Category: St Mo’s

Cormorant – 15 February 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was a wet day today. Nothing really to recommend it, except that there was no mist today, unlike yesterday.

After a lazy start and a light lunch, we drove up to Tesco in the town centre to get some messages. As I’ve said before, there is more of a choice there and why stint yourself when you can add five minutes to your drive and get a far better choice. We bumped into Shona there and remarked on her new hair colour. Then we drove home. Some days are full of exciting surprises and some are days like today.

I went for a walk round St Mo’s because the rain had stopped for a while and I wanted to get out. Scamp was busy booking a hair appointment for tomorrow. Not hair colouring, just hair cutting. Occasionally a Cormorant visits the pond in St Mo’s and it was standing there today holding its wings out to dry. It would take quite a while for them to dry today because although it was mild, the wind had disappeared with the rain. As I said, it was drying its wings, but it kept turning round to see what I was up to behind it and one of those times I managed to get a full face to face shot. Quite pleased with it. PoD done and dusted.

Dinner tonight was roast chicken and it was done perfectly. I also roasted some beetroot we’d bought at the weekend and it will probably go into a salad or on a piece of bread tomorrow. I cut the tops off carefully, Hazy, and they are now sitting in their water bath on the kitchen window sill. The garlic and spring onion were getting leggy so they are now planted in soil in the greenhouse.

I found today’s prompt, Chartreuse, one of the most restrictive this year in EDiF.
Chartreuse is an alcohol based herbal liqueur made by monks in southern France to a secret recipe. It sounded to me like an upmarket Buckfast, also made by monks to a secret recipe. The two main differences are the cost and the colour. Chartreuse is green or yellow and Buckfast is brown with red tinges (or so I’m told). I liked the idea of green wine, but not the cost.

The clock is in the picture because the first time I heard the word Chartreuse was in the track “Clockwork Chartreuse” on the Loudon Wainwright III album “Attempted Mustache” back in the early ’70s. The lyrics are fairly violent and probably wouldn’t be allowed in these PC days.

Scamp is booked to get her hair cut tomorrow morning and I might cut mine in the afternoon. Twins!

Going for the messages – 12 February 2024

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Just going for the Monday shop.

In the morning we drove over in sunshine to Tesco and bought some essentials. Monday is for essentials like milk and bread, except they had no filtered milk. None at all. There is something screwed with our local Tesco just now. Usually it’s no bread on a Monday or no rolls. It’s like the local Tesco is the second class citizen to the ‘Big’ Tesco at the town centre. No filtered milk was a new one on us though. They actually had bread, and rolls for once, but we didn’t want them!

Back home, after lunch, we watched the big black clouds come rolling in from the north west … and just roll past. Then the sun shone again. I could wait no longer, I put my boots on and went for a walk in St Mo’s with the A7. It had clouded over again by the time I got there, but a strong wind was breaking up the clouds quite efficiently and just for a minute the sun shone on the reed beds out in the pond and lit them up beautifully. I got two shots before the clouds closed the good light down again. I was happy with my shot which was just as well, because the sun didn’t come back again until I was home.

Dinner tonight was a plate of Giovanni Rana mushroom tortelloni, and very nice it was too, served with butter and grated parmesan. I’d a bit of work to do with the sewing machine after dinner and after a couple of silly mistakes everything worked out fine. Still some stuff to do to it, but it should be ready for next week.

I didn’t quite get round to sketching the bottle of Burgundy that was requested in the prompt. Instead I splash some paint on an ink sketch of a wine glass, forgetting the ink was water soluble and it all went a bit tricky, but there was no saving it, so instead I spattered more red paint on it and I quite liked the effect. Hopefully you’ll get to see it tomorrow.

PoD was indeed the light on the reeds in the pond and it looks quite good after being in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Hoping to meet Alex tomorrow for a photo walk, maybe in Paisley with the option of going to Bowling for some boat photos some time soon. Scamp has herself a free day to do with as she wishes. I’m intending to travel by bus.

Recipe from the past – 11 February 2024

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A dull misty day with occasional rain showers. Oh for some sun!

After a lazy start to the day, and after watching Laura Kuenssberg ripping into more politicians, I decided to go out in the early afternoon and get some photos taken, even if it was raining, but first there was a lamb breast to prepare and put in the oven

I’d found the recipe in my blog for just over a year ago and it had worked then, so it would work again. I had recorded the gas settings and the timings, so I stuck strictly to them. With it safely in the oven, I left Scamp in charge and walked across to St Mo’s

I did the circular tour of the pond and did manage to get some decent photos for a change. Of course it was when I was walking home that the really good light appeared and by that time I’d almost filled the 16GB card that was my self-imposed limit for the day. I did manage to squeeze another couple of shot in just to make the most of the light. As it happened, the PoD turned out to be one of the first shots I’d taken of a group of Cladonia lichen. I didn’t quit manage to get all of it in focus with a single shot, so did the next best thing and took one shot focusing on the nearest stalk and another of the further away one, then blended the two in Affinity Photo which is downright brilliant at this trick.

The prompt today asked for Olive. I did think of painting a picture of Olive Oyl, but I’d painted that lady some time ago in response for another prompt. So instead I tried the easy answer and drew some Kalamata olives in a wee bowl. I love olives of whatever variety, but have to be careful not to eat too many, if you understand what I mean. Luckily for me I didn’t have any in the house, so the temptation did not arise.

The lamb was quite excellent and just as good as I remembered it from a year ago. Served with potatoes, carrots, turnip and cabbage. Scamp, of course, only had the veg.

Spoke to Jamie and heard about his calamitous week with Simonne falling off her skittish horse, but no bones broken, just a bit painful. The latest setback is that there may be a problem with the new dormer windows. All to do with one member of the council being off ill, so no decisions can be made until they return. Really? If this was a company they’d all be sacked and replaced long ago. If it wasn’t for bad luck Jamie and Simonne wouldn’t have any luck at all.

We watched a comedy tonight. It was called Death in Paradise. It’s becoming more of a farce every week. Every ‘actor’ more wooden than the last.

Apparently we need MORE messages tomorrow. I thought we’d bought enough last week and on Saturday, but it appears I’m wrong and we’re probably going shopping again tomorrow.

 

 

Just for a change, the sun shone for a while this morning – 10 February 2024

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It didn’t last, but it was a sign of things to come, hopefully.

We managed to get out early today, well, early for us at least. I suggested Stirling as the place to go and off we went. I’d checked the battery in the A6500 and it was in fairly good order. I checked the SD card and formatted it. Then we left for Stirling and halfway down the motorway I realised I’d left the camera bag (with camera) on the sofa in the house! Never mind. I had my phone with me that would see me through the amount of photos I’d take.

After cruising around a busy Waitrose car park we finally chanced upon a space and squeezed ourselves into it then we went for a walk round Stirling. We both wandered round our own collection of shops and agreed to meet up later, which we did. Scamp suggested an M&S curry deal for dinner and I agreed. Dinner bought we asked each other, did we really want to go for a coffee? Neither of us were all that interested, so we walked back to the car and dumped the dinner in the boot then went to see what we could find in Waitrose. I got a rolled breast of lamb that will hopefully become my dinner tomorrow and Scamp got a couple of nice pieces of fish. Paid and added the takings to the growing pile in the boot, then made someone’s day bay nudging forward into the long, long queue of folk cruising round looking for a free space. A delighted looking woman in a van was happy to take ours and we drove home.

It’s funny the way weather works. When we were driving towards Stirling the sky ahead of us was much lighter than that behind us. When we were driving home in the early afternoon, the light ahead of us was much lighter than that behind us again! How does that happen?

Back home I went for a walk in St Mo’s WITH the camera this time, but got nothing interesting, so I walked down through the muddy wilderness behind St Mo’s to the shops and bought a load of stuff we didn’t need, but which was well received when I got home.

PoD was a quick phone shot in Stirling of three folk sitting on a bench, each texting on their phones. It’s entitled “Happy Tappers”.

Today’s prompt was “Ash”. This tree might soon be a thing of the past with Ash dieback being so rife these days. In my own street about half a dozen trees were felled in autumn last year. Some of them weren’t even ash trees, which brings into question the integrity of some of the tree fellers the council employs.

Today’s prompt was ‘Ash’. I always liked playing with the ash seeds when I was younger. We never called them Keys, we called them ‘propellers’ because of their shape and also because of the way they spun when they fell from the trees. Let’s hope some clever folk can devise a way to save the trees and staunch the damage done by the disease.

Dinner was that curry and it still looks like the lamb breast will be tomorrow’s dinner for me at least.

No real plans for tomorrow. Maybe Glasgow Green.

Another busy day – 8 February 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another day, another busy one – 7 February 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A blustery day again – 2 February 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Willie is gone – 22 January 2024

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But Jocelyn is waiting in the wings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dancin’ – 20 January 2024

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Last Brookfield dancin’ class for three weeks at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Another cold one – 17 January 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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