Category: St Mo’s

Another busy day – 8 February 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Where are all these busy days coming from? The week seems to be full of them.

Scamp was out this morning to have coffee and a blether with Isobel. I had things to do. First thing was to get a birthday card for my brother and post it. Fairly easy walk to Condorrat. Got the card, wrote it in the post office and posted it. Hope he likes it.

It was a raw, cold day with a freezing east wind. Never a good direction. I had a walk in St Mo’s and took some photos. I was tempted to try my camera on the ice trick, but I felt the ice was just a tad too thin and settled instead for a hand held shot with the camera barely touching the ice. The only problem was that I couldn’t see in the screen if my target box was on the subject I wanted to photograph. One of those rare occasions when I longed for my old Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark ii it had a fully articulating screen which would have solved my problem. Still I did get one of the shots I wanted and with a bit of work in Lightroom it became PoD.

I walked down to the shops and bought some messages for tonight’s dinner and some flowers we didn’t desperately need, but which brightened the house. The walk back was colder than the walk through the park and I was glad to get home to a comfortably warm house.

After lunch and after finding out what Isobel was on about today, I started task three which is still under wraps, but it was a blast from the past and took up most, if not all of the daylight hours. It’s five years since I’ve done anything like it. It involves a lot of lateral thinking, that’s all I’m saying.

Dinner was paella and I thought it was pretty good, although Scamp, the food critic said it wasn’t my best work.

Today’s prompt was “Fawn”. When I saw it I wondered if I could get away with a washed out pale brown swatch on a page of the sketch book. However, I settled on a sketch of a young deer. A real deer, not a Bambi look-alike. I went out this morning looking for one, but they were all otherwise engaged. Maybe, in retrospect, the town centre was the wrong place to look. I was quite pleased with the final ink sketch. It also met with Scamp’s approval.

The day just seemed to get eaten up today. All my rambles accounted for around 8500 steps. Not amazing, but at least I’ve been keeping fit this week with mountain climbing, dancing and now walking in a bitter breeze from the east.

Tomorrow there’s snow in the forecast. Hopefully they’ve got it wrong, but I’m not counting on it.

Another day, another busy one – 7 February 2024

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It snowed during the night last night and it froze afterwards, so it was a photogs paradise.

We were going out just after midday, so I booted up and went for a walk around St Mo’s to see what I could find to fill the PoD gap. The place is totally different in the morning to the afternoon which is my usual hunting ground. Everything looks or seems fresher. The light is coming from the south east, not the south west so most of my subjects look very different. The PoD turned out to be a dried out Hogweed plant from last year with its star-like flower stems holding little beads of ice that had been snow that melted to water then froze into ice. I liked the way the warm background contrasted with the ice.

I had a few in the bag when I walked home, but the usually trustworty A7iii was misbehaving today. First it decided not to take photos, then it thought better of that and took a dozen or more in motor-wind mode and by then I’d had enough of its high jinks. I’d already tried switching it off and then on again but that didn’t work – it rarely does with modern electronics, so it was the nuclear option. I took out the battery, counted to five and put it back in again. That showed it who was boss! Or so I thought. The sneaky camera had taken 50 shots on motor-wind and loads more besides. I’m hoping to look into the issue tomorrow. No time today.

Back home we had time for a quick lunch and then we were off with our dancing shoes to Motherwell to a church hall for a new(!) Tea Dance. Strangely, it’s just along from Alex’s house. It was a bit stressful going to a new hall with new people and a new teacher, but we survived. More than that, we both enjoyed it. The folk were friendly and welcoming and the dances were ones we knew for the most part and any ones that we didn’t know, we were tutored in by the more experienced dancers. Tea and cakes at half time, then a class tutorial on the Ria Bachata which we knew almost better than the teachers. The music wasn’t as interesting as S&J’s, but you can’t have everything. We both thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon and would be happy to go back. We even got invites to other tea dances in the surrounding area.

We drove back and just as we came on to the motorway my phone rang. It was Alex saying “Did I just miss you at the Loaning?” I laughed out loud. He had just been coming back from a walk into Motherwell when he thought it was me driving past. How strange it that. I’ll have a lot of explaining to do at the next photo walk!
One of the best things about this new hall is that it’s motorway driving almost all the way and there’s no Kingston Bridge to crawl over on the way home! That, in itself is a delight.

The prompt for today was “Tangerine”. So, another fruity one. Just the one tangerine, because I thought I was being a bit generous yesterday with my two and a half plums. I tried the old trick of using salt to create the skin texture of the fruit, but for once it didn’t work. The salt was difficult to remove too, so if you think the sketch tastes a bit salty, you now know why.

Tomorrow Scamp is booked for coffee with Isobel and I’ve some work to do in the house. I also need to get a card for Alex and post it. The snow is gone for now, but we’re expecting it to return on Friday.

A blustery day again – 2 February 2024

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Very windy during the night, but it did calm down a bit in the afternoon.

I’ll admit it. It was a lazy day, although we did walk down to the shops to get some things for tonight’s dinner. I suppose it was a February day with wind, rain and overall, not that cold. I spent most of the morning backing up January’s photos onto a 4GB external drive and then finding that I didn’t have enough space on my 2GB drive to do the second BU. I’ll maybe need to get another external soon.

After lunch we walked down to the shops for potatoes, bread and pineapple tarts. A little Friday treat. We walked back up past St Mo’s school, then Scamp walked home while I went round the pond a couple of times. PoD was a gorse bush with a little wee yellow flower on the top. I hadn’t realised until recently that gorse bushes aren’t only evergreen, they also flower all year round. Dangerous looking sharp spikes on the bush.

Today’s prompt was ‘Copper’.
“Think out of the lines”, the lady admin said, so for once I did what I was told. Police (Polis in Scotland) are sometimes known as Cops or Coppers, so I chose a Scottish Polisman’s hat as my solution to today’s problem. Sketched in pencil and lined in with fountain pen and black ink then blocked in with a Pentel black brush pen before finishing off with a Posco white brush pen. I quite liked the monochrome effect.

I suppose that was about it for today. I’d intended writing to Alex, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I don’t see us going far tomorrow, but you never know. The weather
may improve and pigs might fly.

 

 

Willie is gone – 22 January 2024

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But Jocelyn is waiting in the wings.

Well last night was a wild one. I was sure the front window was going to be blown in by one of Windy Willie’s blasts, but it held firm and we survived the onslaught. Having said that, it was a noisy old night and a noisy morning too.

After taking stock of the broken branches that littered the path and after replacing all the bins that had made their big bold bid for freedom I had a quick look round the exterior of the house, but thankfully everything was intact. I suggested to Scamp that we might go for a walk round St Mo’s pond, just for a breath of fresh air and she agreed.

So booted and well wrapped up because the wind was still howling round the houses we did one circuit of the pond. There weren’t any fallen trees and very few branches. For the most part it was a dry walk, but the squally showers made it uncomfortable. I was quite glad I’d agreed on one circuit. Then it was home for lunch.

When we were making lunch Scamp said that Andy, who lives across the back from us was having trouble putting a tarpaulin over his shed. I’m guessing the roofing felt on the shed had come adrift. I walked down to see if he needed any help, but his sons were doing the heavy work and Andy was just overseeing operations, so I left them to it and went back to have my piece ’n’ banana.

Later in the afternoon the winds calmed down and that reduced the amount of squally showers, so I took the opportunity to take the camera out again for another walk. I’d taken half a dozen photos in the morning, but you can never have enough! With a few more photos in the bag I felt I had a better chance of a decent PoD and I think I got one. It’s a view across the pond framed with trees and I quite like it. Even Scamp gave it the thumbs up.

With that done and the processing completed, it was dinner time and tonight’s dinner was to be tomato soup and then Giovanni Rana tortelloni. Easy to make and quite filling.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending meeting Isobel for coffee in the morning Then we need to get ready for Storm Jocelyn which is making landfall around mid-afternoon. You get rid of one storm and another one is waiting to take its place. According to the weather fairies, this might not be as severe as Isha, but they don’t always tell the whole truth! We’ll have to wait and see.

Dancin’ – 20 January 2024

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Last Brookfield dancin’ class for three weeks at least.

Scamp doesn’t think she’ll be able to go to next Saturday’s class because she’s intending to sing the Verdi Requiem (with a few others) at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow and I certainly won’t be going there, or to the dance class in Brookfield if I can at all avoid it. Far too shouty in both venues.

For some reason, the road to Brookfield was quite busy today. Either everyone was heading to the Monster Truck show at the SEC or there was football somewhere, maybe even both! But we’d been out early and made good time after we left the city centre and got past the 50mph restriction. We had about ten minutes to collect ourselves while the little darlings in the ballet class were ushered out of the room with their ‘mummies’ – no ‘daddies’ were in sight. Smart daddies!

First track was Melody Foxtrot with Robbie Williams’ Go Gentle. I don’t like him, but I do like the song. The rhythm and timing go so well with this gentle song. I can’t remember what track two was, but it obviously wasn’t a patch on Go Gentle.

Next we were in to Waltz Time with what we’re going to call the Spring Waltz. Christmas is so last year. After a few fumbles of the feet, I was beginning to enjoy the dance. Stewart did steal Scamp away to explain something technical about the dance, but strangely Jane didn’t steal me away to do the same. Maybe I’m so good there’s nothing they can teach me. Maybe pigs do fly? Anyway, once she’d been returned, we danced a few tracks of the waltz. Actually I’d have been happy to spend the entire 90 minutes just going through that dance, but after another sequence dance we knew that the leisurely dancing was over and we were going to be forced into the Samba.

I really, really, REALLY don’t think I will ever get to like, far less love this dance although Stewart says I will. It is fast, confusing and furious at times and totally outside my comfort zone. I’m still at the second part of it, having successfully managed to make a decent fist of the basic steps at the start. This is after three weeks of teaching. Sometimes you just have to accept that this doesn’t fit in my head, apart from Jamie’s oft times quoted complaint that: “Scottish hips don’t move that way”. That, is an excellent get-out clause for not knowing what the hell you are doing, and I thank you for that, Jamie.

Eventually the Samba ground to a halt and another cool-down sequence dance finished off the torture. We were done for today and, hopefully for three glorious weeks.

We drove home, almost in silence, letting the music from Spotify’s random Discover Weekly guide us along the M8, M74, M73 and then home. Lunch for me was a roll ’n’ cheese and for Scamp, a roll ’n’ egg, with both of us having a dessert of roll ’n’ bramble jam.

It was a dull day. The sun had threatened to break through the clouds, but didn’t really have the energy, so the clouds covered it and tucked it in. I did manage a few shots in St Mo’s, but none of them were award winners. PoD was a sepia toned discarded swan’s feather.

Dinner tonight came from Bombay Dreams and it was quite poor by their standard. Probably would have been better walking down to M&S and bringing back a heat-in-the-oven curry. I think we’ll let Bombay Dreams rest for a while to see if they can improve their recipes.

It’s raining quite heavily as I’m writing this and it’s expected to rain all through the night. Strong winds forecast for tomorrow. I may go out early(ish) to avoid getting blown away.

 

 

Another cold one – 17 January 2024

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Temperature this morning was -7ºc when breakfast was being served – in bed.

I downloaded a To Do app last week and am beginning to use it. I had three tasks for today and took great delight in ticking them off one by one. I even added another couple to the list and ticked them off. How long it will last, I don’t know. Probably until they start asking me for a subscription and start removing parts of it or adding adverts. That’s when it will get the heave.

The first task was to post my calendars to some folk. I actually really like the photo on the front page, but it’s more than halfway through the first month and the poor folk will only get this one for half the time it deserves. Unless, of course, they get crafty with a pair of scissors! I’m not saying what the picture is, but it’s not alcoholic, that’s all I’m telling you. I only did five this year. One for me one for Alex and one each for three lucky people. I strengthened the calendars with some corrugated cardboard, so they should arrive intact. I also spent ages working out how to mail merge my database of “Where Was It Took in 2023” into a Word document, eventually giving up and using first Scamp’s computer and then my old Tosh to do the job. Mickeysoft make some clever office apps, but they don’t give a toss about whether they work on a Mac or not. Anyway, I digress – as usual. At least one of you recipients didn’t get a copy of WWIT2023, so if it’s you and you really want to find out what was taken where, email me and I’ll send you a PDF of the script.

I walked over to Condorrat and posted all three off to their recipients. Then walked down to St Mo’s with the shiny new lens on the A7iii and let it take some photos for me. I think it was 35 photos in total today and about 5 of them ended on the cutting room floor. Not bad odds. Everywhere was white. Not snow, just frost. Best of a bad lot was one of a St John’s Wort flower well covered in frost. Despite being well wrapped up, I was beginning to feel the cold on my face and any other bits of exposed flesh, like my hands. I did have a pair of cycling gloves with me, but they are a bit cumbersome to wear when you’re operating a camera. I was glad to get in to the warm house and heat up some soup for lunch. Scamp was away to a birthday bash at Castlecary Hotel, so she wouldn’t be needing any, I thought.

Next task was to order some coffee. I still get it from The Bean Shop in Perth and get it delivered to me. It’s the sensible way to get it. £3 for DPD to deliver it and about twice that in petrol costs to drive there and buy it. DPD are pretty good at delivering it within the one hour time slot they state. I also ordered a new UV filter for the new lens. The old one I had was ages old and showing its age with a handful of scratches. However it was protecting the lens for now at least.

As it turned out, Scamp’s lunch date hadn’t been all that good. Two of the group, Scamp included weren’t impressed with the quality of the food which is a a pity as it was always a good restaurant. But, as we know, things change.
So it was Mince ’n’ Tatties for my dinner, cooked by my good self and Fish Fingers ’n’ Tatties for Scamp.

We watched the weather report on BBC and tomorrow looks just as cold as today, if not colder. I’m booked to meet Alex in Glasgow. We were going to go to Paisley, but if the weather is so bad, we may, at Scamp’s suggestion, take the subway up to Kelvinbridge and have lunch in the Paesano there, then spend the afternoon in the warmth of the Botanic Gardens greenhouses!

 

 

 

 

Oh what a day – 16 January 2024

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The snow we were warned about never quite came

It was actually a bit disappointing. We were ready to batten down the hatches and put on extra blankets to keep ourselves warm and when the first flakes started falling just after the predicted 9am we felt vindicated. This was going to be a real winter. Then the snow stopped and the temperature actually rose slightly, and kept rising very gradually.

Hazy phoned to tell us that they were planning to get out for a week’s holiday some time around Easter. I don’t blame her. Everyone should have the opportunity to get away somewhere after the dull depressing winter weather we’re having. Just something to look forward, that’s what we all need. She also told us about the cats needing their claws trimmed. I’d never heard of cats getting pedicures, dogs yes, but not cats. She also talked about long term plans for a family cruise, maybe next year, with the D’Aguairs.

When she’d gone off to bed again to dream of holidays and cats feet, Scamp and I tried to fix a problem she had with her computer, or to be more exact with New Outlook not providing notifications of emails. I sent her an email to see if we’d fixed the problem and that’s when everything fell apart.

The first indication of a problem was when the email I sent was returned to me with a note from Google to say it had been rejected. It was exactly the same problem I had at the back end of last year. Also I couldn’t open my blog. The blog started out over ten years ago just as a bit of fun but now there’s almost ten years of work in it. That’s over 3,000 pages of typing!

I tried to fix the problem myself, but had to contact my web hosting company where someone talked me through the repair process. I fixed the email in a few minutes once I’d remembered how it was done. The problem with the blog was a bit of code I’d put in the wrong place in the DNS section of the website. Luckily the person I was chatting with online gave me the instructions for the repair and said it would take about forty minutes for it to propagate which is how they described the code being updated in DNS readers throughout the world. I waited an hour, and when nothing happened, shut it all down and went for a walk to clear my head. Got a few photos when I was out, but by then it was 4.30pm and almost dark by the time I was coming back. It took three hours before the blog returned, the email worked and I had access to everything. Relief beyond belief as they used to say on an old advert!!

One of the first shots I took was destined to be PoD. It was a wee robin, well fluffed up to give it some insulation against the cold that was coming tonight. I took it with a new lens I’d ordered on Sunday and which was delivered today in the middle of the turmoil. It’s a heavy chunk of glass and mainly plastic, second-hand of course. Hopefully it will replace an old worn out standard lens I’ve had for years and which doesn’t operate very well now.

Tomorrow I’ve a letter to write and some boxes of stuff to organise for putting up into the loft for another year. Another cold night tonight.

 

 

Dancin’ – 11 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was going to be a busy day, so I took the opportunity to go for an early walk in the woods.

The sky was clear and the sun was shining, but it was cold when I was walking over to the park just before 11am. That’s early enough for me, these days. There was a time when I was driving to work just after 7am. Thankfully those days are gone now and in the past they will remain. Fewer dog walkers in the morning, although there were some. Mostly it was couples or single walkers unfettered by canine accomplices. Although the weather was good, there were very few opportunities for photos. I took a few, but when I got home and inspected them, there wasn’t much of interest. Anyway, time was marching on and we were going to Glanburn just after midday for the first tea dance of the year.

The hall was filling up nicely for today’s dance. First up was a waltz and we opted for Kirsty’s Waltz Nioli. First track was a bit of a mess, but in the second track I found my feet or more likely, my feet found the script and it turned out fine. In fact, the Rumba, Cha-Cha and even the Quickstep all fell in to place today. I hope it’s not an isolated instance.

It seems that Stewart & Jane have started a new regime where the first half of the dance is devoted almost entirely to Ballroom and Latin. After the tea break, the second half is now almost all sequence dances. I’m not sure I like that approach, I prefer mixing the styles, but I don’t run the show and possibly that’s for the best. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed today’s dance and it’s not often I say that. I think it was that I’m beginning to become more confident in the routines and a lot of that is down to the work Scamp and Kirsty put in pointing me in the right direction. Short routines that can have extra parts added to them or awkward ones removed. After all we are doing this so that we can dance, not so that we can blindly follow the teachings of others.

Drove home feeling that we’d achieved something today. Then when we got home, Scamp got a text from Kirsty to say that she’d fallen today and broken a bone in her wrist and would be in plaster for at least two weeks! Poor Kirsty will be distraught, and so will we! One day back in her class and disaster strikes.

Since Scamp was going to be busy getting ready for Crawford and Nancy on Friday, I suggested an M&S curry might be best for dinner and the suggestion was accepted.

I eventually settled on a picture of a path through the woods at St Mo’s for PoD. It was the best of a bad lot, but not really all that bad.

Tonight the prep for Friday started for Scamp, but tomorrow I’m intending to make my half of the bargain, the main course.

The ice is melting – 8 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

And not before time say some!

But first things first. We were in dire need of food, so Scamp and I drove to Tesco to see what they had to offer. Blueberries, onions, bacon and razor blades were high on the list as well as bananas, milk and bread, but for some unknown reason there were no rolls. Real rolls, that is. There were plenty of those soft fluffy pretend rolls, but none of the crusty or well fired variety. You couldn’t call those soft things “Rolls”. This dearth always seems to happen on a Monday. Maybe the bakers were joining the junior doctors and going on a one day strike every week. Maybe the bakers really are qualified junior doctors and they had been called up to plug the gap in the NHS. For whatever reason, it looked like we’d have to forego our roll ’n’ banana today.

I had a plan that might avoid a roll-less day. On the way home we drove in to Condorrat where I managed to pick up a half dozen crusty rolls for £2.22. I even paid for I using cash. Real, hard cash, coppers and silver coins counted out carefully into the lady’s hand. We would eat a lunch of roll ’n’ banana!

Suitably fed and knowing we wouldn’t fade away from starvation, I went for a walk in St Mo’s, hoping to grab some of the sunshine that was coming through holes in the clouds. Ah, but as soon as I got to St Mo’s, the holes were filled in again and the sun slid from sight. I should have known. Still, I managed a few interesting photos. The first was a hogweed which had been covered in ice that was now gradually melting. The second one and PoD was one of my Dangerous Dan shots. Take an expensive camera with an equally expensive lens. Place it on the ice of the pond. Point it in the general direction of a subject and press the shutter button, lightly. As soon as the shutter clicks, whip it away before the ice knows it’s there and tries to grab it. Of course I’d tested the ice first to make sure it would hold the weight of the camera. A passing bloke walking his dog asked me I was all right, kneeling on the boardwalk. I told him I was fine, but afterwards I wondered if he was asking me if I was “alright in the head!” Maybe I’m not, but I love taking photos from strange angles.

After what I hope is the final adjustment to Lightroom Catalog 2024, I think everything is back to firing on all cylinders. The photos went into Lightroom and came out the other side looking better for their trip through its many and varied boxes of tricks. They are now on show in Flickr and one of them, the Dangerous Dan one is at the top of this page.

Dinner tonight was pasta with a nicely spicy Amatriciana sauce ( bacon, tomatoes, dried chilli flakes and basil) dusted with some Parmesan cheese.

Tomorrow Scamp is booked in the morning for coffee and a blether with June and Shona. I’m hoping to parcel up the calendars and get them sent out to the north of Scotland and the south of England and some places in between.

Dancin’ – 6 January 2024

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Scamp was out first to defrost the car. We were driving to Brookfield for the first dance classs of 2024.

The temperature was hovering around zero when we drove out to Brookfield, but the sun was almost blinding, shining from a bright blue sky. Thankfully we got there without any roadworks apart from the usual 40mph drag through central Glasgow.

First surprise was that the tiny dancers, who usually take ages to leave the hall, had already gone! Maybe someone had complained. I should have asked Jane if it was her. Only four couples ready and waiting to go dancing. Last in were Peter and Gillian who travel almost the same distance as us.

First dance was the Blue Angel Rumba which we’ve almost mastered and was the gentle entry into this years dances. Next was the, new to us, Christmas Waltz. It looked complicated, but taken in bite sized pieces it wasn’t so bad, although there were a few unpronounceable and complicated bits to it. In retrospect, I think we managed not too bad in it, but it will need some practise during the week to cement it into my head. Finally a fast and frantic Samba with Samba Walks, Botafogos and Voltas. Voltas were described by Jane as “Like kids pretending to ride a horse”. A sort of “John Wayne dance step.” Google it and you’ll see what I mean. By then, my little brain was full to bursting and I was glad to change my dance shoes for clumpy black street shoes and drive us home.

Lunch was two bits of bread with a slice of square sausage between them. Scamp had similar with an egg substituting for the square sausage.

I struggled for a while trying to work out what was going wrong with the 2024 catalog on Lightroom. Eventually I gave up and as the sun was still shining I went for a walk in St Mo’s. The road and paths were quite slippery, but the boots coped with it. The sun was low by the time I was walking along the path behind the woods and I got a few decent shots of the trees and the shadows they were casting. One of them became PoD.

Dinner came from a cold walk over to Condorrat to Golden Bowl. As I was coming back I could see the mist lying about a metre above the grass. Quite creepy looking. I tried to photograph it, but failed to get the impression I was looking for.

Later in the evening I tried again and almost managed to repair the damage to the catalog. I gave up and left it until tomorrow when hopefully a night’s sleep will make things clearer

Temperatures around zero predicted for tomorrow. That will decide what we do.