Not a lot to say about the day. We just seemed to be running around in circles and not getting anything done. Some days are like that, I know and sometimes you just have to grin and bear it. Today was one of those days.
We should have been going to a Tea Dance, but never quite got round to it. Nobody’s fault, just a dull day.
Green theme today. Just green leaves.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
Isn’t it nice to see two cygnets out for a paddle with mum and dad.
Scamp was out in the morning, meeting one of the witches for lunch. I wasn’t invited, but that suited me today. Idropped her off at Tesco in the Town Centre and drove home.
I was attempting to find a file that I used to have that showed the steps to make a bow tie. It seems that the original is no longer available on Pinterest. Then just by luck, this evening, I found a cut down version of the steps to make the bow tie. I don’t know who had the original version of the steps, but I think I’ve got enough now to restart the bow tie creation.
Rather than start the building of the bow tie, I began the demolition of the old plastic greenhouse. We think it was about twelve years old before it collapsed in Saturday’s storm, although it could have been longer. Anyway, it was almost rusted right through and was fairly easy to take apart with the help of a Claw Hammer and a pair of Mole Grips. Two essential tools for demolition. I managed to separate the metal tubes from the plastic supports. Hopefully we’ll take them to the skips later this week.
I went for a walk once Scamp had returned and got today’s PoD of the swans and cygnets in St Mo’s pond.
We watched another two episodes of Bergerac tonight. That leaves only one episode for tomorrow or maybe Friday. I’m a bit lost as to who the ‘baddies’ are and who are not. Time will tell.
I think we may have a last Tea Dance of the year this week.
Went for a walk and came home sodden. Fantastic weather we’re having.
There wasn’t much to say about this morning and early afternoon. It was just constant rain with the addition of some wind to make it even less enticing. A watered down (no pun intended) version of the past two or three days. I think I must have been going a bit crazy feeling cooped up in the house, but for some reason I decided that as the sun was shining I’d go for a walk in St Mo’s.
It wasn’t the best idea I’d had this week, but I enjoyed the first half of the walk. I even took a few decent photos. It was when I was heading home that I noticed the heavy rain clouds. I’d worn my old Berghaus totally waterproof jacket and thought I would manage to get back home before I got soaked. I was only about a quarter of the way home when the rains cane. I pulled up my hood and stashed my camera away in my bag. The bag is supposed to pretty much waterproof, but just to be sure I fitted the waterproof cover over the camera bag and walked home.
By the time I got home the Berghaus jacket was doing the job it was bought for, but my corduroy trousers were soaked as were my boots. I removed the waterproof cover from the camera bag and took out my camera which was perfectly dry. The moral of the story is “Buy good quality kit and it will look after you”.
The PoD today was an Aspen leaf trapped in an old Cow Parsley stem.
I’m hoping to finish a bow tie tomorrow. That’s my target for the day.
We took advantage of a much calmer day, and we took stock of the damage done to the garden.
There wasn’t much damage done, really. Our old battered and bruised plastic greenhouse had blown down and most of the contents were strewn across the garden. We took one look at the carnage and decided it wasn’t fit to be reused. Too much damage to the metal tubes that held it up and too much rust on them meant it was no longer worth repairing. It has lasted a long time, so it will be going in the Council Tip at the first opportunity.
Most, if not all of the plants survived the wind and rain from the last few days, although my potatoes in their plastic pots were ravaged by the wind and rain. I don’t know if they will be worth digging up. We’ll see once everything returns to normal
We watched the American F1 GP and weren’t surprised with the winner. He was always going to win, it was only a matter of time before it happened.
Later we wiped off the load of leaves and branches that the Blue car had collected over the last few days and drove to Tesco. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shop as busy as it was today. People wheeling trolleys everywhere and long queues at all the checkouts. All because of two days of heavy rain and strong winds. We only had a few things in our trolley and we got through the smaller checkout quite quickly.
No wind today, but a continuous drizzle kept us in the house most of the dull day, although I did get a few photos in the back garden of Scamp’s Cosmos flowers. They looked great even when they were soaking wet. Such cheerful blooms. The Cosmos flowers got PoD.
The weather tonight is beginning to get noisy again. The weather fairies say it will be more rain than wind this time, but we’ll wait and see what happens. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as the past few days. –
Two days being terrorised by 70mph winds and torrential rain. Have they gone now or are they waiting to ambush us tomorrow?
Yesterday I was hardly past the door. Threatening messages from the Met Office every ten minutes on my phone with warnings of rain of biblical proportions. Yes, there was a lot of rain and there was a lot of noise from the wind too, but come on folks, get a grip!
Today, I thought I’d risk the waterlogged St Mo’s to get a couple of photos late in the afternoon, after a day of 70 mph gusts and torrential rain. Then, when I dug out my camera at an interesting subject, I discovered I didn’t have an SD card in the camera. I was considering heading home, then remembered I could get a decent image from my iPhone. That’s what I did. I took half a dozen photos in the park and then headed for home. From now on, I’m going to carry an SD card, even a small capacity one, in my pocket for an emergency like this from now on! When I got home I was quite pleasantly surprised by the quality my little iPhone produced and I didn’t even take my camera out of my pocket.
The greatest problem I had was the conversion of the photos from HEIC to JPG. After reading a few instructions online, I worked out how to do the conversion without too much trouble.
Although the main thrust of Storm Boelo is gone, that doesn’t mean we are in the clear. There will be more storms waiting in the wings, so we really DO need to heed the weather fairies, but whether the Met Office will be on my Christmas list, I’ll have to wait and see.
Spoke to Jamie in the evening and heard about him having to let some of the water from his water butts go, because he reckons he has enough for now. I can understand why!
We have no real plans for tomorrow, but will keep a weather eye on the clouds.
A wild day with a lot of enjoyable dancing for a change!
We were a bit late for dance class today, mainly because of the heavy rain, but thankfully we did just manage to get Brookfield just as the class was starting. Also, just by luck, I managed to avoid the ‘Rhumbumbumba’ a dance I hate!
The first ‘Real’ dance was the October Waltz that I’m getting used to. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to perfect it next week, all being well. As for today, well, it was a bit of a mixture. Most of it worked, but there are some awkward bits that need looking at. It’s a work in progress.
Next was the ‘X Line’ Tango. A dance we learned during Covid, watching it over Zoom. That was back in 2020 when the world was young and we were ready for anything to do with dance. In other words, what I’m saying is that I’d forgotten most of it, and it’s only recently I’ve gone back to it. It’s almost there in my memory, but not quite all in the right places. I’m assured that it will come back … soon.
The Feta Foxtrot was the next on the agenda. One of Scamp’s favourites and I must say one of mine too. A nice gentle foxtrot with nothing too difficult to remember, but a lot of clever tweaks that make it much more interesting.
We finished the class with the Midnight Jive. This one is definitely embedded in my little brain and I sometimes think I’ve danced it in autopilot. Whether that is the case or not I’m not willing to say, but it’s all to do with Muscle Memory, I’m sure of that.
We weren’t driving straight home. Instead we were booked for lunch at Coast, a restaurant that sits with wonderful views across the Clyde Estuary. Of course it was pelting rain today, sot those views were mere blurs on the horizon. Still we had a decent lunch there, even if the first piece of steak from my steak and sausage pie was all gristle and completely inedible. Scamp was much happier with her Sea Bream with Risotto. I think this is only the second I’ve had bad luck with meat from Coast. Next time I’ll remind myself to have something else instead, all being well.
Instead of driving home by the M8 as we would usually do, Scamp remembered there were long delays near Glasgow Airport, so we went via the Erskine Bridge instead. I don’t think we gained any time by going that way. It would probably be just as quick risking the M8. No matter, we arrived home safely and got parked.
Not long after we got home, we could feel the wind rising. Storm Austen was handing over to the much stronger Storm Boelo. It’s blowing a hoolie just now with gusts around 50mph. Hopefully tomorrow it should calm down.
Today’s PoD was the view from the front window with the rain sheeting down. Brrr!
No plans for tomorrow.
Thankfully we went to Tesco in the morning and missed most of the heavy rain.
Rain had been predicted for us, but after that early deluge, everything calmed down and we saw very little of named storm Austen. However we did have a continuous drizzle and that’s almost as annoying as rain.
I restarted cutting the fabric for the reversible bow tie. I thought I had it sorted, but now I’m thinking I might try a different version. I don’t want to waste any more fabric and end up with nothing. Maybe tomorrow I’ll do a dummy run with some cheap fabric and photograph each step so I can always come back to it after I’ve got it the way I want it. Assuming that I get it right this time around!
Hazy: I bought a packet of clips (Clover Wonder Clips) that seem to be easy to use for holding fabric layers while you stitch them. Much easier than using pins and less likely to draw blood!
I did manage to get just three photos taken today. The best of a bad lot went to a shot of some red flowers that were hanging from a pot that itself was hanging on the fence in the back garden. It was drizzling and I wasn’t hanging around. That was PoD covered.
Scamp was clearing out the fridge yesterday and found a plastic tub of home made tomato soup. That, and a Fish Finger Sandwich was dinner. The soup was excellent, but I would say that, because I made it! So was the FFS!
It looks like we’re going to have a windy couple of days tomorrow and Sunday with the next named storm, Boelo. High winds and heavy rain. Oh what fun.
Not just any old shoes, Scamp was looking for dance shoes. Sparkly dance shoes.
We drove over to Rutherglen to Scamp’s favourite dance shoe shop. She can usually manage to pick up a couple of pairs of dance shoes there but today she was out of luck. The lady who owns the shop knew what Scamp was looking for, but didn’t have the exact ones she was looking for. However, she did get a new pair and the rhinestone sparkles on them kind of made up for her initial disappointment.
After leaving Rutherglen we got a bit lost trying to find Glasgow Green. It must be years since we were last in ‘The Green’. Thankfully the Sat Nav found a way through the twists and turns that brought us neatly to our destination and we managed to find the last slot in the car park.
Beautiful light on the Park as we walked over to M&S where Scamp was hoping to get a Rab lookalike jacket. I was heading to Jessops to get my hands on a Sony A7c ii, one step up from the one I bought a year or so ago. Both of us met up again just outside M&S in Argyle Street and neither of us found what we came for. Scamp’s raincoat was a bit tight and my camera wasn’t much better than what I’ve been using. Money back in our pockets!
The light on Glasgow Green when we were walking back was better than what we saw going into town, but after I’d looked at the photos when we got home, I wasn’t really impressed with them. The PoD went to a distorted view of a new housing development halfway to The Green.
Chicken and peas for dinner. A long time favourite.
Tomorrow it looks like it’s going to rain all day. Let’s hope they got it wrong.
We went over to The Village today to see how Isabel was progressing. She’d had a fall last week and has been recuperating. Good to see she is almost back to her usual chatty self. Keep up the good work Isabel.
After Scamp and Isabel were finished talking plants and gardens, Scamp and I drove home for a spot of lunch. Afterwards, Scamp was tidying up some of the plants that were needing a good trim and I’d half intended to go for a walk. Then the rain arrived and I gave up on that idea. Scamp had only a few more plants to work on and then she too gave up gardening for the day. Instead, she started working her way through some old clothes that could go somewhere useful while I started making Lemonade Scones, sometimes called Australian Scones. I’d made the scones years ago and luckily I still had the recipe which was really simple:
Serve with butter or your favourite jam and whipped cream.
After testing the scones and agreeing that they were good, it was time for dinner. Today it was Pasta Carbonara. I thought it was a bit strong tasting, and Scamp thought it was a bit dry. We agreed to disagree and settled down to watch Bergerac on U which neither of us had heard of, but Scamp managed to get it working. A good start to series 2.
Since rain stopped play today, I was stuck with an inside shot for PoD. Then the Lemonade Scones saved the day and they became today’s PoD!
Scamp says she may have plans for tomorrow, but she’s not telling anyone what it is!
Today Scamp was going to visit Shona for coffee and I was starting to make a bow tie.
I dropped Scamp off at her niece’s house and drove home to start on the bow tie construction.
I had brought back some interesting fabric from our visit to Jersey and thought it would look good for the bow tie. Scamp reckoned she would be out at Shona’s for a couple of hours and I was sure I could get a good start to the bow tie construction. Half an hour later I was still looking for the paper bag that held the fabric. Then I remembered that it should be in one of my cupboards. Once I’d found it, it was fairly plain sailing to pin down the paper pattern and cut round it. I remembered to arrange the fabric Wrong Sides Together and it all looked fine.
The bow tie was to be a reversible one with different patterns on each side. A year or so ago I worked out how that could be achieved. It’s too complicated to explain, but basically there is a lot of twisting and turning involved, but once you’ve worked that out, the rest is easy. It should have been, but it wasn’t until Scamp phoned to say “could she have a lift home” that I noticed one of the patterns was round the wrong way. Thankfully I think I might have just enough fabric left to make a new one. Either that or it’s a flying visit to Jersey to get more of the fabric!
I’d had enough of twisting and turning patterns for the day and left everything as it was and picked up Scamp and we drove home.
Dinner tonight was Potato Wedges and Veggie Sausages for Scamp and also Potato Wedges but with a Wagyu burger for men. Both served with a tin of beans. Yes, I was cooking!
Today’s PoD went to a photo of a Schoolgirl flower, cut from the climber rose in the afternoon. It was too wet and dull to get any decent outside photos, but the indoors version worked perfectly.
I think we might be visiting Isabel tomorrow.