.

No real plans for tomorrow. We had some rain tonight and we’re expecting more tomorrow. The gardens need it.

Exploring – 16 June 2021

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Today we were off exploring the East Neuk of Fife.

We drove south from St Andrews on the coast road, like real tourists. We were just passing through Kingsbarns which is really a posh hotel and a golf course with some houses attached, when I noticed a sign for Cambo House. We’d been there many years ago to see the snowdrops that it’s famous for, great swathes of them as I remember it. No snowdrops today, but at least there was a decent amount of parking.

We walked from the carpark to what I thought must be the House and paid our entrance fee that was really the entrance to the walled garden. If I’d been more observant, I might have decided not to shell out a few quid just to see a walled garden. There’s one in Colzium that’s really well laid out and free. But, Scamp likes gardens of all descriptions and also we’d paid our money so we went to see the gardens.

What a garden this was, not the manicured garden like Colzium. No neat borders with carefully labeled plants. This was a real garden with plants of all descriptions everywhere. Herbs, roses, herbaceous, veg patches, fruit trees, in fact everything that we’ve got in our garden, including a knowledgeable gardener which we also have in Scamp! We wandered round and I took loads of photos. Glad I’d brought the macro lens today. We found a strange plant with pink fluffy flowers and aquilegia-like leaves. We asked the gardener what it was and I showed her a photo of it, but she dismissed it as “not a very good photo”! Cheek! However, she laughed, so I didn’t take too much offence. She knew what the plant was, but couldn’t quite remember the name of it. She was a volunteer gardener and said the head gardener would know. We stood talking to her for a while comparing this garden with its dry, light soil with our builders rubble that’s covered by a thin layer of topsoil that turns into a swamp every time it rains. After that we left to see what else we could find.

We walked out of the garden and down the path to the beach. That’s when we saw Cambo House. It’s an impressive Big House set in acres of lawns. Private, of course, but if you’ve got a house like that, you want to keep it good and not let the proles in. It was Scamp who saw the robot lawnmower trundling around the garden in what seemed like random directions. We stood watching it for a while before we continued our walk down beside a wee burn on a path that reminded me for the second time of Colzium with the winding path beside the Colzium Burn. I saw a beautiful spread of bright red poppies as we neared the beach and managed to make a panorama of it back at the caravan. The poppies reminded me of summer holidays in East Lothian where they seemed to grow in all the barley fields around Ormiston.

The beach itself was a bit like any other with a path between it and the Kingsbarns golf course. There seems to be a never-ending succession of golf courses along this part of the Fife coast. After a walk along the beach, we turned and walked back on the path, then found an easier path back past the Big House to what must have been farm buildings that housed the shop and the cafe. We had intended having a coffee and a bite to eat, but there were no free tables, all the ones that were there were socially distanced around the courtyard. We decided we’d continue our exploration and see if Crail or Anstruther had anything better to offer. At least we’d be able to get something to eat there.

Crail was a disaster for parking. We did find a place down by the harbour, but all the narrow streets were clogged with cars parked on both sides of the road so we headed off to Anstruther. It turned out to be even more disappointing. No places in the carparks and a similar congestion. Why don’t we go back to Cambo and see if there are any tables free now. We did and there were. We had a slice of excellent Tortilla each and a cup of coffee to go with it, plus a Portuguese custard tart to share. Even better, we wandered round the shop and found the pink fluffy plant we’d seen, so we bought it. It’s a Thalictrum Aquilegiifolium. Feeling much happier than the last time we exited Cambo a couple of hours before, we drove back to the caravan.

Tonight we thought we’d walk in to town and have dinner in Little Italy which came recommended. Yesterday we had thought to have lunch there. The sign said open 12.30 until Late and it was about 4pm, so it should be fine. Unfortunately when we asked for a table we were told they were closed. There were people still sitting at tables, but they were closed. Maybe 4pm is late in St Andrews. Today we were refused entry again. This time, allegedly, the restaurant was fully booked. Have you ever had the feeling that your face doesn’t fit? Instead we found ourselves standing outside a pizza restaurant when a Canadian drawl behind us said “You won’t be disappointed”. As I turned round I honestly thought it was Shannon from salsa. It wasn’t, but she was right, we weren’t disappointed. The restaurant looked very like Paesano. The menu was in a similar style and even the pizzas were familiar looking. I’m glad we didn’t get in to LI. This was much better all round. It was called Mozza. If your ever in St Andrews, try it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Walked back to the caravan via the harbour. Walked along the harbour wall and watched some teenagers jumping into the water. Posh english teenagers probably from one of the private schools.

Sat and watched the sun go down with a couple of G&Ts out on the decking of the caravan.