Category: Sketching

Coffee with Isobel – 28 February 2022

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Coffee with Isobel in Costa. Always an entertainment.

I was glad the company was good, because the coffee was awful. Watery liquid with no taste of coffee. You should watch some time and see how much hot water goes into the cup and how little coffee. However, that wasn’t why we were there. It was just a chance for Scamp and Isobel to catch up on recent events. Isobel goes for her pre-assessment on Wednesday and was full of questions for Sheila.

After an hour and a half or so, we went our separate ways. Isobel to meet a friend and us to go and get the messages in Tesco. Drove to Craigmarloch and frightened ourselves with the price of petrol. Nearly £1.50 per litre! I don’t know if I can afford to fill up the tank of the wee blue car.

After lunch I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which was another larch flower. It looked as if it and the pine cone were having a discussion, or more likely that the pine cone was giving the new arrival some hints and tips for an easy life in the woods. Or is that just me being stupid again. It’s called Anthropomorphism, just in case you are wondering. Then I thought the larch flower looked like a wee cup cake. I don’t think there is a name for that and I do believe I should severely reduce my alcohol intake in the mornings!!

When I came home and was perusing the photos I’d taken, I noticed the sun had come out for the first time today. It had been noticeably missing when I was out walking.

Today’s final prompt was Happy. This is me sitting at the table trying to think up something to draw for the final sketch of February 2022. I think that this is fitting. I’m happy that I’ve finished all 28 again. As always, it’s been a struggle some nights, but it was good to get ‘likes’ and even some comments, so thank you for your ‘reactions’ as FB describes it. It does make you want to continue and gives value to the sketches and paintings. Also, a thank you to my wife for being my most honest critic. I don’t think I’ll torture myself with an Every Day in March, but maybe I’ll participate in the May edition, if I’m allowed, DV.

Spoke to Fred tonight and he was asking how Scamp was getting on. Then we discussed the quality of work on Landscape Artist of the Year and what we’d have done to improve it. While Fred and I were talking, Scamp was talking weddings and outfits with Jacqueline (Big Jac). Later Jamie phoned and we discovered that the survey of the roof timbers of the house had found that the woodworm was historical and nothing needed to be done, but as usual, other timbers needed strengthening. Good news and bad news. That’s the way of the world. You just hope that the good outweighs the bad, because there’s usually little you can do about it anyway.

So with that thought, I don’t think we have any plans for tomorrow. It looks like rain.

Woke at 7am – 25 February 2022

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I hadn’t intended waking at 7am.

I was just so tired last night I forgot to cancel the alarm on my watch. It’s cancelled now. Oh yes it’s been warned that if it does that again it’s going out the window. If I’m feeling generous I might even open the window first.

I got a message from Jamie asking how the patient was and telling me that there was a parcel arriving here between 11am and 2.30pm. I reckoned I could keep a secret for a few hours. It was a lovely bright morning. Cold but the sun was shining. We watched one of our neighbours nearly take a tumble on the ice sheet that had appeared overnight on the path outside. That meant we weren’t going anywhere soon, which meant I didn’t have to tell too many lied keep Scamp at home until the parcel arrived. We did go out to have a look round the front garden and that was where I found today’s PoD. One little yellow crocus flower poking its head out above the grass. I’d initially taken it just because it looked good, shining in the morning sun. It turned out to be almost the one picture I took today.

It was after lunch before the parcel arrived. Scamp answered the door and carried in a big blue box with ‘Moonpig’ written in pink. No guesses who had sent this one. Inside was a big bottle of sparkling rosé wine and a box of posh chocolates. They have now been sampled and found to be just as good as you’d expect. Scamp very kindly allowed me to help her test them! Nice card. We both laughed.  We both appreciated these gifts.  You are all lovely people.

After an exchange of messages we went for a walk round St Mo’s and then on to the shops to get a Friday Pizza. It’s going back to the old Friday tradition, I think! We also got a box of ice cream, just in case the pizza, wine and chocolates didn’t fill us up entirely and we were peckish later.

After dinner which was pizza, of course, we watched another uninspired episode of Death In Paradise. As Scamp says, we only watch it for the music and the scenery which is lucky, because the acting is stilted and the plots are terrible.

Yesterday’s prompt was Black & White. I chose a piano keyboard as the typical case of black and white. I know I should have looked more deeply at this subject and researched the hidden meanings in the Michael Jackson song, but sometimes the literal answer is the best one. This is version 3 of the drawing. The first one is generally the best with me, but it was just too rough and version 2 which drawn using a ruler and a 0.7 pencil was too neat and tidy, although the perspective was much more accurate. The ‘Goldilocks Version’ you see here was just right to my eyes and was drawn today, because yesterday had been a long day that started about 6am and finished after midnight. Something had to give and, unfortunately, it was the sketch.

Today’s prompt was The Love Cats.
I don’t really love cats and I’m not a great fan of The Cure either. Having said that, I’d much rather have a cat in the house than a dog, just not this particular cat. This is not a ‘puddy tat’. This is a true Scottish Wildcat and it would do you up a treat, mate, given half a chance. There’s not much love in those eyes. Getting rare now in Scotland and reduced to a few mating pairs in the highlands. Still a fearsome creature to meet on a dark night. This was drawn from a photograph I took in 2005 and I still love that look. So, I suppose, in a way it IS a Love Cat!

Tomorrow we’re hoping to get out for a longer walk.

Wiping the windows – 23 February 2022

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The Blue car needed its windows wiped, so I went to Halfords to see if they had any wipers.

For once it was easy to get the right size and type of windscreen wipers. Just type in your reg and up comes a list of what’s available. Got a 26” and a 14” paid for them and drove home, dreading the next part. How do you fit the bloody things. Every new car has a different removing and refitting technique. Luckily the instructions were in the vehicle manual and I followed them carefully and they worked. New blades on and old ones going in the blue IKEA bag to go to the tip soon.

With that done, it was time for lunch which was yesterday’s leftover curry and then a piece ’n’ fishy jam, which is what my mum used to call marmalade, trying to con my wee brother into believing the little bits of shred were tiny fish. He never believed it, but he used to pretend that he did to make her smile. After that the rain came on and I’d to wait an hour or so to get my daily photography fix. I used the time wisely by finishing Rizzio a short novella by Denise Mina about the murder of David Rizzio, Mary Queen of Scots’ lover. Quite the best historical book I’ve read. If all history books had been written like this, I’d have passed ‘O’ grade history all those years ago.

Not long after I finished the book, the sun came out and the rain stopped, so I got my bare hour in St Mo’s to grab a few photos. A very few photos as it turned out, because I was just talking to one of our neighbours out walking his Scots terrier when the first splashes of rain appeared on the pond. Time to go home, but I was pretty sure I had my PoD, a close-up of a seed head of a weed.

Dinner tonight was paella and it was a nice dry one for a change. I’ve a tendency to make my paella too sloppy. More careful measurement of rice and water helped today.

Today’s prompt was Windmills Of Your Mind. This is the windmill of My mind. It’s a deconstructed windmill. It has most of the important parts. It has sails as most windmills have. It has a circular base (Circles) and it has a Spiral. It has planetary gears (Wheel within a Wheel). The belt drive is Never Ending and it drives an Ever Spinning Reel. Yes, I think that’s what’s going on inside my head most of the time. My mum used to say my head was “Full of wee wheels”. Which meant I talked rubbish most of the time. Some things never change.

Early bed tonight because we’ve an early rise tomorrow for eye number two.

A palindromic date – 22 February 2022

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As well as being a date almost entirely composed of 2s, today’s date is a numerical palindrome. 22-02-2022 reads the same forwards and backwards. Check if you want to, but it’s right. I didn’t work this out myself, I found it on that great repository of knowledge, Facebook!

Today was one of those days when the weather couldn’t decide what to do. Would it stay dry or would it stay wet. Would it be windy or would it be calm. It couldn’t decide, so it did all of them, sometime it seemed to do all of them at the same time.

I have been looking for a new pair of true wireless headphones. The ones that are just two headphones that plug into your ears, or hang in your ears with no connecting cables. I bought a pair ages ago and they worked well for almost a year before they started losing connection. It seemed that you had to look straight ahead and not turn or one of the earbuds would switch off. It was really disconcerting, but they were very cheap and probably Tesco’s own make, because I never saw them anywhere else. Anyway, I bought a pair of Skullcandy’s to replace them, but the sound was awful. You’ve no way to check in-ear earbuds before buying. Scamp says it’s the same with earrings. I’ve never had that problem, personally! I had some money sitting in vouchers for JL and fancied a new (better quality) pair. A pair of Sony’s. They’d been out of stock at JL for weeks, but today they were back. Not back in black, but they had them in white and that would suit me fine. Scamp didn’t want to come to Glasgow today, she’s more or less self-isolating, getting ready for Thursday.

I drove through torrential rain all the way in to Glasgow and eventually found someone in JL who unlocked the cabinet and sold me the headphones. I only had to pay £4 odd for them because the vouchers paid off the rest. I’d another reason to go in to Glasgow today. We have loads of books in the house looking for a new home. Scamp has collected lots of them up and they’re sitting in bags in various rooms. I’d brought one of the bigger bags with me today and I handed them over, with bag, to the girl in the Oxfam shop in Exchange Square. Two jobs done. I bought myself another concertina sketch book in Cass Art, an A6 one. Scamp gave me my present A5 book and it’s almost half full with EDiF sketches, but a smaller one that could easily fit in my pocket would be useful. On the way back to the car, I was passing the GOMA and it’s usually a great place to people watch and people snap. Today it was a girl on her fag break or to be more correct a ‘vape break’ and a guy who seemed to be bragging about his drawings, you’ll need to go on Flickr to find him.

Drove back home through more rain. It just seems never-ending these days, although I walked around Glasgow and not a drop wet my Bergy. It’s the wind that makes it so unpredictable.

I charged the headphones when I got home and dumped the photos. The it was time to make a chicken curry for dinner. It turned out fine, but I was toying with the idea of using some Padron peppers to add a different flavour to it, but these padrons were HOT, so rather than risk it, they went in the bin.

After dinner I started today’s sketch. Today’s prompt was Mad Dogs and Englishmen.
I started off copying a shot of Noel Coward, but it just didn’t feel right and he really needed the sun in the picture as well as the ‘Mad Dog’ to fit the prompt. So, it became a sort of stereotypical man who is ‘something in the city’ with his times under one arm and a bottle of MD 2020 under the other. According to its website, MD 2020 is “made with juicy, luscious fruit infused with tasty flavors to create a unique variety of MD 20/20 selections”. Made in America, drunk in Coatbridge! Delicious (so I’m told) served cold in a bus shelter.

The headphones sounded terrible to start with, but once I’d worked out how to use the equaliser they came alive. It didn’t help that they weren’t sitting properly in my ears. Sorted now. Great sound with just the gentlest hiss at times.

Scamp’s telephone consultation with the doc went well this morning. Her meds are being returned to the previous dosage.

No plans for tomorrow, although I might need to get the front wipers on my car replaced.

 

Wild Swimming – 21 February 2022

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Not us! Oh no, not us!

I filled the flask while Scamp sorted the tea and coffee things and grabbed a couple of biscuits and some crisps, then with a quick stop for petrol we were off to the highlands.

Yesterday Scamp had suggested that if today was as good as the weather fairies said it would be, we could maybe drive to Loch Lubnaig in the Trossachs for cup of coffee by the lochside. I thought it was a grand idea and as the day looked as promising as predicted we drove out past Stirling and through Callander then out to Kilmahog and that’s where it got a bit worrying. The water coming down the River Leny was very high, almost bursting its banks in places. The Falls of Leny which are usually a picturesque series of rapids were a roaring torrent that took up the entire width of the river. As the Leny flows out of Loch Lubnaig, I was beginning to wonder if the car park would be flooded.

When we got there the water was indeed high, but not as high as it might have been, There is usually a beach a about three metres wide before you reach the water, but not today. The water was coursing around the trees that grow two metres from the beach. Yes, the water was high. However, the wee coffee stall was open and the smell of frying bacon was enticing. We had a roll each, Scamp’s was egg, mine was bacon, with a cup of drinkable coffee. I’m not sure if it was instant or filter, but it was strong enough for me and tasted like coffee should.

I did manage to get a few photos, but I think I’ve been to Lubnaig so often that I think I’ve seen it all, however the high water gave a few more opportunities and the one I liked the best was the almost submerged picnic tables. I think diners would be advised to bring waders! That became PoD.

Another sight we saw was a couple, the man with a full wet suit and the woman with wet suit leggings and what looked like a neoprene bra, walking gingerly into the loch. I’d been wearing a pair of jeans, teeshirt, warm shirt, jersey and a lined Bergy jacket when I was taking photos and when I was standing around for about a minute, waiting for a time exposure to complete, I was beginning to feel the cold. I dread to think how that woman felt.

They eventually had had enough of the wild swimming. Yes they did some swimming, but going too far would have been dangerous today with a fair swell in the loch and a fast current too. I think we both relaxed a bit when they got out and wrapped themselves in heavy towel. I’m told that wild swimming in winter is good for you, but I’ll take their word for it, rather than try it myself.

We came back via the Duke’s Pass over the hills to Aberfoyle and from there to Doune and up to get some more shots from the David Stirling memorial. The view from there is quite phenomenal on a good day and it was a good day today. Photo also on Flickr. From there it was just the motorway home.

Today’s prompt was Edelweiss. I do believe I saw one once. Many more moons ago than I’d care to put a number on, when I was in primary school, in fact, the teacher brought one in for us to see. I don’t know where she got it from, because I don’t remember any growing wild in the central belt of Scotland. Dandelions and Daisies, yes, but not Edelweiss. I remember thinking it wasn’t the prettiest flower I’d ever seen. That being the case, I found this one tough to draw and paint, but that’s what this challenge is all about, isn’t it? It’s being forced to work outside your comfort zone. With that in mind, this one’s now complete and we move on to the next challenge, the next prompt!

Scamp has a telephone consultation booked with one of the docs from the Cumbernauld practice in the morning tomorrow to review her meds. The rest of the day is our own and the weather looks reasonable at present.

Another wet and windy one – 20 February 2022

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It was raining today when we woke up. What a surprise!

I took Scamp’s car out for a run to Tesco to top up its fuel and to buy some stuff. I had a voucher for groceries that I’d been meaning to spend, so I took it with me too. Scamp gave me a short list of her requirements and I got most of them. Bumped into Fred at the shops and we spent a good few minutes catching up on what each of us had been doing, which wasn’t much. We discussed the merits and demerits of the current participants on Landscape Artist of the Year. He asked after Scamp and I asked after Margo then we went our separate ways him to but more groceries and me to get one of those fancy scanner things everyone in Tesco seems to use these days.

With the scanner beeping away as I recorded all my purchases, I had a great time. Then I realised I didn’t know what to do next. I did what most sensible people do, but what most Auld Guys don’t, I read the instructions which said “bag as you go”. Had I done that? No. I’d just loaded everything into the trolley. However, I planned to use the Auld Guy card when I went to the checkout and plead stupidity. It comes naturally to me. Eventually the girl at the checkout sorted everything out and I apologised to the next couple in the queue, then made a hasty exit after paying my dues and using my voucher. A lot of my stuff was going in the Food Bank box which was now overflowing, but I managed to squeeze it all in. Feeling I’d actually made a difference to someone, I drove to the petrol station where the Wee Red Car got some much needed expensive petrol. After that I drove home. It really is a lovely little car. You can see for miles in it. Probably the best visibility I’ve ever had in a car.

After lunch and after marinading the short ribs I was having for dinner, I wrote an email to Alex explaining the difficulties of being a nurse for Scamp and sending him some of my latest photo offerings. With the email sent, I went for a walk in St Mo’s. I’d hoped to get some decent light, but, of course with my luck, I got the rain that had threatened most of the afternoon but hadn’t appeared. Just as it was beginning to clear, the sun shone brightly and I grabbed half a dozen decent shots looking straight into the light. When they were processed, there was no doubt they were going to be competing for PoD. The one I chose was the easiest to process. No fancy shading or sepia toning, this was virtually out of the camera.

I cooked the short ribs in the Le Creuset in the oven for two hours at gas 6, then for about half an hour at gas 4. My marinade was Salt, Honey, White Wine Vinegar and Olive Oil plus Mustard. (Salt, Sugar, Acid and Oil) You see Hazy. I do remember the important things. By the way, the mustard helps the olive oil and the vinegar to mix. The chemist will probably disagree. They were well cooked, but they had to be, they’d been chilling in the freezer since March last year! They tasted as fresh as if they’d been bought yesterday. Scamp had a simpler pieces of salmon cooked in tinfoil. No fancy marinade. No Le Creuset. Just simple good cooking. Both tasted great with potatoes and a little butter.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard how they survived the recent storms and more work needed in the house. He got an update on Scamp’s eye situation too.

Today’s prompt was Beautiful Day.  Unfortunately it wasn’t a beautiful day where I was today. Rain, wind and occasional bright sun, but beautiful? Not really. I watched the video for the prompt but nothing really jumped out at me apart from this bloke who girned and groaned into the camera. He’s probably someone important, at least important to himself. To me he’s a bloke with black glasses who needs a shave. Before you say anything, yes, I do know who he is. He’s Bozo, no, he’s Bono. Bozo is another thing entirely, not quite human, but still bumbling along, pretending he’s Churchill.

Tomorrow looks like it might be a good day. If it is, we may go somewhere scenic.

 

 

We had snow – 18 February 2022

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We had snow for a while in the morning, but it quickly turned to slush.  Yuk.

We shouldn’t complain.  We had some wind in the morning too, but not nearly as bad as the folks down south had. 100mph gusts are no fun, I’m sure.  We just had snow, not heavy and not the nice fluffy snow that you see on Christmas cards, just wet sleety snow that turned to slush as it hit the ground.  It didn’t last.  Scamp, however, was amazed to see snow from her bed before breakfast.  She kept telling anyone who would listen (me) that she could see the flakes of snow.  She had taken the eye patch off while I was making breakfast.  I remember just how amazed I was to see things so clearly after my first cataract op.  The colours were brilliant.  Much brighter than I’d ever seen before and I was telling everyone (Scamp) so I guess it was my turn to listen to her. I put in her drops for her, I remember that too.  The drops that nipped and the ones that were just cold.  Two different bottles, four drops per day spaced evenly throughout the day.

After breakfast and as the snow flurries were fading away, Scamp got her check-up phone call and got to ask all the questions she’d built up since yesterday.  I think that helped her settle down.  After that, a knock at the door and there stood a man with a long cardboard box I thanked him as he photographed me holding it to prove that he’d delivered it, I guess.  Scamp opened it and inside was a beautiful bouquet of mixed flowers.  Scamp was speechless (for once).  She just stood staring at these bright flowers she was seeing without contact lenses!  I can’t imagine how that must feel.  To see without glasses or contacts for the first time since she was about 5.

With the flowers arranged in a vase it was lunch time.  After lunch I walked down to the shops to get a pizza for dinner and also various things Scamp asked me to get, boring things like potatoes and cream.  I also got interesting things like two fruit and custard Danish pastries!  They were delicious, but we really must make the effort now to stop eating all the time.  On the way back I got today’s PoD which is a wee bunch of weeds on a barbed wire fence. There was little else of interest.

Today’s prompt was Rocket Man. Just to be different and because I’ve always loved the shape of Tintin’s rocket with its bright red chequer board pattern, I chose him as my Rocket Man rather than Elton John.  Tintin probably predates him anyway.

Tomorrow if the weather is kind we may go for a gentle walk.

Walking in the rain – 15 February 2022

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This morning Scamp wanted to go for a walk.

After breakfast and after footering about for a while, Scamp said “I’m going for a walk”. I thought I’d better go with her just in case she dropped her glasses and couldn’t find her way home. Anyway, it was an opportunity to get a morning photo and maybe avoid having the go out later in the rain to get one.

We walked down to Broadwood, aiming to go round the boardwalk, then across the dam and up the hill to the shops to get milk on the way home. We were walking across the boardwalk when we felt the first drops of rain. It wasn’t too heavy at first, but soon settled into a soaking rain shower. We decided to cut out the walk over the dam and just walk to the shops. That was when the wind got up and we were feeling the full force of the rain blowing over the loch with no windbreaks to give us shelter. By the time we got to the stadium and some shelter from the rain and wind, we were already fairly wet. Bergy jackets are great for keeping your top half dry, but our jeans were just like blotting paper, soaking up the rain. We went to the shops and got milk and some oranges, then made our way home from there with a bit of blue sky here and there letting us know that the worst of the rain had gone.

After lunch and still footering about Scamp suggested we eat out of the freezer today. It was a good idea as the freezer is getting stuffed with food and we really could do with eating some of it instead of throwing it out when it finally goes out of date. That’s what we did, except, Scamp changed her mind and instead of the fish she was going to have, made a ratatouille instead, but keeping to the ethos of ‘eat out of the freezer’ she ate out our the fridge instead. I had a tub of mince ragu in the freezer and that would make a good sauce for some pasta. Scamp went further by making shortcrust pastry for a rhubarb & ginger pie. I’d plenty of time until I needed to defrost and cook my ragu, so it was boots on again and off to St Mo’s to bolster the few photos I’d taken in the morning. PoD came from that walk. It’s a macro of the fruiting bodies of moss plants. I find them fascinating.  Also worth noting is that today’s PoD is the 3,333rd photo to be nominated PoD in the ten years of 365s!

Dinner was good and we both have some left over for tomorrow’s lunch. Rhubarb & ginger pie was fine, but although the pastry was excellent, the rhubarb was a bit tasteless, Scamp thought and I chipped in with the ginger being a bit tough. As I was in charge of chopping up the ginger, I have to shoulder half the blame.

Today’s prompt was Up On The Roof. I’m fairly happy with that music and familiar with it too, however with two named storms due to make landfall in the next few days, ’up on the roof’ was not a place I wanted to be. Instead I drew on an old favourite of mine and sketched one of the gargoyles from Notre-Dame long before the fire. I hope these stone devils made it through the flames.
My apologies to any French people viewing this as I’ve take a few liberties with the architecture of Paris :-\

Tomorrow the first of the storms is set to come our way. Different reports give different scenarios. Hopefully it will just be a glancing blow we’ll get and not a full on body punch. I don’t see us going very far.

Down the Green – 14 February 2022

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Someone brought a dog into the house next door and it was practising its barking this morning.

So, after breakfast, I drove up to Tesco to post a parcel and get away from the racket. Actually, Tesco at about 9am is quite doable. No big queues and not a lot of people. The biggest groups were men musing about which oversized bunch of red roses to buy for someone they fancied, or had forgotten to send a Valentine card to. The same men were to be seen later striding across the car park looking sheepish and pretending they weren’t carrying a bouquet.

Back home (and without a bouquet) it seemed a shame to waste a good day and Scamp had previous said she fancied a walk down Glasgow Green, so that’s where we went. It seems a bit strange that Glasgow Council provide tour buses that visit the People’s Palace but the building remains closed. Apparently due to ”essential building maintenance works to the building interior” according to Glasgow Life who own the building. If there is work being done to the building, you’d expect there to be builders’ vans and lorries outside, and the sound of essential building maintenance being done, but there is total silence. Strange that. We walked past what used to be a fine building and on down to the McLennan Arch then back past the old Boathouse which is being renovated to make a community hub and here there IS work being done with plenty of folk working on site. The work here is under the umbrella of Glasgow Building Preservation Trust and not anything to do with Glasgow Life, thankfully.

We walked further up river and crossed the Clyde to Richmond Park. Half the park has been sold to developers who are presumably building houses on the site. The park itself has been left to rack and ruin, literally. The boating pond is still there, but it’s been a long time since much boating has been done on it. It gets really depressing when you see the damage Glasgow Council had done to the green places in the city. They have closed so many buildings and failed to maintain others. They should be ashamed.

Yesterday’s prompt was Chantilly Lace. I listened to that song for as long as I could stand and this was my abiding memory, the telephone he kept answering. Why didn’t he just put her on hold like any sensible person would?
I should have posted it yesterday, but the day just seemed to disappear. I blame the whisky or it might have been the gin or the wine!

Love is Like a Butterfly was today’s prompt.  Another delightful melody, thanks for that Dolly. I chose to attempt a painting of a real butterfly (without satin wings). It a fair representation of a Small Copper.

Palomino Blackwing soft pencil
Cass Art watercolours
Seawhite A5 Concertina sketchbook

#EDiF #28DL

Walked back to the car and drove home. I was pretty sure I had enough photos for a PoD and it turned out I was right, but I went for a walk later in the afternoon and took some more. You can never have enough photos. While I was out, Scamp was working in the garden getting things sorted out for a new gardening year. She had to give up eventually because she just couldn’t see properly to get the work done. I think I may be her eyes tomorrow.

Nothing else planned for tomorrow, but we better make the best of it, because Wednesday and Thursday don’t look like great weather days.

We went for a walk – 11 February 2022

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Today turned out a lot brighter than we expected, but cold at -3º when woke. There was no sense in wasting a dry and sunny day, so it was boots on and out!

Since it’s just a week to go until the op, Scamp had discarded her lenses and was wearing the dreaded glasses. She decided she’d like to go for a walk somewhere different. I suggested Mugdock and that’s where we went, by the long road, the wrong road. Well, it’s been a while since we last drove there and it was a nice, clear, cold day, so a bit of sight seeing just added to the outdoor experience. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Finally, we got there and got parked quite easily. We walked round the castle and the loch and then back to the car. That sounds like a poor walk, but we covered about 10,000 steps, so it was a fairly decent ramble across boardwalks, muddy paths, frozen paths. The loch was still frozen when we got to it with the mallards sitting on the ice wondering what was happening.

When we arrived back at the centre, we had a roll ’n’ egg for Scamp and a roll ’n’ sausage for me. To wash it down we had what they called a Flat White each, but as Scamp said, you were unlikely to overdose on caffein after drinking it. It was more like a Babyccino! It went in the bin and we went to look for seed compost in the nearby Calder’s garden centre. We couldn’t find any so we drove to Dobbies and got a bag of the stuff there. From there it was the long drag home.

Dinner tonight was Sweet Potato Soup and then Pizza. Watching yesterday’s Apprentice where Scamp’s least favourite competitor was sacked. I too was delighted.

PoD was a shot taken up the main avenue of the estate among the high pines.

The prompt for today was Moon River, so this may need some explanation.
Moon River left me very little wriggle room, apart from painting a moody shot of a moon reflected in a river, and I have no idea what a ‘Huckleberry Friend’ is. Almost a fortnight ago I showed the prompt to one of my wife’s friends who immediately said Breakfast at Tiffany’s and my wife agreed. The only Breakfast at Tiffany’s I’d heard of was a song by Deep Blue Something, but I guessed that wasn’t what the ladies were talking about. Sooooo, I kind of turned it on its head and sketched a breakfast of sorts in a little cafe called Tiff & Ann’s. That’s what you see here. I added the blue box because apparently that’s what Tiffany’s is famed for, that and eye watering prices. I never like to make things too easy to understand. A big thank you to Sheila and Margie without whom I’d have painted a moon and a river and Huckleberry Hound!!

Tomorrow looks like rain, in fact the weather is practising for it tonight. We may go out if we can manage to get a dry spell.