Category: photography

Where will we go? – 19 April 2025

Posted on by Zogman

It was Scamp who said: “It’s a nice day, we should go out somewhere.” Where do you fancy? The answer came from both of us. Kilsyth. We can go for a walk round Colzium Estate. My contribution the to he discussion was that we could do a detour to Lidl because my bottle of Hortus Gin is getting low!

So that’s what we did. We drove to one of the parking areas in the estate and walked along through the flowering Azaleas and Rhododendrons, then around the back of the “Big House”. I spotted a Woodpecker flying from a nearby tree. I’d heard it’s ‘Rat – a – tat – tat’ as we were walking through the woods, but this was the first time I’d seen one on the wing for ages.

We walked upstream following the waterfalls of the Colzium Burn and crossed the bridge at the top, where the burn flows in under the Tak Ma Doon road then took the path. From there we took the far easier path down beside the other side of the burn and on to the car park. Not a long walk, but fairly strenuous in places.

We drove home via Lidl and restricted ourselves to three items each. It’s so easy to trail a trolley around as you walk round stores and not taking a trolley in the first place is a great way to resist temptation. I did get my Hortas, though!

Dinner tonight came from Golden Bowl. The only worthwhile Chinese restaurant in Cumbersheugh. Just for a change I had Sweet & Sour Chicken with Fried Rice. Scamp had Chicken Chop Suey also with fried rice and we watched a Buzz Lightyear film just for fun, then an episode of Doctor Who, because there wasn’t much else worth watching.

Later we watched the Qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix which was ( Yawn ) really exciting. Hmm.

PoD went to a Fern Crozier growing happily in the wet conditions in Colzium.

Tomorrow we’re intending to go shopping for more plants!

Wet – 18 April 2025

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Not a very bright and cheery day.

Such a shame after yesterday which started out wet, but brightened as the day went on, today was just dull and wet all day. Plus, as I’m writing this, it’s still raining.

Scamp was out in the morning to have coffee and a blether with Isobel. I was back home trying to work out how approximately 100 pieces could fit into the Lego tree. It almost worked perfectly. Of the 100 odd pieces, only one disappeared somewhere. It may be lying on the carpet upstairs, but I don’t think so. Whoever designed this Thing must have had a very clever and very twisted mind. It all works exactly as the instructions describe, but why make it so complicated? Still, it’s fascinating!

By the time Scamp got back, I’d just finished the tree trunk section, complete with two flexible vines that twine round the tree, and was starting the table that holds the flower pot. Another hundred odd pieces! I think that’s all done now and the next stage is to create the ‘stones’ that fill the pot, then deciding whether it’s going to be a tree in leaf or one with blossom. I’ll probably make both, I think.

Scamp wanted a birthday card written and posted by 4pm and after sitting for at least two hours, I thought that might be a great opportunity to stretch my legs because it looked like there was a short dry spell coming.

I walked over to Condorrat and posted the card in the afternoon and as it was still dry, I walked round St Mo’s – just one circuit, not wanting to tempt fate. The weather stayed dry, but I wasn’t impressed with today’s photos once I got home. So, for the first time in ages, I kept today’s photos and instead, posted one of yesterday’s as PoD. It’s a shot looking up at the South Portland Street suspension bridge in Glasgow, with the sandstone entrance behind it and the ill fated Virgin Hotel in the background. Three photos for the price of one!

Later in the evening, I watched and actually enjoyed Gardners’ World. It’s sometimes a bit dull and has too many little video pieces made by folk who just want to tell you how wonderful their gardens are. Time wasters, that’s all most of them are. Today had only a few of those, with the presenters doing the interesting stuff.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we don’t have a dance class because the teachers are still off sunning themselves in some foreign clime. Instead, we’re hoping to do a bit of reading in bed. We don’t have any plans for the day as yet!

A day in the Toon – 17 April 2025

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Bus in to Glasgow in the rain to meet Alex. Scamp was meeting an old friend from work, for lunch.

Thought I’d be smart and get an earlier bus, only to find there were multiple roadworks on Cathedral Street and I ended up getting to the bus station at my usual time, 12 noon.

We did our normal walk down to a Nero, any Nero really and after a wee blether we took a walk down Buchanan Street heading to St Enoch’s Square, now that the rain had abated. We took a detour through Princes Square for Alex to take some photos of the escalators. I covered that shot, but I wasn’t interested. In the winter with the decorations and the Christmas tree, it’s a good place to photograph, but not in the middle of Spring. We walked on through St Enoch’s Square to see a new bit of graffiti on the Clyde Walkway and to photograph it. It’s on Flickr if you’re interested.

While we were on the walkway, about ten folk on a RIB screamed past on the Clyde. It wasn’t immediately obvious if it was the occupants or the RIB that was screaming, but I took some photos anyway.

All this walking and talking was making us both hungry, so Alex suggested the Willow Tea Rooms as our venue and I knew it was good, because he’d taken me there before a few years ago. We had sandwiches and I had a pot of tea while Alex had Coke. Although it’s quite posh, they do a decent pot of tea! Darjeeling, of course.

Where to go next? I’d been meaning to photograph the new(ish) City of Glasgow College and with blue skies all around now, I suggested it to Alex. He is quite an architecture fanatic, mostly older structures, but we won’t say “No” to a more modern edifice, so we spent an hour or so investigating different viewpoints and different lenses with which to capture this brilliantly white building.

I just missed the X3 from the college that would have taken me home, but too late and too lazy to run to catch it, I decided to wait for the next one. Alex’s bus came first and we agreed to meet again soon. His choice this time.

I took the next X3 past the house and got out at the shops so that I could get a pizza for dinner later in case we needed it, knowing that we could have it tomorrow if we were hungry.

PoD went to a wide angle shot of the City of Glasgow College under a blue sky.

Watched the finale of The Apprentice and agreed that the winner deserved the title.

No real plans for tomorrow, but Scamp has an appointment with Isobel. I may finish part 2 of the 3D jigsaw.

Coffee in Starbucks? NOOoooo!!! – 16 April 2025

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Actually it wasn’t that bad!

I was driving over to Hamilton today to meet Billy Kent. He was married to my distant cousin, Margaret. Margaret’s mum and my mum were cousins, so that probably would have made us second-cousins. Margaret died about two years ago.

I got a Christmas card from Billy last year saying that we should meet up some time. He put his phone number on the card and for once I put it into my contacts. In February we had a phone discussion and decided we’d meet halfway at Starbucks in Hamilton. Unfortunately every day he suggested didn’t suit me and all my suggestions didn’t suit him. It was beginning to look as if we weren’t going to have this meeting. However, last week we did find commonality and that day was today.

Scamp and I had visited Billy and Margaret’s house for dinner many moons ago and I they had visited ours. I really think it was Covid that broke the bond between us and it was difficult to rebuild it. Then Margaret died. So, in a way, this was the rebuild beginning. Although I wasn’t sure if it was the same person I was going to meet today. Thankfully it was.

Over a couple of mugs of coffee, we just blethered like two auld guys do. Telling stories, some of them slightly exaggerated and some just stories. After an hour and a bit we were both talked out and it was time to go our separate ways. I enjoyed the experience and we said we’d do it again. I think we will.

I’d arrived a bit early and it was beginning to drizzle. By the time we were leaving, it was bucketing down. I think they were even throwing down the buckets as well as the rain.

The motorway was treacherous with standing water making driving a bit risky, but I got home ok. I stopped at M&S to pick up some things for dinner. My turn to cook and it was to be fish risotto made mainly in the oven.

Since I had some time to spare in the afternoon I re-started work on the giant 3D Lego jigsaw. The first section from last week was easy to visualise. This one, not so much. To make things more complicated, some of the parts were made as mirror images of each other before being joined together later. I’m glad there was a QR code that I could scan to see the construction in more detail. That was a great benefit. Hopefully this present section will be completed tomorrow. I should also photograph the sections as they are completed.

PoD was a picture I saw while I was building the Bonsai. It’s a Poinsettia plant that sits on the window ledge of the back bedroom. Beautiful colours that contrast so well.

I’m hoping to meet Alex tomorrow for a walk and a blether.

Out to lunch – 15 April 2025

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Taking Shona to belated birthday lunch today.

Just before midday we picked up Shona and drove the mile or so to Nonna’s at Dullatur.

The place was empty, but then it was only 11:50 and it didn’t open for lunch until 12:00.

Starters were Focaccia for Scamp and I to share while Shona had Chicken liver Paté

Mains were Scallops and Black Pudding for Scamp, Courgette Spaghetti with Zucchini Crisps. I had Penne Salsiccia

Desserts were Tiramisu for Shona and Sticky Toffee Pudding for Scamp and a pot of tea for me. Scamp criticised the Sticky Toffee Pudding and I felt there was too much cream and salt in the Penne Salsiccia. Other than that, it was fine. Service was slow, but the place was filling up by the time we left and there seemed to be only two people on the floor and possibly another two in the kitchen.

It was a lovely day. We had a window seat and a view over the golf course watching all the golfers walking and driving their golf buggies full of their golfing bats.

We dropped Shona back at her house after lunch and she was still in time to collect Ben from his carers.

Back home, Scamp was out gardening for a while and I had an afternoon snooze! Later she took me on a guided tour of the garden and I took some photos of the Stellata Magnolia which is almost in full bloom. One of the flowers made PoD.

I’m hoping to meet up with Billy Kent tomorrow at Starbucks – I might order tea, rather than a Starbucks. At least you know what’s in tea!

Rain at last – 13 April 2025

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We had been promised rain today and it actually came as predicted!

There wasn’t much rain, but enough to wet the ground and give the plants in the garden a drink.

Rather a changeable day which was mainly dry but with occasional heavy showers, especially later in the evening.

After tidying the kitchen and the living room after Saturday’s dinner guests, there wasn’t really much to do except, perhaps watch the water falling from the sky for a while.

Later in the day I took the A6500 out to St Mo’s to look for some photos. Yesterday, I’d set the aperture and shutter speed to manual and had forgotten to reset them. Today, for some reason, I set the ISO to 100. That meant that a lot of todays photos taken in between the rain shower and in bright sunlight were overexposed and too light. It took me about an hour after I got home to see how I’d done all that. Once all the settings were back to normal, Lightroom dealt with the overexposure quickly. The PoD was a bunch of flowering cherries and the overexposure coupled with a wide aperture accidentally provided exactly what I wanted in the flowers. Sometimes things just work.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and told him the 3D jigsaw he and Simonne had given me for my birthday was underway. The base is now complete and ready for the tree to grow in it.

Watched the Bahrain F1 GP and apart from a few interesting passing manoeuvres, it was the same old, same old.

Tomorrow we may have shopping to do – just the essentials.

Rail cards and Butterflies – 9 April 2025

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Scamp was trying unsuccessful to solve a rail card problem on a dull Wednesday morning. Dull? Is this the end of the good weather?

She had purchased mine, and thought she’d cleared the hurdles put in place by Railcard.co.uk, but they didn’t like the way she’d done it. Allegedly she could fix the problem at any rail station, but that would only get her a one year, paper card (is that an oxymoron?), not the two year one she’s always had. The person in the ticket office suggested she phone Customer Services. So not the easy fix she was promised. We drove over to Tesco and got bread and milk and some odds and ends.

Back home Scamp phoned Customer Services and had to answer all the questions she’d answered yesterday. Name, Date of Birth, Address, Size of big toe (LEFT FOOT). You know what it’s like, we’ve all been there. Then the person she was speaking to, possibly in a different country, had to go and check with “Her Team” (she didn’t say if they wore Green shirts or Blue ones). Five minutes later she returned to say she had to complete the questionnaire again to pass on to the “Team” and someone would contact her within the usual ‘Ten Working Days’. It was all a bit of a faff. Why is life never easy?

With all that done, it was lunch time and that meant half a Ginsters for me and a piece ’n’ egg for Scamp, and the sun had returned to a blue sky. Later Scamp decided the sun was warm enough in the corner of the garden to sit outside and read. I put on my boots and went over to St Mo’s looking for Flora, Fauna, Animal or Insect life. I found no fauna, a very few flowers, but there were animal tracks and there was a Peacock butterfly, sunning itself on a log. So that was one insect in the bag (digitally). I took that as a sign to head for home.

Quick and easy dinner was Giovanni Rana pasta with olive oil and grated Parmesan.

The following description is for my reference, but feel free to read it if you’re interested.

I needed to transfer some of my photo files from the iMac to hard disk (NTFS). My iMac won’t read or write NTFS drives now – don’t know why. The MBP can read and write to NTFS. Here’s how I managed to ‘easily’ copy the files from iMac to the NTFS drive.

  1. Power up the iMac the NTFS drive and the MBP
  2. Ensure that the MBP can ’see’ the iMac
  3. Connect the NTFS drive to the MBP.
  4. Search the iMac for the NTFS drive on the MBP.
  5. Drag the files that I’m looking for from the MBP to the NTFS drive

If all is well, the MBP becomes the conduit between the iMac and the NTFS drive. Today it worked perfectly. About 15GB of data copied in just over 9 minutes. Happy Bunny!

PoD was the Peacock butterfly.

Tomorrow, I’m informed that we may need some ‘Messages’!

 

 

Happy Birthday to Me – 8 April 2025

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Another year older and deeper …

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and thanked her for the clever little hanger to put apples in for the birds. I may have to reinforce it with wire to stop the squirrels chewing away the string that it hangs from. Clever idea again Hazy. I also got a new book to read, recommended by my daughter. It’s an intriguing start, I look forward to reading a bit more. Thank you and Neil for such clever and interesting gifts.

Scamp and I were off to Glasgow today on the bus, for a wee jaunt round the city with a spot of lunch thrown in for good measure. First stop, as usual, was Nero for a coffee and a plan. Also, as usual, there was no plan. A wander down Buchanan Street and that’s when I realised I’d left my glasses at home. No big panic, I could source a cheap pair anywhere in central Glasgow. After that, we walked down to Waterstones to find a book I’d been looking for, but couldn’t remember the title although it was not one of those on the tables in the book shop.

Then it was time to head for Mowgli on St Vincent Street. Scamp had booked a table and we started investigating the menu. Since it was my birthday, I get to make my choice first.

I had Sticky Chicken and Supergreen Chicken Curry with rice and two Roti. All washed down with a bottle of Cobra beer.

Scamp had Tea Steeped Chickpeas and Mowgli Paneer with rice and two Roti. She had a Pomegranate Prosecco Fizz to help it all go down.

Instead of a dessert, I had a Smoked Cardamom Old Fashioned and Scamp couldn’t resist another Pomegranate Prosecco Fizz.

As we were tidying up the bill, I dropped it into conversation that it was my birthday and was given a free, double layered Brownie topped with a ball of ice cream, with a birthday candle on top!

A lovely meal in Mowgli again.

We wandered round the centre of Glasgow and just managed to catch the bus home. We had intended sitting in the garden, but I thought it was a bit cool.

Spoke to Jamie later and thanked him for the Lego Bonsai Tree with 800 odd pieces! It may take a bit of time and a pair of tweezers to get it assembled properly, but it’s an interesting challenge. Thank you and Simonne for keeping me engaged for a while!

PoD was a shot of folk on the stairs of the Concert Hall in Glasgow.

Tomorrow, I think we may be looking for a birthday present for a one year old. I’m sure Scamp has ideas aplenty!

 

Another beautiful day – 6 April 2025

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Thankfully without the wind we’ve had recently, just a gentle breeze to keep us cool today. It would have been better if it was a tad warmer, but it is only the beginning of April and it was dry, so we shouldn’t complain too much, although we always will.

Spent an extra hour or so in bed finishing “Paperboy”, my latest book. Enjoyable, but not as good as book 1, “Squeaky Clean” in my opinion. Loved the writer’s use of Glasgow slang and language.

That left us the whole morning to wait before the Japanese GP aired. Finished Wordle after a struggle, gave up on Spelling Bee, but completed the new game, “Strands”. The race, itself was more a procession than anything else. You could hear the commentators attempting to make it sound interesting, but that just wasn’t happening. A dud, I’m afraid.

We spent half an hour wandering round the garden while Scamp explained her intentions for new planting and pruning. It looks like we might need to to reposition some of the branches from Schoolgirl to cover up where I was overenthusiastic with my autumn pruning. Schoolgirl it a tough rose and will be able to take that extra stretching, I hope.

I spent some time photographing tiny little spiders with my big heavy macro lens and then rejecting almost all of them. PoD went to a group of greenfly clambering over a rose leaf. I should mention that the second place photo of one of Scamp’s parrot tulips is worth a look too on Flickr.

Dinner was Cauliflower in a Filo Pastry Case, baked in the oven. It sounds fairly plain, but it was delicious. A lot of work for Scamp to prepare the veg, and it really needed four hands to get the baking tin out of the oven.

Spoke to Jamie later in the day and heard about his asparagus plants and plans for seed planting – vegetables, of course! Also their search for reasonably priced, but good quality outdoor garden furniture. We don’t really get enough sun to merit outdoor furniture!

Tomorrow it looks like we may be going out looking for compost and maybe gravel to provide more drainage for some of Scamp’s pot plants.

Out on the town – 2 April 2025

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Alex and I were doing a photowalk in Glasgow today.

A beautiful day for it. I wasn’t wearing my Orange Rab jacket, nor my other rainy jacket, although I did have it with me, just in case there was a change in the temperature. There wasn’t.

We started off in Nero as usual and once a plan had been discussed and accepted by both parties we walked down Buchanan Street and on through St Enoch’s Square then down to the Clyde Walkway. We watched a bloke setting up his grid of white squares on a newly painted bare black wall. Once he was happy with the grid he didn’t take long to sketch in the rest of the tag. I’d meant to go back and see how it turned out, but I forgot, so that will have to be a walk to take on another day DV.

Instead, we walked along the Walkway and I got some shots of the St Andrew’s Cathedral as a flight of pigeons did a flypast. I seriously thought that was going to be PoD, and it was, temporarily.

By then, food was calling and Alex said he fancied a lighter lunch, so we went to Greggs for a Mexican Chicken Oval Bite. Basically sliced up chicken with salad leaves and chilli mayo on a soft roll. Maybe that’s doing it a disservice, because I really enjoyed it. We dined alfresco sitting on a statue’s plinth in what used to be George Square. Now it’s a barren wasteland with almost all the grass removed and a paltry few benches around the central statue were all taken, that’s why we settled for the plinth.

Fed and watered, we wandered down through the Merchant City looking for a building Alex had seen, but couldn’t remember where. What we did find was a quiet wee cemetery which I couldn’t remember seeing before, but now realise was the Ramshorn cemetery.

Once I got my bearings I easily found the building Alex was looking for, it was the Cranberry’s building a three or four storey almost round building. Once Alex got some photos, we walked down to Argyle Street and had a coffee and a blether then headed for home.

I managed to catch an x36 bus that would take me to Condorrat with a lot fewer stops than the usual X3. Then we had a wee glass of Clarence wine in the garden. Very civilised!

That was a very enjoyable day. 84 photos taken and about three quarters made it through the first pass. Just over 13,000 steps. I even remembered to take a selfie of Alex and me as we headed for our buses, just to prove to Hazy that I’m back, but probably not normal – never normal! You’re right. That’s boring!!

PoD was some ladies being served a trio of cocktails in a posh restaurant in Exchange Square.

Tomorrow we may go dancing, proper dancing, among people.