Category: reflection

A day in the toon by myself – 10 July 2017

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Spoke to Hazy in the morning, then went into Glasgow for a wander. Danced in the evening. That’s the synopsis.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and discussed books among other things. That’s probably what sent me in to Glasgow. Scamp had other things to do today, but offered me a run to the station, probably to make sure I went. I had a walk around Glasgow and, yes, I did spend a fair amount of time in Waterstones. Finally got a book, a physical book to read. (FYI Hazy, it’s Romeo Spikes by Joanne Reay)

Today’s PoD is of the reflections of clouds on the new 110 Queen Street building. It was either that or reflections of

Allegedly, the CityTree is a highly visual structure which, at 4 meters tall, nearly 3 meters wide and 2 meters deep, is said to have the environmental benefit of up to 275 urban trees.  This one was dumped planted outside the GOMA.

old sandstone buildings in the same glass building. You’ll need to visit Flickr to see that one. I’d half intended doing a sketch while I was in, but the rain came on and I didn’t manage it. I know I’m a sketch down after my lapse yesterday, but I’ll try to make it up tomorrow.

On the way home in the train, I glanced out the window while the train was going quite slowly and saw three fox cubs playing together in the grass of a cutting. They stopped to stare at the train as I stared back. So strange to see three cubs together in a little splash of sun after the rain.

While I made the dinner, Scamp picked blackcurrants from the bush in the garden. We’d noticed the birds taking an unhealthy interest in the blackcurrants recently and we were both determined to got our share of them picked and frozen. She managed to pick 1lb of berries. Less than it has been, but then the bush is getting quite old now. Scamp is very fair with her harvest. She never cleans out the bush, but always leaves some for the birds to have.

Salsa class was good tonight and although it wasn’t all that warm outside, it was hot inside and it was a joy to dance near the fan. Our new moves in Advanced class were:

  • Besso por Abaho
  • Agamemnon
  • Vueltas
  • Estrella

No real plans for tomorrow, but hopefully the weather will be better than today, because the rain was torrential on the way home from salsa class.

Happy Birthday Netta – 4 March 2017

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Today centred around Scamp and her ladies singing at a friend’s birthday party.  A special birthday party, the friend was 90 today.  She used to be a senior member of Gems and that’s why the ladies were singing at her party.  Me?  I was chauffeur and roadie again.  I didn’t really mind, because it gave me a couple of hours free to do as I pleased.

I first set out to do some beer shopping in Lidl and then went looking for a subject.  I settled on the Falkirk Wheel where I knew I could find some longboats tied up.  By the time I got there the best of the day’s light had gone and a cold easterly wind was getting up, but there were plenty of boats to photograph and with the canal as smooth as a millpond, the reflections were good.  They would have been even better if the water hadn’t been so dirty.  Not as dirty as the Falkirk Wheel.  According to the notice near the entrance, its annual maintenance takes place towards the end of December.  I don’t know if they didn’t do it this year or maybe they are still trying to source the cleaning materials, but the wheel is manky.  There’s no other word for it.  The site itself is cordoned off with loads of miles of security fencing and signs saying its a construction site.  That wouldn’t be so bad if there was any evidence of construction taking place, but there was none.  I got there at 4pm and the entire place was closed.  Again, giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe they are still working on the winter timetable.  Being more realistic, maybe Central Region just don’t care, or don’t have the funds to maintain this massive structure.  It certainly is a sad sight just now.

Beer bought, photos taken, I was heading back to the car when I got the call from Scamp to go pick her up.  The birthday girl was looking great and if I hadn’t know her age, I’d never have guessed.

Let’s hope tomorrow is a better day.

One last thing, I finally got round to adding a gallery of my 28 Drawings Later … sketches.  Do go and have a look when you have time.  They are accessed from Galleries (duh!) from the blue bar at the top of the page.  I don’t have a clue where you find them on a phone or a tablet.  Seek and ye shall find!
Remember when you’re viewing that it’s not the skill or the artifice you are admiring, it’s the dedication to put pen, pencil and brush to paper, one day after another for a month.

The toon in the sun – 25 January 2017

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Well, almost.  There was some sun for a while, then it got tired and went behind a cloud or two for a wee rest.  It was there, though for a while.

Scamp had decided that we needed to go in to the toon today on the bus, because we were going for lunch.  As it turned out, it was a good idea, but we weren’t sure where we were going.  It was finally decided that we would go to my new favourite restaurant / pizzeria, Paesano.  There, I’ve spelled it right first time without checking.  I checked afterwards, but that doesn’t count.  I had pizza (everything is a pizza there) with Salsiccia and Friarielli (Friarelli are a green vegetable like Broccoli but are only grown in Campania and they are in a category all their own).  A pizza bianco which doesn’t have tomato sauce.  I also had a side of lovely balsamic onions.  Scamp had Burrata (a fresh Italian cheese made from mozzarella and cream), Cherry tomatoes and Basil and a boring old Pizza Margherita.  Lovely!

Afterwards we went for a coffee in ‘Nero and that was the extent of our stravaigin’ in the toon.  Bus home too and the sun came out of hiding and started shining again for a while.

Not a lot to take photographs of today and I only took the one camera, the Oly 5.  I liked the distorted reflections of the buildings overlaid on the internal details of 110 Queen Street and it’s my PoD.  When I got home I’d left myself a reminder to glue the little metal cap on my Oly 5 (It fell of the other day).  When I was doing it, I found a little metal circlip that had broken and decided to pull it off.  When I pulled it off, it unfortunately took the plastic shutter button off with it!  Oh dear, I’ve just broken what has recently become my go-to camera – of course the actual words I said were not “Oh dear”.  The sentence was much longer and contained a lot of sweary words.  However, I managed to find the offending article and also managed to clip it back in place.  Then I glued on the offending metal cap with Araldite (other Two-part Epoxy Resin Adhesives are available).  It still seems to be working.  Moral of the story – If it ain’t Really broke, don’t fix it.  It worked perfectly before without the little metal cap.

Looking cold for tomorrow, but hopefully we’ll be on a warm train for a change.  Letting the train take the strain.

Out To Lunch – 10 January 2017

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This morning, over a cup of coffee, we discussed what to do with the day.  We decided to go out for lunch because it was fairly bright.  The reason we gave was that we needed to get some compost to plant up the spider plants that have been languishing in water on the back window sill and we could get that at a garden centre and most garden centres have cafés now.  Devious, eh?   We had to drive through the roadworks going on all round the ring road.  Everywhere had closed signs and everywhere had diversion signs, sometime contradictory signs, but lots of them except where they’d be helpful.  Well, you’ve got to use the “Twenty seven 8×10 full colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one …”  (Alice’s Restaurant – Arlo Guthrie).  After we’d manoeuvred our way through the barriers, I thought we would drive to the garden centre out by Killearn, but the weather that way looked very rough.  Dark clouds and what looked like heavy rain.  The weather closer to home had deteriorated too, so we changed our plans and went to Dobbies at Bearsden instead.  As is usual in garden centres these days there are franchises and Dobbies now has an Edinburgh Woollen Mill within its shopping area.  I got another warm winter shirt – you can’t have too many shirts.  After lunch and after buying the compost, we drove home through brightening skies again.

By the time we got home the skies had cleared and blue sky was once again in charge.  While Scamp phoned her Cumbernauld sister, I took the chance to get some photos over at St Mo’s.  By the time I got over there, the sun was sinking, but the blue sky was still there.  Just a few shots in the bag, but enough for a PoD and then some backup.

I think we’re driving Scamp and her sister to Glasgow Airport on Thursday and it will be a fairly early rise.  It’s only her sister who is flying down to a funeral in Bristol, but Scamp’s going in to the airport with her to provide much needed moral support.  Hopefully I’ll have an hour or so in Glasgow to get this week’s sketch done.  Tomorrow, however, is free so far.  Weather looks wild.  Strong winds and the possibility of snow with more due on Thursday.  Oh what fun, but the combination might provide some interesting photo opportunities.

The day after the day before – 12 December 2016

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Morning came too soon today after a late night yesterday.

Worse still, there was a lot to do and so it was a quick breakfast and start the baking for Scamp’s Gems party.  For me, that was bread first.  Hand made.  Kneaded and set to prove in a warm kitchen.  While the dough was rising, Scamp went to buy Tesco while I made the scone dough.  Unfortunately I made the beginner’s mistake of forgetting to put the oven on, so I faffed around for a while while the oven heated, with the result that the scones didn’t turn out quite as well as I expected, but that’s just the way things are.  If you’re making them for yourself, they turn out fine every time.  When you’re under pressure to produce, that’s when mistakes creep in.  By comparison, the bread looked very good and behaved exactly as it should, rising perfectly.  I’d a bit more things to do, a bit of furniture moving and adjusting, but after that was finished and I’d had a lunch of sorts, I made my excuses and left before the festivities could begin.

I drove in to Glasgow to make my final purchase from an actual shop for Christmas.  With that complete, I was free to wander and take some photos.  I took a few of reflections in the 110 Queen Street building.  I’m sure it deserves a better name than a postal address.  Something like the bendy glass building would be more Glasgow than 110 Queen Street.  The kidney building would do because it’s kind of kidney shaped.  Answers on a postcard please.  Along the way I picked up the new – old Dylan album from 1966 allegedly from the Albert Hall, but actually from the Free Trades Hall in Birmingham, but still reminiscent of that era when Dylan truly was God on Wheels.  Picked up Jackie and drove home.

Salsa tonight.  The Kizomba is finished for us for now.  Great night with three new dances, the best named dance was Oti Biscuits.  I kid you not!

Tomorrow we are hoping will run at a more leisurely pace.  We will see.

Walkin’ on Sunshine – 1 December 2016

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1-decWhat a difference a little bit of sun makes and we had a fair bit of the big white ball in the sky today.  The grey had gone for a wee while at least.

We made the most of the sun by getting the bus in to Glasgow.  Actually, we took two buses in to Glasgow.  Scamp went in early and I fitted the new wipers to my car.  Surprisingly, it only took me a few minutes.  Sometimes it pays to buy the posh, Bosch wipers because they are so much easier to fit than the cheapo alternatives.  After fitting the wipers, I just managed to catch the bus, a different bus, in to Glasgow.  On the bus I discovered that I’d left my Kindle at home.  Worse than that, I’d left my headphones in my other jacket, also at home.  With nothing to distract me, I sat in the front of the bus and soaked up some of that sun.

I went to Millers art shop to get a couple of pens.  Before that I got myself an emergency pair of earbuds from HMV.  Skullcandy were always the cheap end of the market as far as I was concerned until I had the same problem I had today and had to buy a cheap pair of earbuds and succumbed to Skullcandy.  They were brilliant.  They are much better than my Sennheiser pair which are way to harsh and tinny sounding.  After this spending spree, I met up with Scamp and we went to lunch at The Italian Kitchen in Albion Street.  It was outside TIK that the reflections on the Herald building attracted my photographic attention.  After lunch we went our own merry way again.  Anyone watching would be wondering if we had fallen out, but that wasn’t the case, it was just about giving each other space.

I wandered around the city centre to get some more photos and even got a sketch of sorts done from the GOMA, then I wanted a look at a 21” iMac in the Apple shop.  The newly designed Apple shop, where there are no sales counters.  The Apple shop where a sales person was hogging the 21” iMac I was wanting to look at while she sold an iPhone.  Now I realise that the purchase of an iPhone is important, but wouldn’t it be a much better idea to have a sales desk where this transaction could take place.  It’s a bit of a barn of a place and it gives you an idea of the way Apple want things to go.

  • No Genius Bar
  • No sales desk, as I’ve mentioned
  • No Techys desk
  • No place to queue or sit while you wait to speak to a Techy

The other thing I noticed about this newly designed Apple store is the proportions of different machines on display.  Lots of space given to iPads and iPhones acres of deskspace given to Apple watches and entire tables given over to Macbooks of various kinds.  Only five desktop  computers on display, and that space itself being used as a sales point  It looks looks as if Apple don’t want/need to sell desktop computers any more.  Not a comforting thought.

Just managed to sneak on the X3 as it was about to leave and it turned out that Scamp was on the previous one, so we were running along behind each other heading for Cumbersheugh!  How sweet.

Hoping for another sunny day tomorrow, but today was good, so I shouldn’t be greedy.

Lazy day / Dancing night – 7 November 2016

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7 Nov

After the long walks these last two days, we both settled down to a sunbathing day today.  The furthest we were going to go was the pool, or should I say the pools.  The pool with the bar in it, yes in it, not just next to it, but in the img_3545-2-flickr-2pool itself, which means that you can swim up to the pool, have a drink and swim away again.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it all went ‘swimmingly’ today Winking smile   Both Scamp and I had a swim in the pool and when we both tired of this aquatic activity, we baked in the sun for a while more.  It was while Scamp was swimming she shouted to me that there was a dragonfly dipping into the pool.  It was actually a mating pair that was laying eggs in the swimming pool.  I don’t think there is much chance of those eggs hatching any time soon.  If the chlorine doesn’t kill them, the filters will grind them to a pulp.  Such a waste of time.  I got a fairly decent ink sketch done while we were sitting by the pool

We had booked for the Asian restaurant tonight and so we settled for a light lunch to protect our appetite.  After lunch it was back to the hard work of sunbathing again.

Later in the afternoon the sun had moved round and our sunbeds  were in shadow so we went back to the room and sat on the balcony for a while.  I got itchy feet and headed over to the lava rocks to see if I could capture any photos of  butterflies.  I managed a couple and that was my lot.

The Asian meal was delicious although it was a buffet and Scamp’s not keen on food that’s not piping hot, so she was a bit disappointed.  I thought it was all lovely.  My favourite was deep fried Dim Sum.  Scamp’s fave was the Tuna – no surprise there.  We had intended going for a walk and possibly a drink after the meal, but when we left the restaurant we could hear a violin playing.  At first we thought it was piped music, but it turned out to be a live musician playing an electronic violin.  Very clever stuff and of course that put paid to any chances of a walk, so it was ‘cooncil cocktails’ tonight.  Like I said, the bloke was really good, playing classical, pop and jazz.  We listened for his full set.

After the violinist had left, we went to hear the duo singing.  Different duo tonight, different songs, slightly better mumbled English lyrics, but best of all, we got to dance!  We did one Bachata and one Salsa.  Not our finest, but better than nothing.  There was a German (?) couple a bit older than us sitting in front of us and they seemed to think we had done alright.  They seemed to dance Ceroc rather than salsa.

We actually watched the full show tonight – Best of Shows it was called.  More like Least Worst in my opinion.  Blokes with balloons up their jumpers seem to get a great laugh here.  Possibly a Teutonic sense of humour.  I think it was the show that put the tin lid on things.  We went back to the room and off to sleep.  No nightcap on the balcony tonight because we were both tired out after such a lazy day!

Down Glasgow Green – 5 June 2016

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5 JuneIt was such a beautiful day, we just drove down Glasgow Green and wandered through to the McLellan arch and back along the river on the park side this time, not the Gorbals side like we did a few weeks ago. That was a bit strange. It seemed to be Ladies Day on the river with only a very few men out rowing.  We’re sitting in the People’s Palace now. Near the door to get the benefit of the cooling breeze. We usually avoid these seats because of the cold draught. Not today.

After that gentle exercise, we drove home and while Scamp did a bit of sun worshipping, I went out on the bike and cycled down to Auchinstarry (because I reckoned I wouldn’t get parked – I would have) and from there along the canal which is where I was and photographed Mrs Mallard and her seven wee ducklings out for a paddle.  I simply couldn’t pass up that opportunity now, could I?  From there it was all uphill.  Up the first tough climb from the canal to Twechar itself, then the long slog up to the Drumgrew bridge.  I stopped off there for some water.  This was the first stop from the canal at Twechar and I’m quite proud of it.  Had a wee rest in the garden after my run.  My legs are sore tonight, but I enjoyed it.  May go in to Glasgow tomorrow to get a UV filter for the new lens.  Saves me using and losing the tiny wee lens cap.  Best make good use of the sun as it looks like drizzle on Tuesday.  Oh dear!

An EARLY start – 24 May 2016

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May 24 bDrove in to Glasgow just for a walk and to get some stuff for the hols.  Didn’t even go to the art shop!

Actually, that’s only half the story.  I woke about 4.20am and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I think it was all that sitting around on one train, then on another train, then on one more train.  Hardly walked anything at all, so I just wasn’t tired, so I got up and dressed and went over to St Mo’s to grab some of that early morning light.  It was a good decision.  Got some nice captures of closeups with that lovely light.  There was a bit of mist on the pond, but if I’d been just a little bit earlier, it would have been better – never happy.  Used the macro lens for the closeups and as usual was impressed with the sharpness.  See if you can spot the reflection.  You might have to go to the Flickr feed to spot it.

In the town I was listening to the bloke playing the sax.  When a photog started taking his picture he began to ham it up and I decided I’d have a piece of that too.  I liked the close cropped shot.  When we walked through the St Enoch’s centre there was a boxing promotion with a ring set up.  Ricky Burns did a bit of shadow boxing and I managed about 6 shots of him.  The mono was the best.  I liked the gritty feel of it.  I felt he looked like a boxer.

So that was a long day, but even now I don’t feel tired.  It was a great start to the day and the rest wasn’t all that bad either.
Repairs day tomorrow.  Doctor and Dentist – a glutton for punishment!

On Reflection … 22 April 2016

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combo bIt wasn’t a bad day. Up a bit earlier than normal today to take my niece and her mum to a hospital appointment. Rather than sit in a crowded carpark waiting for them, I thought I’d just drive in to Glasgow. Followed my nose and relied on guesswork to get to where I was going. On the way I passed a Chinese supermarket and went in to see if I could find Dried Fenugreek Leaves because I’m sure the Indian chef who took the cook school I went to had listed them as one of the main ingredients in pakora. They had loads of dried an fresh herbs and veg, but no fenugreek, dried or otherwise, so I left empty handed, but I’m going back there some time for some Chinese curry mix like Jackie made for us in Skye.

I got parked easily up on St Mungo Avenue in Glasgow and walked down past Queen Street station and looked across past the College of Building and Printing as-was, now Glasgow Metropolitan and liked the light on the old sandstone building (top middle). On through George Square where I caught the wee man looking bemusedly at his iPad and down Queen Street to peruse the bargains at Cass Art. There were none – bummer. Walked back up and admired the reflections on the new office block, not for the first time. Managed a few shots, but then a crowd of school weans arrived out of the GOMA (Gallery Of Modern Art) clutching sketch pads and pencils and proceeded to sketch everything in sight. I put my camera away, knowing I had my PoD in one of the reflection shots. I’d just sat down with a coffee in Pret when my phone rang and I knew the Outpatients were ready for their lift home, so back up the hill again and back home via the hospital.

After lunch which was fried bacon, potatoes and egg (not the healthiest perhaps, but very, very tasty) Scamp wanted to go shopping. I decided my calling was more cycle related and put the bike on the rack on the car and got going to Auchinstarry. I’d decided it was warm enough for shorts. It was, but only just.  Today was not as warm as yesterday or Wednesday with clouds massing over the hills. Colder, but ideal for another go at another time lapse (That technique is becoming a bit ‘old’ now that I can remember its name – time for something new). Cycled along to Dumbreck and set the camera up on the Gorillapod on a fencepost and fired off a 100 frame, 10 second interval movie.

Then changed lenses and did another 100 frame, but 5 second interval movie. That was enough for me. I was getting cold standing around so I packed up and headed for home.

I was just fitting the bike on to the rack when the first splashes of rain appeared on the roof of the car. There was that delicious earth smell you get when it rains after a long (for Scotland) dry spell. It rained all the way home, but when I drew into our street the road was dry. Got the bike in to the house and the raindrops appeared on the window. It must have followed me home.

So, on reflection, it wasn’t a bad day!