Category: St Mo’s

Late night – Early morning – 30 March 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Never a good combination!

It’s not a good combination. Got to bed about 1am this morning after an interesting jam session with Scamp, Nancy and Crawford. Up at our usual time. Showered, dressed and off to dance class.

The bowling club, where we hold our dance class, was having an Easter Egg hunt and some of the children seemed to think they had free rein to charge through the hall. A few sharp words from the dance teachers to the parents made sure it only happened once.

We started with the Valentino Jive which seems to have nothing to do with Rudolph and even less to do with Jiving! Never mind, it got us all on the floor and moving. Next we went into the Spring Waltz with the “Spitfire Arms” we learned about last week and with the addition of CBM (Contra Body Movement) which basically means when your foot goes in one direction, your body turns in the opposite direction. We thought the Spitfire was difficult, but a quick explanation this morning simplified it. We are still wondering how to do the CBM. It looks so simple and obvious when the teachers are demonstrating it, but it’s not so simple or obvious when we tried to dance it. However we struggled on and have almost mastered the Spitfire now.

To break up the tension from CBM and Spitfires, we danced a couple of tracks of sequence dances, then we were into Jive. Jiving is fairly easy and the individual parts are quite easy to pick up. It’s the putting together of those individual parts that’s the difficult bit. I admit, I was lost after a while and couldn’t even remember the routines we learned last week and there were only two of them!
A couple of tracks of Tina Tango finished off our dance class for the day.

While we were driving home we passed a sign on the M8 that told us it was 10min to the Kingston Bridge. Usually it’s at least 15min. Could that mean we could shave about 10min off the homeward journey if we risked the M8/M80 instead of the M74/M73? Worth a try. For the first time in a long time we crossed the Kingston Bridge at an amazing 50mph and were back home with 15mins to spare. Fantastic! And all because everyone else was heading in the opposite direction, going to the west coast. Hundreds of them in a gigantic traffic jam while we tootled along at a pleasant pace.

After lunch I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a scruffy looking catkin. Not brilliant, but it ticks a box. It was very cloudy today with the occasional heavy shower. While I was out, Scamp was busy planting her new birthday azelea.

Dinner was roast chicken with roast veg and potatoes. Ate it while we watched Gardener’s World whilst almost falling asleep. Late night last night, an exhausting dance class, physically and mentally today then the realisation that we’d lose an hour’s sleep as we enter British Summer Time tomorrow meant an early bed for both of us. That’s where I’m off to now.

Tomorrow is earmarked for recovery.

Grangemouth – 26 March 2024

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We were heading for Grangemouth today to another garden centre.

Tried to drive the sensible way which was past the garden centre on the motorway and take the next exit. Found I was in the wrong lane and had to drive a mile or so down the road before I could turn at a roundabout and head back then took the correct lane and was driving to the garden centre but was stopped in an enormously long queue at roadworks. Gave up and went back towards the Kelpies and found an other queue for the same roadworks, from the other side. This one was managed and we got through to the garden centre easily. What a fankle!

We found so many new-to-us plants, I thought we’d have to hire a trailer to get them all home. Also found an interesting looking pre-cut and drilled wooden raised bed that might just replace the old rotten wooden one that’s over 10 years old now and falling apart. Still not sure it will fit into the space I’ve got, but thinking about it. Tape measure is coming out tomorrow.

Scamp found lots of plants she liked, but restricted herself to a pot for the new azalea and a bag of ericaceous composts to fill the pot with. I got a clever potato pot. Just to make it clear, it was the design of the pot that was clever, not the actual potatoes, although they might be too! I got a bag of seed potatoes that are now chitting on the back bedroom window sill. My last purchase was a delicate little Orchid. (Possibly tomorrow’s PoD, all being well).

While Scamp wandered round a clothes shop called Klass I paid for and lugged the garden acquisitions to the car, then had a look round the Fruit and Veg stall that is an adjoins the garden centre and found a focaccia loaf for £2. Last one on the stall and added it and a bag of Spanish apples to what was already making the wee blue car groan on its wheels. We got a few more things and then drove home. This time I didn’t take any wrong turnings or get stuck in roadworks. I just drove home!

I took a camera over to St Mo’s to see what it would find and the result, and PoD, was the first shot I took. It’s a bunch of apple blossom flowers I saw in St Mo’s.

Dinner tonight was soup. I made it and although it was a bit bland in colour and taste, it filled a wee space, as did the focaccia. Definitely not as good as my home baked one, but a good substitute. We’ll look for it next time.

A short practise tonight of the Foxtrot for Kirsty’s class tomorrow and I think we’re now ready to test it out. Might need an extra half hour practise tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow Scamp is out for tea in a wee tea shop in Condorrat with the Witches and I’m on my own for a while. I have no plans at present.

Rain – 25 March 2024

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Today was the opposite of yesterday. I think it rained from morning to night. If it didn’t, then it certainly felt like it did.

We finally got round to putting the cases into the loft again to let them sleep until our next adventure needs them to carry our load to some exciting place. Not exactly sure when or where that will be, yet. Hopefully it will be somewhere. Plans were made over dinner yesterday that may come to fruition.

There wasn’t much to do today after the cases had gone we had a bit more space, especially in my room. I planted some chilli seeds Scamp had bought me. The seeds came with a big metal pot and two bags of compost. They weren’t exactly pulling out the stops with the seed allocation. Six seeds in the packet. I arranged five of them into a pentagon with the final one taking up position in the centre. (I like to be accurate with these things.) I watered them and sat them on the bookcase in the back bedroom. According to the instructions, they were to be placed in a bright place but not in direct sun. The north facing window should be ideal. Good luck little chillies.

In the afternoon, Scamp brought out her mighty steam iron and got to work ironing everything she could lay her hands on. I took that as my cue to off for a walk in the rain, with the possibility of getting some photos. I’d taken a couple earlier just as bankers in the rain. They were Bellis flowers. What we used to call “Wee Daisies” before we got all technical and Latin. I did find a couple of worthwhile shots and one of them got into Flickr, but it was the Bellis that made PoD.

Dinner tonight was another “what’s in the fridge” pasta creation. It turned out quite well, but we both agreed that it cooled down really quickly.

Watched the semi-final of Mastermind and the first semi of University Challenge. I got a few questions correct, as did Scamp.

Hoping to go and get ericaceous (acidic) compost tomorrow to pot up Scamp’s new azalea.

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Scamp – 24 March 2024

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Scamp’s Birthday today.

A lazy morning for both of us. Lots of prezzies opened and lots of smiles. Hazy phoned in the morning and I gave them space to talk while I tidied up downstairs.

After lunch Scamp wanted to get her new plants into pots and distributed round the garden. I took a camera for a walk in St Mo’s. Not a lot to be seen, but I did get some photos of a bunch of dandelions sitting on a wall and with a fence to give them some extra support.

Scamp had requested that dinner should be, Chicken & Pea Traybake, to give it its proper name, The same meal we had on Thursday. I was chef, of course, but the real cook was the oven because it did all the hard work. Dessert was Viennetta. All washed down with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Jamie and Simonne’s Christmas parcel.

Spoke to Jamie later in the day and heard that the main works seem to be finished and now the push seems to be on to get the plastering completed. The hope being that when that is finished, they can move back it full time.

We watched the final episode of this season’s Death in Paradise. The story was dragged out even more than it usually is. Lots of old faces returning for this finale. Maybe this is, as one critic wrote, the Death of Death in Paradise. We can but hope.

I think Scamp enjoyed her birthday. I really hope she did.

Tomorrow we may tidy up some loose ends.

Driving in my car – 22 March 2024

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We set out this morning to drive to Bishopbriggs to get 2 cans of green paint. We got back home four hours later with only one can.

Wild morning after a wild night. Strong winds driving rain and hail storms all day. Got to B&Q and found the paint. Unfortunately they only had one can of silk finish, but loads of cans of matt. We bought the single can and left with that, some sealing strips for the shower and some sealant remover, also for the shower. Scamp was also looking for some flowers for her tub that hangs on the back fence, but they didn’t have the mixed pansies she was looking for.

I suggested that we drop in at Calders on the way home to get some pansies there. Again, there were no trays of mixed flowers, just plain colours. When Calders took over what was the Tesco owned Dobbies garden centre they set about enlarging the shop and the plant area. Today it’s become massive. The down side is that the folk who used to work there have almost all left now and it’s teenagers who are in charge of the plants and most of them have little or no gardening knowledge. The old shop itself was a bit crowd, but now it’s crammed full of display stands, to the point where it’s becoming a fire hazard. If there was a fire in that building, it would only need one person to panic, stumble into one of these displays and the exits would be blocked. We both felt uncomfortable in it.

Anyway, no pansies were for sale today, so I coaxed Scamp into going to Torwood garden centre, near Falkirk, just another 10 miles or so along the motorway. We still didn’t get the pansies, but she did get some Tiarella flowers which, apparently we say at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens a few years ago. Pretty wee pink flowers. We also got a Geisha Orange azalea to replace one we had a few years ago and also a packet Cerinthe and also Basil seeds. We stayed at Torwood for our lunch. Just a bite to eat in the middle of the day.

We drove home through more rain and hail and pulled off just after Castlecary to go to Tesco for the makings of tonight’s Fish Curry the recipe courtesy of Jamie. Just as well we took the slip road off, because ahead of us the main motorway ground to a halt. This looked more serious than the usual late Friday afternoon moving carpark. But we were off the motorway and driving up to Tesco where I spent about 20 minutes wandering round the shelves looking for Edamame beans. I’d given up and went to the checkout, but asked the lady on the till if she knew where we’d find them. She did, and got a runner to go and bring a pot of them. I was so grateful for that bit of help and now we just had to drive home, almost four hours after we set out.

Back home the skies cleared and the sun shone. I didn’t have to be asked twice. I put my boots on and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Dramatic skies all around and the occasional shower of rain but I did get a PoD which is a view across the pond to more incoming rain clouds.

Scamp made the dinner and I processed the photos. The curry was very tasty but it’s been repeating on me all evening. Other than that and a lack of salt it looks like another keeper from Jamie & Simonne. Thank you.

Tomorrow’s dance class was hanging in the balance, but it’s going to go ahead. More driving, although today’s was self inflicted. Hopefully the weather will have calmed down by then.

Admiring my handiwork – 19 March 2024

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Surprisingly, no aches and pains, no pulled muscles either from yesterday’s tentative return to home decorating.

In fact, we drove up to the local B&Q to see if they had the paint we’re intending to use in the front bedroom. They didn’t have it in stock. It wasn’t a great surprise, they never have what you need in this store. Scamp agreed and said that you don’t see crowds of people shopping for anything in this store. It’s usually joiners and builders we see in this B&Q. I’m guessing they get a good trade discount, paid for through the full price the general public have to fork out. I’m amazed it’s still in business.

So, it was in and out again as quick as possible today and then on to Tesco for the weekly shop. No problem with the general public there. Tuesdays are usually busy and the shelves are usually full. We avoid Mondays when the bakery department seem to take the day off en masse.

Back home and after lunch I had a quick discussion with my brother on WhatsApp about where we’d go this week. I put up a good case for Stirling which has architecture and the occasional grand church which he likes and what can be gorgeous view along the carse to the Lomond hills which suits me.

With that settled I went out for a walk in St Mo’s, but I could just have returned home after a five minutes walk because I found today’s PoD not a hundred metres from our front door. Just a wee daisy that had made its home in a crack in the pavement next to an inspection plug for the wireless cable. A shot in the bag is always a great thing.

Wandered round St Mo’s anyway since the photowalk is not just about taking photos, but also about keeping moving, getting some exercise and increasing my daily step count.

When I got home, I was just going through today’s 17 photos when Scamp started cheering. I thought we’d won the lottery before I remembered we had just torn up Saturday’s failed chance to become a millionaire. No, it was the early arrival of Laura & (Big)Ross’s baby girl and John & Marion’s first grandchild. Three weeks early. Good luck to them all.

Dinner tonight was Paella a family favourite that I hadn’t made for months, and it showed. A bit soggy, but apart from that it was fine. It filled a space as we say.

Tomorrow Alex and I are off to terrorise Stirling. Scamp has nothing planned apart from cleaning and ironing.

Foxtrotting – 16 March 2024

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We drove over to Brookfield hoping for a new start in the ballroom dance class, but were pleasantly surprised by the appearance of an old friend or two.

The dance that was chosen to get us on our feet and started was Mambo Marina. A very old favourite that we learned a long, long while ago. It was buried deep in my memory and the first dance was a bit of a struggle, but after the second track most of the wrinkles were ironed out and it flowed like it should … almost.

Next was the Foxtrot, the old foxtrot we’d learned yonks ago. At first, like the MM it was a bit of a blur, but gradually with help from Scamp the figures fitted together and even the Continuous Hover Cross which was my nemesis in dances gone by was recovered from muscle memory and we went through with hardly a mistake by track three or five!

The Mayfair Quickstep was next. Two tracks to dust off the cobwebs of this well known and oft dance sequence and we were almost two thirds of the way through the class. Jive was next on the agenda and it was a refresher course on figures we’d already dances and which were fairly fresh in our memories as they were similar to some of the jive routines from many years ago.

To finish off, we were invited to dance any Waltz. We started on the Spring Waltz, but fumbled our way through it before we changed to Kirsty’s Waltz Nioli. It’s shorter and simpler and we did manage to finish it and then restart it again.

That was it for the ballroom class. Drove back home feeling that we’d accomplished something today.

After lunch I went for a walk in St Mo’s and just as I left the house, the rain started. I was concentrating on getting some photos of the Larch Pineapples I saw the other day. I found them and although the light was a bit low, so was the wind and that allowed me to get some sharper photos. One of them made PoD.

Dinner came courtesy of Golden Bowl and it was delicious. Lovely and fresh for both of us. Mine being a Special Chow Mein and Scamp’s was her usual Chicken Chop Suey and Fried Rice. Amazingly it was still light and about 5.15 when I went to collect the food.

That was about it for today apart from trying to send some photos to Alex and them bouncing back to me. Similar to my previous Google problem, but not the same. I’ll worry about it tomorrow … or the next day.

No plans for tomorrow apart from worrying about things that cannot be fixed.

Starting to get back to normal – 13 March 2024

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Whatever ‘Normal’ is.

Task for today was to purchase a new SSL which as you probably know is the bit of code that turns HTTP into HTTPS. I remember the mess I got into trying to install it. This time, all I needed to do was hand over a few quid to someone at my hosting company and they installed the software for me. I’d been dreading going through all that rigmarole again and according to my receipt, it’s solid until 2025.

The next thing to do was to put fingers to keyboard to flesh out the notes I’d made during last week about where we went and what we did. That took up most of the morning and half of the afternoon. It’s still a work in progress, but there has been progress in the work, if that makes sense. If it does, it will be a first.

As the afternoon wore on and the sun was shining, I thought it would be a good idea to put the boots on and go for a walk in St Mo’s. It was indeed a good idea because the frog influx had started in earnest and two of the ponds were full of them and their jelly frog spawn. That gave me a potential PoD. Further on in my walk I found some Alder catkins glowing in the sunshine and they just beat the frogs to the first place and PoD.

Dinner tonight was ‘red Pasta’ or Pasta with a Tomato Sauce. I used some strange round pasta I found in a cupboard and it took a long time to soften, but it was voted a success by Scamp. I wasn’t so sure.

First night dancing at Kirsty’s class for almost two months since her tumble just after Christmas. Tonight it was Foxtrot and when I settled in to it, most of the figures that made up the dance were fairly well known to me. It was just a case of fitting them together like a jigsaw. Of course, as with all jigsaws, there were pieces missing. Hopefully I’ll find them by next week.

Weather looks really wet tomorrow. That might be a good thing because it will let me get on with fleshing out the remainder of last week’s blog posts.

Scamp is out to lunch tomorrow and I have work to do.

The first day of Spring – 1 March 2024

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Meteorological spring that is, but it certainly didn’t feel like it. A cold wind put paid to any thoughts of warm spring days.

We drove up to Tesco for messages, but they didn’t have the whisky I was looking for at a price I was willing to pay. I can wait. It will come down to a reasonable price soon.

One high point of the day was our Friday lunch in Brodens. Fish & Chips for two and a glass of Merlot for Scamp and a pint of Guinness for me. All the elements of the lunch were perfect, as usual.

I was tempted not to take a camera out later in the afternoon, but I went anyway. However I might as well have stayed home in the warm house for all the interest there was over in St Mo’s. My PoD was a branch of four catkins bolstering my belief that this is Spring, despite the cold and the wind.

It was good not to have to think about sketches and painting. But there’s a lot more to it than just the drawing. There’s the time it takes to get the sketch scanned, cleaned up and then there’s writing the story that I always like to add. After that I post the sketch to Flickr then Facebook and finally add it to EDiF and/or 28DL. It’s not just about painting pretty pictures. I may do it all again in May, all being well.

I’ve just been told that the dance class is on tomorrow. Don’t know what the ‘menu’ is yet, but it seems we have more than enough couples for a qourum.

 

Another lovely, but busy day – 25 February 2024

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It was Sunday and a sunny day. Usually a day of relaxation, with little work being done.

We both did a bit of work. Scamp wanted to rehouse an old photograph of Hazel, Jamie, Neil and Simonne from ‘quite a few years ago’ in a new frame. She had already earmarked a suitable frame from my odds and ends collection. Unfortunately, the picture didn’t fit the mat properly, so I was tasked with making a new mat from a suitable piece of mat card from my collection. It wasn’t a hard job, in fact it was quite enjoyable. Making the aperture fit the picture is all to do with subtraction and long division which I can just about manage without a calculator. The hard bit is remembering how to cut the angled mat to fit the picture. If you do this day in, day out, it’s not a problem, but when you do picture framing once in a blue moon the old maxim “Measure twice, cut once” is a useful guideline. I had a lunch break before I started the cutting.

There was some mince left over from hmm, must have been Thursday. Scamp suggested Mince with a Poached Egg. Definitely a Scottish meal, especially if served on a slice of buttered bread. If you haven’t tried it, don’t scoff. You are missing one of life’s delights, unless you’re Hazy or Scamp. It was delightful. Slightly overdone egg, but that was my fault, otherwise it was delicious.

Back in the workshop, the glass was cleaned the mat was cut and the photo was an exact fit. It’s now assembled and hanging in pride of place in the living room. Both families together in a photo that’s probably eight years old at least. Baldock is what we think. I’ll try to get a photo of the photo tomorrow.

With that done, there was some easy gardening to be done. Scamp was taking cuttings of some of her geraniums and I was pruning the Budleia bush in the back garden and also cutting down the seed head of the sunflowers from back in the summer. I think I’d like to plant some more this coming year. I like those big yellow heads.

Around 3pm the light was getting interesting. A bit warmer colour than earlier in the day, but bright enough that it wasn’t going to cause gritty digital noise. I got a few, but the best one, and PoD was one of the first I took today. It’s a view of the pine trees in St Mo’s reflecting in one of the new ponds. There were a few other contenders, but this one stood out for me.

Dinner was SeaBass with crushed potatoes and spring onions served with marrowfat peas. Quite, quite delicious.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and it seems he is quite happy with the way the reconstruction of the roof and the dormers, more importantly, so is the structural engineer. Those are both good signs. Not so much flooding this week, but a fair bit of mud on the road that needs to we washed away before it becomes a problem. Poor Vixen can’t get out for a walk until her paw if healed. I hope it doesn’t take too long. Simonne seems to be having a good start to her holiday with her sister and their dad. Nice photos.

Watched another school play masquerading as a detective mystery in Death In Paradise. I think the cast need a re-shuffle.

Didn’t quite get around to sketching today’s prompt which was Salmon. Maybe fish tomorrow, but not fish today.

Read Monday’s for Sunday’s story and sketch!

Tomorrow we are hoping to have a lunch in a Spanish restaurant in Glasgow, rescheduled from last week.