Category: St Mo’s

What a difference a day makes – 3 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Today dawned dull, cloudy and wet.

It wasn’t actually raining when we woke, but it had been. The streets were wet and those clouds showed no sign of breaking up any time soon.

After we finally got out of bed and dressed we noticed a visitor on the kitchen window. I don’t know what kind of fly it is, but I’m sure I’ve seen one before somewhere, probably on a window. I got a few shots with the Oly then for good measure, I took some more with the Sony. Sony won hands down. That was six shots in the bag, and one of them became PoD, but only after a fair bit of work. The great thing about the Sigma 105mm macro on the Sony is the detail it finds in things. The bad thing about it is the detail if finds in things. I’d washed that window on Monday or Tuesday. Today was Thursday and the window was covered in pollen which the camera and lens captured just as perfectly as it captured the detail in the fly’s wings and body. It took about an hour’s work to retain the fly’s details while blurring out the dust and pollen from the window glass. Photoshop is a cracking tool once you have time to work out how to use it!

We drove to Falkirk in the late morning to pick up our wedding rings that had been faultlessly repaired by the lady at McMaster’s. Mine cost nothing to resize, presumably because she could reuse the gold dust she’d cut off and because it was only 9ct. Scamp’s on the other hand was quite expensive because it needed a relatively large piece of 18ct gold inserted. It doesn’t matter, we are both now wearing the rings we exchanged when we got married.

On the way back we stopped at Torwood to get a pot and some compost to plant Scamp’s new rhododendron. After lunch Scamp started the baking of a tray of ‘Brookies’ which I’m told are Brownie Cookies. I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and continued on to the shops to get milk and some marshmallows which I seem to have become addicted to recently. No photos were taken in St Mo’s because there were no insects of any description flying today. When I got back home the baking was in full swing and by dinner time there was a box of Brookies to share. They weren’t as sweet as the usual brownies I’ve tasted, but had a nice crunch to them. Lots more there for tomorrow.

The clouds finally parted and the sun shone for an hour at night and we had a walk in the garden, deciding what to put where now that there’s a new plant to fit in. We’re still not decided on the final position, but I’m sure we’ll find enough of a space to squeeze it in.

I’m adding another photo from yesterday into today’s blog. Walking round the gardens yesterday, I found what looked like a good composition looking past the Reg Butler sculpture ‘Girl’, through the gap in the hedge to the people in the distance. However these two folk wouldn’t budge. In frustration, I took the shot anyway, including them. Just as I was pressing the shutter I heard the girl say “It’s not a very good sculpture is it? It looks corroded or something”. To which her partner replied “Hmm.”
Those who Can, Do. Those who Can’t, become critics. Thank goodness for the almost silent shutter on the Oly!!

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet Val for coffee and a catch up and Scamp is intending going walking with Veronica.

An undecided day – 1 June 2021

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It’s wasn’t us who were undecided, it was the weather.

It looked as if it would be another scorching day when we woke, but it never really reached full scorch. It was warm, but not bright all the time. The sun came and went for most of the day.

The first task today was to water the garden. Scamp did the front and I did the back. I think I got the heavy end of the stick, because there are only about a dozen pots of plants at the front and easily, easily thirty at the back. However, it was my choice and it was good just walking about spraying water on the thirsty plants. It also gave me a chance to stand there and admire all the things we’ve grown. Such a variety of flowers, greenery and vegetables.

After we put the hose away and had a coffee we had some admin to do. The boring things like backing up my photos, paying off my debts and also changing providers for house insurance. The problem is there’s no real shortcut to them, but they have to be done. One thing I didn’t have to do today was a sketch. May is over and with it, EDiM. I’ll miss it in some ways, but in others I’m really glad I don’t have to start working on a sketch at 10pm, then trying to get it into the computer and posted on Flickr before I write the blog. As it is, it’s just before 10pm now and I’m already halfway through the blog.

We’d walked down to the shops after lunch and bought what we needed for dinner which was to be a stir fry. On the way back I veered off to walk round St Mo’s, hoping for a chance to snap those dragonflies from yesterday. They seemed to have disappeared. Maybe the lack of constant sun was giving them problems. I think they need the sun to keep their bodies warm. I did almost capture a little red damselfly and a Jenny Long Legs, but it was a couple of Wolf Spiders that took most of my attention. The one of the female trailing her egg sac got PoD. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but anyway, they like to bask in the sun with their load because the heat helps the eggs to hatch. It looks such an uncomfortable existence. Almost as uncomfortable as a woman in the last weeks of pregnancy. The swelling is proportionally the same.

It sounds like most of our time was spent being active or doing work, but that’s only half the story. Although it wasn’t exactly wall to wall sunshine today it was still warm enough to sit in the garden with a beer and that’s what we did for the odd hour or two, just reading or daydreaming.

Dinner tonight, as I said, was a stir fry. Scamp made hers with rice as the base and I used noodles for mine. Hers looked a lot better than mine, but mine tasted good. I’d do that again. Maybe even without the tuition from my wife next time!

So, photos are in Flickr and the blog is just about to be posted and it’s just after 10pm. That must be a record … if it all works out.

While some of Scotland went down to level 1 today, most of the Central Belt were fated to remain in level 2. It’s not a big benefit for us really. More people from more households could meet indoors and soft play centres could open again, but neither of these would affect us. It appears that Covid cases are on the rise again across the Central Belt and this is a preventative measure. Better to be safe than sorry, I suppose.

Tomorrow we may be going east to look at some flowers.

Another day too good to waste

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Up fairly early and out for a walk in the woods.

Scamp drove us to Drumpellier where we joined the conveyer belt of folk out for a walk in the sunshine. It really was a beautiful day and there were literally hundreds of people in the park, all carefully socially distant. How many times have we walked on that same conveyer belt but never investigating the woods? What an opportunity lost. This was our third trek into the cool shade of the trees. Lots to see if you look. Today we saw a Jay. Years since I’ve seen one with its bright blue band on its wings. Almost got a shot of it on the wing and looking as if it was heading straight for me, but it was out of focus. I did get a static shot of it and, although you can see the blue stripe, you can’t quite see its head because it was in shadow. Pity. We walked on and tried a new path, but found it just lead on to the road backtracked and found a path we’d been on before. Followed if for a mile or so then chose a new one, just to see where it went. It turned out to circle the cricket pitch we’d found last time. From there, all the paths were ones we’d already investigated. Walked back to the car and stopped for an ice cream on the way. The place was even busier now. There was even a bloke busking to a pre-recorded backing track. Never seen that in Drumpellier before. He didn’t seem to be making much.

Back home and after lunch Scamp got the folding seats out and set up in the sun. It seemed a sensible way to spend a warm afternoon on the last day of May. The month started with us driving down to Irvine to go to the first High Tea of Peter’s two day birthday. Along the way it had been a month of stretching our wings, getting gradually further away from the house and the walks round Broadwood, although the weather hadn’t always been great. Wettest on record some said, but it was dry today and the sun was out and I was listening to Rebus on my headphones.

Later I went out for a walk because I wasn’t sure I had any decent shots from today’s walk and could hardly believe that there were two dragonflies circling the small pond the boardwalk crosses. They were busy making more dragonflies, so paid no heed to me, but were far too far away and too fast to catch with a camera. I did see a couple of damselflies too, but they were too skittish, probably avoiding the bigger dragonflies. The best shot I took was just a branch of May blossom. It looked ok.

Dinner tonight was a salad with tuna pasta and curry rice which was just ok. Scamp had boiled the rice earlier and I added the curry powder and some curry paste, but it didn’t taste like I expected. However the pasta was lovely and worked so well on a warm day. We sat outside for a while to soak up some extra rays, but I nearly fell asleep and we retired to the house to tidy up and for me to get started on the last EDiM drawing of 2021.

Today’s prompt was your computer mouse. Rather than draw my usual mouse I drew an old corded mouse. It works when no other mouse will. It’s not as flaky as the Apple Magic Mouse 2 and it doesn’t use batteries that fail when you really need them, like the Logitech ones. There’s a place for old tech, even these days.

Tomorrow we’re hoping for another good day and we’re hoping to get out for a walk.

A lazy day – 30 May 2021

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A day to enjoy the sunshine.

Today we didn’t go anywhere, we gave the car a rest day, we didn’t even have a dance class. What we did do was a bit of planting and rearranging in the garden. We also did a fair bit of sitting around, occasionally moving the seats to catch some more rays.

In the afternoon I took the Sony with the macro lens for a walk in St Mo’s and found a red damselfly fresh out of its exoskeleton, hanging on to a reed while unfurling its wings and pumping the blood into them before trying them out for the first time. It must have enjoyed the attention I was giving it, because its first flight ended with it hanging on to my arm. Then it flew back to its perch to dry out those delicate wings. I said my goodbyes and walked home, pretty sure I had a PoD. I did, although I hadn’t managed to get as close as I’d wanted. Maybe there will be other chances tomorrow.

We decided that, as it was a holiday weekend, we’d pass on the dance class tonight. We’re still not sure if the class went ahead without their star pupils, but I’m sure we’ll find out next week.

Spoke to JIC and found out about Vixen’s dentist’s visit to repair a damaged canine. A canine with a damaged canine? How strange. I wonder what she thought when she came out of the anaesthetic.

Sketch tonight was A Pack of Playing Cards. I chose UNO because it’s the only game Scamp can trounce me at. I must have won maybe one or two games in all the games we’ve played which must number about fifty now. I just don’t seem to be able to break that jinx!

Tomorrow we’re hoping for similar glorious weather to today’s offering. We’ve seen the promises, but we’ve had promises before that didn’t live up to the hype. Maybe it will this time!

The man who worked in the garden – 28 May 2021

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We couldn’t decide whether to trust the weather or not. NOT won.

It wasn’t a terrible day, but it wasn’t looking like it would stay dry all day, so we chose to work in the garden instead. Lots of things needed fixing, moving, cutting and filling, so there were plenty of jobs to fill our time. I started by strimming the back grass. There wasn’t much grass to strim, but just like a bad haircut, it’s the little areas with the long strands that make the place look untidy. I’d done most of the grass and weeds when the plastic cable on the strimmer broke. When I thought I’d reassemble the cutter again the drum flew off and the plastic strands became tangled into a birds nest. Ten minutes and a bit of swearing later it was working again … properly!

Scamp meantime was rearranging the flower pots. Because of tree roots in the back garden, many of the pots sit at odd angles and today it was the pieris that was causing problems. I thought it might benefit from some bark underneath it as a cushion and levelling agent. The problem was that the pieris itself is really heavy and fairly bushy, so it takes two people to manoeuvre it into place again after it’s been moved. I think it looks better now that it’s on an even keel, but I’m not sure Scamp agrees. Only time will tell once it’s settled in its place. I dug out some compost from our compost bin and used it to cover the sprouting potatoes in their bags, after I’d filtered it for slugs which were promptly despatched to the brown compost bin to go to the council recycling facility. Scamp was also adding a load of trimmings and rubbish into the same brown bin for recycling. All in all an hour and a bit’s work made the whole back garden look so much better and gave us an appetite for lunch.

After lunch we went for a walk round St Mo’s, but again, no damselflies, although the cygnets were out with mum and dad. Last night after posting the blog I was reading last year’s blog and found that a year ago yesterday I’d photographed the first damselfly of the year. So, rather than being a bit behind this year, we are actually ahead of last year’s hatch. The walk brought today’s PoD which is a snail sheltering under a leaf. I wondered, as I was taking the shot, if that snail knew more than me and perhaps rain was on the way.

Dinner tonight was Frittata. Fry up a couple of leeks with any veg or meat you fancy in an oven proof pan. Beat up eight eggs and half a cup of milk and pour over the leeks/veg/meat mixture. Cook for about 5 minutes then bake in the oven at 180c for 15 mins(ish). Done. Serves four or serves two for two days. Sorry Hazy, obviously not for you!

Today’s prompt was for “Your Car, Any Car, A Matchbox Car …”. I chose Scamp’s Wee Red Car. I took some photos of it today and tonight I attempted to draw the car from those reference photos. Trying to get realistic curves in perspective is much harder than drawing an extension cable, even a four gang, switched, three pin UK one. Believe me. However, it’s done!

So, although the majority of Scotland is now in Level 2 or below, Glasgow has to remain in Level 3 until next week at least. I feel sorry for all the restaurant owners and publicans who can’t open their doors because a fairly small section of the community can’t obey the rules. Another case of ‘one bad apple’, or so it seems.

Tomorrow we may go on the road again, somewhere, whatever the weather. That will mean filling the Blue car’s tank again. That will be the fourth time in five months! I’m not sure we can afford this luxury!

Another dull day – 26 May 2021

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However, brighter days are on the horizon, we’re told.

Scamp was off to Calder’s for lunch with Annette and I was left to my own devices. Always a dangerous thing to do. As it happened I didn’t really do much damage today. I hoovered the painting room because there was a lot of those sticky covers from the buds on the trees. They stick to you shoes and then transfer to the carpet later to be ground in. Luckily the Dyson knows how to deal with them. Didn’t do much else with my freedom, other than try to find a way to partition an NTFS drive on a Mac. Apparently it can’t be done without a lot of work and I wasn’t going to waste more time on trying.

Just before Scamp returned, I gave up and took the car out for a run with two cameras in the boot. I was hoping to give the Sony with the Sigma macro a chance to show what it could do with the new damselflies, except there didn’t seem to be any of the flying creatures around today. There were lots of Wolf Spiders wandering along the boardwalk. I chose to annoy them instead. Saw a spider on spider fight that was as good as anything Hollywood has to offer and probably more violent than is allowed on the BBC. These guys, and it was guys, were throwing everything into this battle. They actually rolled across the upstand of the boardwalk and fell off into the water of the pond. Can spiders swim? I hope so, or at least I hope they are quick learners. Soon more arrived to fill their place. It was mating time again I think. One lateral shot of a female wolf got PoD. Not the prettiest face I’ve seen, but beauty they say is in the eye of the spider who won the fight and learned to swim.

After the photo session I drove to Kilsyth, more exactly I drove to Lidl. Bought a lemon to replace the mouldy one at home. Then a host of more fattening things that took my eye. The lemon along with its other three yellow buddies is going to make Limoncello. Sugar, Vodka and the best lemons you can find. That’s all there is to it, that and a fair bit of work. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start the manufacturing process. It worked the last time and I’ve just finished the last bottle, so it’s time to start again.

Today’s prompt was Something You Collected Outside. I couldn’t think what to draw, but then I remembered I used to pick up old empty snail shells, especially small ones. They are so fine and delicate and to think that some creature creates this shelter for itself. What does it create it from? How does it form it? Probably, like so many things these days, the answer is but a click away. I’m talking here about land based snails, not cockles or winkles or any of the sea snails. Their heavy thick walled shells didn’t interest me.

Tomorrow we may go out for a run. Tesco are delivering tomorrow night, so we can’t be away too long. Of course, all of this is dependent on the weather fairies getting things right!

Dreary, wet and Foxtrot – 23 May 2021

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Another of those drizzly wet days.

There was little point in going far today. The forecast had been for rain in the morning and it appeared almost exactly on time. It gave me a chance to start today’s sketch which was A Treasure Chest. The sketch was done early, but the painting took a bit longer. Overall, I’m fairly happy with the result.

The rest of the morning was spent fixing all the little niggling bits and pieces that surround any big app. Moving bits of code and plugins that do all the heavy lifting in Lightroom and have to be slotted into their correct place by hand. I think most of it is done now. The actual program seems to run a lot faster than the old V6.14 I was using. It should do, this is Lightroom V10 I’m using now!

We did manage to get out for a walk in the late afternoon with only a light shower to dampen our waterproofs. Blustery wind and cold too. This doesn’t feel like May. I was watching an interview with a bird watcher the other day and he was saying that up until recently the seasons were predictable and stayed in their patterns. Now all that seems to have changed and the seasons appear to be more chaotic. He said it’s almost certainly down to Global Warming. He might be right.

Scamp made a lovely dinner tonight with grilled chicken that had been marinaded in ground cumin, ground coriander, chopped coriander and garlic. It was absolutely beautiful. Served with potatoes and roast veg.

PoD came from the walk to St Mo’s in the afternoon. It’s the unfurling crozier of a fern. I was impressed with the quality of it. Nothing to do with me, just a great camera and an excellent lens.

Dancing tonight centred around a Foxtrot. I think we did quite well with it, although Scamp reminded me that we’ve only been doing the easy part so far.

Spoke to JIC later and caught up with how things are down south. It seems that the weather we’ve been having has been pretty much universal. Rain and more rain.

Tomorrow we’re booked to meet Isobel for coffee at Costa.

Driving and meeting old friends – 22 May 2021

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We couldn’t decide what to do today. We did think about going up the east coast to Kirkcaldy, but then thought better of it because today was a Saturday it would be busy. Instead we waited for the postman.

The postman brought a big parcel for Scamp. She already knew it was coming so it was not a big surprise. Inside was a long green box with a recipe and ingredients to make a cake. JIC gave me the present of a bread making subscription for Christmas. It’s been great, encouraging me to bake breads I’d never have tried otherwise. Scamp’s green box contained a similar thing, but for cakes instead. I did think, after I bought it, that it was a bit cheeky, sending a brilliant baker like Scamp a baking kit, but I’m hoping that, like me she’ll discover interesting cakes to bake. Ones she’d never have considered without that little push. Also, hopefully, I get to taste the results!

With the parcel opened and the on-line signing up done we set off for Bishopbriggs to get another USB drive to back up my photos on. It’s part of my complicated back up regime for ‘easy’ retrieval. It always amazes me that every time I go to buy an external drive I can get twice the storage space for the same price I paid for the last one. It’s something akin to Moore’s Law (Google it).

It was at the retail park that we bumped into Mhairi and Robert who used to go to Salsa with us. We spent a good twenty minutes discussing the effect of the pandemic on small businesses like theirs, some good and some bad. Good to speak to folk we hadn’t seen for a long time, years, in fact.

On the way back we stopped at Lidl in Kirkintilloch, hoping to get a bottle of Hortus Gin. Unfortunately they only had the flavoured varieties and I wanted the plain and simple one. What amazed us when we arrived was the queue to get in to the drive-through at McDonalds. Who, in their right mind, would queue to get a hamburger that’s never seen any ham? Maybe the clue is in that phrase “in their right mind”. How many of them have actually tasted real meat? We drove on to Kilsyth where there were ample supplies of Hortus and no Mickey Ds. Obviously much more sophisticated tastes in Kilsyth

Back home we went for a walk in St Mo’s and just managed a glimpse of the new cygnets. They were off with mum and dad to get some food over in the reeds at the far side of the pond. I’m guessing it was their equivalent of a walk to the shops. I hadn’t really managed a decent shot today, so I bolted on the macro lens and photographed the Strawberries and Cream Aquilegia that sits at the front door. Beautiful flower. Instant PoD.

We had a practise of the Cha Cha tonight. Who knew it was so exhausting? Then to cool down we did a couple of Rumbas. Things fell apart and tempers frayed when we tried the waltz with its Stewart’s clumsy addition of a spin where there shouldn’t be one. We agreed to continue on to the Catherine Waltz. Then to save bloodshed we put the living room back into a living room again rather than a dance floor and a war zone!

Yesterday’s sketch has appeared and its title is Spice Jars. I don’t know where it could have been hiding 😉. Today’s prompt was Dice, so today’s sketch is titled Lucky Sixes!

Tomorrow looks wet. Some baking may be done by one or both of us.

Socks and a hot curry – 14 May 2021

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Scamp was off on a walk with Veronica and I was starting today’s painting early.

Scamp was booked for a walk with Veronica. Just a walk round Broadwood Loch. I was staying at home, hoping to get today’s sketch started early. Started, yes, finished, no. Today’s topic was A Pile of Socks. Not something I’d have chosen, but that’s what’s interesting about working your way through someone else’s list of topics. You don’t get the chance to draw and paint the easy stuff, you just do the best you can with what you’re offered. Sometimes it takes lateral thinking, sometimes there’s no way out, you just have to do it. I had a pile of socks to put away, so I used them as my starting point. Pencil sketch to start with, then some watercolour. That didn’t look quite right, so I added some watercolour pencil to it. That was better, but it still needed more. When Scamp came home from her walk, she suggested I add one of her socks to the mix. It couldn’t do any harm, so I added the yellow sock to the pile, partly tucked under another two. Yes, that altered the composition in a good way. You might recognise a bit of darning and Scamp’s sock, Hazy! I left it for a while and we had lunch.

Wednesday’s Challah bread was being cut down fast, but we both knew it wouldn’t stay fresh for much longer. The recipe that came with the ingredients said that the bread made great French Toast. That’s what we had for lunch. It was good, but the eggy mix didn’t really add anything to the bread. Also you expect French Toast to be savoury, but the bread is naturally sweet, so the tastes don’t really marry up.

After lunch and after hearing that Glasgow was likely to remain in Level 3 with rising cases of the Indian Variant, when almost the rest of Scotland would go to Level 2 on Monday, we rethought our plans for tomorrow. We’d considered going for a walk down Glasgow Green, but maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea now. We decided we’d go for a walk today at least because the weather was pleasantly mild and we’d leave tomorrow until tomorrow. We walked round St Mo’s, twice round the pond. On the second circuit I was photographing a fly on a Marsh Marigold when I noticed on a flower nearby just the hint of a spider’s front legs. Sure enough, there was a spider dangling from one of the petals. I assume it was waiting for some unsuspecting fly to drop in for lunch, the spider’s lunch. The flies must all have seen this trick before, because they kept a good distance away from the secret spider which became PoD.

Back home we were planning our dinner and Scamp suggested a curry mix. We’d bought a Biryani kit the last time we were in Waitrose and that’s what we made. It was supposed to be a “Two Chilli” curry. I think the printer must have missed out the “Twenty” before the “Two”. Boy, it was hot. It was tasty too, but you’d have to take it down a few notches before you noticed the taste. Thank goodness for a tub of yoghurt to cool our mouths down.

It was now time to decide if the socks stayed as sketch of the day or if they were replaced with something better. I decided they stayed, dated and signed the sketch and we were done.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk somewhere that’s not running scared from the Indian Variant. I have an idea, but you’ll need to wait until tomorrow to find out where!

Rain – 10 May 2021

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That could have been the callsign for the day. Rain … Dry … Repeat!

In the morning, Scamp braved the rain and wind to go to Condorrat to post a birthday card for Moira. I stayed in and painted the first of two paintings to get my EDiM back on track. I also performed some open heart surgery on the new Oly which not only had a hair on the sensor, but also a tiny wee speck of something sticky too. It might have been a bit of sap from the trees in St Mo’s, or a bit of chewing gum (joke!). Whatever it was, it would need a wet clean to get rid of it. At the weekend I’d found an unopened pack containing three swabs and a tiny little bottle of expensive sensor cleaner. They were actually meant for an APS-C sensor, but I knew that the long edge of the MFT sensor is almost the same size as the short edge of an APS-C, so they would fit with a downward stroke on the Oly. I realise I should have put in a <Technospeak> warning before that explanation, but you’re a big boy now and can take the occasional bit of Technospeak, JIC.
Two wipes with the swab and it was done and I now have a clean, unsticky sensor again.

When Scamp returned, dry, from Condorrat we had lunch which was yesterday’s Chicken and Black Beans, and watched the rain for a while before I started on the second painting. I was almost finished when there was a knock at the door. I’d completely forgotten we were getting a Tesco order today, and here was the poor bloke standing in the rain with the baskets. Quickly got the baskets emptied and returned then stored the groceries in the appropriate racks. After that I finished off the painting while Scamp read.

After checking the weather, we decided we’d manage a walk in St Mo’s, maybe even a couple of circuits of the pond, and that’s what we did. I got my PoD which is a fern ‘crozier’. I also found a bramble bush with last year’s leaves still attached in their autumn colours. Autumn leaves in May! These particular leaves have survived the winter snow and winds and are still hanging in there.

Dinner was a lighter than normal tomato pasta because we’d had a fairly substantial lunch. Later we had a couple of runs through the Bellissimo Cha-Cha we’d started yesterday, a couple successful turns of Catherine Waltz and finished up with a Tango.

That was about it for a warm but wet Monday with temperature reaching 15º. Out to lunch tomorrow, with the chance of some landscape photography if the weather is obliging.