Category: St Mo’s

What!! No Coffee!!! – 8 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The orange warning light was flashing on the coffee maker this morning, indicating that its innards needed cleaning and I had no cleaning solution. Oh my! What would I do without coffee?

Well, the answer, of course was to look on Amazon. Ah the relief, they had the descaled, but it wouldn’t be delivered until TUESDAY!!! That would be three days before I’d get my 11am fix. What other options were there. Thankfully JL came to the rescue. John Lewis had them in stock and actually cheaper than Amazon too, so I could get them today. We just dropped everything, jumped in the car and drove to Glasgow where I picked up the life saving liquid. Scamp was looking for tops to go with skirts, but I had the important stuff paid for and in my bag. We’d nothing else to go for today, so we just drove home.

After lunch I started the long winded cleaning routine. It takes a good half hour to descale the boiler of the De Longhi 685 and then another fifteen minutes to wash it out. Life is tough when you’re a home barista.

While I was engaged in this delicate operation, Scamp was out pruning the roses and tidying up the plants in the back garden. She came in to tell me she’d found a Snowdrop, the first one of the winter, and a sign that spring wasn’t too far off. The flower was growing in a rose pot, surrounded by vicious looking thorns, so I was extra careful getting its photo, but I did get it, more than once. We compared the photos I’d taken and Scamp chose her favourite. She’s becoming really good at spotting the good shots and sidelining the poorer ones. I think she chose the best one to be PoD and I started work on it.

She was almost finished when I thought I’d broaden my photographic horizons and went over to St Mo’s to see if I could capture some of the reflections of the setting sun from the boardwalk. I managed a good dozen shots of various formats and angles and then quite suddenly, the light was gone. It was like the sunsets you get in much warmer places, when the sun sets and fifteen minutes later it’s almost dark. It’s not something you find very often in more temperate zones. It didn’t matter all that much, because I was on my way home by then.

Dinner was Chicken Milanese (battered flat and dipped in breadcrumbs before being pan fried) with a baked potato each. Beautiful. It was followed by coffee from the sparkling clean and descaled coffee maker. I’d say the coffee was better than normal, but it was probably something to do with the extra glug of Kahlua that went into each cup.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard that he’s got ‘Mallet Finger’. I was telling him that my pal, Fred has ‘Hammer Thumb’ which sounds similar and that I get a less painful version of that. Then the strangest thing happened, my thumb (always my left thumb) went into spasm and folded across my palm and refused to come back out. How strange is that.

Tomorrow Scamp is out in the morning for coffee with one of her, recently retired, work colleagues. I’m tidying up the living room table of all the calendar junk that’s been living on it for the past month. If it’s dry I may go and take some photos in St Mo’s.

Not the best day – 7 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

“Disappointment lurks” as Neil Young sang.

Flushed with our recent success we had a short list of three cruises we wanted information on, so Scamp phoned P&O to find out the situation with flights before we made a final decision. After a bit of a wait, she was told that there were no more flights available from Glasgow or Edinburgh, in fact there were none available from Scotland. However, she could offer us a flight, not with their usual Jet2 provider, at £490 EACH! She did seem surprised when Scamp said a decisive “No thank you”, but was quickly back on the script when she asked how we’d like to be contacted by P&O in the future. I’m glad it was Scamp who was speaking to her, because I’d have given her the standard ‘two word answer’. The second word is “Off”. Almost £1000 for the flights alone.

That put a damper on the day, but after lunch we went for a walk to the shops to get something for tonight’s dinner that actually turned out to be tomorrow’s dinner. It was quite pleasant walking down to the shops with the warm coloured sunlight glancing across the trees. After we walked back, I took the camera for another walk round St Mo’s, but although I got a lovely sky shot, there was nothing else in the tank.

The reason that tonight’s dinner became tomorrow’s dinner was because, after some discussion, tonight’s dinner became a Golden Bowl standard. Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice for Scamp and Special Chow Mein for me.

After dinner, I still had to find a Picture of the Day. I’d seen a bloke in Flickr doing some interesting monochrome shots of dried leaves and when I found our poinsettia had lost another two leaves I decided a photo of the one remaining desiccated leaf would fit the bill. Instead of reducing it to mono, I kept and enhanced the magenta colour of the leaf, photographed against a black neoprene background. It worked very nicely, and I had a PoD!

Tomorrow looks like a good day, maybe even better than today. We’ll see if the weather fairies are correct.

Another day Another walk – 4 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A slightly different start to today’s walk, but basically the same route. There are limited variations in this area.

The day started with the usual struggle with Wordle and Spelling Bee, but they weren’t all that difficult today. Just before lunch I got a message from Alex to say that the family were almost all down with what sounded like a Norovirus variant, so we wouldn’t be going for a photo walk this week. Hopefully they will be over it by next week.

After lunch we went for that walk round part of Broadwood Loch and then up the path beside the exercise machines. Then it was back through the underpasses and on the path to home. While Scamp walked home, I went for a circuit of St Mo’s. Instead of the usual circuit I went up through the woods behind the main pond and got some photos of the smaller manmade pond near the motorway. I could see streaks of blue sky through the clouds and waited for a while to see if those streaks would get bigger, but I was disappointed. They just faded away as the sun started to drop to the horizon. I walked straight back to the path through a shallow bog. I am sure I lost the lens hood from the Samsung 18mm lens in that bog in the spring and I was hoping I might catch a glimpse of it in among the grasses, but again I was disappointed. I trudged home thankful for good boots and dry feet. The boots aren’t too clever on ice and slippery leaves, but are (touch wood) waterproof and comfortable giving a good grip on dry ground.

Today was the day we’d agreed to take down the tree.  No matter how careful you are with taking all the ornaments off first,  there’s always one more you find.  Also there are always one or two decorations left on the wall and you don’t notice them until the rest are packed away.  The place always looks really bare once the decorations are packed away and the tree is also in its old cardboard box that Scamp says is more parcel tape than cardboard now.  However a bunch of flowers in a vase will add some colour again.

Dinner tonight was the remainder of the fish pie from yesterday for Scamp and a piece of bacon joint for me. Using up stuff that was near its ‘best before’ date made good sense after the excesses of the last couple of weeks.

Just before 9pm someone knocked the door and there was a bloke with a big parcel that wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow. It’s been on the road for about a week now and was a bit battered, but secure and everything inside was intact. Prezzies for Scamp, June and me from Hazy and Neil. Scamp got a pair of fancy earrings and a pair of cleverly up-cycled gloves. Mine was a book I was considering buying and a badge with ‘bad words’ on it that brought a smile to my face. My Bergy jacket was getting washed and I’d worn my old, and I mean OLD Bergy today. It has a badge on it and that badge also has ‘bad words’ on it. Needless to say it came from Hazy and Neil, but I think Hazy was the prime mover there. We got a box of high octane boozy chocolates to share. My Mojito had a fair kick to it! I can’t remember what Scamp got, but she could walk after it!

PoD was a shot of a branch with two pine cones on it, sitting on a mossy stone. It was taken in the woods at St Mo’s. 11,359 steps today!! First time I’ve broken the 10,000 this year.

Tomorrow we may be going to a garden centre, it being Thursday. We may have a spot of lunch too.

Happy New Year – 1 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A new day, a new year, but the weather remains the same.

New Year’s Day is one of those days that promises a lot and delivers very little. It sounds as if it’s one big party from start to finish, but for most folk it’s not. It’s a day off work for those lucky enough to be employed, but a day off work in the dullest time of the year isn’t a bundle of fun, really. Christmas is all bright lights and having fun, but NYD is a bit of a let down, I’ve always felt. Maybe it’s just me.

We went for a very quick walk round St Mo’s pond. Scamp wanted to try out the GPS on her new watch and yes! It worked!! It also gave us an excuse to be out in the fresh air. Bumped into Susan Greenshields in the park with her two dogs. We said hello and repeated the HappyNewYear speech everyone does on the 1st, as usual without a happy smile on our faces. It was a rushed conversation because we’d just been sent the Zoom link by Hazy who was hosting today again.

Back home it was boots off, jackets off and get the laptop set up. Scamp doing the ‘techy’ things today. Actually this was the high point of the day. Just like being there. Everyone talking over each other and it was good to see that both Neil and Jamie were looking a lot better than on Christmas Day when both were definitely not at their best. I think we used up almost all the allotted time on Zoom and I felt better after that. Just talking to folk is great sometimes, but talking to them and seeing them is even better.

Dinner tonight was Forestier Paté for starter then Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts and a choice of Salmon Fillet or Ribeye Steak for the main, finishing with Panna Cotta which I managed to make in the morning. It was a bit rubbery I thought, but Scamp said it was fine. Two more in the fridge for tomorrow.

I spent most of the rest of the day wrestling with Lightroom while Scamp read. Most of the swearing has abated now and I think Lightroom and I have declared a truce. Battle may resume tomorrow if it doesn’t play nice. However, we now have a photo calendar on the wall using Hazy’s wonderful idea of using a clipboard. Hopefully calendars will be printed this week … or maybe next.

PoD was a grab shot of a bloke walking his dog down that lane. The path that keeps giving.

Thank you, H, J, N & S for the Zoom meeting, it brightened our day.

Tomorrow looks better than today, but I’m not sure yet if it’s just a weather fairies’ ruse! Only time will tell.

The end of a long year – 31 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

At last we got a dry day!

To celebrate we went for a walk. A long walk round Broadwood Loch. Not the most interesting place for photos, but that didn’t stop me from taking some. I don’t think I’ve seen the loch looking so still. One wee moorhen paddling smoothly across the waters almost made PoD.

After lunch Scamp walked down to the shops and I went for another walk in St Mo’s this time. There I got today’s PoD which is a sycamore key caught in a whin bush. I just liked it and that’s why it got the last PoD of 2022.

I walked over to Condorrat later to get a Special Fish Supper for me and a Small Fish Supper with two Pickled Onions for Scamp. If you don’t know what a Special Fish is, imagine a haddock fillet dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried x 2 and you have a rough idea. Just the thing for the last Saturday in 2022.

I’m not going to go over the good bits and the bad bits of 2022, because it’s not over yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Speaking about tomorrow, we have no plans. Probably because it’s snowing right now.

Happy New Year when it comes.

Shopping – 19 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Today we were going out in the wide world, maybe even as far as Stirling.

The rain that started last night had continued all night and into this morning. It had done a good job of removing most of the ice that had held us in its grip for the last week. Today we were driving to Stirling to get some messages, but as Waitrose is posh, we’ll have to call it “Shopping”.

Waitrose was utter madness. There were cars circling the parking area just hoping to get lucky and find a space. I dropped Scamp off near the door and told her I’d pay to park at the council car park just along the road and bring the car round when we were ready to go home. That was the plan, but instead of leaving, I found a space just being exited right in front of me. I took it and said “thank you” to the crazy driver who had reversed out of it at speed and nearly “tee boned” the bloke in front of me. I let Crazy Driver go and slipped into his space.

After almost an hour of wandering round the shop and with a full trolley we loaded everything into the boot of the blue car and drove home. Lunch was the remainder of yesterday’s quiches and they tasted better today, well, mine did anyway. Scamp made no disparaging comments about her’s, so I guess she agreed. By about 2pm it felt like the sun was setting, so it was boots on and out to St Mo’s for a photo before the little photons disappeared entirely. PoD became two Dogwood branches with their very wet berries. The bright red stems do a lot to brighten the landscape.

Back home I got a phone call from what looked like Margaret Kent, but it was her husband, Bill who spoke. Margaret had passed away at the end of June and he was apologising for not telling me about it at the time. The poor man sounded devastated and I felt so sorry for him. Margaret was my second cousin. Her mother and my mum were cousins, but I always knew her as my cousin. Then Billy told me that Maureen, another second cousin had died in September. Both of them had been seriously ill for a couple of years, but we occasionally bumped into each other. That put a bit of a damper on the day.

The snow has now all gone and most of the ice too. We might go in to Glasgow on the bus tomorrow, all being well.

A distinct quiet – 16 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

There was a distinct quiet about when I woke, almost as if everything was muffled. That probably meant it was snowing or it had snowed during the night.

I took a look outside and indeed, everything was white. Cars, road, trees and paths, everything. It wasn’t actually snowing at the time, but it definitely had been. One poor bloke was clearing his dark red car and getting ready for the morning commute. However, as it was about 6.50 in the am, I went back to bed and slept for another couple of hours before getting up to make breakfast. You can’t rush these things.

When I looked out a two hours later there were only two sets of footprints showing on our path. It must have been Wullie who lives at the corner and works odd hours. Nobody else had moved their cars and the space left by the dark red car was now covered in snow, so there had been another fall of the white stuff when I wasn’t watching. The temperature was a remarkable 0.3ºc when I was making the breakfast, a POSITIVE 0.3ºc. It felt like it had been weeks since the temperature had been above zero, but it was only a few days.

After breakfast I wrote my remaining cards and, dressed for the weather, I walked over to Condorrat to post them. I was hoping against hope that they would arrive on someone’s mat before new year, but I wasn’t confident about their chances.

On my way to Condorrat I took a photo of some leaves that would turn out to be the PoD. Just some warm brown leaves in a bunch without any frost or snow on them, but surrounded by lots of raindrops on the branches, in fact there was a very fine drizzle in the air. On my way back home I took a detour round St Mo’s pond, bit couldn’t see anything that would compete with the leaves. No directional light, you see. You really need directional light to give you shadows and form, to take away the two dimensional look of a photo.

Lunch was a bowl of Slimmers Soup. I don’t know if it is actually slimming, but the recipe came from Slimmers World via June and it’s quick to make and is just what you need when you’ve been out chilled in the snowy wastes. Scamp made it and it always tastes good.

We had already cancelled a dinner date with John and Marion for today because of the weather. Today we got a message to say that dance class tomorrow is also cancelled. One of the teachers is suffering from a cold or flu and doesn’t want to pass on her ‘Lurgy’. That’s a pity, but better safe than sorry in this weather.

Dinner tonight is Salmon fillet and potatoes for Scamp and a tub of stew Scamp discovered in the freezer. Both went down well. A wee glass of wine helped them on their way.

It’s been raining on and off all day and the temperature has been rising. We’re now up to 3.4ºc and the snow is finally receding. No real plans for tomorrow, but we’re hoping to get out somewhere if the roads are still clear.

The day the tree went up – 12 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

The usual Monday morning struggle to get a Wordle and a Spelling Bee answer. Still looking for that seven letter Spelling Bee word!

It had been a cold night last night, -6.3ºc according to our weather machine. Maybe it is time to change the 1TOG duvet for something a little thicker and warmer.

I’d half intended to go shopping in Waitrose in Stirling, but after defrosting the car and driving cautiously down a road that was sparkling with ice, we both agreed that we’d make do with Tesco in Cumbersheugh today instead. As well as that, Scamp booked a delivery for Wednesday evening, just in case.

When we got back from Tesco I decided to keep my boots on and take the big Sony out for a walk in St Mo’s to see if there was any chance of some frost photos. Bright sunshine today and yes, lots of frost on everything. I took a walk over the woods to the wee pond beside the motorway because I was sure I’d find some little frost trees and sure enough there were a few. Not as many as I’d hoped, but enough to photograph. It’s still scary putting an expensive camera on to the ice and pressing the shutter button, listening all the time for creaking noises from the ice. I needn’t have worried about it, the ice was really thick today. On the way back home to a couple of rolls ’n’ square sausage I found some more little frost trees on the verges of the big pond, and of course I took some pictures. Happy with the shots I headed for those rolls.

Back home and after lunch and a bit of post-processing I climbed the ladder into the chilly loft to retrieve the Christmas Tree, two bags of decorations and two boxes of the more fragile decorations. Inside one of the bags was the sweetie tin that holds the lights and that all important letter. When Scamp opened the envelope and read the letter, she handed it to me. I’d almost forgotten about this important epistle. So many questions, so many plans. Some came to fruition, some we’ll return to, hopefully. The tree is now up and decorated while Joni Mitchell sang about “putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace”. It’s traditional, and that’s what Christmas is all about.

Later in the afternoon I made Minestrone soup. Just loads of different veg, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of beans, salt, pepper and almost a litre of water. No stock cubes, all that veg makes is own stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Add a handful of smashed up pasta later and simmer for another 15 mins. It’s really more like a veg stew. Came from a book we bought just after we got married. It was published in 1978.

PoD went to one of those little frost trees and a cold heart made second place.

No real plans for tomorrow, but a parcel may come and be instantly ‘disappeared’. Schrödinger’s parcel, Hazy! 😉

 

Coffee with Isobel – 7 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We were out this cold morning (-0.4ºc) for coffee with Isobel. Always an entertainment. Straight talking, never bothered who hears her and straight to the point. She never changes and that’s what’s so great about her. She and Scamp had a long conversation about her extended family and I listened because there wasn’t much chance of getting a word in edgewise. When the two of them had finished their discussions we dropped Isobel back at her house and then came home via Tesco.

After lunch which was a bowl of Scamp’s rather delicious lentil soup, I dragged my boots on and went over to St Mo’s with the A6000 and a couple of lenses. Again I was just that half an hour too late to capture the trees lit by the setting sun. One of these days I’ll get it right. However I did get a shot of a duck feather sitting on the ice with tiny little frozen water drops hanging from it. That became PoD. The contender for the accolade was a low down photo of a single dandelion with its seed head closed, waiting for a blustery day to release those seeds to the vagaries of the wind. It’s on Flickr if you care to look.

Dinner tonight was paella which I haven’t made for ages. It tasted good, so good in fact that we ate the whole lot. I’d hoped to keep some of the rice to make more arancini tomorrow, or next day.

We watched the Portrait Artist winner for this year painting her portrait of Lenny Henry. I wasn’t impressed with her, or the painting, but I was impressed with him. I hadn’t realised he’d worked to get a PhD. What impressed me most about his was his quiet manner. No longer the noisy shouting comic, but a man who looked comfortable in his skin. We both agreed that the portrait didn’t look like him, and isn’t that what portraits are all about? Nice perspective and control of things like foreshortening, but there was only a fleeting likeness of him in the face. Disappointing.

Tomorrow I’m heading in to Glasgow to take some photos with Alex and hopefully to have a pizza for lunch.

 

Another beautiful day – 6 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Same blue sky as yesterday, but colder.

Today started with a visit by the bloke to do a service on the boiler. Half an hour later it was done and given a clean bill of health. More or less as we expected, the boiler being just a couple of years old.

Next I was out to the doc’s to find out what he thought about the lesions (his word) on my leg. I’d been using cortisone cream for the last two weeks and they had almost disappeared. He had a good look and a prod round the nearby skin and pronounced them as looking good, but recommended another fortnight’s treatment with the cream twice a day. It’s not an onerous task, putting some cream on four marks.

Went home and did the usual Wordle and Spelling Bee before lunch which was a flat sausage I’d found in the freezer the other day, cooked and squashed between two slices of brown bread. Delicious, but an amazing amount of fat was left in the pan. One a week is quite enough, I think.

We did go out for a walk today, well wrapped up because it was cold. Lots of icy, slippery leaves. Today’s circuit was almost the same as yesterday and I got a few shots of seagulls on the outfall of Broadwood Loch again. On the way home we stopped at the shops to get some bread, milk and also a pack of four pineapple tarts. Well, man (and woman) cannot live by bread alone, as someone once said.

On the final leg of the walk I took the opportunity to get some photos in St Mo’s while Scamp went straight home. PoD came from there and was a view across the rushes to St Mo’s school lit up by the setting sun.

Dinner tonight was “What have we got in the fridge” and pasta. Actually it tasted quite good despite being made from odds and ends. I confess, I actually watched almost a whole episode of Masterchef tonight, mainly because Greg (Oh, Mate) wasn’t involved. He’d been sat in a corner with a bow tie and told to be quiet, I think. It was interesting to discover the number of things you can do with carrots, or an octopus on one occasion!

Tomorrow we’re booked for coffee with Isobel. That should be an entertainment.