Category: Plants

Dentist – 18 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Not for me, thankfully, but for Scamp.

We did very little in the morning, just attempted to solve Wordle ( I did eventually find it, but it took a while) and I’m still looking for today’s pangram. It’s probably under a cushion somewhere.

At midday Scamp got ready to have her temporary tooth remove then the old molar from the back of her mouth extracted. Next she had an x-ray taken, and a new temporary tooth rebuilt. That was a lot of work and a lot of anaesthetics to deal with, but she came back with a smile on her face, as always. Brave girl.

It does look as if most of my seeds have now sprouted although some took a lot longer than others. Still no sign of potatoes in the fancy double skinned bucket, but it has been unseasonable cold. There’s time yet for them.

After lunch, and after Scamp was safely ensconced on the couch, I took the A7 for a walk in St Mo’s in the drizzly rain. Not much to see today, but I did get one decent shot of a fern unfurling its leaves. Like my seedlings, it’s a bit late, but getting there. I extended my walk down to the Shops to get some flowers for Scamp and some sweeties for me. Well, it is Thursday for me as well as Scamp.

Dinner tonight was Haddock Risotto, the easy one, made in the oven. By that time Scamp was able to eat again and her tongue had done one or two circuits of the new mouth and tooth.

We watched the final of The Apprentice even although there was no doubting who was going to win. I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably say it again. The program needs a revamp. A replacement for Lord Sugar. He’s becoming repetitive. Oh yes, and a new scriptwriter to put the jokes back in the crackers.

The fern was the PoD. Not the best shot, but it’s in and posted. Got myself another ‘Explore’ for the view looking up the South Tower of Bothwell Castle. That was a brightener.

No plans for tomorrow, but I really must tidy up the back bedroom soon.

 

A Dull Day in Scotland – 10 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

This is getting boring and repetitive, but … it rained all day today. There, it’s said. I didn’t even attempt a walk, it was so bad.

Instead of a walk, we cleared another corner of the bedroom which will allow us to slide the bed forward and get the back wall and the wall facing the window painted on the next wet day, which looks like it will be Friday if the weather fairies are correct and tomorrow if they are not.

Because of the weather, I did some catching up with correspondence and then had a look inside the laptop I’m typing on. When I say “inside”, I’m talking digitally, using a piece of software called Daisy Disk which scans my MacBook and finds how much space I have left and where the biggest pieces of clutter are. The SSD that is the storage for my Mac is nominally 512GB and Daisy Disk found that I’ve got just over 50GB free. That’s roughly a tenth of the total free space. That’s not good. A sensible size is around 25% of the total space. My SSD needs to go on a a diet and fast. Work starts next week.

I managed to get out and grab a few shots of the Pieris in the garden, in the rain. Its full name is Pieris Forest Flame and it is living up to that name this year. Last year we thought we’d lost it when it suffered badly during the two weeks we were on a cruise and no rain fell for all of that fortnight. We often complain about the amount of rain we get in Scotland, but it’s better than dying of thirst. Good to see it’s back to full strength. What looks like red petals are actually young leaves. The flowers are inconspicuous little waxy white flowers that look like Lily of the Valley. Just the leaves made PoD.

Dancing in Kirsty’s class was Tango. We had a new couple in the class, one English and one Scottish. Maybe a little younger than us. I couldn’t fathom the tango moves at all to start with, then muscle memory came in to play and things fitted together again. I think it’s doable. It’s just a lot faster than we are used to. Love all the flicks and kicks!

Drove home through torrential rain and our entertainment tonight was Glow Up, where the MUAs (Make Up Artists) compete to produce the most ridiculous make up. Just a bit of fluff.

Hoping to get out somewhere tomorrow in the dry. A little bit of sunshine wouldn’t go amiss too. Hope you’re listening, weather fairies.

What did we do today? – 2 April 2024

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Sometimes I have to ask myself that question, because I can’t remember doing anything interesting or important that day. The answer to the above question today was “Not very much”.

We did do some stuff. We made a decision about Scamp’s ageing computer. I thought we were going to JL and maybe Currys to try out the computers, but Scamp convinced me that we didn’t need to go out. We’d already looked at the JL offerings last week and really, they all looked the same. The specs were pretty similar too and worst of all, they were all the same boring shade of grey. We know what we’re looking for. We know how much we’re willing to spend on a new laptop, so why wander round stores looking at the same slabs of plastic when we can order one online and buy one from HP. Not on the HP, but from HP and get it delivered. The decision was made and we could stay in, in the dry (did I mention that it rained almost all day? Well, it did) and that’s what we did. Neither of us is in a great rush to splash the cash, so some time soon, probably.

We spent another hour working out what we’d transfer from the old machine to the new machine and what we might need to buy. Scamp’s MS Office 7 might not work on a shiny Windows 11 machine but very little else would be needed. Really what she needs is more space for her files and we should manage that. An hour or two well spent.

After lunch we drove to Tesco in the rain and got a load of veg and fruit, milk and breakfast cereals. The usual everyday necessities. There were lengthy queues at the roundabout at Broadwood. We skirted them on the way to Tesco, but the traffic was flowing freely on the way back, at least on our side it was. The reason for the holdup was the inevitable roadworks. Two or three unlucky blokes wearing high vis jackets were digging a trench with shoves in the pouring rain for a fence to be erected round the roundabout. My heart did go out to them. Digging a trench by hand in this day and age is just ridiculous. Poor souls.

Tesco was as far as we ventured out today. PoD was a still life of my new Split Rock that Hazy has named “Terry” it’s a Pleiospilos nelii. Strange looking plant and very slow growing.

Maybe we didn’t do much today, but we achieved a lot!

Tomorrow we may go dancing if we can drive through all the puddles that will be everywhere.

Late night – Early morning – 30 March 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Never a good combination!

It’s not a good combination. Got to bed about 1am this morning after an interesting jam session with Scamp, Nancy and Crawford. Up at our usual time. Showered, dressed and off to dance class.

The bowling club, where we hold our dance class, was having an Easter Egg hunt and some of the children seemed to think they had free rein to charge through the hall. A few sharp words from the dance teachers to the parents made sure it only happened once.

We started with the Valentino Jive which seems to have nothing to do with Rudolph and even less to do with Jiving! Never mind, it got us all on the floor and moving. Next we went into the Spring Waltz with the “Spitfire Arms” we learned about last week and with the addition of CBM (Contra Body Movement) which basically means when your foot goes in one direction, your body turns in the opposite direction. We thought the Spitfire was difficult, but a quick explanation this morning simplified it. We are still wondering how to do the CBM. It looks so simple and obvious when the teachers are demonstrating it, but it’s not so simple or obvious when we tried to dance it. However we struggled on and have almost mastered the Spitfire now.

To break up the tension from CBM and Spitfires, we danced a couple of tracks of sequence dances, then we were into Jive. Jiving is fairly easy and the individual parts are quite easy to pick up. It’s the putting together of those individual parts that’s the difficult bit. I admit, I was lost after a while and couldn’t even remember the routines we learned last week and there were only two of them!
A couple of tracks of Tina Tango finished off our dance class for the day.

While we were driving home we passed a sign on the M8 that told us it was 10min to the Kingston Bridge. Usually it’s at least 15min. Could that mean we could shave about 10min off the homeward journey if we risked the M8/M80 instead of the M74/M73? Worth a try. For the first time in a long time we crossed the Kingston Bridge at an amazing 50mph and were back home with 15mins to spare. Fantastic! And all because everyone else was heading in the opposite direction, going to the west coast. Hundreds of them in a gigantic traffic jam while we tootled along at a pleasant pace.

After lunch I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a scruffy looking catkin. Not brilliant, but it ticks a box. It was very cloudy today with the occasional heavy shower. While I was out, Scamp was busy planting her new birthday azelea.

Dinner was roast chicken with roast veg and potatoes. Ate it while we watched Gardener’s World whilst almost falling asleep. Late night last night, an exhausting dance class, physically and mentally today then the realisation that we’d lose an hour’s sleep as we enter British Summer Time tomorrow meant an early bed for both of us. That’s where I’m off to now.

Tomorrow is earmarked for recovery.

Dancin’ – 21 March 2024

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After a lazy morning we were pitched into another day of dancing.

Drove to Glenburn for today’s tea dance. Horrible day, rained all the way there, but we got to sit at a great table and the weather was forgotten. I missed the first two dances, both waltzes because I had something in my shoe or in my sock. It took me two dance tracks to fix it, I wasn’t avoiding the dance … honest. I knew I’d have another opportunity to dance the waltz after tea or find something else in my shoe if necessary.

Next was foxtrot which I staggered through with Scamp’s helpful comments like “Where are you going?” ringing in my ears. On a positive note, we danced an almost perfect Ballroom Rumba and Ria Bachata.

Good to sit and talk to folk the same or similar age as us and hear their plans for the year. Also good to see the floor full for most of the dances.  Even better, was for me to win a chocolate egg in the Easter raffle!  Thank you Stewart & Jane!

Drove home through more, even heavier rain on the M74 and kept the wheels turning. We’d never have managed that on the Kingston Bridge which is just a slowly moving carpark until about 8pm on any day of the working week.

Dinner, after some discussion was Chicken Thighs with Leeks and Peas. Brilliant recipe where the oven does all the work. Lovely crunchy skin on the chicken and the crisped up leeks are great too.

Speaking about Leeks, today’s PoD  was another experiment. I cut off the bottom 20mm of a leek and set it to float in a container of water. That was a few weeks ago. Now it has grown and been tidied up a bit and I’m hoping to plant it in a pot in the greenhouse and see if I can grow a leek from a leek! I have Hazy to thank for the inspiration.

Tomorrow, the plan is to drive to some B&Q that actually has paint to sell of the exact colour we’re looking for for the next stage in Project Spring Clean the House!

Painting – 18 March 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Yes more painting, but no sketching first. Straight into the painting.

Not watercolour this time, nor oils. This was plain old fashioned decorating and the mess that follows. Scamp was out in the morning having coffee with Isobel, so that gave me about two hours to get the painting done. That was my secret plan. We’d discussed the possibility of painting our bedroom, but thought it would be better to start with the hall. The hall is a fairly small area to paint, but with a few hard to reach places tucked away in corners, so it had its challenges. It only took about an hour to get most of it done, then another half hour to get the ‘tricky’ bits finished. By that time, Scamp had returned and between us we got the kitchen tidied, but not before I took a couple of photos just to record the work. One of them became PoD. The walls in the hall have now dried and look better for their fresh coat of paint. The colour, just in case you feel inspired, was Apricot White.

I don’t know if it was something I ate, or the smell of the paint lingering in the house, but I felt a bit sick in the afternoon. I suppose I should have gone for a walk to clear my head, but instead I had a long hot shower because I knew I’d be aching tomorrow and the hot water might just stave off the worst of it.

While I was showering, Scamp was out in the raised bed, chopping down the remaining kale stalks that had gone to seed. Now we have to decide if we’re going to have a raised bed again or if it’s worth the bother. I’m not sure if it is worth making a new one, or even buying a purpose made one. For all I put into it, it’s a fair expense and maybe the space could be better utilised. The old one certainly won’t last another year. It’s about 10 years old and rotting away. We’ll have to discuss the possibilities and make a decision soon.

No plans for tomorrow for either of us, whether secret or not.

Dancin’ – 2 March 2024

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Today we drove to Brookfield for the first dance class in a while.

Last week I was under the weather and we cancelled. Two weeks ago we did go to the class, but I was not feeling well. That has been the extent of our dance classes this year. Today was better, just better, that’s all.

Class started with the LA Swing sequence dance. It’s a sort of Charleston thing, but nothing to do with Los Angeles. The ‘LA’ part stands for Lace Agate and it’s an exhausting piece of nonsense. I don’t mind telling you, I was knackered after two tracks of that.

Next was a more sedate Spring Waltz which started life as the Christmas Waltz, then the Winter Waltz and now the Spring Waltz. “Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent” as the voiceover for Dragnet used to say. After a tricky bit of cheating with the Back Corté being noted and corrected by Jane, it all started to flow. I actually got to like its elegance.

Another sequence dance, the Melody Foxtrot gave us a chance to relax, because we knew this one fairly well and were in the minority for that, because it seemed to be lost on some of the other dancers. It’s nice to shine at something.

Next was Jive. One of Jane’s favourites and she was adding in new patterns to this exhausting dance. Nothing difficult, just moves with fancy names. We got through them fairly easily.

The class finished with Scamp’s favourite ’Shivers’ by Ed Sheeran. Actually it was only three quarters of the track because Jane ‘accidentally’ pulled the plug on the tape machine and that put an early end to that. Scamp my never forgive her.

We drove home along a busy M8 much busier than the traffic we’d had going to Brookfield in the morning. I took the Kingston Bridge route for a change and I think that was a mistake, but we weren’t going anywhere in a hurry, luckily.

Dinner tonight was a stir-fry from M&S and it was OK, just OK. As Scamp would say, “it filled a space.”

PoD was a Christmas present from Hazy. It’s the top of a beetroot, growing in plain unadulterated water. It’s sitting in a perspex container on the window sill. It’s been growing for a couple of weeks now and I’m thinking of planting it outside in the greenhouse.
This is the third successful ‘plant’. The first two were a garlic clove and a cutting from a spring onion. Great idea Hazy.

Watched the first F1 GP of the year. It was interesting, but it was the usual suspects who were leading from the start. I think it’s time for something new.

No great plans for tomorrow. Maybe some tidying up now that the sketching and painting are over for a month or so.

Coffee with Isobel – 23 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We drove up to the town centre today and were entertained by Isobel for an hour and a bit in Costa. I risked an Americano that actually tasted of coffee. I was shocked!

Life is never dull with Isobel. She always has stories to tell and doesn’t care who she insults when she’s telling them. Today’s topics included falling church attendance, losing a church minister, gardening and a useless new cooker. She did give Scamp some instruction on pruning roses and rudbeckia. She was making arrangements to have the wax removed from her ears by going private. I’m beginning to think that I need it done too, because my hearing has been getting worse recently. Anyway, after we’d heard all her gossip and she had heard all of Scamp’s, we gave her a run home because the rain was torrential. She wouldn’t accept any help and toddled off pushing her walker once we’d dropped her off. When we were coming out of Costa

Back home it was tomato soup and toast for lunch from the never emptying soup pot. I did consider going out if the rain stopped, but it didn’t and I stayed in. PoD was a photo of my Window Ledge Garden with its green spike of ’back from the dead’ Spring Onion and a clove of garlic that has white spike and also roots that weren’t there when it went into the water pot a couple of days ago. Both plants are growing in nothing but water. The pot, with its little floating island that holds the plants, was a Christmas present from Hazy. It took me a week or so to find the time to read the instructions and test it out. Amazingly for me, it worked first time. I’m intending growing beetroot and leeks next. Thank you Hazy.

By the time I’d checked in with Alex and discussed tomorrow with him, then processed and posted the PoD, it was time for dinner and for the second time this week it was fish. This time it was Leek and Smoked Fish Risotto. Unfortunately I’d cut the bottom off the leek before I remembered that I could have coaxed it back to useful lift. The resulting risotto was a bit wetter than I’d intended it to be, but we ate almost all of it.

We watched University Challenge later and got the nominal two or three correct answers each. Feeling quite pleased with ourselves. Then we watched The Secret Genius of Modern Life on the history of microwave ovens which sounds a really boring program. But with a thoughtful approach to delivering this information, it was interesting and informative. Infotainment at its best. I commend it to you. Accessible from iPlayer.

I saw that Isobel had a pair of sheepskin mittens in her bag and said, without thinking: “Oh, pawkies!” One of my mum’s words for mittens. Funny how you remember these random words.

The wind is wheechin’ round the house again tonight, and I hope it calms down a bit before tomorrow, because I’ve got a possible appointment for a photo walk with Alex in Glasgow which I don’t want to miss because I called off last week when I wasn’t feeling well. A dry day would be nice, but that may be a wish too far.

 

Another wet day – 2 January 2024

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Another day when it never really stopped raining.

It wasn’t a day for doing much. I didn’t go out to take any photos, because it was raining and there seemed to be little point in getting wet when I didn’t have a subject in mind.

Instead, I took a tabletop shot. My subject today was a Sarracenia plant. It’s a carnivorous pitcher plant and quite a small one. It feeds on insects that fall into the liquid at the bottom of the funnel shaped ‘leaves’. I had a bigger variety last year that was happy to grow outside, even in winter. It survived temperatures down to -10ºc. Unfortunately the drought in June 2023 was too much for this bog plant. I’m being more careful with this slightly more delicate one.

As usual, the actual photos took about half an hour to take and a couple of hours to process. But I was fairly happy with the result.

Dinner tonight was Potato, Cabbage and Bacon. An old favourite with both of us, of course, Scamp doesn’t eat the bacon. We watched Sing 2 The second in what might become a series of comedy digital cartoons. Not much of a story line, really, but made up for it with the excellent dialogue. I laughed and so did Scamp, so it was a winner.

After dinner I struggled for a good two hours trying to get Word and Excel to speak to each other, but eventually gave up. I think I’ll cancel my free 30 day subscription before it runs out. Even worse, It looks like my old Toshiba laptop may be on its last legs. I got a message tonight ti say that there was a problem with the cooling system and to shut down immediately. Immediately is not a word the Tosh understands. Immediately usually means an arthritic ten minute wait. I’ll leave it to cool down gently tonight and see what can be done about it tomorrow.

No real plans for tomorrow. Scamp is booked for coffee in the morning with Isobel. I’ve got a visit to the nurse in the afternoon to see how my BP is doing now that I’ve reduced my meds a bit. I’ve a set of results ready to bamboozle her with my Excel skills!

Rain, Rain, go away – 18 November 2023

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Come again another day (but not tomorrow).

As you will have gathered, it was a wet day.  Thankfully we didn’t need to drive out to Brookfield for the Saturday morning class because Stewart had cancelled it last night because there were only four of us were showing an interest.  Instead, we drove to Stirling in the horrible drizzly rain and filled a trolley in Waitrose.  We had hoped that the rain was localized and the rain clouds would lift when we left Cumbersheugh and we could walk into Stirling town for a coffee, but it was not to be.  The clouds followed us all the way to Stirling and then all the way back.  The rain got lighter later in the day, but only for a short time.  It’s raining heavily now.

It was so dismal that I didn’t even want to go over to St Mo’s to get some photos, so today’s PoD came from a table top setup in the back bedroom.  In fact it was more than a table that was holding up the subject.  The table had a drawing board with a paint pot on top, but that wasn’t tall enough, so I added a couple of thick books.  Still not high enough. Maybe one more book would do the trick, and it did … just. Sitting on top was an upsided down empty plant pot and the contents of the pot were balanced on top of this Tower of Babel.  I really should take a photo of my constructions for table top photos.  They are a bit like icebergs in that the bit you see is only around a tenth of the final structcture.  The photo is a collection of basil seedlings that never really managed to get beyond the seedling stage. I’ve changed the compost and watered them with plant food, but I now believe there just isn’t enough light these dull days in November.  They need to be grown in summer.

While I was on this gardening theme I gave my two chilli plants a fairly severe pruning. Last year I cut them down by about 25%.  This year it was more that 50%. I hope that might encourage some growth and bring us some more chillies next year, all being well.

Scamp has been in a long term battle with British Gas who don’t seem to be able to send us a bill. She eventually took the matter to the Energy Ombudsman and uploaded our case details and interactions with BG to the Ombudsman. On Thursday we received the reply from BG through the Ombudsman’s office.  Some truths and a lot of half truths from them. Surprisingly, on Thursday we also received our first bill from BG for a year! Now isn’t that a coincidence, however that bill only covers the outstanding amount up until June. They have admitted there is a fault in ‘The Flow‘ which we assume is the flow of information from our smart meter to their headquarters. They also admit that they now know where the flow stops, but don’t seem to have any idea of how to fix the problem.  Today we sent our reply to the Ombudsman pointing out the half truths in their story.  We await the outcome with bated breath!

Dinner tonight was a veggie lasagne from Waitrose.  I could almost agree to being vegetarian if the food was all as tasty as that.

No plans for tomorrow, except maybe to get a CO2 alarm somewhere, probably a real B&Q.