Category: Plants

Dancin’ – 21 March 2024

Posted on by Zogman

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

Posted on by Zogman

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

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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.

No fillings today mum – 6 November 2023

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But a filling is needed in December. Appointment has been made and prepaid. Only myself to blame. I shouldn’t go poking my fingers into my mouth. Other than that, I got off lightly. The dentist kindly lied and told me the rest of my teeth and gums were fine and to keep up my ‘oral regime’. What oral regime is that? Brush your teeth on the morning you go to see the dentist? That’s my regime!

I found a tick today. Again, only myself to blame. Forgetting that the ticks are still active. It’s only when the sub zero temperatures come that they stop biting for a while. I think it got me when I was climbing a hill yesterday to photograph the panorama. Scamp did the surgical removal very cleanly, because I couldn’t quite reach round to do it myself. Thank you Scamp. I promise I’ll be more careful in future.

Scamp had been making noises about a new pair of dance shoes, so we drove to Rutherglen after lunch, and we came home with two pair of ladies dance shoes. We stopped in at Tesco in Rutherglen and got another packet of Bran Flakes because they were deemed to be the correct ones. On the way home we stopped at B&Q to get a tube of contact adhesive to fix my black & white dance shoes. Because the heel is coming adrift. I suppose I could have bought myself a new pair while we were in the shop, but I like the black & whites and it’s a fairly easy repair, if such a thing exists!

I had already grabbed a shot that I was sure would make PoD. It’s a plant pot with a Christmas Cactus growing in it. I think it was Jackie who bought us it years ago and originally it had a spider plant in it, but the Christmas Cactus looks better in it now that it’s spreading out a bit.

Monday is usually pasta night, but just for a change we had Tortellini which needed to be used up this week. To bulk it up, Scamp suggested frying some mushrooms and some baby tomatoes. That’s what we did and they did go we’ll together. Must remember that for the future.

It looks like I may be going out for lunch with Alex this week. Not sure when, yet, but I’ve got a retinopathy appointment this week too and I bet that will be the day he wants to go. If I get drops in my eyes as usual, I won’t be able to see for a couple of hours. Maybe that will improve my photos!!

No plans for tomorrow, other than shoe repairs.

Dancin’ – 28 October 2023

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Actually a very interesting and useful dance class for a change!

It was a pleasant drive to Brookfield today. Light traffic on the motorway and a blue sky with fluffy white clouds overhead. A marked difference to the dark grey clouds hanging over the Campsie Fells when we left the house.

There is a children’s dance class in the hall before us now. Normally they aren’t a problem, but lately they have been taking longer and longer to pack up which eats into our class time. They were even later this morning and we only had a one hour time slot due to The Committee needing to set up the hall for their Halloween party tonight. I don’t think our teachers were very pleased and we got the impression that words would be said to the organising Committee.

The teachers made good use of the limited time we had for the class but the Sally Ann Cha-Cha that was the warm-up was a shambles. Nobody seemed to know where they were going and no two couples were in time with each other. Thankfully, things got better after that. We started with the Tango which got tangled with Kirsty’s tango in our heads and it took a few tracks before we were entirely happy with it. But we did manage to master the Prom Turn to Rock Turn with a bit of help from Jane. It had baffled us a fortnight ago.

Next up was Joy’s Waltz which we sort of know, but are not fully cognisant with. We sorted out a few problem steps in it too with help from Stewart.

Last dance of the morning was the Quickstep and Scamp devised a neat shortened version of the routine that would allow us to dance it without stopping. Clever teacher, Scamp! And with that our hour was up and the class was over.

We drove home through equally light traffic. I don’t know what happened today to give us a record time of just over 30mins for the run home.

We both had a fairly lazy hour after lunch, reading and basking in the sunshine while I chased an errant bluebottle round the house but didn’t catch and release it until much later in the afternoon. I think it found its way in while Scamp was in the garden, potting up a Yew tree she’d asked Jamie to bring up. She was also increasing her numbers of pelargoniums and geraniums by taking cuttings of both.

Dinner was to be Fish Risotto and we didn’t have any smoked fish in the freezer, so I booted up and went for a walk over St Mo’s, then down the path behind the school that would take me to the shops. That’s where I found todays PoD. It’s a bit weird looking, which is ok for Halloween, I suppose, but it’s actually the seed pods of a clump of Flag Irises that grow in a boggy area beside the path I liked the colours and the shapes of the seed pods and the seeds themselves. I may go back tomorrow and collect some seeds to sow. Don’t know if they will grow or not. We’ll find out some day, hopefully.

Prompt for today was “Sparkle”. I don’t have a very sparkling personality, but I did think up today’s sketch which was a pink ice cream sundae with sparklers sticking out of it. A splash of paint and a cherry on the top made it look quite festive, I thought!

The dinner worked very well and the bluebottle was released into a cold Saturday evening.

Tomorrow we’ve to have heavy rain all day, but an hour extra in our bed. Don’t know if I will take that walk over to St Mo’s to collect some seed. We’ll see.

 

A Wet Day – 4 October 2023

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We knew it was going to be a wet day, but there was no respite today.

It was a dreich day and no mistake. It started during the night and continued all day. There’s not a lot more I can say about the weather, so I won’t.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and we caught up with all that’s happening down south. Oh yes, and she was phoning us on her new iPhone 15. Not that I’m jealous or anything, but it does look good. Wish you health to use it Hazy and a new one when it’s done! We discussed Nelly, the Pleiospilos Nelii or Split Rock she gave in June. It’s changing its shape and Hazy thought it was going to flower, but on closer inspection it looks like it’s getting ready to split and push out two new leaves. I look forward to seeing that happen.

After we said “Cheerio”, Scamp and I had lunch. Scamp had a cheese sandwich and I had the remains of the lamb shank I cooked on Sunday. After carefully warming it in the microwave, I added some gravy granules to thicken the juices that had appeared in the bowl and made a decent lunch out of it. A toasted slice of rosemary and green olive sourdough finished off lunch. Rosemary and green olive sourdough? What would my mum have made of that? I’m sure she would have tried it, but would she have liked it? I think she would have. I don’t think my dad would have thought!

With Nelly still on my mind, I set up a tripod in the back bedroom and photographed that strange wee succulent. If you look carefully at the photo you can just see the spotted pale green leaves beginning its push up towards the light. That was PoD sorted.

I spent what was left of the afternoon sketching out my take on Dodge, today’s prompt. Yes it’s another cartoon, but it’s just for fun anyway. I never said I was an artist and maybe this proves it.

We drove up to the dance class in intermittent rain. I think this was our last full attempt at the Waltz Naioli. I’m feeling much more confident about it now and I think we could dance it in public now. It was a struggle at the start, but Kirsty is a very patient teacher who goes over and over the tricky parts of the routine. She’s nowhere near as patient as Scamp is though, but between them I can see the progress I’ve made. I didn’t want to come off the floor tonight, that’s how much I’ve enjoyed this dance. Thank you ladies!

Alex and I were supposed to be going to Paisley tomorrow, but the weather looks like a watered down version of today. The water being rain. So we’ve decided to meet in Glasgow, have a coffee and go for lunch. I think that sounds really sensible.

Stay home lunch – 18 May 2023

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What is going on here? We had to make our own lunch today after three days of eating out, we’d almost forgotten how to make lunch!

Luckily we remembered in time. Scamp remembered how to make a speciality omelette whose content must remain a secret. I had Brie, Apple and Honey on Brown Bread. I don’t mind disclosing the ingredients because it’s the way I cut the brie and the way I slice the apple and of course the way I manage to make the ordinary honey become runny honey that make mine special.

After lunch we drove down to Calders to get some flowers to fill a planter that will sit on a corner of the front lawn. She chose some Violas, some Nemesia and a little trio of plants in a pot. The planter is now full and we’d like some rain soon to augment the watering she did after planting everything out. But it was the buds on our Golden Torch rhododendron bush in the back garden that made PoD.

Not only did we have to make our own lunch, but we also had to make our own dinner tonight. It was ‘Easy Fish Risotto’ the one you make in the oven then add Creme Fraiche to lighten it I made. Then we watched Jim Moir painting gannets, a program I’d recorded from Sky Arts. Fred Parker had told me about it and it was actually very good. Painting tips and of course guest artists who got a little bit of air time. Overall, it was worth watching, as is Clive Myrie’s Italian Road Trip on iPlayer. Fifteen episodes of beautiful Italian scenery and away from the tourist traps. Recommended.

The prompt today asked for A Hat or A Cap. I settled on the old wide brimmed hat I wear on holiday when the sun is hot. It’s not the most elegant hat, but it does its job well shielding me from the sun and folds up quite neatly to go into a case. Roll on the time when I need to use it again!

Tomorrow Scamp is intending doing her FitBit thing and I think I’ll make an early start on the prompt for tomorrow. Oh yes, and post a card to Murdo who will be 80 on Saturday!