Category: St Mo’s

Testing the new toy – 18 February 2021

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Before we got to that, there was the subject of some shearing to be done.

It didn’t take all that long to reduce my overgrown locks to a mess pile on the painting room floor.  I managed most of it myself, but had to rely on Scamp to do the tidying up at the back.  I remember one of my colleagues at work saying that his grandfather stood in front of a mirror with scissors in one hand and a small mirror in the other and cut his own hair.  His acceptance of this skill always bemused me.  He said, “Of course he was a blacksmith, so he was used to it.”  Used to what, I always asked myself.  Are all hairdressers failed blacksmiths or are all blacksmiths failed hairdressers?  Answers, as usual, on a postcard.  Anyway after the hair had been cut to my and Scamp’s satisfaction and the hair hoovered up, I started today’s Sudoku feeling much lighter.

It was a bit of a dull day.  Not really encouraging us to go out for our daily walk.  In fact it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that I took the new macro lens for a walk in St Mo’s.  I found yesterday’s orange ladybird hiding in a crevice in a tree and that made PoD.  Walked to the shops and bought some stuff for tonight’s dinner which was a rehash of Tuesday’s chilli.  Tonight’s was better, but not as hot as a chilli should be, despite the addition of more chilli paste.

Today’s prompt was “carrots”.  Being a generous person, I gave them three carrots.  Subjects for painting should always be in odd numbered batches.  Don’t know why, but odd numbers of items are always more interesting than even numbered ones.  I eventually moved away from the sketch book and painted on cheap Flying Tiger 300gsm watercolour block.  I was happy with the 3 carrots.

Tomorrow is Friday and we’ve no plans.  Hopefully not as dull a day as today.

Walking in the white stuff – 10 February 2021

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The snow was still there in the morning, but thankfully there was no new covering.

Before we could get on with the day there was a funeral to attend.  A virtual funeral for one of Scamp’s oldest Gems members, Netta.  She had died over a week ago and today we sat for half an hour and remembered her as we watched the ceremony.  She was an old lady, but a real ‘gem’.

I wanted to clear most of the snow off the car to allow today’s sunshine to help melt the rest.  It was a good idea that partly worked.  Some of the snow melted, the side that faced the sun was the most successful, but hopefully more will follow tomorrow as we are to have another cold, but sunny day.  There must have been about 200mm of snow on the roof of the car, also on the bins and all the plant pots.  I was thankful I’d bought a pair of good wellies going cheap in a sale many years ago.  Not the most comfortable footwear, but at least you don’t have to worry about wet socks.

When the postman came he brought Scamp a Blue Envelope.  She now has a date for her first vaccination.

After lunch, Scamp declared that she was off to the shops to get tonight’s dinner which was going to be Cod with Bacon, Peas and Lentils.  I was going out for a walk in the snow wearing my new best friends, my green wellies.  I walked over St Mo’s and I think I followed  the tarmac path, although it was difficult to find at times.  Walked through the woods marveling at the difference 200mm of snow can make to a landscape.  PoD became the snow ball on the cow parsley seedhead.  The snow looked solid, but it was almost translucent and as light as a feather.

Dinner was changed from Cod with Bacon etc to Chicken Soup followed by Fish Finger sandwiches.  Very satisfying and still sticking to the Fish on  a  Wednesday theme.  No painting or drawing yet.  One is done, but I’m not happy with it, so a new or rearranged one will hopefully appear tomorrow.

Tonight the temperature is dropping down below -5ºc.  It’s going to be cold tomorrow.

Oh no, more snow – 8 February 2021

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We woke to a white world today.

No more piling, this was real snow and a fair amount of it too. At first the air was clear, but soon the wind dragged more clouds from the east and they began to drop their load of snow, driven along by that same wind. Soon we could watch a full strength blizzard outside the window. We agreed that it would be best to wait a while before we went out for a walk.

Later when a few blizzards had blown through, the skies cleared and the sun shone. We gave it another fifteen minutes or so before we dared to get the boots on and go for that walk. However, it was not to be a long walk today, just in case the snow returned.

We need not have worried because the snow was kind enough to stay away long enough for us to complete our walk. I did get today’s PoD which was my favourite wild flower, the Cow Parsley holding little pockets of snow in its talons. The sun shining through the trees gave a bit of dappled light to brighten up the background and the wind was calm enough to prevent too much movement. I used the old Sigma 105mm macro lens for it. It’s more or less a manual lens now. It has no internal motor, so cannot autofocus which is a great disadvantage for a macro lens. However, it still takes exceedingly good photographs for its age. It’s definitely Old Glass.

Back home and after lunch which was Scamp’s minestrone soup, with lemons (!), I started to rough out today’s sketch for which the prompt was “Puppy”. The first rough looked good and assured me that I could do this. I’m not a great fan of dogs which is what puppies grow up to be, so I’m told. Cats I’m ok with, but not dogs. But that’s why I enjoy I enjoy drawing from lists on groups like EDiF and 28DL. It forces me to face my demons, even if the demons are puppies. The thing to remember is that you’re not drawing or painting a fluffy puppy, you’re just drawing a shape and shading it to give some 3D appearance to it. I liked the finished result.

While I was puppy drawing, Scamp was baking. She was making a Sticky Toffee Pudding. I did help out a bit. I was in charge of liquidising the dates and water mixture that would go into the pudding. It looked absolutely disgusting. However I must say that the finished article was worth all that messy stuff. Probably not the least fattening food I’ve eaten, but it was disgustingly good!

Although we had our walk in a snowy landscape this morning without any of the white stuff falling from the sky, during the afternoon it made up for that with continuous blustery blizzards. Tonight it’s continuing to drop more snow on us. I’m really glad we’re not intending to go anywhere tomorrow.

50 – 30 January 2021

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Today it’s exactly 50 years since we first met at our friends’ engagement party. That was a Saturday too!

It was cold and frosty with just the thinnest covering of snow, so it was boots and YakTrax just in case. Not a long walk today, just a couple of circuits of St Mo’s pond. I took the Sony plus kit lens and my old Sigma 105mm macro on the adapter. The Samyang 18mm is always in the bag. That covered all the necessary bases. Two circuits was what we predicted and that’s what we did. Cold, but not absolutely freezing. Most of the photography was of landscapes with the macro lens providing some arty-farty close ups. After lunch it was time for me to give a cursory glance at the photos and for us both to begin to prepared dinner and tidy up a bit.

Later in the afternoon a knock at the door signalled the arrival of a large box of beautiful flowers from Hazy, JIC, Neil D and Sim. (Alphabetical arrangements are always safest). To say we were taken by surprise is an understatement. It’s rarely Scamp or I are lost for words, but we were today. Thank you, you lovely people.

Dinner was a sit at the table affair and a full three course meal. We decided it would be appropriate to celebrate the fifty years since we met with a glass (or two) of Prosecco before dinner.

It began with a seafood starter. Mine being Prawn Cocktail and Scamp’s was Seared Scallops. Mains were Lightly Smoked Trout for Scamp and Sirloin Steak for me, served with potatoes. Dessert was Eve’s Pudding. All washed down with a very nice red wine. Music just had to be Songs of Leonard Cohen.

Later we tasted a bottle of Dark Matter (not the whole bottle, not yet anyway!). I had a small glass, neat and Scamp had her traditional Coke with her’s. Interesting taste of spice, something hot and treacle. We may need to try some more tomorrow, just to be sure. While sampling we watched a bit of TV and decided an early night would be best before the room started spinning too fast for us to find the door.

PoD was a landscape from the morning’s photo shoot.

Tomorrow will be the day of reckoning, I’m sure.

This, inevitably, is the catch-up write up.

The researcher returns – 27 January 2021

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A different researcher this time, another lady. Same tests unfortunately.

We had an early(ish) appointment this morning. 10am is early for us, but we were there, ready for the tasty swabs (yuk), but feeling better about it because we had been paid last week and Scamp had already spent half of hers on foodbank food in Tesco. I’m planning to do the same this week. Today’s Q&A only lasted fifteen minutes because we’re getting a bit more prepared for the questions. However the ONS are keeping us on our toes by adding questions and re-writing others. Sneaky.

With the test done and the world starting to defrost a bit, I volunteered to go for a walk in St Mo’s to check out the state of the paths and the general ‘walkability’ of the place. I also planned to take a few photos, of course.

I was intending grabbing a shot of a woolly hat sitting on a fence post. I’d seen it a couple of days ago and thankfully it was still there. Don’t know why this particular piece of headwear caught my eye, but it did and it made PoD. I took a landscape of the snowy wastes on the edge of the pond too, more or less a record shot, but it also went in to Flickr. The last one to enter today was an old shot from 27th January 2020. It was taken with the Nikon D7000 from the back bedroom looking towards the Meikle Bin and with a bit of jiggery pokery it looked presentable. It fits my new category of Throwback. I see a lot of folk on Flickr doing it and thought I’d have a go.

After lunch I convinced Scamp that a walk round St Mo’s was possible, so we booted up and walked the wild and icy paths round the pond. I won’t say it was the most interesting walk we’ve had, but it got us out in the fresh air for a while, fresh air and drizzle to be more precise.

Back home I ticked off one of my tasks for the day and wrote an email to the Auld Guys. Just a catch-up to say how we were spending our time. So far, only Val has got back to me. I’m going to suggest we try a five way video call using Zoom. It might work for some it might not for others. It’s worth a try.

Scamp and I had discussed changing the date for what would have been the Easter cottage holiday. It was either change the date or cancel. We settled on changing the date to July and that’s now done. Hopefully we will have been released from Lockdown by then.

Next thing to do was to phone John Malley and that’s what I did. Marion is teaching from home with two live teaching sessions per day and then four single person video calls for pupils having problems with the work. Ross is still working from home and Laura is now engaged to (Big) Ross. I think that’s you all caught up with what’s happening in Hamilton and area.

Dinner tonight was a superb Fish ’n’ Chips with beetroot and tomato sauce. Home cooked, of course by the pescatarian cook.

Most of the snow, slush and ice has now gone and the paths are preparing for the next load to be dumped on us, perhaps tomorrow morning. If it’s dry we’ll go for a walk. Maybe a drive then a walk.

More dancing – 24 January 2021

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A lesson this time, not a dance.

Yet another cold morning. It was -4ºc when Scamp was making the breakfast.

Of course we weren’t getting up at that time. Never on a Sunday! However, once we’d had breakfast showered and were ready to face the day I did take a walk to examine the frost on the car and managed to get a couple of photos of the little ice crystals. One was posted on Flickr, but it didn’t achieve PoD.

It wasn’t until well after midday that we steeled ourselves and went for a walk around St Mo’s pond. I took a few more frosty photos there and it was one of them that produced the tiny frozen trees that made PoD. It was a close run thing with my other favourite photo, a leaf covered with hoar frost.

It was just above freezing when we arrived back at the house. Dinner tonight was Bacon and Borlotti Beans. Now becoming a firm favourite. Then we had to move all the furniture around for tonight’s dance class. First off was a reprise of last week’s Mambo Marina followed by our ongoing stumbles through Rumba and finished off with the Midnight Jive. We weren’t too bad at that. It was me stumbling round the rumba that was the low point. Even with Stewart and Jane’s encouragement, we are finding it hard. Not insurmountable, just difficult. It doesn’t help that we are dancing on a carpet and they are demonstrating on a polished wooden floor. However, the hour passed fairly quickly and with a bit of practise over the next few days we’ll get there, I’m sure. If not, we’ll have invented an new dance, The Stumble Rumba. It does have a certain ring to it!

Spoke to JIC at night and were surprised to hear that they had had a full day of snow and we had none. Maybe I shouldn’t say that. You never know what we’ll wake up to tomorrow!

Tomorrow morning I’m supposed to be doing a rubbish uplift for Shona. Hope the skips have been emptied over the weekend to make room for it all.

 

 

We took Katy skating – 23 January 2021

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It was a cold start again. No snow and only a little bit of ice, but frost covering all the cars.

We decided we’d make a fairly leisurely start today. In fact it was well into afternoon before we booted up and walked around St Mo’s. I reckoned there would be enough ice for Katy and there was. I took Scamp on a trek out into the wild woods at the back of St Mo’s. I thought I’d make a slight detour to show her my hibernating ladybird, but shock, horror, no ladybird. Perhaps the two sunny days recently have brought it out of its winter sleep. Let’s hope so. We did find a lush crop of hair ice on the exact same log I’d found it earlier in the month. Plenty of other logs nearby in the same state of degradation with no sign of the strange ice formation on them. Apparently it’s linked to a specific type of fungus. Strange stuff.

Katy had been wanting to go skating for weeks, but the thaw had put paid to her chances. I was sure the ice would be thick enough today and it was … but only just. I got her to pose and even as I was setting up the camera, I could tell that the ice was starting to melt. I could even see the dead leaves under the ice moving in the current. Took a swift half dozen or so shots from various angles. Some with extra illumination, some not. As we were walking away from the tiny pond I ’chimped’ them and none of them were truly sharp. Not to worry I was sure I’d find a more accessible shot on the other side of the big pond.

We walked round the pond after we’d survived the tangled brambles and the two leaps of faith across the burn. There I found what I was looking for. The rain from last week had frozen solid on the path making walking it without YakTrax treacherous. Not so for a minifig with ice skates. Katy posed again and this time I got the shot. Not perfect, but much better than the first shots. I have to be careful here. Katy is not technically a Weeman. She is a WeeWummin. She’s my ice skater. She made PoD.

Dinner was Fish Fingers and Baked Potato for Scamp and M&S Beef Burger with Baked Potato for me. Both washed down with a glass of Malbec. Not the best tasting wine I’ve ever had. It tasted raw and bitter to me, although Scamp found it really nice.

Entertainment started at 7.30pm in the form of a Zoom Dance. It was a particularly well attended dance and our feet are feeling the effects of dancing the night away. It finished just half an hour ago. Great fun as usual and another Zoom Class to look forward to tomorrow.

Apart from the dance class we may go out for a walk if the weather is conducive. It may be cold tomorrow as the temperature is -2.4c just now.

A foggy day – 19 January 2021

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Fog in the morning that seemed to disappear, then returned.

We had intended going for a walk in the morning because the weather fairies said it was going to rain in the afternoon. Unfortunately, they didn’t mention the fog that lingered for most of the morning. Luckily for us we didn’t go out, because we had a long phone call from Hazy. Thanks for the link to website, Hazy. Interesting way it presents your reading data. Also looked at Murderbot Diaries.  Look forward to seeing the circular weaving.  Video was very interesting.  I imagine I wouldn’t have the patience for that sort of creativity!

Ticked off the first of my list today by lugging the last of the Christmas decorations up into the loft an by then it was time for lunch, which was the last of Scamp’s “Just Soup”.

It was still a bit miserable outside, so Scamp decided to forego the joys of a damp walk in St Mo’s for the questionable entertainment of River City on the TV. I chose St Mo’s and walked round the back of the school to get today’s PoD which was some dewdrop sparkle on a cow parsley plant courtesy of the morning’s fog. It’s up on Flickr now, but joining it is a photo from exactly a year ago. A macro of some moss on an old tree branch. I thought it might be an interesting idea to post some old photos of the same day but a different year, starting with 2020 in January and hopefully 2019 in February and see how far back I get. I see a lot of folk doing similar things on Flickr. Mostly posting holiday photos, paired with photos of the dull lockdown lives we are leading now. Let’s face it, we need something to cheer us up.

Scamp had made Cauliflower Fritters for dinner. This is the second time she’s made them and they are really delicious. They were the starter and a fiery veg curry was the main. Boy! It was hot. We both needed ice cream to cool our mouths after that. It was hot, but strong on flavour too, so no real complaints from me.

Back to the list and then next thing to do was get rid of the heavy beard. It’s great on the cold days because it does keep my face warm, but it’s just not me, so it had to go. Only took about ten minutes to prune it back to its usual goatee. I feel so much more like myself now. “Buzz the Fuzz” was its name on my list of things to do!

A little more than a year ago a company called Affinity gave away 90 day ’trials’ of its software to encourage people to be more creative during Lockdown 1. One was a DTP package. One was a photo editing package very similar to Photoshop. One was a vector graphic design app. All of them were very good and also good value because they dropped the price by 50% if you wanted to buy them after the 90 days. I bought the photo editor because my Photoshop is really old and behind the times now. I don’t really have a need for vector graphic editors and besides I’ve used a couple of open source ones in the past quite successfully. However I don’t have a DTP package, so I bought their version today and it’s very capable. Much better than Apple’s Pages app which is what I’ve been using up until now. If you need any of these apps, Affinity is worth a look. They work on Mac, PC and as far as I can remember on iPad too. I’ll put a link at the end of the blog.

Well, I had five things on my list today (odd number and a prime number too) and have scored all of them off. No list yet for tomorrow, but I’m sure something will come along. Maybe a painting with those paints Hazy. Also on the cards soon will be a gingerbread house, JIC.

Tomorrow is still forecast for snow and rain. What a nice mixture. We may go out for a walk if it stays dry long enough.

Affinity (used to be called Serif) – https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/

Under the weather – 16 January 2021

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I suppose we’re always under the weather. It doesn’t matter if it’s rain or snow our sunshine, the weather is always above us, ergo we are always under the weather.

However I had a sore throat, was a bit shivery and ached all over just the typical symptoms of a cold. I could have languished in it and stayed in bed with a good book, but I was a big brave boy and I had things to do, so I forced myself to get up. As usual, a hot shower helped and a couple of fizzy vitamin C tabs kicked some more life into me, as did a cup of coffee. It was raining otherwise I’d have gone out for a walk, if it was dry, but instead I stayed in for the morning at least.

Lunch was beans on toast. When was the last time you had beans on toast? I can’t remember, but it was a long time ago. You forget just how good simple food can be. The rain had stopped, so I suggested to Scamp that we might go out for a walk and she agreed. Just a wander around St Mo’s would do today, sticking to the paths for once. No wandering into the woods, getting wet and making the cold worse. It got today’s PoD there which is a single seed on the cow parsley that I love. Apparently they are edible for humans as well as birds and taste slightly of aniseed. I may try them sometime. It looked as if all the ice had gone, but only from the grass and the paths. There were still ice floes on the pond. It was nice to see the ducks returning from their winter holiday in the Canary Isles. They flew in when we were on our second circuit. I hope they enjoyed the visit to their little yellow cousins.

Back home we were having good warming food for dinner. Mince ’n’ Tatties with Cabbage for me and Bubble ’n’ Squeak for Scamp. Again, plain, simple food. Before that there was Limoncello to make. I decanted the yellow liquor from the jar and ditched the lemon rind. Then, I mixed a cup of caster sugar with a cup of boiling water to make the syrup and poured it in in stages into the alcohol. Actually all the syrup was needed to sweeten the limoncello and then it could be poured into a vodka bottle with the remainder half filling an old limoncello bottle. One to go into the cupboard and one to chill in the fridge. Home made Limoncello. A great Christmas prezzy. Thank you again Scamp.

After dinner we watched a video of what we hope Stewart & Jane have planned for the first of the Sunday Zoom Dance Lessons. Actually looking forward to it now. Feeling much better after a decent walk round the pond in the afternoon and I’ve just taken the second of my vitamin C drinks of the day. Hoping to feel back to normal tomorrow.

So, tomorrow we’re hoping to do a bit of dance practise and that’s about it. Weather looks like today. Rain and sunny spells.

Fishing, Pizzas and Ironing – 15 January 2021

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I should make it clear that I didn’t do all of these things, but I was a participant.

Pizza for lunch. Hand made dough while Scamp ironed things. Too many things in my opinion, but at times she’s a perfectionist and demands her own standards. The pizza dough looked great. IMO the finished pizza wasn’t quite as great, however, Scamp disagreed as was her right. Too long in the oven or the oven too high, I’m not sure. My excuse is that it’s been a long time since I’ve made a pizza. Must try harder.

That’s Ironing and Pizza covered. The ‘Fishing’ is a bit of a red herring :-). What it really means is we “went for the messages”. We drove to M&S because we had a fairly long list of stuff to get and Scamp was coming down with the cold, but still wanted to get out the house for a while. Driving to M&S was the right solution today. The main items on the list by far was fish. Fish in its many varieties and colours. Fish on a Friday is traditional in some places, so it made sense. We got a few bits of veg too. Just a general shop really. We’ve got a Tesco delivery booked for Monday but sometimes you like to see what you’re buying, especially fruit and veg which Tesco are a bit hit and miss with. I think they throw some of the fruit into the basket from the other side of the shop.

So, Fishing, Pizzas and Ironing covered and explained. Another load of washing went into the new machine and came out drier than they did from the old one. I went for a walk in St Mo’s to get some more of the moss photos using a macro lens on my ancient Oly E-PL5. Solid and chunky. Hardly any plastic went into its construction, just glass and metal really. For such a tiny wee camera it weighs a ton. PoD was the little water drop jewel on a moss fruiting body. If you look on Flickr you’ll see its neighbour, the ‘Periscopes’.

Hazy: I finished Tales from the Folly, the short story collection we talked about. I’d managed to spin it out to one story a day, well, sometimes two a day. Mostly very good with the inevitable one or two duff ones. Good recommendation, thanks.
Now waiting for the price of “What Abigail Did …” to come down to a reasonable price, once it appears, that is. Now starting the last in the Slow Horses series. Another one I’ve been keeping on the back burner for a long time.

No plans for tomorrow. Weather looks cold and wet. I might paint something.