Category: St Mo’s

Windy – 18 October 2023

Posted on by Zogman

It was a breezy old day today.

We have been bombarded with warnings of extreme weather from Storm Babet from now until the weekend. We seem to be on the edge of it with a yellow warning in place for heavy rain in the next few days. The wind did get up later in the day, but earlier it seemed quite normal.

We spoke to Hazy in the morning and heard about Neil’s chest infection which has kept him off work today and given Hazy the opportunity to get her nurse’s uniform on. We discussed the progress of Nelly the split rock’s new split that seems to be progressing really well.

After we said “Cheerio”, Scamp and I drove to Tesco and bought a few odds and ends to feed our visitors who are hoping to arrive on Saturday after a long drive..

After lunch, we turned the sofa in the back room into a bed, stripped it and put on fresh sheets. We also completed the transformation of the back bedroom from a dumping ground into something that people would want to sleep in. Still some hoovering (Dysoning) and a bit of dusting to do, but the transformation is nearly complete. I even washed the window so the chilli plants could look out!

With that done, I felt it was time to go out for a walk in the wild outdoors and took the A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s. While I was out, Scamp started the prep for tonight’s Smoked Fish Curry. It’s a really old recipe from a book bought in Woolworth’s! That will give you and idea just how old it is, and it was originally for Egg Curry, but it works really well with smoked fish too.

There wasn’t much to see in St Mo’s but I did get a little cameo of an aspen leaf pierced by a reed spike and that was PoD sorted. Inktober prompt for today was Saddle. Instead of the obvious horses saddle, I drew my bike saddle. I’d completed a fairly rough pencil sketch last night, but wasn’t sure how to finish it. I tried using black ink from a brush pen, but that just didn’t look right, so I redrew it in pencil and then drew over it with a couple of ink pens. That left it as a line drawing to which I added some texture and shading … badly. Still, it fitted the brief and it’s up on Flickr now.

Dancing tonight was busy, busy, busy with six couples vying for a space on the dance floor to show off their Tango skills. It was a short dance, but with enough interesting moves to make our feet do a bit of thinking. I really like Kirsty’s style. She dances the man’s part, then the woman’s part, then to finish she enlists one of the good lady dancers to be her partner for the couple dance. What was a complicated set of moves, suddenly becomes a lot easier.

I think we may be going out into the wild weather tomorrow to go to a tea dance at Glenburn. Let’s hope we don’t get blown or washed away!

Just a Monday – 16 October 2023

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Shopping, taking photos and a very short bit of gentle gardening.

Some days when I’m writing this blog I look back on the day that’s almost finished and ask myself “What DID we do today?” This was one of those days.

Wordle and Spelling Bee took up about half an hour of the morning, then I started messing about with a bit of software I’d downloaded. It’s called SyncTime and I’ve got the ‘Lite’ version which is another way of saying ‘Free’ version. I have lots of tutorial videos, mainly dance related on two different computers and I want to synchronise them, but hadn’t really looked into solutions for the problem until recently. SyncTime seemed to be just what I was looking for, but it’s especially ‘Lite’ on explanations. I spent most of the morning trying to work out what was happening. Now I have a better idea of what I’m getting myself into, I don’t think SyncTime is the solution. More investigation (or time wasting) required. I’m sure Scamp would agree with the bracketed description.

Lunch was soup and then we went out to ‘get the messages’. Just a 15min walk to the shops, but it breaks up the day. On the way back I took a detour to St Mo’s and Scamp walked home after she eventually got across the road. There is work being done on one of the dual carriageways just now and that means the traffic on the other roads in the town is a lot heavier than normal. Crossing the road becomes a dangerous pastime, because everyone is in a hurry, pedestrians included.

There wasn’t much to see in St Mo’s and although I did get a couple of shots, I wasn’t really impressed with them. They filled a space and that was all you could say about them. I really think that the 365 as it was is coming to an end. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s becoming truer every year. It keeps getting more difficult to find fresh subjects to tackle. That doesn’t mean the blog will be closing. It’s a pain too, but if I have a dull day I just write wee stories like this one!

After I’d shortlisted two photos and processed them, I went out into the garden to pot up three different basil pots. The first was a new one we bought in Lidl yesterday and it was seriously pot bound. The second was a pot of basil we got in Tesco and had on the kitchen windowsill for too long. I think the poor plant had exhausted all the nutrients in the soil. It too was pot bound. The third was a wee pot I’d grown from seed, but it wasn’t making much ground. There were about ten separate seedlings in the pot, but all clumped together. They were separated and planted into new soil then dumped in the birdbath to soak up some rainwater. The other two were just transplanted into bigger pots to give their roots some elbow room and then they too were given a soak in the birdbath. I left them for about half an hour before I brought them in to the kitchen again. I hope the new compost gives them some energy.

On the subject of plants, Hazy. ‘Nelly’ is definitely splitting. I’ll try to remember to send you a photograph of her tomorrow. Looking very healthy!

Sketch prompt was Angel. I thought of drawing the Christmas tree fairy until I realised that a fairy and an angel are two different things! So it was a different angel. She stands over the old Hutchesontown Library in Glasgow. She has stood there since 1906. Everytime I see this angel I think of the Paul Simon song “Call me Al”, and I “see angels in the architecture”, but it’s the architecture of Glasgow. I always liked this sculpture and she fits the prompt perfectly.

PoD turned out to be a yellow leaf caught in some weeds.

Tomorrow we may go out for a spin.

Back in the old regime – 14 October 2023

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Driving to Brookfield today for the first class in ages.

Ah, but what a pleasant drive it was. No 40mph stretches of the motorway and no restricted lanes. What a delight that was, but how long will it last before the next phase starts? It doesn’t matter, because at least we had a stressless drive for once.

Not stressless in Brookfield. We started with the Charnwood Cha-Cha which Scamp was at pains to tell me that we’d done it before. I did remember bits of it and eventually it began to flow as it should.

Next was a new dance that was called the Ria Bachata. It was familiar up to a point. The steps were bachata steps, but the speed of the music was far too fast. It was more like a cha-cha bachata. I wasn’t impressed, but apparently we’ll be dancing it at the next ball in November, so we better start practising.

Next up today was the Tango which we learned years ago on Zoom during lockdown. This version was different, much more precise than our simple tango. Also there was a new step to master before the final “X Line” splits! Neither of us can remember its name, but I think we’ll be leaving it out of our tango version.

Finally there was the Foxtrot which I was quite confident at dancing until I came to the Continuous Hover Cross. Despite Stewart demonstrating it with Scamp and Jane dancing it with me, it felt different again from what we learned a couple of years ago. Maybe I just need to go back to those old videos and try to find our version of it. I remember it took me a long time to master it and I don’t want to go through that again.

That may be the last lesson for some time as it seems unlikely that we’ll be going to the next class and the class the week after that has been cancelled because the hall committee are putting up decorations for Halloween.

We drove home and quite a while after lunch I went out to get some photos. Nothing really seemed to be working, but then I saw a man out walking two dogs and managed to frame him between two trees and Bingo! I hd a picture of the day. On the way back from my photo walk I dropped in at Golden Bowl and brought back a Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice for Scamp and a Special Chow Mein for me. Both of us agreed that was a good move.

Prompt for the day was Castle. I thought of drawing a real castle, but realistically, the Rook from a chess set would fit the bill as its alternative name is Castle. I drew it while half watching Strictly and that accounts for the poor symmetry of the castle.

Tomorrow it looks like it will be cold as it’s just above 0ºc just now. We might go out for a walk in Colzium to see the colours of the Acers.

Oh what a beautiful morning – 11 October 2023

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And the makings of a beautiful day.

Scamp was out in the morning to have coffee with June. While she was out I found a subject for today’s Inktober prompt – “Wander”. I started work on it right away, drawing on a Seagate A4 sketchbook. I usually draw ideas to begin with in a cheap sketchbook, but have been caught out many times by working up a good sketch in them, then when I put a watercolour wash on them the paper soaks up the water, buckles and the sketch becomes a disaster area. Now I’ve learned to draw on decent quality paper that will hold the watercolour without falling apart. Yes, the paper is more expensive, but it saves a lot of swearing!

Lunch, when Scamp came in was, soup. Quite delicious soup. Then with the sun still shining I walked over to St Mo’s and found myself surrounded by dragonflies. Yesterday’s unseasonably warm weather coupled with today’s sunshine must have released a hatch of the insects. Mainly they were Common Darters with a few Black Darters too. I grabbed a few shots with the 85mm lens which performed really well, even if it didn’t allow me to get as close as a macro lens would. I also found a big clump of mushrooms that had appeared overnight. Again I think it was the weather than had encouraged them to sprout. This time it was the combination of warm weather and lots of rain, two things fungi thrive on. The mushrooms got PoD.

Back home Scamp was talking to her sister in Skye on the phone, but I didn’t hear much of the conversation because I was trying to scan in today’s sketch and post process the photos from the afternoon. We were going out to Kirsty’s dance class tonight, so I knew I had to get everything done as early as possible.

A photo of a tree beside the Luggie got ‘Explore’ on Flickr. I was quite impressed. It was almost OOC (Out Of Camera, meaning it had minimal processing). Second one in about a month!

Dinner tonight was a rather excellent fish ’n’ chips with beetroot. Not the best beetroot, but the fish made up for it. A lovely slice of cod!

There were only two couples for class tonight, but it was very useful. Plenty of room for dancing and also lots of tips from Kirsty about the little dance nuances I frequently forget. Lessons learned. She even got the chance to give us a quick and very short Quickstep routine to work on. Next week it’s Tango. Must remember a rose to hold in my clenched teeth!

Came home and opened the fridge door and the internal light went off. Oh No! Has the fridge been listening to us discussing replacing it? However, it was just the bulb that had blown. We’ll have to go out and source one tomorrow.

No other plans tomorrow. We’ll see what transpires.

 

Out for coffee with Val – 10 October 2023

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Up fairly early … for me.

Set off to pick up Val just before 11am and we drove to Costa. Not the Costa I was expecting to go to, but eventually we found the right one of the three Costas in Cumbersheugh. Sat there and drank coffee, ate cakes, discussed kitchens and showers. Then found that we had both bought the exact same dishwasher. First one for Val, third one for us. After an hour and a big bit it was to take Val home. We should do this more often and we will do this more often if I have my way.

Drove home via Tesco to get some fruit and veg and a slice of brie which, along with a few slices of our own apples and a generous spoonful of honey made the filling in a brown bread sandwich for my lunch. Scamp had already had her lunch while Val and I were blethering.

After lunch and with the sky seeming to clear, I went for a walk in St Mo’s with the A6500 having a shot of the 85mm. The close ups the pairing produced were good, but the surprise was the way it handled a long shot across the pond to catch a bloke on his phone, sitting on the Living Lounge seat nearly half a mile away. I later enlarged it and it’s ready to be viewed on Flickr. It didn’t get PoD, that went to two spiders on a web.

Scamp offered to help me get more of the workload finished at a sensible time by making tonight’s dinner which was her signature Prawn & Pea Risotto. Best one for ages, Scamp!

Today’s prompt was “Fortune”. I tried to draw a Fortune Teller’s view of a crystal ball. I thought this would be a fairly easy sketch to do. How wrong I was. The left hand was fairly easy, but have you tried drawing your right hand with the pen in your left (reverse that if you’re left handed) It’s impossible. I even tried photographing my right hand and sketching from that with only slightly more success as you can see here. If I’d only had a crystal ball I could have seen the mess I was going to make!

It’s Scamp’s turn to go out for coffee tomorrow with June. I might try to update the laptop to Monterey. That’s where it happened, you know! Google it!

A better day – 8 October 2023

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A wee bit drier today.

Scamp went out in the afternoon to get some ‘messages’. Just the essentials for dinner. When she got back I took the A7 and the new toy for a walk in St Mo’s. PoD turned out to be a retake of a shot from yesterday. This one was much better. Still not very much direct lighting, but at least it was dry. I’ll take that any day.

In the last week I’ve damaged another SD card trying to fit into the reader’s slot in the back of the iMac. It’s a stupid place to put the slot, but it makes the computer look sleeker, apparently. Probably there is an argument for removing the neat little door in the back of the iMacs that allowed you to upgrade the memory at home. Apple can be thoughtless ba$tards at times, and that dollar sign is the reason they for it. They just don’t care about anything else. Anyway, luckily Mr Bezos was able to send me a plug-in card reader that now sits in an easily accessible position next to my mouse mat.

Dinner was a ‘heat at home’ curry from M&S. Mine was a lot hotter than Scamp’s, but both were fine.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and heard about the heatwave they had been having while we two days of rain. Still, at least he made good use of it by getting everything tidied up in the garden.

Sketch for today was a Toad, as requested in the prompt. Not a bad sketch I think. Not brilliant by any manner or means, but not a bad likeness considering I didn’t have a toad handy to act as a model.

It’s 00:29 on Monday morning just now and I’m writing this blog while I glance at the Quatar GP. Later today we may go out for a walk if it stays dry!

The day that the rains came – 7 October 2023

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The rain was relentless today. Morning until night it never stopped.

All those lucky southerners who had 25º and sunshine enjoyed their Indian summer while us north of Hadrian’s wall had to put up with 10º less and rain. There’s no justice! In addition to that I had a bit of a head cold today. A bit of sunshine would have eased that, but there was none to spare, so I took some vitamin C tablets instead.

There was no point in going out to Red Deer as we’d planned today, so lunch for both of us was banana on toast and a cup of tea. By mid afternoon the sky was lightening and I was feeling better so I reckoned if the improvement was maintained, I’d manage a circuit of St Mo’s and a walk to the shops. Scamp was busy making an apple and blackcurrant pie with our own apples and blackcurrants, but had used up almost all the butter in the fridge, so I took my cue from that and put my boots on and grabbed the A7 with the new lens and went for a walk round the pond and then a gentle walk to the shops to get butter and bread.

The new lens is a strange beast. It gives great separation between the subject and the background, creating almost a 3D feel from the images. It produced the PoD which is a bush with the leaves just beginning to change colour. Other good points from the lens are the ability to use manual focus, almost without thinking and a very positive link with the focusing mechanism. I realise that means very little to most folk, but I might just remember to say that to Alex. He’ll understand!

I did manage to remember to get the butter and a loaf as well at the shops. For some reason the musician Bo Hasson had been in my head recently. I’d looked up the name and found that he died in 2010. Scamp and I both liked his music back in the early ‘70s and the walk back from the shops in the rain was so much more interesting listening to his Lord of the Rings album.

Dinner was Chicken and Mushrooms with Cream and Rice. A Scamp speciality. It was followed by the Apple and Blackcurrant Pie which had the lightest pastry I’ve eaten in a long time.

Watched Strictly and found fault in just about all the competitors dances. We are almost professionals ourselves, you see! I did today’s sketch, ‘Drip’ while occasionally glancing at Strictly. This is how I described the sketch:
“After a day of torrential rain I feel the prompt for today is quite appropriate. A late afternoon walk gave me plenty of time to observe the drips forming and falling from the trees and to enjoy the feeling of them running down the back of my neck! Yes, that was sarcasm.”

Later we watched the F1 GP from Quatar. One of those stupidly over complicated sprint races. I’m not a fan, as I’m sure you have gathered.

Tomorrow we may go out if the weather continues to improve or we may stay in if it doesn’t. That’s as much as I’m willing to say.

Lunch – 2 October 2023

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We were heading for Calders today to meet up with June & Ian and Crawford & Nancy for lunch.

It was a good day. I think everyone enjoyed it. Just a catch-up with some decent food. We’d been to Crawford and Nancy’s for dinner a fortnight ago, but June and Ian hadn’t met them for quite a while. Lots to talk about by everyone and lots of jokes and laughs. Like I said, a good day that everybody seemed to enjoy.

When we all broke up, Scamp and I went for a wander round the plants in the garden centre and she bought some violas and a cyclamen to fill up one of her now empty pots. Those pots don’t stay empty for long because Scamp usually has something in mind for them.

While she was doing that I filled a bucket of hot soapy water and gave the car the wash I’d been promising it for the last week and more. It really did need it and it looked so much better afterwards. That left me with just enough daylight time to get some photos in St Mo’s. “Spiders” was the topic for today in Inktober and that’s what I found all along the path round the pond. Spiders of every shape and size, from the size of a pin head to ones as long as my pinkie. However, they didn’t make PoD. That went to a wide angle shot of a bunch of wild geraniums growing in the wilderness area near the pond. The big blue flowers really brightened my walk.

Back home it was time to work on today’s sketch and it was a solitary spider that was my model from one of my own photos. I don’t think I’ve really done it justice, but it’s better than yesterday’s “Dream” in my opinion!

We had a quick practise of the Waltz Nioli and it worked quite well. Still a few rough edges to work on, but most of it is there now. Hopefully we’ll have another practise tomorrow.

We had a look in Which tonight hoping to get some hints on what to look for in a new fridge and a freezer, or maybe a fridge-freezer combined. Just a bit of preplanning since the freezer is not looking in good health just now. Prices are a lot higher than I expected, but I suppose everything is going up in price these days.

No real plans for tomorrow. The weather looks decent without being brilliant, but we’ll wait and see what we get.

Dining out – 29 September 2023

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Scamp was out to FitSteps this morning and instead of sitting on my backside, I chose to hoover (or Dyson) the living room and the hall carpets. Not satisfied with that, I washed down the shower cabinet and cleaned its filter. Then I could settle down to read a chapter of my latest book on my Kindle app.

When Scamp returned we discussed what to do about lunch and therefore what to do about dinner. We finally settled on going to Broadwood Farm which is part of the Stonehouse chain of pub restaurants. It was still windy this morning and there was just the threat of rain so we wrapped up well to make sure Agnes wasn’t on her way back to say a final “Cheerio”. The restaurant was almost empty, while there were a queue of cars waiting at the drive through at McD’s next door. I think I’d rather have the food in Broadwood than anything in McD’s, but it seems that I’m in the minority. We both chose fish ’n’ chips today and while it certainly wasn’t haddock or cod that ended up on my plate, it was well cooked and tasted fine. Scamp had a glass of red and I had a pint of Tennents to wash it down. We sat and talked a while after the meal and I watched the cars on the stop/start roundabout and was thankful for not having to go to work any more.

We walked home via the shops where we got a pizza to stick in the fridge just in case we felt hungry later and a couple of pineapple tarts to enjoy with a cup of coffee back home.

I had considered going for a walk in St Mo’s in the morning, but chose to to do some housework instead, so while Scamp enjoyed her pineapple tart and a coffee, I plodded round St Mo’s. I took a wee awkward Lensbaby Sweet 35 with the A7. It’s called ‘Sweet’ because of a ‘sweet spot’ in the centre of the lens while the rest of the image is intentionally blurred. The 35 refers to the lens length, 35mm. It’s another manual lens with no autofocus, but that’s one of its joys. A difficult lens to get a handle on, but once you understand it, it’s an interesting piece of kit. It got today’s PoD which is a branch of Berberis growing at the side of a path through the houses. It may have been planted by the council before the cost cutting began!

A glass or two of 19 Crimes red wine took the place of the pizza, but it can stay in the freezer until it’s needed.

We’re undecided about where to go tomorrow. It will depend on the weather.

Has she gone already? – 28 September 2023

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We hadn’t even noticed she’d been, Storm Agnes. She must have passed us by.

Neither of us noticed an increase in the wind during the night. Perhaps the weather maps were right for once when they showed the central belt being storm-free last night and early this morning.

Scamp had a list of places to go this morning. First we were driving to the Muirfield Centre to pick up free tickets to a tea dance. Actually a tea dance that last for five hours! That would be a marathon. Can we go home for our dinner half way through and come back after but still get our tea at the tea dance? Just asking!

Next stop was Calders to book a round table for six folk, except they didn’t have a round table that would sit six. Five, yes, but not six. Probably an EEC ruling that’s still in place. While we were there, Scamp bought some bulbs in the garden centre. Not the electrical variety, but the ones you plant in the garden. Hopefully they’ll brighten up the garden.

Last stop was Tesco for the messages. Just the usual, a bottle of wine, a bottle of gin and some odds and ends of food.

After lunch I took the A7 out with a macro lens and got today’s PoD. It’s a spider wrapping up tonight’s dinner. I should really have gone further afield and got a bit of landscape, but the sky was clouding over and there wasn’t really any decent light on the hills, so spiders and webs were all that I managed.

Dinner was Bacon and Borlotti Beans, something I haven’t made for a long while, but it was deemed edible, in fact, quite edible which was good because it’s one of those dishes you have to constantly be in charge off. It would, of course, have been better if I’d been better prepared. Maybe next time!

That was about it for today. No real plans for tomorrow, other than having a drink on Friday night, because I’m not driving to Bridge of Weir the next morning. The teachers are swanning off being teachers on a cruise ship.