Category: St Mo’s

Dancin’ – 10 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

We were off today to Glenburn to do some dancin’.

I’d been doing a bit of studying this morning. It was mainly centred on the latest iteration of Joy’s Waltz. We had a half hour or so of practise last night that went over the waltz and a bit of cha-cha. Today I knew that Scamp would want to put that practise to good use. Even after a bit of last minute revision, I wasn’t sure that practise would make perfect. Getting round the floor without doing too much damage and without crashing into anyone would be a win for me.

I don’t know what the Paisley council have been doing with their spending plans, but they must have found some extra money in a biscuit tin in a cupboard because that’s the only way they could manage finance the roadworks around Glenburn where we were going for dancing. I lost count of the number of diversion signs and roads being dug up as we drove out there. Worst of all, the road we usually drive home was closed off with a lorry and a few dozen traffic cones. How were we going to navigate round that? The only way I could think of was driving through Paisley itself and that’s a nightmare journey I didn’t want to make. The best thing to do was to put it behind us for now and enjoy the dancing.

The weather today was humid, very humid. I think we got up to 25ºc on the car thermometer and the temperature in the hall must have been similar. Again, we were lucky in whose table we sat at. Chatted away with David & Carol, John & Madge until we had enough folk to make the floor look busy. Waltz, of course, was first and for the first dance I was quite pleased that I managed to achieve my two goals. After that, it was two sequence dances followed with two ballroom or latin dances. We managed to navigate the sequence dances, but my skill level at ballroom and latin dances went gradually downhill. Even muscle memory wasn’t working towards the end. Plus, as Ella Fitzgerald sang, It was “Too Darn Hot!”

We drove away from Glenburn and decided to go back the way we always would and see what happened. Worst comes to the worst, we’d follow the diversion signs until we got lost and then rely on the sat nav. However as we were coming down the hill to the Hurlet roundabout where the road had been closed, it had magically been opened again and we simply drove home by our usual M77, M8, M74, M73 route.

Scamp decided that the sun was going to shine when we got back and took her folding chair out to soak up some of its rays. I took the A6500 out for a walk in St Mo’s and got a PoD of a lazy dragonfly sitting on the stones that provide grip on the boardwalk. Being cold blooded, I imagine they get a fair bit of heat from the stones which warm up in the sun. I extended my walk down to the shops and came home with some fruit and some flowers, because, well, it was Thursday. When I came back I joined Scamp in the garden with a can of Brewdog stout (Try it Jamie, it works) and a Pimms for Scamp.

Dinner tonight was sausage, egg, beans and chips which was a bit unusual, but worked quite well.

Tomorrow we’ve no real plans, but a change may be afoot. Heavy rain predicted to mark the end of the hot clammy weather.

Driving and dancing – 5 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

That’s all we seemed to do today.

Drove to Brookfield in the morning. It was a small group of only four couples, quite normal on a day with a dance in the evening. The floor in the room is still not quite right after a kids party with a bouncy castle inside about a month ago. My guess is that the bouncy castle scraped the floor and someone decide that polish or oil would repair the damage. It really won’t be properly fixed until footfall wears that skin off. So we had a shortened room again and also a shortened class time because the bowling club who use the hall were having an afternoon and needed time to set up. So a small class, a shortened floor space and fifteen minutes less time to dance.

We started with a sequence dance then went into the class proper with the new unnamed cha-cha routine which Scamp suggests should be the “Slippy Cha-Cha”! She should suggest it to the teachers. That was ok, but not wonderful, but much better than my attempt at Joy’s Waltz. Given that we hadn’t practised it since May, that wasn’t really surprising, and also, Jane did her usual and added in an extra feature, a Curved Feather. Were do they get these names from? Although they are much better than Michael’s dancing by numbers. At least Curved Feather give you a clue what shape you’re (supposed to be) making on the floor. I could hardly remember the start steps of the original waltz and had to rely on Scamp’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the dances. Even she was struggling with this one for a while. One more track of sequence and we handed the floor over to the eagerly waiting bowlers. They were like a well drilled army. Pulling out the tables and assembling them under the eagle eye of Mrs Sergeant Major who was in charge of the operation. We left them to it.

I made a bad decision on the way home and tried the route through the Clyde Tunnel, only to find, as many others did that there was NO THROUGH ROAD. Barriers and diversions everywhere. I eventually gave up and took the easy way out by driving back west along the M8 then the M77, took the first exit and joined the M77 again heading east this time. After that I just followed the car in front over the Kingston Bridge and home.

A roll ’n’ corned beef and another roll ’n’ fresh made bramble jam was lunch for us with Scamp substituting tomato for corned beef. While Scamp read, I took the A6500 out for a walk in St Mo’s and got PoD on the way home. It was a bunch of wild geranium flowers against the sky that caught my eye and my ultra-wide lens. Once the image had been dunked in Lightroom it looked quite the part!

Dinner was Chicken Milanese, then we sat and read for a short while before we got ready and headed off to the dance. Weather was the usual Scottish. Bright sunshine then immediately after that, torrential rain that changed back to sunshine again then the cycle repeated. I think the blue car now knows the way to Brookfield itself. Twice in one day is maybe too much, but there were extenuating circumstances today as there is no class next week because the hall will be being used for a village fete. Maybe the feet treading on the slippy floor will wear off the shine!

Sitting with Peter and Gillian, Naimat and Audrey and another couple whose names evade me as ours probably did to them. Good banter with Peter and Naimat, while Audrey, Gillian and Scamp did their best to add some decorum to the evening.
We danced all but one of the sequence dances and as many as we could, of the ballroom and latin dances. We really need to do more practise. We didn’t need to practise the salsa dances, they just came from muscle memory. We even got praise from Jane afterwards!

We stayed to the end and did a bit of cleaning up round our table then say our goodnights and drove home straight down the M8 to the M80 this time. No getting tangled up in Cycling World Championships that cause the earlier debacle. Even got parked right outside the house! A very good night.

Tomorrow we might go visit the cycling in Glasgow, but we’re hoping to get the train there. No road blocks on the railway we hope!

Uncrowned – 4 August 2023

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No crown for Scamp today. The dentist said it wasn’t good enough for such a beautiful mouth.

Much to Scamp’s annoyance, the dentist did indeed say that the crown she had been waiting all these weeks for wasn’t fit for purpose. It wasn’t the correct size or shape and just wouldn’t fit into the available cavity. So it’s another two weeks wait until the crowning ceremony once the new one arrives. Not a happy bunny!

She was back home for a cup of (white) tea and out again to go to FitSteps class with a mouth just beginning to feel like her own again after the anaesthetic. When she returned we discussed our options for lunch and settled on Bombay Cottage in Hamilton. Lunch was Veg pakora for Scamp and Chicken pakora for me. In a break from tradition, I had Chicken Shimla while Scamp had her usual Vegetable Shimla Bhaji. I enjoyed the chicken shimla and would have it again, but it was a bit oily.

There’s not a lot to see in Hamilton now, so we drove home. I went out to get petrol after I’d dropped Scamp off and brought the car home intending to go for a walk in St Mo’s. I’d taken the receipt as usual and was glancing at it before I put it in the bin when I noticed that apparently I’d been charged £75 for 51.41 litres of DIESEL. Surely not! I was sure I’d lifted the green petrol gun. I went out and sniffed the filler and it was definitely petrol. Then while Scamp checked with her bank app and I checked the last four digits of the credit card on the receipt, we realised what had happened. The paper had become jammed in the machine and were dispensing the previous person’s receipt. Mine was for petrol and for almost half of the price of the diesel drivers fuel. Another panic over.

I did go for a walk in St Mo’s after that and I did get a PoD which is a Common Darter dragonfly resting on the warm boardwalk over at St Mo’s. A very patient dragonfly, or maybe just a very tired one.  Either way I liked the shot.  There is another shot that almost won the PoD it’s little dandelion parachutes looking like ballet dancers with their tutus!

It seems like the dance class is on tomorrow, so we’re intending to go to the class in the morning and then the dance in the evening. We might have time for a seat at home between the two.

Coffee with Isobel – 2 August 2023

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We were out this morning to Costa to meet Isobel.

For once, I have to admit that the coffee I had tasted like real coffee. Usually it tastes of nothing, but on bad days it tastes and looks like dirty water. In answer to your unasked question, Yes I do know what dirty water tastes like. We sat for a while listening to Isobel’s account of her granddaughter, Teal’s graduation. She, Teal, is following in her mother’s footsteps into education, but into primary teaching, not secondary. Good luck to her, I hope she enjoys it. She showed us her photo book like any proud grandparent would.

Scamp showed her some of our photos from the cruise and elaborated on them with some stories. A usual with Isobel, she told stories too. That’s what makes her interesting to listen to. You think at first she’s making them up, then you realise she isn’t. Sharp as a tack is Isobel. She too had been dancing in the Tower Ballroom some years ago, but we all agreed that the dance floor was quite the best we’d seen and she would have seen a lot more than we had.

After an hour or so, she left to do her shopping and we drove home for lunch with rain threatening all the time. Scamp was making jam from brambles juice that had been in the freezer for about three years. When she was making it, we noticed that the jam thermometer we were using, which used to belong to my cousin in Ayrshire, seemed to have lost its red pigment and only a pale orange line remained. I think we might need to get a new one. However it was accurate enough to to get the jam to the right temperature. The jam is probably cooled by now and ready for its lids to go on. She got three jars worth of jam from the fruit juice.

I took a walk later in St Mo’s and brought back an assortment of photos, but none of them beat a shot I’d taken in the early afternoon of a Calla Lily which was sitting on a table in front of the TV. The unpowered TV provided a decent black background for the photo and a bit of jiggery pokery with Lightroom brought a black background that emphasised the colours of the lily. That was PoD, although it did look a bit like a multicoloured cormorant!  Scamp and I agreed on its similarity to a duck!

Dinner tonight was an old favourite.  Cabbage, Potatoes and Bacon.  It doesn’t sound very appetising, but it tastes great.  Scamp is the master at making it.

No plans for tomorrow, the weather looks like it might be dry, so we may get out somewhere.

The first day of the month – 1 August 2023

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This day is always busy.

However, I thought I’d be able to clear my feet today, because Scamp was going out to lunch with one of her friends … until the friend phoned to say that she’d been for a Chinese buffet a day or two ago and wasn’t feeling too well, so could she cancel. Bang goes the afternoon computer session clearing out the rubbish, putting stuff into the right folders and backing everything up. Instead we went shopping.

We drove to Waitrose and loaded a trolley with an amazing assortment of stuff, and not all of it was alcoholic either. Although I did see one man with a trolley full, and I do mean full on bottles of wine. That was going to be one interesting party!
It wasn’t a day for doing much else and as we really needed most of the stuff we bought, it wasn’t time, or money, wasted. We drove back under a leaden sky we thought we’d left behind at Cumbersheugh. I think it must have followed us to Stirling.

Back home Scamp started to defrost the freezer. It’s always a task we tend to avoid. It’s quite an old freezer now and difficult to get into the nooks and crannies that clog up with ice. I think we hit on what could be a possible solution today. Scamp filled up big stainless steel dishes with hot water, put them on a couple of shelves and with a basin and a towel to capture at least some of the water we closed the freezer door and let heat do its job. Of course there was still a bit of chipping away to do with an old screwdriver and a spatula, but it was easier this way, especially with both of us taking turns at the ice face.

<Technospeak>
Meanwhile I was doing the backups of July’s photos to external hard drive, then deleting all the rejected photos and finally moving the ‘keepers’ onto a new part of the SSD. It sounds complicated, only because it is, but it works for me and lets the iMac run a lot smoother for a while.
</Technospeak>

With that successfully completed I took the A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD of Yellow Toadflax (where do they get these names from?) in St Mo’s, then walked down to the shops to get mushrooms for tonight’s Mushroom Risotto. After working away at the risotto for about 45 mins, it was an unappetising grey lumpy thing that came out of the pot. But looks aren’t everything. I must say it did taste good. Maybe a bit dry, but creamy and buttery! Crunchie ice lolly for dessert.

We’re waiting to see what the weather is going to bring tomorrow before we make any rash decisions about were to go, or indeed, if we go anywhere.

One in – One out – 31 July 2023

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That was the rule we made. If one thing comes in, another one must go.

<Technospeak>
Last week the A6500 came in and today the A6000 had to go on a visit to Norwich to find a new owner. The A6000 was a decent camera, still is, but the a6500 was a big step up. The viewfinder is definitely clearer and the IBIS anti-shake is a boon with a small, fairly light camera. I’d had the A6000 for a couple of years and the one thing it taught me was that it was possible to go on holiday with one small camera and two lenses and not feel restricted. That combination weighed almost as much as my big A7iii alone. Admittedly the A6000 couldn’t produce the same quality as the A7iii, but for its size it punched above its weight, if you excuse the pun. I hope it teaches someone else that good things can come in small packages.
</Technospeak>

Spoke to Hazy after I came out of the shower this morning and we heard all about the preparations for the Welsh holiday with the family. Good to hear that Neil is coming out of ‘teacher mode’ and getting some ‘me time’, visiting galleries and wandering round London.

I drove up to Tesco in the town centre hoping to get a large sized plastic posting envelope. They didn’t have any plastic envelopes, just thin bubble wrap ones with a paper cover, you know the ones I mean. I went back to Tesco Craigmarloch and found a packet of them there. Sometimes the smaller stored trump the big ones. I wrecked the first bag trying to get the almost cubic box into it neatly. With Scamp’s help I did manage to get it in to the second bag and using her wrapping skills it was a neat package. That’s when she said “I thought you’d just use this one”, holding the brown cardboard box the A6500 came in. Of course! If the big box could hold the A6500, it would hold the slightly smaller A6000! Why didn’t I think of that. So the neatly wrapped up box went into the big box with its ‘sausage balloon’ cushions to keep it safe. I stuck down the labels and took it to the post office in Condorrat were it was scanned and went straight into the waiting post van with the other parcels, most of which were going to Amazon!

I walked back in the rain to St Mo’s and got PoD which was a Purple Vetch flower, a wild flower. Lots of it flowering beside the path. I also got a photo of a bent down grass stem, beaded with water. That was the extent of today’s photography.

Dinner tonight was Pasta Carbonara and was one of the best I’ve made for a while. Don’t know why, it just was.

Tomorrow Scamp is out for lunch with one of her ex workmates. If it’s good weather I may take some photos. If not I’ll do a bit of ‘open heart surgery’ on the iMac.

The Auld Guys – 25 July 2023

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Coffee, Sarcasm and Laughs. That’s what the Auld Guys are best at.

In the morning I drove Scamp up to the town centre to get her nails redone for Saturday. Back home I had time for a shower and browse through my photos on Flickr before Scamp returned with shiny pink nails and a smile on her face. These were non-sparkly nails this time Hazy.

Now I was driving over to Abronhill to pick up Val and we were meeting Fred for coffee in Costa. This was a Return of the Auld Guys. We’ve not met up for probably more than a year, and to be honest, probably not since Covid put an end to meetings entirely for two years! I think we all enjoyed the banter and the blether. Val’s in a wheel chair and I can see that he’s not happy about it, but at least he can get around with it, if slowly. The chair folds up quite neatly and fits in the back of the car quite comfortably. Fred was his usual charming self, and yes, that was sarcasm. After a couple of hours we were talked out and I drove Val back home where Jeanette was waiting for him.

I went home via Tesco where I’d been given a shopping list to bring back because Scamp was baking shortbread today. This was the first switching on of the new food processor. It was certainly efficient at mixing the butter flour and sugar and beating it into submission. With the shortbread in the oven, Scamp washed and dried the bowls of the machine and then demonstrated the fine slicing of a courgette. We didn’t really need sliced courgette today, but we’ve got in a little Tupperware box, just in case we find a use for it, yes, more sarcasm!

We were going to need some meat for Thursday, so we drove over to Muirhead to stock up on more meat and fish than we really needed, but the meat, especially in that shop is so enticing, I always buy too much. Drove there on the motorway and came back the scenic route, on the wee narrow country roads that Scamp hates but the views of the Campsies took her mind off that.

Back home again, I took the A6500 out for a walk in St Mo’s and found a strange wee yellow insect. It turned out to be the nymph of a Bronze Sheildbug. I’d never seen one before, but Google Images found it right away and confirmed its existence.

Yesterday I’d quite fancied the Mushroom and Bacon Carbonara at The Bothy and today, for dinner, I made my take on what I thought it would look like.

That was about it for a fairly well filled day. The shortbread, by the way, was probably the lighted Scamp has made in a long time.

I’m probably meeting Alex for coffee and serious camera talk and Scamp is booked for coffee with one of her ex-workmates.

 

Off to Hamilton – 20 July 2023

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… but not to “buy the wean a bell.” That cryptic message will be lost on almost everyone, but I’m not explaining it further!

After a lazy morning on what was a beautiful, almost totally dry day, we eventually went out and walked down to the shops. Scamp wanted something to take to John & Marion tonight, and also wanted a hanging basket for the back garden. We accomplished both in double quick time and walked back home.

A knock on the door heralded the arrival of the parcel Scamp was expecting earlier in the week. It was a surprise present for two of our friends, but we were both underwhelmed by it. It wasn’t quite what she was hoping for and her disappointment was obvious.

Later I took a walk over to St Mo’s to see what was worth photographing while Scamp started the ironing. It was St Mo’s that the PoD came from (not the ironing!). It is one of two real ‘keepers’ from a batch of about 50 I’d taken with the big camera on silent motor drive. A great way of filling up the SD card, but a trick that rarely seems to result in any good photos. Luckily for me today was one of those days when it worked. The ‘Marmalade’ hoverfly was the PoD. It was almost beaten by the result of another ‘blitz’ shot. This one was a lone soldier beetle testing the strength of a single strand of a spider web. Both are on Flickr.

By the time I got back from my St Mo’s Safari I just had time for a wash and brush up before we headed off to Hamilton for dinner with John & Marion. It’s ages since we’ve been there. We’ve both had such a busy year this year. Big birthdays for both Scamp and Marion. Retirement celebration for Marion and a Golden Wedding anniversary for us. Of course, she’s not really retired until the schools go back in August!

Back home late and for some reason there was a parking space just waiting for us back home. That was nice of someone to do that for us.

Tomorrow Scamp has the dentist first thing in the morning. Best time for it, I suppose. I’m waiting in, hopefully not in vain, for yet another parcel.

Gardening, shopping and organising – 18 July 2023

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Not necessarily in that order, so it’s probably best to get things sorted by date and time.

The shopping came first. I wanted a bag of rolls to enclose the sausages I was intending to cook for my lunch. That meant a trip to Tesco, because The Shops only sell soft bap rolls, not the crispy Scottish rolls we like. So I drove up to Tesco to get the rolls, milk and also some raspberries for Scamp. While I was there I had a look at their selection of hardback books. I’m not entirely sold on my most recent Kindle book, so I might go for something mainstream for a change. Must ask John who the author he told me about is (and write it down this time). So no books for now, but I did get the milk, rolls and rasps. One roll with ordinary sausage and one with red onion sausage. I think the red onion sausage was the better of the two. Scamp had her usual one roll ’n’ egg.

With the afternoon came a shower of rain that looked as if it was going to be heavy and prolonged, so we took the nearly dry washing in. Of course that was what it was waiting for and the rain promptly stopped. Meanwhile I was making tomato soup. Scamp bought two packs of tomatoes that had been reduced in Tesco on Sunday and yesterday I roasted them with an onion and some oil for an hour to concentrate the taste. Today all I had to do was add a litre of water, two stock pots, a tin of tomatoes and a cup water, bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. That left time for mixing up some seaweed fertiliser (disgusting stuff) and giving all the plants front and back a bit of a feed. Meanwhile Scamp was pruning the climbing rose in the back garden. I used the loppers to chop down the higher branches she couldn’t reach, accidentally slicing off two branches with buds still unopened. One of them Scamp managed to retrieve and put in a glass with water on the window ledge. It will open. She has a knack for these things.

We walked down to the shops to get the makings of a stir fry for dinner. Back home the soup had been cooling, and I blitzed it so we could have it as a starter for dinner.

I’ve been meaning to phone Val and take him for coffee. This week I went one further I got Val to set a date and then told Fred who said he was free that day too. So we three are going out for coffee together next week, for the first time in ages – fingers crossed.

I went for a walk around St Mo’s while Scamp interrogated June over the phone about her weekend with Shona. I’m glad to say the bus trip went well. My photography gave me a few insect photos, one of which got PoD. Must get out and do more landscape photos. Insects are ok, but this time of year is great for landscapes too.

The soup was the best I’ve made for a while, but the stir fry didn’t turn out all that well. The pork which was the protein in my share was a bit tough and Scamp’s veggy version was just a bit too spicy hot for comfort and also she thought the veg needed more cooking. I had to agree about the veg, but the sauce was just spicy enough for me. Foodies! Never happy.

So, you see, Gardening, Shopping and Organising, but not necessarily in that order!

Tomorrow if the weather is favourable we may go out somewhere.  Otherwise we’ve got some more shopping to do.

More rain again – 16 July 2023

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It seems we are in a cyclic weather pattern. Wet in the early morning which continues to mid afternoon when the sky brightens a bit and the rain gradually fades out. By evening, around 7pm the sky clears and there is colourful sunset. By late evening and into the night the clouds reappear and the cycle continues.

This pattern has continued for more than a week now with little change and we’re really becoming quite fed up with it. I think it’s time the powers that be had a word with the weather fairies and told them to get the finger out and give us July sunshine in July. That’s what we pay our taxes for and we’re just not getting value for money! Get It Sorted.

Today followed that pattern, albeit with the addition of some wind, surplus from that presently being handed out to those in the south west of the UK. We had two plans for today. One for a damp day and one for a dry one. We implemented the Damp Day Plan and drove up to Tesco to “Get the Messages”. Came home with a boot fairly full of essential foods, beverages plus assorted household stuff.

After lunch I took my recently waxed boots for a walk in St Mo’s along with the A7 and the big, heavy macro lens. I was looking for ‘beasties’. I got one long shot of a Common Darter dragonfly and just over 30 shots of a Wolf Spider. That’s what happens when you forget that you’ve set the High Speed Motorwind. Even worse, I had switched the camera to ‘silent shooting’, so I didn’t even have the machine gun noise to warn me that I was filling up the SD card at a frightening rate with shots I’d just had to ditch in the bin later. No wonder the camera felt heavier when I was going home. I’d dressed for the rain we’d been promised, but the weather fairies got it wrong again and I was sweltering in a, supposedly, breathable rain jacket. Still, I did get the shot of Wolfie, the female wolf spider with her egg sac dragging behind her.

Dinner was Fennel with Cod and Prawns. It’s a long time since I’ve made it and, even if I say so myself, it tasted great. Even better was the fact that there were individual pots of ice cream for dessert! Scamp had Salted Caramel and I had Chocolate.

Spoke to Jamie after dinner and heard that we may indeed be getting a visit from Simonne this coming week as she’s on a whirlwind tour of labs in Central Scotland. Also heard that the plans for the new roof of their house may not be ready in time to get it replaced until spring. The wheels of English Heritage do turn slowly.

Watched Sewing Bee later and commiserated with the contestant who didn’t quite make it to the semi-final. Good to hear in the news that Djokovic was beaten by Alcaraz in the mens final at Wimbledon.

Hopefully we’ll get some good weather tomorrow and we’ll be using the Dry Day plan!