Category: St Mo’s

Too hot to do much – 8 September 2023

Posted on by Zogman

What a strange thing to say in September!

Scamp was out at FitSteps in the morning, but I’d already been out walking in St Mo’s. Last night when I was going to bed I noticed that it was quite misty outside and this morning when I was making breakfast that mist had changed to fog. Absolutely perfect for some atmospheric shots. So I dressed for the climate and went for a walk in St Mo’s. The fog was lifting in the heat of the morning sun, but there were spiderwebs everywhere covered in tiny water drops from the fog and mist. Just what I was looking for. An hour later I had a variety of images to provide me with a PoD.

After Scamp left for FitSteps I had a look at the photos and used my normal method of rejecting the obvious ‘no hopers’, then grading the remaining shots as one, two or three stars. Two of the three stars were selected, edited and cropped to a better format, oh yes, and I also had time to have tea and toast!

When Scamp returned we discussed where to go for lunch, it being Friday and settled on Broadwood Farm. Cheap grub and the chance of a pint or a glass of wine to wash it down. With that settled, we walked over to Condorrat first to post a card and a letter, then walked down to Broadwood for our usual Friday lunch which was a carvery for me and fish ’n’ chips for Scamp.

Wandered back to the house after being fed and watered and sat in the garden soaking up the sun for the remainder of the afternoon. We could have gone to the Air Show at Ayr beach instead of Broadwood, but the thought of sitting in the car for an hour, especially after driving for a couple of hours yesterday didn’t appeal. The lazy way is sometimes the best.

I split up my basil plants and repotted them into three pots. Scamp potted up one of her new plants then removed one of the pots from the front garden and replaced it with one from the back garden that looked as if it needed a bit of sun. Later we watered both the front and back gardens. Although heavy thundery showers are predicted for Sunday, the plants need the water today.

PoD went to a spider repairing its web. One of the photos from this morning.

We’ve a couple of prospective places to go tomorrow. It will, as always, depend on the weather. Today was a good day.

A morning at the races – 3 September 2023

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This morning we headed off to see the start of the annual 10K race just half a mile away from the house.

Unfortunately (1) when we got to the football stadium where the race was to set off from, we were just in time to see the runners, in the distance, leaving the stadium. I’d intended getting some sharp, slow shutter shots of the runners with the blurred out faces of the audience behind. Unfortunately (2), there was no audience. Not one person standing applauding as the runners sped past. Maybe because there was virtually no publicity and no map of the route. The best I could find was one of a Strava map from 2018. Now, I’m sure that if it was a Motherwell 10k we would have been overloaded with information and maps galore. There wasn’t even a countdown in the stadium. Maybe the bloke whose tannoy the council usually borrow couldn’t make it today. Disappointed and disillusion. It’s time Cumbersheugh shucked off NLC and became a notion in its own right. We stayed to watch the first men and the first women finishers running past.  I also say Scott Meenagh the double amputee who went to Cumby High run past.

We walked home and had badly made, scrambled egg and smoked salmon. I made it. After that, and after Laura Kuenssberg getting stuck into a Tory, we walked down to the shops to get the basic ingredients for tonight’s dinner which was to be Chicken and Orzo One Pot thing. It was also, almost a disaster. Should have been Skin on, Bone in chicken thighs and we got the Skinned and Boned variety. The orzo went claggy and although it was one pot, there was a lot of decanting and recanting (if that’s a word) of the various ingredients. The chicken was fine, as was everything else. We may try again, but use rice instead of orzo.

I’d gone out in the afternoon while Scamp was gardening. I was looking for something that would generate some photographic interest in me.

Spoke to Jamie tonight and learned that his and Simonne’s car insurance had gone up by as much as ours. That, in a strange was made me feel a bit better, but not a great deal.

I’d walked half way round the pond at St Mo’s when I sat down on an old wooden bench and found a Female Common Darter sitting beside me. It allowed me only three shots before it took off. Lots of male common darter about this year, but few females. Don’t know why. Later in my walk, I found a male darter on the boardalk. Always be wary when a dragonfly stands up, especially if it lifts its wings. It’s getting ready to flee, like the male common darter in today’s photo did. It was PoD.

Tomorrow I must write to Alex and find out where we’re going on Wednesday if he’s still free. Other than that, no plans.

 

 

Last Dance Class – 2 September 2023

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… for two weeks!

Drove to Brookfield for the last dance class for two weeks, well, the last Ballroom Basics dance class because the teachers are off on holiday. However, Scamp has managed to inveigle us into another dance class in Cumbersheugh to make up our dancing time. It won’t be the same dances and Kirsty’s style will be slightly different, but the language will be the same and a change is as good as a rest. Best of all, it’s just up the road, literally. No miles and miles of roadworks to navigate through!

But today we did have to navigate the 50mph then the 40mph and back to the 50mph and then back to the 40mph before we were suddenly allowed to do a heady 70mph then 60 mph then back to 70mph again all on the same stretch of motorway. It’s confusing.

Dancing today began with Tina Tango danced to Shivers and then a never-ending extended version of Sweet Dreams (are made of this) by Eurythmics (10:23 mins), thankfully cut short by Stewart. After that we went straight into the new Cha-Cha with the Cross Basic which I think I have now conquered. I even managed to get the ‘drunken sailor’ right a few times! A couple of Blue Angel Rumbas finished off the first set.

Feeling quite pleased with myself I expected the next set would be Joy’s Waltz, which we had both practised and were happy with. But surprise, surprise, it wasn’t. It was the Quickstep which we hadn’t practised. However, after bit of one to one with Stewart, and encouragement from Scamp, it fell into place. Another section of this difficult dance done. Just to make sure we were all exhausted, we finished with one track of the Midnight Jive which is non-stop kicks, spins and cross steps.
It felt great to walk out into the sunshine after all those mind bending dances. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to practise them on Thursday at the tea dance.

Back home I re-read an email from Churchill insurance to make sure they really wanted THAT MUCH! for a year’s car insurance. No way was I paying that. That was before I logged in to Money Supermarket and found out that Churchill’s was actually a sort of middle ground insurance estimate. Scamp checked Saga and Esure just to be sure and they were coming up with close to the same numbers. Maybe Churchill aren’t so far away from the mark after all.

Scamp was desperate to get the grass cut, both front and back and I thought I might go out and take some photos later in the afternoon. So that’s what we did.The grass does look a lot better cut short and I did manage to get one photo I was pleased with, so we both achieved our stated goal. I phoned Scamp from St Mo’s to ask what she wanted for dinner. Fish ’n’ Chips from the chip shop in Condorrat was the answer. That suited me too, so I set off for that place. The phone call was also a test for the new connection. EE is now gone and has been replaced by Tesco Mobile. Double the data for less than I was paying for EE, plus the price is frozen for the 24 months of the contract. Best of all, the phone works better with the O2 masts that Tesco use than with EE’s. At least for now, anyway.

PoD was a male Common Darter dragonfly sitting on the boardwalk of St Mo’s. Lovely warm light from the late afternoon sun.

Tomorrow I think we’ll go out somewhere for a walk.

 

The first day of Autumn 2023 – 1 September 2023

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Not as nice a day as yesterday, but at least it was dry.

A lazy morning for me pottering about in the garden. I potted up yesterday’s mint, not basil as I wrote in the blog, well they’re both green! While I was out in the garden, Scamp was off jumping around with the rest of the FitSteps ladies.

Neither of us felt much like doing anything, but Scamp did drive us up to Tesco to get some messages. Later in the afternoon I walked over to St Mo’s and got a few photos of wildflowers and one of some purple Marsh Woundwort became PoD. After a week of cycling, hill walking and Kelpie, active photographing has to give way to a more relaxing (for ‘relaxing read ‘lazy’) time!

I did drop in at Tesco to say that my PAC code hadn’t come across with the goods and the person I spoke to said it might take another day. Came home and found that the EE sim of my two dual sims had died and I was a Tesco Mobile user.

I had to do a bit of maintenance on the dishwasher which is having a hard time flushing out the water from the sump. I think it might be needing a good clean out. So I took apart what I could and washed the mucky filter before I put everything back together again. We bought some dishwasher cleaner and de-gunker today which we will run through it in the next day or two.

No dance practise tonight, but it looks like we have a quorum for a class tomorrow, all being well. Other than that, no plans.

Not going far – 29 August 2023

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I had enough exercise yesterday. I didn’t want any more today.

Scamp was out early to get her nails ‘done’ again, then she was meeting Shona for coffee. I was asked if I wanted to join them, but I decided they would get on better without me!

Instead I stayed home and read for a while and looked through the photos that had arrived in Flickr overnight. The window cleaner arrived and I spent a wee while blethering to him. Basically, I did nothing, or as close to nothing as I felt I could get away with.

After Scamp arrived home with her new lilac nails we had lunch and then I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was one of those days with gusty winds blowing the rain clouds around, creating what the weather fairies delight in calling ‘scattered showers’. PoD went to a rather demonic looking photo of what looks like a pair of horns behind a bush. It’s actually a macro of an earwig’s rear end! There are over 1000 species of earwigs in the world and only 4 are native to the UK.

The competitor for PoD was a shot of a Peacock butterfly with its wings locked together to keep a sudden rain shower out of their delicate upper surface. As soon as the rain stopped the wings folded out and it sat there taking in the warmth from the sun that had appeared after the cloud cleared.

Dinner tonight was an experiment. Pasta Carbonara with mushrooms, shallots and finely sliced bacon. It seemed to go down well and will be worth trying another time.

A short dance practise in the evening  just to make sure the Joy’s Waltz and the new short(ish) cha-cha are firmly in my head.

Tomorrow is an early rise. Scamp and the rest of the witches are off to Pitlochry on the bus for the day. I’m driving them to the Town Centre to catch the bus which leaves at 8.45am! I hope they have a great day. No singing on the bus, though!

Dancin’ Saturday – 26 August 2023

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Driving through the roadworks. Roadworks that will last until the end of September!

We drove over to Brookfield for a reasonably successful dance class, and ignoring the roadworks, it was a pleasant enough drive. Two new members, two girls. One just likes to dance and the other one wore a Fit Steps tee shirt and thought she could do it all. Oh dear, wrong thing to say.

While Jane and Stewart took them aside and explained what we were doing in class, we practised our Joy’s Waltz. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a great improvement on last week. We did actually manage once through the entire routine without a mistake, well, almost without a mistake. Then it went to pieces again as it often, but not always, does! I am improving and when I get things like the Outside Spin right, I can feel that I’m getting it right.

A couple of easy sequence dances to ease the new starts in to this strange old fashioned way of dancing, where everyone does the same moves at the same time. After that we hurtled in to the new Cha-Cha with the terrifying Cross Basic. I don’t know if it is really basic, but it certainly has the ability to make us both cross. For once, Stewart agreed with me about who was moving clockwise and who wasn’t. I’m glad someone agrees with me sometimes. By the end of that part of the lesson, things were making much more sense.

Another sequence dance and then a chance to practise the Quickstep. If there is a great stumbling block in our dances it’s the Quickstep. It really is well named. The steps come at you so quickly it’s almost impossible sometimes to stop and find out where you are in the routine.

All things considered, it was a worthwhile class where we learned a few things and got a chance to practise lots more things in a big dance hall.

We took the M8 – M74 – M73 – M80 route home and stopped at Tesco on the way to pick up lunch. We’d already decided tonight’s dinner was coming from Golden Bowl.

Rain showers all afternoon, but I braved them to take a walk in St Mo’s where PoD was a ladybird hiding under a knapweed flower.

Watched the qualifying for the Dutch GP. Interesting but not as enthralling as the World Athletics Championships, especially the pole vault where the Swedish vaulter Mondo Duplantis cleared an incredible 6.1m.

Tomorrow Scamp is heading to Glasgow for a perfume making class. Thankfully I wasn’t invited!

Out to Lunch – 25 August 2023

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It was Scamp who suggested that we go out to lunch today.

In the morning she went to her FitSteps class and I did some housekeeping. Actual, physical tidying-up housekeeping, but also the more interesting and almost invisible housekeeping on the computer. I was searching for a sofa bed that I knew was in the back bedroom / painting room / spare room. I’d seen it recently under a pile of books, a rucksack and a blizzard of paper. After some rearranging of things, a disposing of rubbish and just finding better places for jackets and hats to live, there, under it all was the sofa bed. It’s not completely unearthed yet, but now I know where to look the next time I might need it.

The computer clean-up took longer, although there was far less physical work involved. It’s so easy to get sidetracked into looking at photos you haven’t seen for a while and then that leads to more photos that look interesting until nearly an hour has gone and you still haven’t accomplished what you set out to do. It was when Scamp returned I realised that I was only half way through the clean up or what became a clear out. However I did manage to get the required photos put in the bin and their replacement put in place. I’ve still to empty the bin, because, well, I’ll need to check that I wasn’t throwing good photos out with the bad, and you never know when I’ll need that one or that one or …

I shut the computer down. I powered it off and we went out to lunch, just as the rain came on. Thankfully it didn’t last long because we’d agreed to walk down to Broadwood Farm for a cheap lunch and a glass of something alcoholic. After all it was Friday and the end of the historical working week. Not that I’ve been involved in any working for a while now, but you have to keep these traditions alive! Fish & Chips for Scamp and small carvery for me. Small because that means two of the three meats that are always available, Gammon, Turkey and Cardboard. It’s actually advertised as Roast Beef, but it’s so dry the gravy won’t be absorbed into it and it tastes like cardboard, so let’s cut to the chase here and call it what it is – Cardboard. Some mixed veg and Cauliflower Cheese brightened up the plate and actually the food was good, washed down with a pint of Tennents for me and a glass of 19 Crimes Red for Scamp. The father of a family sitting on the other side of the room had a broad southern Irish accent, and although he was speaking quite loudly, I couldn’t understand more than about three words in every sentence. This got me thinking: Is that what I sound like to English folk? I must ask Simonne the next time we meet. Scamp thinks Simonne can probably decode my accent by now!

Back home the streets were drying, but not for long. I was just thinking I might get an hour in St Mo’s when down it came, straight down rain. As soon as it had disappeared to bother somebody else, I got my boots on and went for a walk with the A6500 and a 50mm macro lens. The 50 did its magic again. 50mm used to be the lens to stick on your camera. A general purpose go anywhere lens that could handle most things. That part hasn’t really changed, but having the ‘macro’ part means it’s possible to focus down to about 30mm from the front of the lens and still get super sharp images. Kind of two lenses in one. Today it took a photo of a swan drying its wings while standing on a rock in the middle of St Mo’s pond – the swan was standing on the rock, not me, BTW! Daft, but not stupid. It took a photo of a tiny, about 3mm long spider on a web. Last, but not least it took a photo of a Red Admiral butterfly sunning itself on a bush. First red admiral I’ve seen this year and even better, there were actually two of them! The butterfly got PoD and the other two are able to be viewed on Flickr.

Swans are sneaky things.  You’ve only got to ask Jamie about their wiles!  The one referred to in the previous paragraph successfully enveigled itself into the photograph, but it’s now been bounced out and replaced with the butterfly.  Swan’s! You can never turn your back on them for a minute.  Ask Jamie!

A thin G&T each tonight because we’re out early tomorrow intending to drive to Brookfield to demonstrate that we have been practising the Outside Spin, if not the Cross Basic.

Gardening and wildflowers – 20 August 2023

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A lazy day, with little to recommend it.

We did a bit of gardening in the late morning, just pruning the Buddleia in the hope that it would encourage more flowers, but I really think it’s past now and needs a serious haircut before the winter winds arrive. Scamp was busy moving some Honesty plants from the nursery pots to the pots they will hopefully live in until they flower next year. She can be quite ruthless with plants, ripping them out if she thinks they are ‘going over’, ie not producing the flowers they should be. I was also chopping down as much of the Aquilegia I could get away with. It’s well past first flush of flowering and there’s just the chance that it might flower again before the end of the year. More work needing done:

  • Sunflowers need staked.
  • I think we need to think about some winter colour.
  • We need to remove this year’s flowers from the Rhododendrons. This one is contentious. Some folk think we shouldn’t remove the old floret stems and some think we should.

Basically the garden is doing well. The few veg I have are coming along nicely, especially the leeks and the kale. Maybe we should plant some tatties soon for a Christmas crop.

In the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got a few interesting wildflower photos, there being very little insect life about apart from the usual skittish Common Darters. It was a very green photo of a Pineapple Plant that got PoD. I remember when I was wee, being amazed that they did actually taste like pineapples! They smell like them too. As they are low growing, it’s probably best to just smell them rather than eat them as you don’t know what has been ‘watering’ them!

Dinner tonight was a Chicken Milanese we got from the butchers a week or so ago. Scamp was not impressed and I have to agree her version is better. Dessert was Apricot and Brioche Pudding. A bit like Bread and Butter Pudding, but posher!

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard about his posh dinner on Friday. Sounded lovely. We must go look for The Unruly Pig. That’s the name of the restaurant, by the way.  We think our garden is growing well until we hear about their garden and then ours pales a bit in comparison.  However, ours is easier to maintain.

No real plans for tomorrow. It depends on the weather.

Happy Birthday Jamie – 16 August 2023

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Hope you had a good day.

We didn’t do very much this morning. Yesterday was a bit of a buzz. Scamp was out in the morning and in the afternoon. I was out in the morning then spread my 10,000 odd steps all over the west end before I brought the street legal blue car back. Today was different. We weren’t sure what the weather was going to do, and neither was the weather. Eventually we settled on lunch in a new restaurant that seemed as if it was in the middle of a building site.

We got a seat next to the loudest woman in the place. She had finished her main course by the time we arrived and was just starting into what looked like a 15cm x 15cm x 15cm brick of Sticky Toffee Pudding with custard. All she seemed to do was stuff her face with the chocolate coated pudding while she FaceTimed with someone on her phone. Eventually she decided she had to leave NOW and got up and left, leaving most of the dark brown brick untouched Suddenly the restaurant was a much quieter place.

The food was good, but not exceptional. I had a double gammon steak with egg, pineapple and chips. Steaks were small, so they ended up being the same size as a normal one. Scamp had fish ’n’ chips one of her standard tests for a new restaurant. The food was fine for a cheap lunch. We agreed we’d probably go back, but maybe to the carvery next time.

Drove home via Lidl where I wanted a cob loaf and between us added more to the basket than we really wanted, or needed, but Lidl’s like that. You see things in there you haven’t seen for ages.

About a month ago I scraped the rear wing of the car when I was parking. Today I wondered if the old trick of using Brasso to spread the top coat over the scratch would still work. The answer is it works a treat. Brasso is a very fine abrasive and if you rub it on to the affected area it heats up and the paint skin melts into the scrape. Allegedly toothpaste does the same thing.

I took the A7 out for a walk in the afternoon while Scamp was reading. For the first time in ages I got lots of photos. I’d actually taken some in the morning. The Shooting Stars that had flowered so well in May were now spreading their tiny seeds anywhere they could find some damp earth and the seed pods were almost empty, but very photogenic. St Mo’s however produced some insect life. Dragonflies, peacock butterflies and mating damselflies especially were in great supply, but the PoD went to a teasel in the garden that’s beginning to show its needles. This is the first time I’ve grown them and I’m looking to see them flowering.

No plans yet for tomorrow. As usual it all depends on the weather.

Tidying up – 14 August 2023

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Not my room this time, but the car.

Tomorrow is MoT day for the wee blue car and there were some things that needed fixing before it went in for its first checkup. I watched a few YouTube videos about replacing the rear wiper. I never knew there were so many variations of rear wiper blades for one model of car. It took a while, but I eventually found our model, or near enough our model and it seemed really simple, except the old blade refused to come off until I coaxed some WD40 into the pivot and then everything went like clockwork. Drove up to Halfords and found the correct blade. It cost £5.95 for the blade and it would have cost another £5 to get them to fit it! Thank goodness for WD40. It saved the day again.

The car got a wash a couple of days ago but today it was the inside that needed cleaned. Crushed leaves and the sticky covering of buds from the trees, with the addition of the usual collection of parking receipts and sweetie papers all had to be hoovered up. I drained the battery of the portable Dyson and put it back on charge while I decanted the mats from the footwells and brought them in to the house to be hoovered with the big plug in Dyson. The boot too was emptied, everything hoovered and put back in place.

Dusters were flying around the dashboard too to make everything look sparkling, or as sparkling as it can be if I’m doing it. Filled up the washer bottle and cleaned more detritus from the wiper sockets and we were ready to go.

Time for a relaxing walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see and the rain clouds were rolling in, so it was just once round the pond. PoD turned out to be a stem of Purple Loosestrife which has rings of purple flower at intervals up its height. Allegedly it is an invasive species, but so are humans, they say, and we’re still here!! I had a fallback photo that I took in the morning, a Peacock butterfly on our Buddleia bush in the garden.  I now have proof that our buddleia does indeed attract butterflies!

I lost track of time when I was out and that meant the dinner was about an hour late, but it was penne pasta in a vegetarian sauce with “what’s left in the fridge” contributing to its richness, plus some of our home grown herbs bolstering basil from the pot on the window ledge. That was Scamp’s idea and it’s a good one.

She is intending to go to meet one of her friends from work tomorrow after she gets her nail polish professionally removed. I’m driving the blue car in to Glasgow to get its first MoT done, hopefully, successfully!