Category: St Mo’s

The gardens needed it – 8 May 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today was wet. It went from drizzle to full on downpour, but it was wet all day!

We weren’t going far today anyway. I might have gone in to Glasgow to get myself a new suit, a dark suit, both my other suits are light grey and a dark one would be a change. Also, only one of my suits actually fits me, the other one fits like a sugar bag. Not a good look. Anyway, that decision was taken away from me with one look at the weather. The furthest we were going today was Tesco.

Just a normal Monday shopping trip. Nothing exciting unless you class short dated tomatoes, carrots and onions as exciting. Three bags full it was today, all bundled into the boot and drove home.

What we did do was give our plants a bit of a soaking in the rainwater. My two chilli plants seemed to come to no harm in it and Scamp’s Cerinthe seedlings seemed to grow even taller after being in the downpours.

After lunch I gave in, put on my boots and my walking trousers and went out looking for a photo that would become PoD. It was really wet wherever I went and after about half an hour I was sure I could feel that squidgy sensation that you only get when you’ve got a leaky boot. But I was out in the middle of the park when it made itself known and I still hadn’t got that magic PoD. Then it appeared. It was a water droplet hanging from a larch needle. I took my time and eventually shot half a dozen frames of it. One of which I deemed sharp enough to become the PoD for today. Then, and only then, I squidged my way home. The sock on my right foot told the tale. There was a leak and it looks like there is a crack in the tread of my boot and that’s where the water is getting in. It might be a cut, not a crack, but the result is the same. I wouldn’t think it’s repairable, although someone on YouTube will know different, I’m sure. I might need to shell out for a new pair of boots now.

Today’s EDiM asked for An Ant. I originally thought of drawing a couple of Leaf Cutter Ants, but couldn’t find a clear enough photo to draw them from. I finally settled for a Flying Ant. There were a lot of these scary looking beasties flying around last year, I seem to remember. Apparently there is an actual Flying Ant Day. In the UK it seems to be around the 17th July. It all depends on the temperature and windspeed. There, I bet you didn’t know that!

Tomorrow we’re booked for lunch with Shona. Not sure yet where we’ll be going. Like the Flying Ants, it depends on the weather!

A dull day with bright intervals – 3 May 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Not all days are filled with sunshine.  A little goes a long way.

The weather fairies got it right for once. They predicted a dull day with occasional showers, and that’s what we got.

We had half intended to visit the Japanese garden today, but the weather kind of put paid to that idea. It was just dull and dreary. But it did brighten up by midday and the clouds seemed to hold the heat in, so I gave the Skye chilli plant an afternoon in the garden where it could soak up the warmth, if not the sun.

Scamp was determined to give the grass a second cut and with the mower this time, unlike yesterday’s strim of the back grass. That necessitated moving all the pots onto the paths, cutting the grass and then moving them all back again. Of course, as chief pot shifter I managed to put them back in the wrong places and that would never do now, would it. Scamp followed me round putting them and me in our place. We had just finished cleaning the mower when the rain started. A few minutes earlier and it would have been a rush to get everything in before the mini deluge.

The next task was to drive to Tesco to post a parcel and get one or two things we needed for lunch and dinner. Those “one or two things” filled a trolley by the time we were finished and cost a lot more than we’d intended.

After lunch, the rain went off and the sun shone. Today’s prompt was for Dandelions or whatever was in bloom. I thought I’d take a walk in St Mo’s and grab some photos of likely candidates for the Dandelion painting you can see here. There were quite a few as you can imagine and I soon had enough material to work with. None of the dandelion photos were really any use for Flickr photos, but I found a little fern ‘crozier’ that looked interesting and a branch of Hawthorn flower buds just ready to open. Both of them found their way into Flickr and PoD went to the hawthorn buds.

Dinner was a Tesco stir-fry. If you ever get the chance of one, don’t take it. Old tough cabbage and a handful of bean sprouts and carrots do not a stir-fry make. I’ll stick to M&S in future. Cheap sometimes is nasty.

Tomorrow I’ve the dentist in the morning, but the rest of the day is free … so far.

The Messages – 22 April 2023

Posted on by Zogman

According to the weather fairies, it was going to rain today. They were right, but only just.

The morning was lovely, well, again it was lovely to look out at it. However, it was still cold outside. We had agreed last night that we’d go shopping today. Not Tesco or Lidl, we’d been there during the week. Instead, we were going to Stirling – to Waitrose. Waitrose just sucks you in and makes you spend more than you’d intended to. Whereas, in Tesco and to a certain extent, Lidl you know where everything is and you can buy the things you need, rather than what you want.

When we got home there was a cardboard box that had dropped through our letterbox. Inside were six little plant plug plants, Busy Lizzies. Tiny little plants that are now in the greenhouse until they get strong enough to be planted out in the garden. Strange to think that delicate little plug plants are delivered by post.

Scamp found a suitable hanger to hold a fuchsia and it’s now hanging on a hook in the back garden. While she was gardening, I took the Sony A7 out with a couple of lenses for a walk in St Mo’s. PoD turned out to be a close up of some larch needles positively glowing in the afternoon sunshine.

By the time I got home the clouds were beginning to mass and as I’m writing this, the first rain in a week or so has been falling.

Dinner tonight was a Veg Lasagne by Charlie Bigham. This is the third one we’ve had (not tonight, we’re not that greedy!) and they have all been exceptionally good.

Tomorrow we are expecting more rain and cold winds from the north. Brrr!

Saying goodbye to Margie – 20 April 2023

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Today we said goodbye to an old friend.

It was a tough morning and I’m not going into details. She was a lovely lady, a singer in Scamp’s Gems singing group. She was also a painter who produced some beautiful artwork in all media types, but her favourites were ballet dancers in the style of Monet. We’ll both miss her greatly. May she rest in peace.

Back home it was a beautiful day, as long as you had shelter from that east wind again. It looks like spring, but it doesn’t feel like it. However, I went for a walk in St Mo’s with a macro lens doing all the work today on the A7. The first thing to do was to check up on the three little orange ladybirds. My first surprise was that three had become one. Where had the other two gone? The answer was waiting a couple of trees away. There had only been one orange ladybird there last week. Now there are three! So have two ladybirds moved from one tree to another or is it just a floating community in the woods? I reckon they are just fed up with me photographing them and are trying to mess with my head.

Not a lot else happened today. Potatoes, bacon and cabbage was dinner for me. Scamp replaced the bacon with more cabbage!
PoD was the new trio of ladybirds, but take a look at the pair of old leaded glass windows I captured on my phone last week in Glasgow.

Remember I was writing about Scamp and I being labourerers the other day?  Well, today Scott’s wife handed in a bunch of roses and a box of chocolates to say thanks for the help!  That was a brightener for the day!

Tomorrow we’re intending doing some planting in the garden.

 

Not one but two! – 15 April 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Saturday was a bright sunny day, but I wasn’t going out incase it came early and I missed it.

We were out in the garden today. My main task was to prune the Alec’s Red rose in the front garden. Scamp wanted to cut the front grass because it was becoming a bit untidy. I offered to move the flower pots that divides us from our next door neighbours, a sort of demarcation line. I’ve no problem with them now. I admit I had to start with, but believe it or not, I’m a lot calmer now. I wouldn’t have said that yesterday, but John’s ok. Just a bloke getting by like the rest of us.

After I’d moved the flower pots, Scamp had cut the untidy grass and I’d risked a slipped disk by hauling the pots back again, I started on the rose, or roses as it turned out. I tried not to be too brutal with the fifty year old Alec’s Red, and it looked the better for the trim. Then Scamp suggested that I do the same with Schoolgirl which grows up a trellis beside the front door. I was a bit more ‘enthusiastic’ with Schoolgirl. Hopefully not too enthusiastic. It’s a strong rose, it can take it.

While we were in the garden, a parcel arrived. Scamp said it was for me, but it wasn’t the lens. It was a Sarracenia. A carnivorous pitcher plant. Our last one had died during the winter. I’ll try to be more careful with this one and give it the protection it deserves. It’s actually quite a pretty plant with mottled ‘pitchers’.

I’d been meaning to plant more basil seeds for a week or two now, so I got underway with that while Scamp planted some Cerinthe seeds. It has a dark blue flower not unlike the Shrimp plant. It’s another one we saw in Jamie and Simonne’s garden. It’s an annual which means it grows, flowers and sets seeds then dies. However it does self-seed which means we should get a lot more flowers the next year, all being well.

Later the DPD lady handed me a heavier parcel. It’s a hefty piece of kit, the Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS and has a hefty name too. After it was unpacked and tested, I took it over to St Mo’s to see what it could do. It could do loads of things. It took the PoD which was a simple view across the pond, but a high quality one. Worth waiting almost a year for, I think. Worth all the hassle yesterday? Well, maybe not. That was unnecessary stress MPB and I’ll say so in my review.

On the way back from St Mo’s I picked up a Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice for Scamp and a Chicken Chow Mein for me from Golden Bowl. The chow mein was a bit dry if I’m going to be critical, but it was good.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to get a chance to test the new toy further afield, but that depends on the weather.

Today the clocks went forward – 26 March 2023

Posted on by Zogman

So it must be summer.

It was actually a nice sunny day in the morning and it stayed like that for most of the day. Friday was frantic. Saturday was exhausting. Sunday was going to be relaxing … if we could manage that.

It looked a nice sunny, but the weather app told a different story. Temperature started at 5.3ºc at 9am and didn’t rise much throughout the day.

After our normal Sunday fry-up I took the A7 with the long 105mm macro lens and the strange looking LensBaby. My idea was to go for my normal walk, only using the macro lens. Then change lenses and on the walk back I’d use the macro. As it happened, both lenses worked well with different subjects. PoD went to some wild cherry blossoms that only appeared a day or two ago. It was taken with the LensBaby. The lens has a built in distortion element which creates the swirly pattern round the sharp central area. There, I knew you were dying to know how it was done!

When I came home we shared the last scone with jam and clotted cream. Absolutely delicious, but it’s giving me heartburn now. If that’s the price I’ve got to pay, I’ll buy another bottle of Gaviscon!

Dinner tonight was yesterday’s cooked chicken marinated in its own juices and added to a Tarka Daal from theSpice Tailor range. It wasn’t very filling and it just didn’t work. I don’t think we’ll have it again. We will, however have more scones with jam and clotted cream! Thank you Canute.

Tomorrow we might have to go shopping.

 

Recovery – 25 March 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A day to recover from yesterday’s excesses.

Yes, a day to recover from yesterday’s excesses, and also to recover from the morning’s dance class!

Drove through a fair bit of traffic this morning to get to Brookfield for today’s class. It started with a couple of easy sequence dances then it was into the Foxtrot. Suddenly my mind went blank. Thankfully Scamp was there to whisper the count and the next steps that were coming up. Stumbled through it without too much trouble, but I wouldn’t call it elegant. On Strictly it looks so smooth and classy. That’s all a con. It takes a lot of skill to get to that stage. Well, it takes me a long time to get to that stage.

Next another sequence dance to get our confidence back and to clear the Slow Foxtrot out of our heads, because next up was Jive. Scamp has been working at the jive steps and the different moves that make them up. She has this ability to remember sequences of moves and fit them together in the correct timing. I have difficulty remembering g the moves themselves. The jive we’re doing now seems to bear very little resemblance to what Michael taught. The footwork is different, the hand and arm choreography is also different. I made a mess of it and I know it. I can only apologise to Scamp because I feel I’m wasting her time. It will get better, I know that, but it doesn’t come easy to me.

Worse was yet to come, because next was Quickstep and I was ready for it … except this was a different quickstep routine. Not the one we’d worked on for months and had it almost perfect. This one had Fishtails in it. It took me months to master fishtails with Michael, but I must remember that Stewart & Jane are much better teachers that Michael & AnneMarie. We danced our almost perfect quickstep instead of the new one. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The drive home was a nightmare. Juggling with lane changes to find the best route through the traffic. In the end we weren’t all that much later than a normal Saturday, but it felt like we were.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon, taking the A7 with the LensBaby and an old Zenit lens, a Helios 44. The results were better than I anticipated. It’s weird working with a totally manual lens like the Helios. PoD was a shot taken with the LensBaby of a whin bush.

I finally went not the chat line for my internet provider and the person on the other end talked me through the installation of the SSL. Thankfully that should be me sorted until next year, all being well.

Dinner tonight was roast chicken and roast veg. Very nice indeed. I really enjoyed it.

We have no plans for tomorrow yet.

Out on the town – 22 March 2023

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Scamp was out on the town with the rest of the witches. Ladies only!

Scamp went in to Glasgow on the bus. I offered to give her a run in, but she was determined to go alone. I stayed home until I was sure that she was on the bus, then I grabbed my camera bag and headed off to …

This section of the blog has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Friends and family will understand why this decision has been taken. It may be released at a future date.

So, since that didn’t work I had to try again somewhere else, so I drove to …

This section of the blog has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Friends and family will understand why this decision has been taken. It may be released at a future date.

With that done, I could return home although I did have to make one more stop at …

This section of the blog has been redacted due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. Friends and family will understand why this decision has been taken. It may be released at a future date.

Finally I got parked, and just outside the house for the first time this week. Had a quick coffee and a roll ’n’ cheese for a belated lunch then over to St Mo’s where I just missed the best of the good light, which I needed for a planned Cladonia photo. Instead I found a couple of sprigs of heather which filled the bill and the frame quite well. They became PoD.

Dinner for one tonight was mince ’n’ tatties, and since Scamp was off on a ‘jolly’ with the witches, I managed to make myself without any mistakes or burnt pots. When Scamp came home I checked that I had indeed followed the proper procedure and was rewarded with a backhanded compliment “It’s mince. You can’t go wrong with mince.”. I could. I’m sure I could go very wrong with mince, but I didn’t today and the mince ’n’ tatties was scoffed while Scamp told me about her day.

Glad she had a good day with good friends who look after each other.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancin’.

Mum’s Day – 19 March 2023

Posted on by Zogman

I really should have brought Scamp her breakfast in bed for Mother’s Day, but it was her turn to do breakfast.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and heard how the two of them are coping with Covid. It seems that neither of them are too bothered about it. Of course this was a Mother’s Day call, so I gave them both space.

We returned to a traditional Sunday fry-up breakfast. We’ve been eating healthy and alternative for a couple of weeks now, but today was back to sausage, egg and bacon with half a slice of dumpling to offset the protein. Scamp was more veggy with mushrooms, tomatoes, egg and the other half of the dumpling. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling (pun intended).

We discussed a few options for dinner and eventually settled on a posh fish finger thingy which Scamp thought would be just the thing. That meant we needed some ingredients from ‘the shops’. So we booted up and dressed for the day and walked down to M&S to get the fish and some herbs. Then we walked home and as so often, I took a detour to St Mo’s. The frogs were having a day off. I suppose it’s allowed, because they’ve been ‘working’ hard for the last few days. So it was a wee weed that got PoD after it had been washed clean in a bucket of ON1 and dried off in Lightroom so that it was shiny and clean and also because I liked it.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about their trip to Trinidad. Such a hard job to have to go to the beach every second day or something like it. You both deserved a bit of ‘Me’ time. Glad you enjoyed it.

I thought the posh fish finger thingy was spicy hot but just not too much. Scamp thought it needed more salt. Foodies, they’re never satisfied.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to Glasgow.

Dancin’ again – 18 March 2023

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Back to the “bump and grind”. More of which later, but not what you think!

Drove through busy traffic to Brookfield and we started with the Catherine waltz. It looked more difficult than it was and by the end of the half hour we had it, more or less. “More or less” covers a multitude of sins. Next we went straight into a Jive routine. Technically it was a different jive from what we normally do. We learned “Glasgow Jive” which is based on six beats but they were teaching “Ballroom Jive” which is based on four beats. That doesn’t seem like much, but it made a big difference to us. Eventually we did work out what was going on and on the way home we realised that most of what we were being taught, we’d already done, and that includes the “Hip Bumps.” No grinds though, at least not yet!

We’d both forgotten just how exhausting jive can be, so we were relieved to find that the next item on the ‘menu’ was a much more sedate Slow Foxtrot. Still complicated, especially in what they call the ‘back end’ which we think of as the second half, but much slower than the jive.

A couple of tracks of sequence dance and we were done for the day. That was exhausting, but once we’d looked over the videos of the jive, it wasn’t really more difficult than the ones we’d done years ago in Blackfriars with Michael, just different.

Drove home through more traffic than a normal Saturday, but managed to take the M74 turn off and ended up arriving home in about 45mins which is good for the return journey on a Saturday.

After a quick lunch I chopped up some half price tomatoes, two onions and a red pepper, loaded them into a baking tray, sprinkle them with basil and roasted them in the oven (gas 6) for an hour. Decanted the lot into a pot, added a tin of tomatoes, a litre of hot water and a chicken stock pot and cooked it for 30mins. Blitzed the lot in two stages in the blitzy thing (liquidiser) and let it settle for a while.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s with the little A6000 and a 55-200mm lens. It’s not a brilliant lens, but it’s the longest one I’ve got that actually works on the Sonys. I got a few photos of the host of frogs that have now invaded the ponds. One of them made PoD. I liked the reflection of it in the murky pond.

Dinner tonight was tomato soup with a baked potato. Not elegant, but warm and filling. Watched the qualifying for the Saudi Arabian GP. I think Scamp was a bit disappointed when Verstappen’s car died on him and he was demoted to the back of the pack. It will be interesting to see how long it will take him to get back to the podium tomorrow.

The dancing, but especially the Jive took a lot out of us today. We had an early night, and that’s why this is the second catch-up in a row. Thank you Hazy for getting back to me. I hadn’t found that page before, although most of the links lead back to pages I’d already found. I think my plan is to let the SSL expire and then start a new one from Namecheap this time. At least that should be an easier way to go.

No plans for tomorrow which is Mother’s Day, of course.