Category: photography

A day in the Toon – 6 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

After a lazy start, Scamp wanted to get a present for John & Marion’s daughter’s new baby.

We drove in to Glasgow, first time I’ve done that for months and parked in Buchanan Galleries carpark. I expected it to be busier than it was on a bank holiday Monday with the kids off school.

We wandered round JL first and there were lots of “Ooh!s” and “Ah’s” from both of us, but ultimately there was nothing we could really settle on. Lots of pretty girly baby things, but as Scamp, pragmatic as ever, said; “It doesn’t matter how much you pay for it, they’ll be sick on an expensive dress just as quickly as on a cheaper one.” That’s true, I thought.

Next stop was Next and that’s where we did get something pretty, something practical and something clever. I bought the clever one, of course. Just a pair of tiny socks with a frill down the ankle. With the purchases made and Scamp happy with them, we just went for a wander down Bucky Street. Scamp was buying fancy chocolates for the baby’s mum and dad and for her grandparents too when I sloped off to see what I could photograph in Princes Square. Buchanan Galleries have a strict No Photography policy and rule with a rod of iron. Princes Square are much more relaxed about it. If you start becoming a pest with the customers, I’m sure they’d have something to say about it, but generally they don’t bother you if you don’t bother them. That’s where I got today’s PoD. Just a bloke on his phone with an interesting logo behind.

Next stop for me was Cass Art where I wanted to buy a set of Winsor & Newton watercolour tube paint. It’s expensive, but I’m certain its better than Cass Art’s own brand. I also got a collapsible water pot nice and cheap. Lunch was calling by then and we went to Nero which was just across the road for a coffee and a croissant.

Jamie had recommended a fairly new Kevin Bridges book The Black Dog, so, since we were in town and a Waterstones was just along the road, I nipped in and bought it. On our way back to the car, Scamp wanted something in Rituals and I wandered over the road to the Apple shop, but all the iPads were in lock down mode. You used to be able to play with them, but not today. Then I was dragged away and we headed for the car and after a trip to Tiso to look at waterproof jackets because I discovered a new rip in mine. I think I can patch it, but there will soon be more patches that jacket on my old blue SprayWay.

Today’s prompt was for A Quirky Animal.
My Quirky Animal is the much maligned Haggis. The only three legged animal in the world, it has two long legs on one side of its body and one short leg on the other side. This allows the creature to run round mountains in an anti-clockwise direction.
They are very fast runners and difficult to catch. The best way to capture one is by using two beaters, one to chase it anti-clockwise round the mountain.
Once the chase has begun, the second beater should run round in the opposite direction and confront the animal. This will cause it to panic and try to run in the opposite direction, but because its short leg is now on the downhill side of the mountain, it will tumble and fall into the beater’s net.
Haggis are now designated a protected species and can only be hunted on the 30th and 31st of February.

Hoping to go to John & Marion’s for lunch tomorrow and of course, Scamp will be hoping the new baby will make an appearance.

Dancin’ – 2 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Another fun-filled day at Glenburn.

Actually it was quite a good day. Beautiful weather. If it hadn’t been for the cold wind, you would have believed it was summer.

In the morning I was still puzzling over that cryptic message on the iMac. I then did what I should have done in the first place and copied the first line of the message and pasted it in Google. There were a mass of complaints about exactly the same message as I had. It seemed that the problem is most prevalent on Mojave and later operating systems, including mine, Monterey. Most of the replies gave the usual ‘helpful suggestions’ like “Just do a restart, that will fix it” or “Use Disk Utility”. Neither of these work, but then I found a suggestion to dig into the Library module and search for “/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports“ then find and delete “Sleep Wake Failure” in the Diagnostic Reports. That sounded like a solution, but we were going dancing and Scamp was getting ready to leave, so I put the idea on the back burner until we got back.

At Glenburn we were sitting at the same table as Barry and Cath, who are a laugh. We think Barry was a polis before he retired and he now does executive tours of Scotland, mainly for Americans coming off cruise ships, or flying up from London to ‘do Scotland’. He tells some wonderful stories and I think most of them are true.

We danced a bit of everything today and excelled at none. Not really surprising, considering that we’ve had about four weeks without teachers in the last two months. We did eventually manage to almost complete the Waltz Nioli, but it was a struggle. We quickstepped round the hall without bumping in to anyone, but again, it wasn’t great to watch. Our greatest success was the Tango we were learning in Kirsty’s class. We actually finished the routine and it was so good to dance on a real floor with room to move, instead of on a postage stamp.
There might be a dance class on Saturday, but we think the teachers are off again for another fortnight in the sun after that, “Working”, they call it!

On the way home, Scamp wanted to pick up her dance shoes that the woman in Fitness Fashions was repairing for her. We were late getting away from Glenburn, but we did manage to get to Rutherglen before the shop closed and picked up the shoes. Another tick in another box.

I went out for a quick walk when we got home, but before that I searched out that Sleep Wake Failure script and dumped it in the bin, then emptied the bin. It worked! Twice now I’ve started the iMac and there was no warning message. Success!
I brought back about a dozen photos from the walk and the PoD turned out to be a bunch of Cowslip flowers that had been thrown into the pond at St Mo’s. I’m guessing it was some children who did it. I thought it made an interesting photo.

Dinner tonight was Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti. You just can’t go wrong with that!

The first two sketches are done and posted for EDiM. First one, Lighthouse is a bit ropey, but the second, Chicken, is quite acceptable. More practise needed.

 

Tomorrow, Scamp is hoping to go to FitSteps in the morning and I’m intending going back to Larky to get my second eye pressure test.

 

Gardening – 28 April 2024

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Today I was determined to get my next batch of potatoes planted.

Before I could really get started with planting them, I had to tackle the grass in the back garden. Scamp had been saying for weeks that she needed to start cutting the grass and since I had nothing to do and the sun was shining, I took it upon myself to cut the grass. It didn’t take too long, because there majority of the grass was fairly short, but in the middle of the garden there were great tufts of the stuff, so that was where I started. Chop down the big stuff and the rest will fall. That theory seemed to work. Next was the time consuming edges.

My method here was to lift all the pots from an edge and use the mower, rather than the strimmer to cut all the straggly bits in one fell swoop. I did two sides in that way, but the other two would need to be strimmed. That worked fairly well too, except I accidentally pressed the starter and instead of strimming, I found myself digging a short trench in the grass. Now all that was needed was the cleaning of the mower and the strimmer. As usual, that took even more time than the actual cutting. A squirt of WD40 to keep everything clean and they could all go back into their boxes for a week or two.

I’d tested my new potato bucket yesterday and although there were no green leaves poking out of the soil, the bucket allows you to see what’s going on underneath and there were a healthy number of white roots appearing.

Using the soil that is left in the old raised bed, I managed to half fill two potato bags and plant three seed potatoes in each one. With the tops rolled down to hopefully keep them open, they are now sitting under the old Rowan tree ready to produce lots of Charlotte potatoes for us.

I had just enough time to get some photos of flowers in the garden before I started making dinner which was Carrot & Lentil Curry. Not long after I’d taken the photos and had the curry bubbling away, I got a text from Scamp to say that they had missed the connection for Glasgow at Perth. The Witches weekend away was turning into a disaster. Broken down bus yesterday and a missed connection today. They eventually got a connecting bus after a half hour wait. And while they were doing that I was at home processing the photos.

Best shot and PoD was a group of Honesty plants that just seem to continuously self-seed. Our Magnolia Stellata came a close second.

Scamp eventually arrive about an hour late and I picked her up then we had dinner together comparing our experiences of the days ‘off the leash’.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet Val and Fred for coffee.

Off the leash again! – 27 April 2024

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Scamp was off to Aviemore with the rest of the Witches this morning which left me with a lot of time on my hands.

After breakfast I read for a while before settling on The Crow Road as my target for today. Crow Road is a road in Glasgow. The Crow Road (all capitals) is a novel by Iain Banks about the twists and turns in a Scottish family. But what I’ve always known as The Crow Road is an equally twisty road that climbs from Lennoxtown to Fintry which sits in the ‘waist’ of Scotland, between the River Clyde and the River Forth. It’s a challenging road in a car and it must be terrifying on a bike. Motorcyclists love it for its twist and turns and changes of elevation. I’ve driven it in Reliant Robin three wheeler, but never on a bike or a motorbike, nor would I like to. Today I was driving sedately up to the Campsie Car Park to park and watch the nutters on their bikes, both motor and road variety.

That was one reason to go, but the other and equally interesting was to walk down the path to the foot of the waterfall, the Campsie Falls. Treacherous path down to the rocks and boulders, but not impossible if you take care. I’m too old and fragile now to risk a twisted or broken ankle just to get a photo of the waterfalls. Daft, but not stupid … most of the time. While I was there grabbing photos of the falls, folk were tramping around behind me, just folk out for a walk in the fresh air. I did notice one girl perched on a big boulder, reading, when I made my descent to the pool. The next time I saw her she was swimming in the pool. I was careful not to take any shots of her, just in case, but that water must have been cold. Brave girl.

After I’d been there for half an hour or more, I had all the photos I was going to get, besides folk were bringing their dogs down and the dogs were getting in my way, so I called it a day and started the climb back up to the car park. I’ve heard it said that the way down is easier than the way up, and I’ve experienced that myself, but for some reason, the way back up was easier than the path down. Easier, but not easy. I was out of breath by the time I got on to the zig zag path that some sensible person had made. It took longer but it was easier on the legs and the lungs.

A bottle of water revived me and I was on my way back down the hill and onto the main road fairly quickly.

PoD was a view from the car park looking west towards Loch Lomond. The nickname for the parking place is The Car Park in the Sky! That’s a good name for it.

Back home Scamp phoned to tell me of her adventures with a “Murderer” on the bus who was taken away by the polis. He was over 80, Scamp guessed, and slightly inebriated. He was led off still shouting that he was a “Murderer”. Then the bus broke down and they had to wait half an hour for the next bus to pick them up. Still, they appeared to be in good spirits and heading for dinner which may have been posher than mine, but I enjoyed mine.

Tomorrow, I may do some gentle gardening and maybe a jaunt into town.

A lazy end to the week – 26 April 2024

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Scamp was going to FitSteps and I was left to write a blog and get organised.

I have been keeping a log of my blood pressure, once a week for the last month and a bit, so I got that sorted out first and recorded it in a spreadsheet. I also needed to write yesterday’s blog and by the time Scamp had returned, I had finished and posted it. Then I drove up to the Health Centre to book an appointment with the nurse who asked me to keep the log of my BP. After that I was free of most of my commitments.

We went over to Brodens for lunch. Unfortunately they had a group in from a funeral, so we were put in the upstairs lounge and the poor bloke who works there had to keep going up and down the stairs all the time we were in. By the way he spoke, it sounds like we weren’t the only folk who had been in the upstairs lounge. Poor guy. Food was just as good as usual and so was the pint of Guinness!

Later in the afternoon, Scamp started her packing for her two day visit to Aviemore. I packed my camera bag and went for a walk in St Mo’s in the sun. It was a lovely day and I really enjoyed the walk. So much so, that I quite lost track of time and was shocked when I was walking home just after 6pm.

Watched another silly episode of Glow Up and wondered at the amount of time these youngsters take to put on their, often theatrical, makeup.

PoD was a low viewpoint shot of a fallen blossom flower on the path to St Mo’s. I really liked the isolation of the flower from the trees behind.

I think Scamp is sorted now and has everything packed. I’m intending dropping her off at the Town Centre just before 9am, then I’m coming back to have breakfast before I decide what to do with the rest of the day and where I’m going. I’ve a couple of options so, as usual, it will depend on the weather.

 

Making Connections – 22 April 2024

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We were up early, packing our bags ready to catch the X3 that would take us up to the town centre.

It arrived on time and dropped us at the bus stance in Cumbersheugh. That’s where we caught the the Ember E3 bus, the electric bus. The driver scanned the QR code on Scamp’s phone and then we both scanned our ‘pensioner pass’ and we were on the bus. It wasn’t exactly silent running, but you can blame NLC or any council these days for not doing the proper maintenance on the roads. The system is really clever. The driver reads the display in front of him which tells him where his next pickup point is and when he has to get there. This wasn’t the X3, this was a real express, only stopping where there was a person waiting. It took us less than half the time it would take a normal service bus and were dropped off at the train station in Dundee in no time.

We were way too early to book in, so we went for a coffee and a bite to eat in Nero, then found Braithwaite’s Coffee shop which was closed, as were many of the shops in Dundee on a Monday. We wandered around the shops that were open and were surprised with the state of them. The big mall we remembered was now like a giant Barras Market. It used to look so grand with its three tiers of shops. Now it was just mainly junk shops and charity shops. We came away disillusioned.

We decided we’d better find the hotel we were staying at and after crossing and re-crossing busy roads we were there. Booked in and a very chatty receptionist told us the best places to eat in the town. We thanked him and found our room on the 1st floor. No view from the window unless you count Papa John’s and a casino as interesting.

We walked down to the promenade that runs beside the River Tay and visited the V&A which was one of my reasons for wanting to go to Dundee. Impressive from the outside, and almost as impressive  on the inside. A good few photos were taken, most really arty. It’s that sort of place.

Next on the schedule was food. We couldn’t find the restaurant the bloke at reception recommended, but we did find a Tapas place called Black Mamba and decided that would suit us. It was fairly good food, but maybe too much oil in mine. I think it was down to the Padron Peppers in a light batter. I enjoyed then, but they’ve kept returning all evening.

We walked back to the hotel and bought a bottle of Hortus gin and half a dozen cans of tonic on the way. The rest is a blur!

PoD is a view through the V&A to the Tay Road Bridge and further on to Tayport.  The V&A is a great place to find silhouettes!

Intending to have another visit to the V&A tomorrow and my stated intention since this visit was mooted is to get some coffee beans in Braithwaite’s, the oldest shop in Dundee.

Sad News – 17 April 2024

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Hazel phoned this morning to say that Neil’s gran had died this morning. We had been expecting this news, because she had been in poor health for a few months. She was a lovely old lady and she will be missed by everyone who met her.

Alex phoned later in the morning to cancel today’s outing to Gouldings because the cough he has been struggling with for the past month or so is showing no signs of improving and he was hoping to get to speak to a doctor and have his chest sounded. That left the day free.

We drove to Tesco later in the morning just to get some essentials and for once what we got was the bare essentials.

After lunch Scamp fed the roses, did the ironing and planted some of her packet of fifteen Cerinthe seeds, also known as Honeywort and they were hopefully getting some sunshine in the front bedroom window sill. While she was working, I took an old lightweight Manfrotto tripod with a couple of cameras up to Fannyside in search of some interesting clouds to photograph. I was also carrying a couple of neutral density filters in an attempt to get some very slow shutter speed photos of the clouds scudding across the sky. I don’t know what I did wrong, but most of them ended up with circular reflections from the lens on them. Must investigate. I did get some normal exposure shots of some nosy sheep and a few landscapes, but PoD went to an old fencepost covered in moss and lichen.

Giovanni Rana tortellini for dinner. Today’s variety was Basil and Pine Nut. Then it was time for Kirsty’s class, the final section of the Tango. After a struggle remembering the last thing we did last week, we managed to bolt on the new ending and that was it done. Not quite as easily as that, but not the drama it might have been, although Drama is an integral part of Tango!

Tomorrow afternoon Scamp has an appointment with the dentist.

Embra – 11 April 2024

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Today Scamp suggested we get the train to Embra which I thought was an excellent idea given that the sun was shining and it wasn’t raining.

We drove to the station and along with half of Cumbersheugh got on the train to Embra (the other half were getting the train to Glasgow!). We were lucky and managed to get a seat across the passage way from each other. A family outing filled the other seats. I was sitting with the three kids who were all on iPhones and Scamp was with the mums and a bloke who, like us, was not in the family group. Scamp seemed to be enjoying being in charge of passing sweets from the mums to the kids and back again. I was listening to an interesting podcast about Mozart, the boy genius. With serious discussion and David O’Doherty providing the light entertainment. It passed the half an hour the journey took.

We did our usual walk up the hill from Haymarket and through Ladyfield to Nero for a coffee and a pastry. Then, instead of heading up and over to the Grassmarket, we went downhill and along to Princes Street Gardens. Walked round a display of high resolution photos about Space and listened to a piper who could play! I didn’t know that pipers could actually hold a tune for a whole series of for more than one piece of music. Thankfully he didn’t play The Sound of Silence. If that means nothing to you, see Monday’s blog.

We walked up through St Andrew’s Square and into the strange new shopping mall. We had a look at the tech in JL and came out without seeing anything we’d put money down for. Walked along George Street and down Rose Street to the end where Scamp was sure she knew where Whighams restaurant was. She was right and I’m glad she found it. It must be about five years since we’ve walked down the stairs to this restaurant, but it’s changed little in that time. Lovely lunch. Scamp had Goan vegan curry of cauliflower, butternut squash and chickpeas. I had tomato and prawn linguini. She had a glass of wine and I stuck to water. Even the coffee was good!

We walked back to the station via Waterstones, but I didn’t see anything that tempted me. Just managed to get the train back to Croy with minutes to spare and again, we got a seat across the passage from an american woman, a Scottish man, presumably her husband and two obnoxious children.

Drove home via Calders for Scamp to get a pot to plant out her newest acquisitions. Little pink flowers she’ll tell me the name of, and a bunch of pansies.

PoD was an arty photo taken from Ladyfield looking out over Embra with the curve of a concrete balcony sweeping overhead. Like I say, arty!

Watched the penultimate Apprentice, the interviews and found it less than riveting.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending to go to FitSteps and I may just relax for an hour and read.

Here and there – 9 April 2024

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Just a normal Tuesday. Shopping and photos, but not at the same time. Oh yes, and a little bit of gentle gardening.

Shopping was just a bit of wandering around Tesco with a shopping list while Scamp blethered with a woman she used to work with, but hadn’t seen for ages. I didn’t mind at all. It gave me a chance to wander round the isles playing “Where have they put the peanut butter this week”. I got most of the things on the list although I’m sure Scamp would have done it in half the time.

Lunch was beans on toast. A bit of a come-down from yesterday’s Japanese extravaganza. ‘Auld claes and purrich’ as my dad used to say, but it was fine.

Scamp wanted to do a deep clean of the fridge after lunch. I started planting some seeds. So now we have two pots of Sweet Basil (do you think they have Sour Basil?), two pots of Sunflowers (two different kinds) and three pots of chilli peppers. The chilli seeds came from a chilli we’d brought from Portree of all places, two years ago. It grew well for two years, then died away. I harvested the pods and dried them. Today I cut one open and out came about fifteen chilli seeds. They’ve now been planted and I’m hoping I’ll get at least one plant from each pot. We’ll have to wait and see. I’d like to say that all the planting was done outside, but it wasn’t because the rain was pelting down, so it was all done in the back bedroom on my dad’s old card table with an IKEA bag on top to easily remove any mess. All the pots are now on window sills in the bedrooms and all are labelled. I’m going to restart my planting spreadsheet tomorrow, hopefully.

By the time I was finished, Scamp was too and the rain was getting lighter until eventually it stopped. I took the opportunity to go for a walk over to St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a fern crozier just unrolling. It’s called a crozier because it looks like a bishop’s crook.

Dinner was an old favourite we got from Jamie. Bacon & Borlotti Beans. Oops, I just realised, beans for lunch and beans for dinner. Hope the methane levels aren’t too high tomorrow.

And as far as tomorrow goes, we have no plans, I’m led to believe.

Happy Birthday to Me! – 8 April 2024

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Another year older and deeper in debt.

Well, another year older at least. Not a bad day, though. Sunshine in the morning shading to clouds later and finally rain at night. Still, let’s start with the first word, Sunshine … for a while.

We took the X3 in to Glasgow and although I didn’t think it possible, it took even longer to travel the route. Due to some roadworks the bus was forced to perform an almost complete circuit of Moodiesburn, then manoeuvre itself around a country road between Moodiesburn and Muirhead before taking another detour through the delights of the Muirhead housing estates and finally returning to the normal route. For once I felt sorry for bus drivers.

In Glasgow we walked down West Nile Street and out on to Buchanan Street, then into the Apple shop where I wanted to look at the new iMacs, because this seven year old iMac I’m typing on is running on borrowed time now, I think. That doesn’t mean I’m expecting it to croak any time soon, but I’m just thinking ahead. It no longer runs on its internal hard drive, but does all its work on a couple of SSDs and I knew they won’t last forever. We had a look at the specifications of the shiny new plastic things and they look possible, but looking deeper told a different tale, like the additional price for greater storage and the exorbitant price for more memory. I put them on the back burner for now … and turned the burner off!

We went for lunch at Wagamama and had a feast!
Starters to share were: Pork + Panko apple Bau Buns, Bang Bang Cauliflower and Ebi Katsu Butterflied Prawns.
Mains were Shirodashi Pork Belly Ramen for me and Prawn Raisukaree for Scamp. All were scoffed in double quick time and were as delicious as usual.

We walked down Buchanan Street listened to a bloke playing Despacito on one of those strange violins with a metal cone that gave the music a strange old fashioned sound. We walked on to Argyll Street and heard a man and a boy playing The Sound of Silence on real violins. I don’t approve of kids busking in the street. Let them be kids for a while. They will grow up soon enough and won’t have happy memories of their earlier life when they grow older. We walked along to M&S, but couldn’t see anything interesting to buy so we wandered back to Nero entertained by The Sound of Silence. In Nero I grabbed a shot of a Chihuahua sitting on a seat in front of us. It became PoD.
When we left Nero, about 20 minutes later The Sound of Silence was just finishing again. We guessed at that point that it was the only tune the two could play. Further up Buchanan Street, the man with the trumpet violin was starting what must be his umpteenth Despacito. So that’s what they do. They only play one tune. People are not stopping to listen, they just walk on and throw a coin in the hat. By the time the audience has passed on, the fiddler can start the same tune again to a new stream of people, and so it goes on all day. One tune, one backing track and some money made.

First Bus tried to completely spoil our day when we got to the bus station. When we got there, the bus and a fair crowd of folk were waiting for us. But then a driver got in and drove the bus away and parked it. 20 minutes until the next one. No explanation. And the bus companies wonder why folk aren’t using public transport.

Instead we got a bus from the other side of the bus station that took us up to Cumbersheugh, almost non-stop. Got off and went through the underpass and got the grumpiest driver I’ve ever had who took us past our stop and dumped us at the shops. Walked back and moaned about the state of the bus companies until we realised nobody was listening.

A large glass of wine later and we were both a lot happier and planning our next outing together.

Spoke to Jamie later and we had a laugh about birthdays.

That’s enough for now. “I’m tired and I want to go to bed” as a very old song goes.

No plans for tomorrow when it will be some other lucky person’s birthday.