Went to Kizomba this afternoon, before the Sunday Social. It was good. Not the best, but better, much better than the last two numpties who pretended to teach it. Unfortunately, the earlier than normal trip into Glasgow really shortened the day. To ensure that we got parked and into the Garage in time, we had to leave home by 2.30. That didn’t leave much time for going anywhere or doing anything other than dancing, so in that respect, it was a bit of a wasted day. I had an hour when we got back to go over to St Mo’s and get some photos. The results are above.
Category: St Mo’s
Another Dull Day – 11 August 2016
Met Fred for coffee in the middle of the day. Came home. Went for a walk. Photographed a two headed swan at St Mo’s. Came home. Had mince and tatties with carrots and ‘roop for dinner. That was the highlight of the day by a million miles! It rained all day. Heavens, it can only get better now, surely. Can’t stand the possibility of watching another night of boring olympics badly filmed and with commentary by over excited numpties who would give morons a bad name. I think I may go and watch paint dry.
Flooers, Painting and Salsa – 1 August 2016
Yesterday you were subjected to a lengthy story about my problems with computer technology. Today I tackled another lengthy computer technology problem, but before you switch off, I’m just mentioning it for my record, because you will remember that this blog is as much for me as it is for you. With that in mind, all I’m going to say is that making a bootable USB drive is a minefield and I’m going to leave it at that. I may leave the USB drive at that too.
It was another lovely day and, I wasted some of it staying inside when I should have been out walking or cycling. I did get a painting started and it’s beginning to look ok. Maybe better than ok. I’ll know better when I finish it.
I got some more beastie pictures at St Mo’s. I also got some flower shots. I like what the ‘cooncil’ have done with the wild flower area. Maybe they will think about looking after it this time and not allowing it go to thistles and grass like they did with the other areas in the past few years. They’ve also pulled out the plug with an exceptional effort at producing an adventure playground that weans actually want to play in. It looks brilliant NLC. Pity you couldn’t have made a better job of grassing the hilly parts.
Salsa tonight was difficult. Two weeks off and I’d forgotten every move I’ve learned this year. The old moves, I can remember, the new ones are still ‘new’ every week. It’s the Goldfish Syndrome. I really must make a commitment to learning a new move every second week at least.
I was thinking about yesterday’s landscape shot. It was the way the lighting illuminated the textures and the way the highlights and shadows created a three dimensional feel of the hills that I liked. I saw it again tonight as I was driving home from Glasgow. The glancing rays from the setting sun created that 3D feel again. I didn’t have a camera, but I knew it wouldn’t last long enough for me to get off the motorway and grab a shot even if I’d had a camera. It was good enough just to see it.
Painting and cycling are on the agenda for tomorrow with a bit of luck.
The phone was there all the time – 27 July 2016
Scamp phoned up about the replacement phone for the one with the broken seal. For once she got a Scottish voice. She started to explain the saga when the guy broke into the stream of consciousness and asked “Samsung?” When she agreed, it was a Samsung, he told her that it happens all the time. Allegedly Samsung do open the boxes to make sure that the Samsung phone in the box is up to scratch (and has no actual scratches). It’s their version of Quality Control. Why then don’t they seal the boxes back up? Dunno, neither did he. He did however assure her that the phone was legal and ok to use. Why couldn’t the other three duffers have told her so in the first place, causing her untold stress and a needless 48 hour wait before she got the phone working? Vodafone. I think that’s the answer. The company that doesn’t know its arse from its elbow. I’m going to take the assistant at Vodafone Glasgow’s advice and go with Tesco next time. In fact, I may take Fred P’s advice and buy a phone and just do Pay as You Go next time. For all the call time I use and the minimal amount of text I send, I could survive on PaYG, with a decent amount of download time.
That started the day off a lot better than yesterday. The sun came out too for a while, so we went to sunny Falkirk to get some fish for the tea. Seabass en Papillote, just like I made for us and Hazy last week. I hope I spelt it right, but I can’t be bothered looking it up!
Went on an expedition to St Mo’s later to get some photos. Found lots of hoverflies. Always like taking their photos. There are such a variety of them around at this time of year. Also lots of Soldier Beetles AKA Bonking Beetles for obvious reasons!
Finally I tried getting Annette’s Nexus 7 to work again using yet another hopeful sounding ‘solution’ from an ‘expert’ on the net. It didn’t work, but it did kill it completely this time. Now it won’t charge either. I think I may have eventually ‘bricked’ it. Good riddance.
Hopefully another dry day tomorrow when we can go out and I can get a couple of landscapes photographed if not painted. We’ll see, it’s all in the lap of the weather fairies.
Kes – 23 July 2016
Our visitors arrived much later last night than we expected, just before 11pm, in fact. Drink was taken, tales were told, jokes were laughed at and much later than normal, we got to bed.
This morning they were up fairly early and we were up soon after although my head felt a bit thick. That was when our other visitor dropped in. Scamp said there was a bird sitting outside the front door, not a little bird, she thought it was a pigeon and it wasn’t looking too well. Murd said two big black birds had ‘had a word with it’ and it perked up a bit after that. He said he thought they must have been doctors 🙂
When I opened the front door I saw, not a dead pigeon as I expected, but an apparently live but unmoving kestrel. It was a bit battered and its eyes were closed, so I feared the worst. Then its head moved, so it was probably just dazed. Maybe after hitting the bedroom window and falling on to the grass in the front garden. I put on a pair of Scamp’s gardening gloves because that beak looked sharp, and gently lifted it up. Some of the feathers on one wing were splayed out, but other than that it looked ok. I pulled out a bit of dried grass from its wing feathers and smoothed the wing down. That was when it opened its eyes. Wow! Such beautiful, bright yellow eyes. It looked at me, shook itself staggered a bit then flew off across the road and landed in a tree. I think it must have been a young bird. Lovely chestnut coloured plumage, and oh, those eyes. A great start to the day, and my thick head had gone.
Scamp drove us in to Stirling today and we went for a curry in the usual restaurant, we both had our usual starters and mains too. Creatures of habit. Afterwards I went to the bookshop and was intrigued by the title of one book:
“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman.
I wonder why that one caught my eye. Managed to download it when I got home and will add it to my Kindle booklist tonight. We both wandered round BHS which was closing today, looking for bargains, but there were none, just junk nobody wanted.
After that we went to Waitrose and I got a big lump of ribeye which I cut into five steaks when I got home. That should keep the carnivore in me occupied for the next few weeks.
Went out this evening to get some photos in the rain at St Mo’s, being careful to stick to the path. Don’t want any more ticks. Surprised to see that NLC have created an avenue of trees and reseeded the wild flower areas. They must have cut out one of the councillors junkets to pay for that. Light was terrible with ISOs in the thousands. Last week I was struggling to keep the shutter speeds fast enough not to overexpose at ISO 100. That’s the difference in being down south and up north.
More rain forecast tomorrow, so I doubt if we’ll be going far.
I can still see those yellow eyes. Wish I’d thought to take a photo.
More Repairs – 9 July 2016
The Megane was due in at the garage for 8am, so it was another early rise, this time for both of us. Got it down there on the dot at 8am. Back for breakfast then just after that, decided to set the garden back the way it was before the fence went up. Almost the way it was. Scamp wanted the compost bin put in a new position, so clearing a space for it and levelling it was the first order of the day. With that sorted, we could procede to refill it from the six black bin bags we’d filled with the compost. Then plants in their pots had to be relocated round the periphery of the garden. Some trimming next. Two branches of the Rowan Tree were encroaching in the neighbour’s garden, so I lopped them off. Dead headed the Schoolgirl rose at the front and that’s where I found the caterpillar. It ended up in the front grass to fend for itself.
Just before lunch, the garage phoned to say that the Megane was ready and for once the bill was slightly smaller than we had estimated. Every little helps. Picked up the car and came home for a well earned lunch. After that, I drove us in the Megane with its new CV joint boot to Bishopbriggs to get a lightweight Manfrotto tripod I fancied. It will probably be a ‘car tripod’ as the big Manfrotto is a bit of a tight squeeze in the boot. It really is a neat little thing and is much less cumbersome than the big 055CL. However, I will keep the 055 to hold the D7000 because it feels much more secure on the big Tri.
Went for a walk over St Mo’s and got the shot of the damselfly. The Pana lens wouldn’t focus on the damsel because it found the daisies in the background more attractive, so I used manual focus and focus peaking on the ’10 to get accurate focus on the insect and it worked perfectly. The butterfly is a Ringlet and this is the first time I can recall seeing this name.
One wee sad thing today, but a happy thing too. Val wanted a DSLR. He’d been given one by one of his friends, but that person asked for it back. He’s been looking for a cheap second hand one for a while with no success. I had a D70 that’s been redundant since I got the D7000, so I stuck on the Nikkor 70-200mm and gave them to him. I think he liked them. I hope he enjoys using them as much as I did. A wee bit sad for me parting with them, because they’ve both been great tools for me, but hopefully a happy day for Val, who’s going through a bad patch just now.
More problems uploading to Flickr tonight. That’s the second time this week. I finally got the images uploaded, but I think I may be looking for a new repository for my images soon, along with a few other people according to the forums on the net.
It’s not been a bad day at all weatherwise. A little rain in the morning, but lots of blue skies and a lovely sunset tonight. Let’s hope for more of the same tomorrow.
Another Wet One – 4 July 2016
Wet from start to finish today, but stuck to my guns and went out in the rain to capture something of the essence of the day. There were quite a lot of people about given the weather conditions. I felt sorry for the poor wee man sitting fishing under his umbrella. I hope he caught something – not the cold though! My cold has lifted thank goodness. Scamp is still coughing, but I think she is on the mend now.
It would be nice to say that these were all as they came out of the camera, but as usual, some ‘shopping’ was necessary.
The man with the dog for example:
When I got the base photo, the dog was off investigating an interesting scent in the woods, so I had to wait until it surfaced again, but then the man was facing me and had lost his hunched shoulders pose that really summed up the rainy day. No problem, I cut out the dog and added it to the original base photo, then blended it in with a vector mask. Although I knew it was raining heavily at the time, the photo didn’t show it, so I added some rain as a layer and changed the layer type to Lighten and it looked so much better. If you can’t see those carefully crafted raindrops, check out the version on Flickr 😉 EDIT! Well, you will when Flickr remembers how to upload files. What’s the point of having all these bells and whistles when the basic system doesn’t work. For Flickr read Fuckr.
Had coffee with Val in the middle of the day and enjoyed the chat. It’s always good to see old friends you haven’t met with for a long time. Had a long discussion about computers and programs. Picked up a few tips on new apps to try, both on the PC and on the Mac.
Dinner was a bit rushed as I decided at the last minute to go to salsa after all and with Scamp’s blessing. I knew that Jamie Gal wouldn’t be hosting tonight’s session, and was hoping it wasn’t Colin but dreading it might be Shannon although there is one worse than that. Surely she wouldn’t inflict him on an advanced class. Keep him for the beginners. It turned out to be Will who taught a good class very clear instruction and a great deal of humour. Total enjoyment for the full hour, 9/10 Will.
Driving home, I thought I might attempt Charing Cross Mansions as a sketching objective some time. One of the prettier architectural frontages of Glasgow. I would need a dry day for that, and the weather forecast doesn’t seem to include one of those for the foreseeable future.
Cold Friday – 1 July 2016
Two weeks ago we were in sunny Ajaccio. Today we’re in Cold Cumbersheugh with the cold. Scamp threw out some bread for the birds and the birds came in a variety of sizes and types. After I’d chased the seagulls (AKA Shitehawks) the rest of the birds descended. Only the jackdaws seemed to hang back, which is strange for a member of the crow family. Usually they are almost as bad as the shitehawks. I did get a few decent shots of the jackdaw.
I went for a walk later in the afternoon and while I was walking through St Mo’s wood, I almost tramped on a wee bird. It was sitting on a branch in the long grass and looked as if it was completely lost. I did think of lifting it up into one of the trees, but the golden rule with wildlife which looks lost is don’t touch. Mum and dad birdie will be watching from the safety of the trees and if you disturb the youngster, they might just abandon it. Best to leave it to its fate.
Tonight I feel worse than I did this morning. The only good news is that Wales are into the next round of the Euros. It’s not that I’m interested in football or even that I support Wales. I just cheer for any team that plays England. Even better if, like Wales, they beat England, whatever the game.
Tonight Michael Gove announced his intention of standing for PM. Who could voter for such a Spitting Image puppet. He says he was born in Scotland. He wasn’t, he was born in Embra. Embra isn’t in Scotland, it’s in Embra.
Off to bed now, doped up with paracetamol and Benylin. Feeling shivery tonight. I even put the heating on! Hope July warms up a bit.
Tradition – 29 June 2016
A 7.30am start to take my car to Tadstar to get new rear brake disks and pads fitted. As an added extra, Renault supply the disks with with wheel bearings. They don’t do it for free of course. £70 a pop plus VAT and you need to fit them in pairs. All up, counting disks, pads and fitting, I got a quid’s change from £300. I suppose I could have got it a bit cheaper, but it’s brakes, you don’t cut corners with brakes.
Waiting for the car to be ready meant we had the rest of the day to play with and it was threatening to rain. Well, it was the end of the school year and we all know it rains in the afternoon of that day. It’s traditional. After we had breakfast, we went to the gym, or to be exact, the pool to pretend we were still on the ship in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. The pool was almost full, penshies everywhere. Luckily the steam room was empty. Ideal for me to help shake off the cold that’s hanging on me and for Scamp to rid herself of the last vestiges of hers. After a couple of sessions in the steam room, the pool got a bit emptier and I did manage a few lengths before more of the grey hairs waddled into the water. Heavens, there was even one codger wandering around with a zimmer frame! Aargh! I thought I was back on a P&O ship again. I’d had enough. One more soak in the steam room and it was time to go.
By the time we got back, the schools were out, the holidays had started and it was raining. From simple ‘raining’ someone turned it up a few notches to ‘hammering down’ and it stayed there for a few minutes before returning to ‘raining’, but you could tell it was on for the day. Sorry boys and girls, but it is traditional.
Got the car back about 4pm and after signing away or keying away the £299, I took a walk through St Mo’s, a wet St Mo’s. Didn’t get much, the light was so low, it’s a wonder I got anything at all. Took the Nikon for a change and I’m glad I did. One thing the Oly doesn’t excel at is low light.
Hopefully a bit brighter day tomorrow, because the weekend and most of next week don’t look too clever. It’s traditional.
Blackout – 7 June 2016
Today we were due to have heavy rain in the afternoon. It’s 5.30pm now and it’s still not rained – touch wood. We were also promised thunderstorms and again, touch wood we have had none. We had initially intended having lunch at Vecchia Bologna, but then Scamp suggested we just wait for a while and go to Milano instead. We waited, and then I noticed that the wifi on the laptop had switched off. I checked the modem and there lay the problem. The modem was off. Switched on the lights and they refused to light. Then I realised that someone’s house alarm was wailing away somewhere. Oops, it looks like it’s a power outage. So it didn’t look like we were going to Milano because all of Cumbernauld was out. Also, it was too late to go to Vecchia Bologna now. What I did was try to complete today’s Sudoku (failed!) and Scamp soaked up what might be the last of our June sun. I was amazed at the total quiet (once the house alarm had switched off) with no electrical appliances. You get so used to the hum of the fridge, the freezer, even the TIVO box. Such a lovely quiet. After about an hour, the freezer chugged into life and immediately switched off again. So, they were at the problem and working on it. Less than 30 minutes later the power was restored and the peace was broken by the combined hum and rattle of the various electrical appliances starting up again. The distant house alarm added its wail to the cacophony. Too late now to go to Milano. Oh well.
Took a walk over to St Mo’s to get a PoD and saw Mr Grey gasping rather than basking in the sun. Not a lot of sun by then, it was getting a bit cloudier and felt a bit close too. Uncomfortable. I actually felt sorry for Mr G. Saw more dragonflies, but they were busy flying around and attempting to make more dragonflies for next year and too quick for me.
Didn’t get to Milano. Didn’t get to Vecchia Bologna. Just about to tuck in to Charlie Bigham’s Fish Pie..That will do nicely.