Category: St Mo’s

Jag in the morning for my flu jag. What a way to start a Saturday – 5 October 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Flu jag on a dull day then problems solved.

At least 10 folk before me in the queue to get their flu jag, but I’d barely had time to fill in the form before I was called. No problems with it so far and if it keeps the flu away from me, I’ll be a happy bunny.

What to do with the rest of the day on such lovely afternoon with threatening rain that would soon be more than a threat? We went to lunch, that’s what we did. Drove to the Cotton House which has been completely renovated. No big fish tank taking up half the width of the restaurant, just a skimpy wee narrow one as you walk in. It looks like there are now fewer tables too with discrete little booths dotted around. Actually, I preferred the old style. However the one thing they haven’t changed is the menu or the chef. Thank goodness for that. Still got Spring Rolls and Chicken Noodle Soup as starters for Scamp and me. Scamp went for Chicken Mushroom which looked very like Chicken Chop Suey and I had the traditional Chicken Chow Mien. Both delicious. Slightly smaller portions than before, but quite adequate as a lunch. We hadn’t booked, so were given a one hour time slot which meant we had to forego coffee. We’ll be back again, hopefully soon.

I offered to drive to Robroyston so that we could have the coffee we’d missed and Scamp could browse Watt Bros and I could browse B&M. Slumming it today you see. I found the tablet support I’d inadvertently dumped in a skip last week for the same price as the Ikea version, but it appeared that the tills were down and judging by the vacant look on the cashier’s face, his brain was down too. Oh dear, I should have known that it was just too good to be true. Gave up after five minutes and no sign of the meltdown ending, so I left to find Scamp in Watt Bros looking a bit worried as half the displays were empty. Surely Watt Bros weren’t going to the wall too. We’ll accept some things, but Watt Bros failing is a step too far. Where will she go for Christmas prezzies now? Maybe it’s just a re-stocking exercise and everything will be glittery, red and green for Christmas soon. Hopefully.

The coffee in Costa gave us a chance to unburden ourselves. We were tentatively booked for three Christmas Balls. I love the Salsa Christmas Ball, but I hate the venue which is the Classic Grand. It’s a glorified bingo hall. It’s manky with a capital M. It’s dark and I reckon it’s also a fire hazard with those narrow exit stairs. Basically it gives me the creeps. Strangely, Scamp felt the same, she also complained that there weren’t enough seats, so we scrubbed that one off the list.
Michael’s Christmas Ball is in the Redhurst Hotel which is out on the southern edge of Glasgow and is a nightmare to park at. I don’t mind that, but he, being a drag artist, is always wanting to drag (no pun intended) that into the night somewhere. It gives me the creeps. Scamp doesn’t really mind that, she just doesn’t like the venue. Agreed, we scrub that one too.
Finally we’ve been offered a place at a table at the Christmas Ball hosted by Stuart and Jane (our good dance teachers from the cruise). We are both agreed that we should accept that one. So Scamp said she’d confirm that as soon as we got home. All that sorted out over a Flat White and a Latte and a pastry each. Two minds set at rest. Two balls cancelled. One ball accepted and, Scamp being as good as her word, texted the confirmation to Stuart and Jane when we got back home. Done and Sorted!

When we got home, I decided to go for a walk in St Mo’s to get some foties. Luckily there were some fungi pushing up from the forest floor and the little umbrellas became PoD.

Topic for today’s Inktober was ‘Build’, so my answer was an Escher-like impossible stair.

Tomorrow I was thinking of going for a walk along Glasgow Green, but that may depend on the weather. It’s raining now.

Inktober 2019 begins and so does Winter – 1 October 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was going out for coffee, then she was going out for lunch and I was a happy bunny for once because Inktober 2019 had appeared on Flickr menu. It was cold today.

Scamp had a 10am appointment with Isobel and then a 12 noon appointment with Mags. Because it’s the first of the month I had some backing up of images to do, but that could be done by the computer without any input from me, other than to initiate the copying. I had also given myself the job of taking rubbish to the tip. One old SCSI scanner that never really worked and a bag of rubbish, which we’ll come back to later. We both got on with our respective duties and we bumped into each other after I’d been to the tip and she had been for coffee. I was heading back for lunch and she was heading out for lunch. My what busy lives we lead. I’d also checked on Inktober on Flickr and done a bit of armchair flying while she was out. Flying was a work in progress, but Flickr was looking good for once with 19 members. I’ve just checked and now we’re up to 34! Not everyone will participate, I realise that, but 34 is a very good start. I also cut out the patterns for the new waistcoat. A much more manageable set of pieces. Only six templates. We’ll see how simple the stitching is later.

After lunch, more armchair flying and then a walk to St Mo’s because the light was good even if the temperature was still in single figures (9.9ºc counts as single figures, just). I got well wrapped up, but needn’t have worried because the sun was actually quite warm and as long as I wasn’t in the shade, it was quite pleasant. The sun was low when I was almost ready to come home and that led to some interesting effects, resulting in me being later than I’d intended. The PoD was one of the last ones from the walk and was taken with the 14mm lens to give a bit of depth to the shot.

Tonight I did my first Inktober 2019 sketch, straight out of the ‘Official’ promos. The topic was ‘Ring’. I took the easy route and drew my hand with my wedding ring. It’s a bit rough, but I haven’t done much sketching since May. Quite enjoyed it though. Tomorrow’s theme is ‘Mindless’ and I’ve no idea what to do for it. Maybe because I’m mindless – now there’s an idea.

Tomorrow it’s back to Ballroom and Jive. No Salsa because it’s the lady with the “Oo la la”. No real dancing, just learning to raise your hand and shout “Oo la la”!

Oh yes, the rubbish thing. I bought a tablet stand from Ikea months ago because it was an ideal shape to hold my sketchbook for photographing the Inktober sketches. Guess what was in the bag of rubbish I took to the tip! Even worse, I put it in the bag in purpose. I’d forgotten I’d need it tonight. Numpty.

Another lazy day – 29 September 2019

Posted on by Zogman

This one won’t take long to write.

Talked to Hazy on Skype this morning to get the updates on all things down south. After that we timed a walk to the ‘new shops’. Just around 10mins since you’re asking. Official reason was to get the makings of tonight’s dinner which was Braised Peas with Bacon, Lentils and Cod. We substituted Haddock for Cod, but other than that, stuck closely to the recipe. Also for once I got my act together and started some bread dough before lunch, which meant it was almost ready for dinner.

Went out in the afternoon to get some photos and got today’s PoD which is a ‘take one, get one free’ of two flies on a grass stem. Made the dinner as described above, watched the Russian GP where karma took Vettel out of the race. That’s what you get when you think you’re better than everyone else.

Spoke to Jamie after that, and basically, that was the day in a nutshell.

No salsa tomorrow and no Gems either because it’s September Weekend here. Scamp would like to visit a garden centre to get bulbs for next year, so we may do that, all being well.

See, I told you it wouldn’t take long to write. Some days are like that.

The Visitor returns home – 28 September 2019

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Last night was a fairly late night, but this morning was an even earlier one.

Alarm was set for 6am, but I managed to switch it off before it woke us. Clive was already up and drinking his breakfast Cranberry juice. He thought he’d get away with that, but Scamp pressed him to have at least a digestive biscuit with his morning coffee. I can’t face a day on an empty stomach, so I had my breakfast muesli and a cup of tea, Scamp too had breakfast, then we were off to take Clive to the airport.

We were both sad to see him go. Dropped him at the airport in plenty of time to navigate his way through security and then get settled. He’d been a splash of sunshine on an otherwise dull week, and just as when anyone leaves, the house felt that little bit quieter and less colourful without him.

We’d planned to go to Edinburgh today because we knew we’d be up and out early anyway, but when we got back from the airport, we both agreed it would be good to have a lazy day. Couldn’t quite decide what to do with the rest of the day, but finally settled on going to Hamilton for a curry. That’s what we did, then, because there is so little of interest in Hamilton, we just came home. Food in the Bombay Cottage was just as good as ever.

Back home I thought there would be just enough light to give me a chance of getting some photos in St Mo’s, so that’s what I did. In the woods the light levels were that bit lower, but I still got a few shots. PoD was the branch of Larch pine needles turning yellow. The larch is one of the few deciduous pines. Also found a spiky bracket fungus, but you’ll have to go to Flickr to see that.

That was about it, other than sitting in judgement on the first ‘real’ Strictly heat. That and watching the qualifying for the Russian F1 GP.

No plans for tomorrow.

Early night tonight for a change, so I’m off. G’night!

Rain and battered birds – 22 September 2019

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Rain and battered birds.

Maybe it was the heavy rain that caused the pigeon to thump into the kitchen window.

Woke to rain, just drizzle to begin with, but then it got heavier and heavier before it tailed off to drizzle, then began the cycle again. It used this set of options a few times before it finally gave up and turned off the taps around midday.  That was when we heard the thump form the kitchen.  I guessed, right away that it was a bird strike, in fact, a pigeon strike.  They usually make pretty ‘angel patterns’ on the window and often there is a dead bird lying underneath the pattern.  Today there was just a wet mark on the window and a stunned looking pigeon on one of the branches of the tree.  We kept a weather eye on the poor thing and eventually it flew off for further adventures, thankfully unharmed.  Speaking of birds, I just realised yesterday that I hadn’t seen any swallows this week.  Perhaps they’ve flown back down to warmer climes.

<Technospeak>
By then we’d had lunch and I’d been searching for about an hour for Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 2008 to draw my lens hood on the slightly more modern Linx computer. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to happen and I thought I could rely on the old fifteen year old Toshiba laptop running Windows 7 to complete the job. That’s when I found that although the Win 7 laptop said it could see the Epson printer, it was in fact lying. Why oh why do windows computers have such a problem connecting to printers. In the end I downgraded the Autocad file and successfully ported it across to the Linx which couldsee and connect to the printer. Such a faff! Anyway, I finally got the development printed.
</Technospeak>

Welcome back JIC. With the development printed, Scamp said it was time for me to take a walk outside in the rain to get some photos, and more importantly, some fresh air. I agreed. When I came back, the Spatchcock chicken was roasting away nicely in the oven and a glass of sherry was waiting for me.

Watched a boring Singapore GP while we ate our chicken. Looked for Sort-of-cousin Colin in the crown, but didn’t see him! Annoyed by the result, but the person on the top of the podium worked for his money today. I’m not saying who it was, just in case somebody reading this hasn’t seen the results yet.

Spent the rest of the evening flying around Scotland in X-Plane using a new flight plan construction software called Little Navmap which is so much simpler than trying to click on knobs to input waypoints and destinations. Heavens, this is the 21st century, not the 19th. No steampunk junk here thank you very much!

Today’s PoD was a raindrop hanging from a pine needle in St Mo’s. It sort of marked the day.

Tomorrow, Clive arrives, hopefully. Glad he’s not travelling with Thomas Cook who seem to be in serious trouble.

Clean and Tidy – 15 September 2019

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Scamp was having a cleaning day today, and just for the fun of it, I got involved too.

My target today was the top of the chest of drawers in ‘my room’. It’s not seen the light of day for manys a long year. By the time I was finished it wasn’t exactly clear, but about four or five inches depth of detritus had been chucked out or stored, mostly stored to be brought out again in a couple of weeks, but some dried up pens and odd bits of paper were consigned to the bin. Lots of photographs and paintings were put into long term storage and it even amazed me, some of the things I found. It’s not finished yet, but it’s a good start. I have to admit it’s beginning to look like a room again.

After lunch, Scamp decided it was dry enough to cut the front grass and I left her to it, grabbed my raincoat (just in case) and headed off to St Mo’s with not real chance of getting anything decent, but the sun was out and so was I, and that was good enough.

Saw a tiny black dragonfly on the boardwalk of St Mo’s. Stealthily crept forward stalking it and taking great care not to let my shadow fall on it, a sure way to spook a dragonfly. I was down on my knees just grabbing today’s PoD when I had the feeling that someone was behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and a black and white dog was standing behind me looking agitated, probably because I was blocking his path. I got up and apologised to him and his owner who just laughed. He probably wondered what I was doing crawling along the boardwalk, but then saw my camera and thought “Eejit”! Probably right too.

Found another three dragonflies, red ones, later in the walk playing musical chairs on four logs. One would lift off and that would cause all of them to circle around for a while before settling down again, then another one would take to the air and it all started again. They seemed to take turns at it.

Finally got a decent shot of a Painted Lady although it was quite far away. It was being blown about on the breeze, all over the place.

PoD went to the Black Darter (Sympetrum danae).

Danced at the Record Factory later. Met some girls we haven’t seen in years. Good to catch up.

Tomorrow it’s Gems and Salsa in that order, all being well.

Wandering around the town in a gale – 14 September 2019

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Today we were heading in to Glasgow – driving for a change on a Saturday.

Scamp wanted to get a new tub for cereals, yes it was that sort of day, any excuse to go out of the house! I wanted to see if CassArt still had the fancy Rowney easel Fred was raving about. Finally we were looking for lunch, but not Paesano today.

First we looked for somewhere for lunch. Looked at Amalfi which used to be really good, but there wasn’t anything on the displayed menu that inspired us. We tried O Sole Mio which didn’t awaken any interest either. Finally we settled on Cafe Andaluz and had our usual three tapas each. The only down side was the group of harridans who had booked the table across from us. The noise from them was deafening. When they arrived the waiters started clearing the tables between them and us. I presume it was to put the trough in for them to eat from.

After being fed, we walked to CassArt, but surprise, surprise they were sold out of the fancy Rowney easel. Not to worry, I’d kind of talked myself out of it anyway. Back up Bucky Street thinking I wish I’d lifted my wooly hat, because although it wasn’t raining, there was a cold wind blowing and I’d forgotten that it’s almost midway through September now, so I should be dressing appropriately. Tried Lakeland for the cereal tub, but the one they had was a bit big and also a bit pricey. Back to Cumbersheugh and Scamp got the tub she wanted in Tesco.

Managed an hour in St Mo’s when we got back and that’s where today’s PoD came from. A snail on a swing! It never ceases to amaze me the places these snails get to.

I checked out the fancy Rowney easel on Google and it got slated on Amazon. Allegedly it’s made from wood, but it’s actually made from MDF which is fine for something that’s not meant to move. The big selling point of the easel is that it can move. Lots of criticism of the construction. I think I will leave it where it is, unsold!

It’s cold tonight although the weather station says it’s 15.3ºc. I think the gale force winds are stealing away that heat.

Tomorrow we may go dancing in the Record Factory, but apart from that we have no plans.

Windy Willy was blowing up a storm – 11 September 2019

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It wasn’t really Willy, it was Dorian, Hurricane Dorian whose last gasps were still strong enough to rattle the windows and bend the trees.

Drove in to Glasgow for more Jive torture. We’d got to grips with the ‘Shuffle Ball Change’ from two weeks ago and this week we were introduced to a whole new routine which contained that ill named move. Finally got to grips with that and then Michael decided we needed more practise in Waltz. This week we were consolidating the moves we’d been introduced to the last time and had another one added on to our long standing problem move that involves constant turning. This time Michael decided it would look good to add a bit of ‘locking’ into that already mind boggling turning promenade thing. I must admit though that the addition of the lock step did enhance the look of the move. We’d spent so long on the waltz we didn’t have time to do any quickstep. Oh dear, what a shame!

Had to leave on the dot, because we were rushing back to collect some pictures that John had kindly saved from the bulldozers in the old school. Two of Bill Rennie’s and one of Fred’s. Glad he thought to noticed them as it’d be a shame to lose them.

With the paintings safely collected, I took a walk over to St Mo’s in the wild wind that was howling round the place. It really was gale force today. Cap’n Bob would have been crapping himself with “Winds in excess of …” Today’s PoD was the fluffy looking Sow Thistle seed head. There wasn’t much else to see today. It would have been a good day for a landscape, with a constantly changing sky and good light on the hills, but I couldn’t be bothered driving. Besides which, I was getting hungry.

Pizza for dinner and not one of my best offerings. Scamp’s was declared fine, but mine was a tad overdone and the Mozzarella I’d bought in M&S was definitely not from Italy. Rough and clunky, not the smooth ball you get over there.

That was about it for the day. Spent a couple of hours rebuilding my Hazel rules after I’d inadvertently deleted one earlier in the week. I’ll make a back up immediately the blog is posted.

Gas man comes tomorrow to service the boiler and when that’s done, the excitement will be over, hopefully.

A better day – 1 September 2019

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One of those days where you just get things done. Well, some things done.

Went out early to make sure I had a photo for PoD. Yesterday I saw some toadstools over in St Mo’s and today I thought I’d go better prepared and get some wide angle shots of them. Unfortunately, when I got to the spot where I was sure I saw them, there was nothing there. After a bit of searching around I finally found where they’d been, but of the fungi there was nothing left but a bit of the stalk. It looked like something had eaten them. Hope they were mushrooms and not toadstools then!

I did see a brightly coloured Red Admiral butterfly, but it simply refused to settle on any of the Scabious flower heads. I finally gave up after getting one distant, out-of-focus shot of it, just to check when I got back home that it was, indeed, a red admiral. It was. The Peacock that became PoD was a much calmer individual and posed quite happily for me.

Dragonflies were out in force too loads of Common Darters (Sympetrum striolatum). They are fairly small dragonflies. Red/orange coloured and easy to photograph as they like to sit on the metal strips on the boardwalk at St Mo’s, where I’m guessing they can pick up some heat from the metal after it’s been heated by the sun.

I made some beef olives today using beef ham that had been battered flat to help it roll round the mince core more easily. They would have been good if I’d turned the gas off after cooking them for half an hour, unfortunately it wasn’t until I smelled burning that I realised I’d turned the gas DOWN, not OFF as instructed. Oh dear. Well, the carbon is good for the digestion they say. Actually it’s people who burn things a lot who say that!

Dancing at the Record Factory in Byres Road tonight and really quite enjoyed it. We went a bit later, we thought, but it didn’t liven up for nearly an hour after that. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally by the time I called a halt. Scamp would have been happy to dance more! I think she is beginning to get over the Lurgi that’s been hanging over her. Maybe she needs a wee holiday.

Tomorrow I’m going in to Glasgow, hopefully to get my hair cut, because Gems will be here for their first practise of the new session. That’s usually a good time to be elsewhere.

Getting ready for the show – 29 August 2019

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I thought all I had to do was stick a couple of photos in frames, but for the artist there’s always more things to do.

After talking to Hazy on the phone for half an hour or so and catching up with all the Wimbledon gossip, I was fairly sure I was ready to start the picture framing.
I was reusing old picture frames for my submissions to the flower show. The painting was all framed up yesterday, so today was the photos. Didn’t like the photos bare in the frames, so decided to cut a couple of mats to clean up the presentation. Those looking at the photos wouldn’t notice, but I would. Couldn’t find my mat cutter, couldn’t find a ruler, the Stanley knife was blunt. I just wasn’t prepared properly, sooo.

  • Clear a space.
  • Find the tools and get them organised.
  • Agree with myself on mat colours and then off we go.

Didn’t actually take that long once I was sorted. Happy with the results, it was time for lunch.

After lunch and under supervision by Scamp, I pressed the waistcoat using her fancy super-zoomer steam iron with the separate steam generator. Now I see why she bought it. It simply does an excellent job, and if I could get almost all the creases out of the fabric, then it must be good. Thanks Scamp!

After that it was off to Colin’s in torrential rain to get the photos, painting and handicraft (because there isn’t a separate category for Waistcoats made by a Man in the show), so I’ll be up against all the macrame, crochet and knitwear. Not that I’m competitive, like! Got some of Colin’s home grown tomatoes while I was there, then it was off to Tesco for some provisions.

Back home and Scamp was looking and sounding better. Maybe it’s the painkillers starting to work or maybe it’s the actual pain easing. It’s hard to tell after just a couple of days, but I’m happy it’s an improvement on yesterday.

I think I may be saying ‘Goodbye’ to the Linx laptops. Windows 10 is just taking all the joy out of them. Last night I was trying, and managing to download a large file from my NAS drive. When I checked on the progress I found the cheery message

”Lets get you back on track”

Windows 10 had halted the download to display this big blue message box informing me that it was about to re-install the update I’d removed before we went on holiday. It’s not meant to do that. It’s meant to return the OS to the previous (working) version, not the bloatware it had just installed. I give up. Because of the weird bootsector on the Linx, I can’t install Linux and be done with it, which would be the sensible solution in this situation. I’m stuck with this half-arsed, laughingly poor operating system. I’ll wipe the drive. Remove the micro SD card and sell the lump of plastic to someone who appreciates an OS that interrupts you every month or so to do what it pleases, not what you want.

PoD is a wee wet flower in St Mo’s this afternoon. Just missing the rain.

Tomorrow we may drive through the rain to Larky to visit Crawford & Nancy – in the morning.