Category: Trees

Just a normal Sunday – 20 November 2022

Posted on by Zogman

It was raining and it looked like it may keep raining all day.

A lazy Sunday, because almost for all of the rest of the week one of us was going to be busy. The usual start to the day with Wordle completed and then the Pangram found in Spelling Bee. I thought it might be a good idea to make a loaf and got started on that.

After lunch the clouds parted and the sun shone. Scamp was intending to make chicken soup for dinner and she needed some veg for it, so she was off to the shops. I stayed home and messed about with the computer. When she came home, I got dressed and went for a walk in St Mo’s. It seems that my guess about the swan was right, it was dead. Now it’s up to NLC to do something about it.

A walk into the woods gave me today’s PoD. It’s just a few leaves caught between two mossy trees, but a bit of backlighting made the leaves glow. There wasn’t much else to photograph and the temperature was dropping so I walked home. On the way I chanced upon a dozen or so joggers, each one dressed up. It must have been a charity run or maybe the aftermath of a stag do. Anyway, it brightened the day because the sun was sliding towards the horizon.

Scamp was organised today, because as well as making the soup, she also baked a Dutch Apple Sponge. After it came out of the oven it was time for mine to go in, except the second prove wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped and the loaf was a bit floppy. I transferred it into a lined loaf tin and allowed it a quarter of an hour to perk up in the warm oven above the main one. After that, I reckoned it was as risen as it was going to get and put it in the main oven. Like Scamp’s cake, it turned out fine. So we had Chicken Soup with Home Baked Bread for a main and Dutch Apple Sponge with custard for a pudding.

Spoke to Jamie for just over ten minutes tonight. We had no news and he had very little. We are hoping the plumber will fix the kitchen taps tomorrow and they had just had their boiler serviced. Just a usual week.

Tomorrow Scamp is taking Isobel out for coffee and I’m staying in to supervise the plumbing.

A calmer day – 2 November 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Thank goodness for that.

A day that stared with a message just after 9am telling me to phone the doctors’ surgery. I had an appointment with the phlebotomist who wanted my blood. I guessed that appointment was going to be cancelled, but when I phoned the surgery I was told that they thought they’d have to cancel the appointment because of lack of staff, but now staff had been found and the appointment would go ahead. An hour later I got a phone call from the surgery to say that although they had initially thought they’d need to cancel my appointment, now it would go ahead. A pause, then she said “Oh, did I speak to you earlier?” When I said “Yes”, she apologised and told me the place was just in chaos today, but to come at the arranged time. Good to know that it was someone else’s turn to have ‘One of those days!’

It was a damp start to the day. Drizzle that gradually turned into proper rain. When I was leaving the surgery after my blood donation, it was torrential and it stayed at that level for a good couple of hours. I went to Tesco to get some messages. Lunch for me was a Ginster’s Cornish pasty while Scamp had requested a Macaroni Pie. The pasty was lovely, but the pie was a decided let-down. It wasn’t a patch on the Greggs style pie she was expecting. Bummer.

It took until about 3pm for the rain clouds to move on and for light to break through the gloom. I didn’t wait for an invitation, but got my boots on and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Hoping that patch of blue above my head would widen and that’s what happened, for once. PoD was a picture looking up a path on my way to St Mo’s. That torrential rain in the morning and most of the afternoon had produced a mini ‘river’ where yesterday there had been a path through the trees. I’m always taken by the random paths water makes through the leaves. I took three images and focus stacked them to get the full depth of field this picture deserved. In St Mo’s I found a wee Christmas Tree, a fir of some kind less than 2m high, growing in the wilderness behind the main path. It had a wee ‘Toorie’, a Tassel sitting on top. It also looked a bit like a thistle. Loved those blue needles. I took its picture.

Today’s dinner was yesterday’s chilli, reheated and with the three ingredients I’d forgotten to add yesterday which added that chilli taste. Cumin, Oregano and Basil were the missing ingredients. The chilli itself had thickened up nicely since yesterday and it tasted much better today.

I’m hoping to get a chance to photograph Cambusnethan Priory tomorrow with Alex. According to the weather fairies the day looks reasonable.

An invitation – 24 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp and I were watching the US F1 GP this morning when my phone rang and I got an invitation.

Fred was heading to Tesco in half an hour and did I fancy meeting him for coffee. Of course I did! Got myself organised with the books I’d borrowed from him and hadn’t got round to returning then drove over to Tesco where I was also instructed to bring back a loaf, pancakes and a bottle of milk.

I met Fred in the car park and after I dumped my bag of books in the boot of his car, we went to the cafe. He was buying and I had a cappuccino which I realised too late was coming from what looked like a Costa machine. That meant it was more of a Babyccino than a Cappuccino. Next time I’ll get a flat white. I let him peruse my Inktober sketch book that I’d brought with me and for once he was less than critical. It must have been good, because he usually finds something to criticise. But that’s good. He’s always fair with his crits. Eventually, now that it had been all but confirmed that Sunak was to be the new PM, he turned the conversation to politics, that and the gormless council being his two pet subjects. He’s really suffering with his leg now, especially his knee and is having a hard time of it trying to keep moving. It’s worrying that of the six of us that are left from the Auld Guys. Three of us need walking sticks just to get around. We are an ageing group now.

After we’d drunk our warm milk and set the world to rights, we went to do our shopping, vowing to meet up again soon. I managed to get the three items that were on my list and added in a packet of doughnuts just for the fun of it.

Lunch for Scamp and I was Just Soup, then we needed to get ready to go and visit Margie. I dropped Scamp off at the entrance to Monklands and then went to park the car. I gave up on the car park after about fifteen minutes of driving round and round and round. The galling part about it was that I’d driven past a space and ignored it. Of course, it was long gone when I went back for a look. I remembered parking at the roadside down a quiet cul-de-sac. Maybe I’d be lucky again. I was. A space just the right size for the wee blue car. Perfect.

Walking back to the hospital, I saw today’s PoD lighting up in front of me and grabbed a few shots with my phone camera, not having a ‘real’ camera with me. I could never have achieved that quality with my old phone camera. Sat and talked to Margie and showed her my sketches so far in Inktober. Again, Margie is quite a critical sketcher and doesn’t give praise lightly. I’m so glad she liked my efforts.

Drove home through the awkward road junctions in Airdrie and found there were no spaces in our car park either. I did find a space further on. Dinner tonight was a rather good Pasta Carbonara. Finally got round to writing to Alex and asking where we were going this week for a photo walk.

Today’s prompt was ‘Fairy’. This happy wee fairy lives in our bedroom. She’s always smiling and wears a pretty pink dress with matching bright red boots. I do believe she enjoyed being a model for a day.

Well, Sunak did get the PM job. A poisoned chalice if ever there was one. I hope he’s better than the last two inhabitants of No10. I just wonder what Larry the Cat thinks about all the comings and goings in his house!

We’re waiting to see what the weather is going to do tomorrow before we make any rash decisions. Maybe East, maybe West. Who knows.

Off to see a man about a car – 10 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Today we sold Scamp’s wee red car

The MOT on Scamp’s car was coming up fast and for weeks we’ve had long discussions about whether to keep it or sell it, and if we sell it, who to? We eventually agreed in the middle of last week to sell it. Actually it was Scamp herself who pushed for selling it, I wanted to put it through a pre-MOT and see what the outcome of that would be although we knew it would need some work done. Anyway, after searching around to see which of the snake oil salesmen was the least dodgy, we finally agreed on We Buy Any Car. Got a price that was far in excess of what it was worth and organised a day to have it surveyed. That day was today and after less than half an hour we walked away without the old red Micra, but with a few quid in the bank, although a good bit less than the first fantasy price we got. We were both fairly happy with the whole procedure. It was as painless as it could be. It is a bit strange looking out the window at the car park and not seeing that wee red motor, but that would have happened sooner or later, anyway.

A coffee and a light lunch to settle us down and reflect on what we’d done. It was the right thing to do and the right time to do it. The rest of the day was waiting for us and it was keeping to the weather fairies promise of a dry day for a change.

We drove to Drumpellier and went for a walk in the trees. It was a bit breezy, but the light was good and lots of folk were out enjoying this little bit of sunshine. Deep in the woods of Drumpellier we came upon a tree with layers of golden leaves. The light was almost perfect and the wide angle lens managed to capture most of the scene, even if it was tearing the image a bit at the edges. I had a PoD. Usually we have an ice cream cone from a van at the park, but there was no van today. That was because, despite the sun, it was quite cold. No, a coffee in the cafe was more realistic today. After that we drove home.

Prompt for today was ‘Crabby’, or to put it into Scots, ‘Crabbit’. I searched Google and found this image, or something like it. It just said “Crabby” to me. Some days it’s just not worth getting up. You just know it’s not going to be sunshine and fun. It’s going to be furballs and frustration. Today was one of those days for Crabby Cat!

Tomorrow may be the second dry day in October, if that’s not pushing it. If it turns out as the weather fairies say, we may go for a walk.

Off to the dance – 8 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Tea dance today, so we were off to the hall and we arrived there ahead of time!

As you will have read, yesterday’s blog did a disappearing act never to be found, so I spent most of the morning rewriting it.

Lunch was a piece ’n’ banana and a glass of orange juice. Then we were off to Glenburn Community Centre. We were one of the first ones there, for once. That’s what happens when you leave the house at the proper time and don’t get caught up in traffic. I didn’t think we did all that well with our dancing today. Too many mistakes in the simple dances like the waltz, but there two dancers who stood out. Before they even held hands, you could tell that these were semi-pros. We’d seen the girl before dancing by herself at Gorbals. She was a bit strange, other worldly, but my, could that pair dance. One thing I’ll say about the group who go to the tea dances is that they are never overawed by the semi-pros, nor are they critical of beginners like us, because, despite what Scamp will say, we are beginners.  HOwever, we did a brilliant salsa routine just before we left.  That made up for all the mistakes.

We were sitting with a couple we’ve not spoken to before and I doubt if we’ll rush back to be with them again. I found them quite condescending, but Scamp liked her golden shoes! Thankfully two others came to join the table and we’d met them many times before, and a good laugh.

We left early, just after 3pm to avoid the worst of the school rush and came home by the M74. A much quicker route compared to that bloody Kingston Bridge. In fact we only took about 40 minutes which beats our usual 50 – 60 minutes along the M8 / M80. We might try that one again.

Tonight’s dinner was to be Bacon and Borlotti Beans, but we didn’t have any mushrooms for it, so I walked down to the shops to get some. It had been raining heavily in the afternoon and there were puddles everywhere. One of the oak trees that line the path was starting to lose its leaves and the leaves in the puddle made PoD.

Later when we tried to catch the news, it became apparent that things were not right with the Queen. Half an hour later the announcement was made that she’d died. She was a good age, but didn’t manage her century. It’s always sad when someone dies and so it was tonight.

Tomorrow we’re intending to parcel up a bag, in a bag and then put the combination of bags into another bag. I hope she likes it.

There’s a light – 20 August 2022

Posted on by Zogman

It’s “… at the end of the tunnel”, I believe. Or, it might just be “… over at the Frankenstein Place …”

I held off until after midday before doing today’s Covid test. I was hoping for a line at ‘C’ but no line at ’T’. Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but the line at the ’T’ was the faintest I’ve seen. I deemed it enough of a success to show a step in the right direction, but just not enough to allow us to go to the big 70th party with a clear conscience. I certainly felt a lot better than I’ve been for at least a week. It would have been good to go to the party, but June and Ian were going in our place, so the family was represented at Hamilton Racecourse.

I managed to do my “8 active hours”, but didn’t quite reach the heady heights of 10,000 steps. I did go out in the afternoon to grab some photos over in St Mo’s. My favourite by far was the broken branch of a tree. I’ve seen it a few times but never photographed it. Today the lighting was good enough and I did take that photo which became PoD.

Earlier in the afternoon, Scamp and I went for a walk to the shops to get something for today’s lunch and also to get a chicken for tonight’s dinner. Both items were purchased. Cold meat for lunch, both for Scamp and for myself. The chicken was cooked to perfection by Scamp, because I’m not that skilled at roasting things in the oven successfully yet. Generally I overcook them and they end up a bit too dry.

The European Championships trundles on. Today was the men’s single diving championship and it was amazingly boring. At least the mountain biking circuit showed grit and determination from the contestants, but watching punters jumping off diving boards into a swimming pool isn’t breathtaking as far as I’m concerned. However, the UK showed its mettle by achieving a silver for its controlled splashes.

We watched another episode of Shetland tonight wondering who they will get to replace “Perez” and why. It’s a convoluted story with people dropping in and out from various different soap operas. It gives the viewers the chance to ask “What was he/she in?”

I’m not doing a test tomorrow. I’ll assume that the faint line will be almost invisible by then and I’ll be able to go shopping in Tesco without a mask.

A day of mixed weather – 24 July 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy, but always with rain of some description.

Heavy rain, light rain, sometimes just drizzle or a Scottish smirr, but there was always water of some description falling from the sky today.

We voted with our feet in the morning and our feet were up on the coffee table, although I did clear the junk off my IKEA Poang chair and had a relaxing half hour or so on it. It’s a great chair for reading in, but not so good for using with a laptop. I suppose it was designed before laptops were a thing. Allegedly it was designed around 1978.

Eventually had to get up to help prepare lunch and then the laptop came out of hiding and I was lost in Flickr for an hour at least. It did seem to stop raining for a while after that, but it was only a ruse by the rainclouds. As soon as we went outside the rain started again.

<Technospeak>
It was about 4 o’ clock before I decided to put on my new Columbia trainers and take an unusual combination of Sony A7iii + adapter + Sigma 10-20mm lens out for a walk in St Mo’s. I restricted myself to one circuit of the pond and had to get all my photos in that time and only with my Heath Robinson contraption. It’s really a very capable lens. It originally fitted my old Nikon D70, but when I upgraded to a D7000 the lens wouldn’t work with the more demanding electronic connections, so it was relegated to a cupboard. When I was selling all my Nikon gear to fund my move to full frame Sony hardware, I couldn’t bear to part with the old 10-20mm and found an adapter that would allow its use on the A7 series. It still takes great pictures, but is now manual focus only. The other problem is that it’s an APS-C lens which doesn’t quite cover the sensor of a full frame camera, so some cropping is inevitable. I could allow the camera to do it for itself, but where’s the fun in that when you can spend an hour doing it yourself!
</Technospeak>

The old lens took today’s PoD which is a view of St Mo’s pond with its duckweed carpet, viewed from the pond outfall. I just liked all the different green hues in the picture.

Dinner tonight was yesterday’s pakora and curries reheated and with some flatbreads for good measure. It’s now making itself known to me again, so some Gaviscon may be necessary tonight!

Watched the French GP with more than its fair share of thrills and spills. Good to see Hamilton making it to the podium. Not so happy to see George Russell sneaking 3rd place from Perez.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and heard how they survived the heatwave on Monday and Tuesday. Heard too about the tomatoes in the garden ripening while Scamp’s are still green.

I think it may still be raining outside and we’re forecast for more tomorrow. Maybe the garden still needs a little more.

Girls day out – 24 June 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was going out to lunch and drinkies today.

We sat about in the morning wondering if the sun was going to come out or it the rain was going to fall. As it happened, the sun did win for most of the day. Scamp went down to the shops to buy enough booze goodies to take to Denny. I stayed at home and splashed some more paint on a failing painting.

After a meatfeast lunch for me (corned beef and roast ham with a touch of HP sauce) we started off. Scamp wasn’t so bothered because she was expecting to be waited on hand and foot In Moira’s new summerhouse (NOT a shed!). We picked up Jeanette and headed to Denny. For once I found the correct route to Moira’s house, and only made one mistake when I was heading home!

Back home I finally gave up with that painting, turned the page and started another one. I was getting no further with that one, so I left it to be continued at a later date and took two cameras out to St Mo’s to look for inspiration. Inspiration came late. After a couple of circuits of the pond, I had very little of interest. Finally, walking home I passed a woman carrying two bags of messages. When she was far enough away, I took a few shots of her with the LensBaby on the A6000. With a bit of Lightroom jiggery pokery, she became the distant subject of the PoD.

Scamp arrived back home around 6pm after an interesting day. Dinner was a home made pizza. To my mind the rosemary focaccia I made with the leftovers was far better than the pizza, but Scamp disagreed, as was her right.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow to see the Pride march. We won’t be taking the train, though, because the trains are AFF! Another rail strike, the third this week had made sure we’ll be driving or busing in.

Time to tidy up – 1 May 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp returns today and that means the kitchen must be returned to its pristine condition. Oh dear.

As it happened, Scamp didn’t return to around 6pm which gave me plenty of leeway to make an even bigger mess of the kitchen by attempting to make a dozen English Muffins as advertised by Simon and Garfunkel in Punky’s Dilemma. Water, sugar, salt, yeast, flour, melted butter. What could go wrong!? Well, the answer was “Not much, actually.” It all went quite well considering how long it is since I’ve done any baking.

With the dough made, I left it to its own devices while I loaded the washing machine with stuff and set it to work. Then I went into the garden and planted some seeds. Teasels and a sort of Cowparsley or Hogweed called Ammi majus. The first is now in the greenhouse and the second is in the raised bed.

Lunch was another of Hazy’s “Crimpits”. This time the filling wasn’t so successful. I used grated cheese, cooked ham and beetroot. Maybe I overloaded it. Maybe it was because I was using white ‘Thins’, rather than wholewheat. Maybe it was because it was Sunday and Sunday should be a fried lunch. Anyway, I’ll try another mixture of fillings later in the week.

The dough was having a lazy Sunday and needed a bit of a talking to, so I gave it a last warning and told it to get rising or it would get kicked out, then I left it to consider its future while I took a camera and a couple of lenses to see what was hiding in St Mo’s woods.

There was a deer hiding there, but it saw me long before I saw it. It was last seen heading in the general direction of Glasgow at a fair rate of knots. PoD was a shot of a larch branch with fresh green needles that had captured some of yesterday’s rain and was holding on to it. I liked that.

Back home the dough was more than doubled in size. It’s amazing what a threat will do. I chopped it up into 12 little 77.33g balls and rolled them until they were smooth, flattened them and dusted them with a mixture of flour and semolina before cooking six of them in the frying pan (without oil),then baking them in the oven. As usual with our gas oven the timing was a bit hit and miss, and more miss than hit in this case. Some worked ok, some were underdone. There are another six in the fridge chilling tonight. Hopefully I’ll be more successful tomorrow. I suppose it doesn’t help that in Scotland we don’t eat many English muffins, so I didn’t really know what the texture should be like.

Halfway through the cooking and baking I got a WhatsApp from Jamie asking if we could do a FaceTime from New York. I explained that Scamp was still on the way home from St Andrews, but I was available. The next thing I knew, I was looking at Jamie with skyscrapers in the background. It felt such a surreal thing to do, to talk to someone I knew, thousands of miles away and in real time. I know this sounds incredibly old fashioned to some folk, but I’ve never had the need to do Face Time over a long distance before. It quite took my breath away. Thank you for that opportunity Jamie. Such a pity Scamp couldn’t have joined in too. And then he was off to catch his train to the airport to fly home. Safe flight home Jamie.

Scamp arrived about half an hour later, with lots of interesting foody things. Duck eggs, Ginger and Leek sausages, an interesting looking quiche, a jar of garlic piccalilli and two sticky cakes that we’re keeping for tomorrow. The sausages and a duck egg with some bacon became my dinner and mixed well with the piccalilli. Scamp said the quiche was ‘just all right’, but the pastry was lovely.

It’s great to have a bit of freedom, but its even better when you’re back home again. Lots of stories still to tell, I’m sure.

Somebody is coming to see us tomorrow to invite us to swab our throats and noses, then ask us those difficult searching questions.

Me and my big mouth – 29 April 2022

Posted on by Zogman

You’d think I’d know by now.

Scamp was supposed to be travelling to St Andrews today for a weekend with The Witches. However the latest plan was for them to travel up together on Saturday, tomorrow. I don’t think she was too impressed with the change.

We drove to Livingston today to the “Designer Outlet” which really means last year’s fashion for cheap as chips prices. Other shops are there too, but basically it’s clothing and shoes that predominate. We split up when we got there. I was looking for a pair of cheap but waterproof trainers, Scamp was looking for another dress for the wedding. Eventually we met up and she showed me a dress that she though would work for one of the weddings. I told her I wasn’t impressed and realised immediately what a faux pas I’d made. I must say in my defence that it was my honest opinion, but I suppose I could have phrased it better. I should know that in a situation like this there is no taking back what you’ve said, but I tried oil on troubled waters, but it didn’t work. The lady was not for turning.

Instead, we went for lunch in Wagamama. Scamp had Chicken Raisukaree which is allegedly a mild curry. A mild curry doesn’t have a full red chilli chopped into it, but this one did. I had Chicken and Prawn Yaki Soba. It was a bit dry, but actually a great mix of textures. I managed to eat all of mine with chopsticks. We had a side of Ebi Katsu, prawns fried in panko breadcrumbs. Always a favourite with us.

I don’t know what magic was in that lunch, but I felt so much better after it. We drove back home to find that the plan for the weekend had changed back to the original and they were travelling up today. They were supposed to meet at Annette’s (Cocktail Witch) at 4pm. The 4pm came and went but still no firm decision, then about an hour later a text arrived to say that Jeanette (can’t remember her Witch name) would pick up Scamp (Musical Witch) in five minutes. Luckily Scamp was already packed, organised and waiting. Right on time, Jeanette arrived and whisked Scamp off to meet up with Annette.

I got a text about an hour later to say they’d arrived. I now have what the kids at school used to call “an empty”, ie, the house to themselves. I took a walk over to St Mo’s with the Sony a7 and the big, heavy 105mm macro lens. I saw my PoD as I was walking over to the park. It was a woman walking along the avenue of trees to the shops. Of course I took more photos, but that was the stand out PoD.

After processing it and consuming a G ’n’ T, I composed this story and am now ready to post it.

Hazy, I’ve just finished Amongst Our Weapons and thoroughly enjoyed it. Although, having seen the actual Beverly Brook, I’m not sure its waters would be pure enough for a Birthing Pool. Since I got the Waterstones version, I get a few more chapters with the ‘free’ short story Miroslav’s Fabulous Hand. I don’t know if you go that.

Jamie. I’m still not completely sold on a bacon and mashed potato pizza, but I’m willing to be converted. Bubblegum ice cream on a waffle, on however is probably a step too far.

I’m off to bed now to decide how to use my free Saturday. It certainly won’t be spent ballroom dancing for an hour and a half!