Category: Uncategorized

I gave in and did the decent thing. We went to IKEA to look for Billy. We had a bit of a problem getting Billy into the car, but between Scamp and I we managed it.  Then I spent the afternoon with Billy, fitting his plugs, screwing in his cams (Ooh!) and finally managing to get him vertical and ensconced in his new room. After that it was down to Scamp to decide where the shelf supports would go, because as you probably knew, Billy is a bookcase. Picked up a wee LED desk lamp, a shopping bag and a picture frame too. Scamp got Billy and some storage boxes. It doesn’t take much to keep us happy.

Up at 7.00 and out for 7.15. Walked over to St Mo’s to catch the early morning mists on the pond. Hoped to see some deer, but there were none. Loads of spiderwebs, though. It set me thinking just how many spiders there are in a small patch of rough ground like that. Lovely image of a jenny-long-legs covered in dew. It might have been dead, or just awakening from the cold of the night.

The rest of the day was consumed with gym & swim and a spot of reading, the excellent Urban Watercolor Sketching by Felix Scheinberger. It’s an interesting and slightly off the wall art book that gives no ground to sentimental landscape painting, as hinted at by the book’s title. It has certainly given me the urge to get out and paint.

If the weather allows, I would do the early rise walk again to get some more autumnal shots.

Since we were going out for dinner to friends in Hamilton tonight, we were set for a light lunch out today, so we had agreed to go to Falkirk. Not the most interesting place in the world, but it does have the best tea shop in the world. Tea Jenny’s. So that’s where we went. Roll on scrambled egg for Scamp and roll on flat sausage for me. Vanilla slice as cake for me and a massive, and I mean MASSIVE

meringue for Scamp. A bit of shopping and then home. Scamp wanted to play with her new edging tool and I wanted a run out on the bike with the new 9mm toy.

When you cycle near to a railway track, you get used to the sounds of the trains passing a few feet away from you. Today I heard a really rattly sounding train approaching from the Glasgow side. I was totally amazed to see a black steam engine pulling one maroon carriage at a fair lick of speed. I just managed to get one shot of it in the distance. I’m guessing it was taking the carriage from somewhere to Bo’ness to the privately owned steam train railway there. I can’t remember when I saw a steam train running at full tilt on national track.

I made the 9mm work for its money by trying some landscapes. If you use an downward angle, you can create a hill from the horizon and, as you would expect, a valley if you point the camera down up. The fish eye effect creates some great skyscapes.

Home, shower and out to dinner. A good day and a steam train too!

Went in to town early on the train – the only way to travel into Glasgow. In fact, it may indeed be the only way to travel anywhere as it looks like the X3, our only bus is being taken away. Perhaps it will be replaced by a whole fleet of X buses, but it’s unlikely. Use more public transport they say. We can only do that if there is actually public transport to use.
Anyway, went in to town on the train. Browsed John Lewis, but they weren’t offering any Mac Book Pros for a fiver. Wandered into Jessops, but they didn’t have the Oly 9mm f8 body cap lens for a tenner off. Wait a minute! They do have it, and it’s a tenner off! Got my hands on it and gave it a really good testing. Went for a coffee and confirmed my suspicions that that they had only been experimenting with the 15mm f8 lens. This was the real thing with real GLASS lenses, not the plastic junk in the 15mm. Decision made. Get it before they sell it to someone less worthy than me. Rest of the morning was wandering around town amazed at the effects I was getting with this minuscule wonder. It’s a real eye opener. Sure there’s curved verticals (and horizontals if you try really hard) and there’s a heap of CAs, but that’s all part of the charm of a ‘fish eye’ lens. Returned on the train, still having trouble believing just how good this lens is.

Oh, yes, and I got my hair cut too!

Moral of the story: The early bird gets the worm

Today we had booked a table for lunch at The Cotton House. It was Scamp’s suggestion. The last twice we went for lunch without a reservation, they were full and we left hungry with me in a bad temper – such an unusual state for me 😉 Today was different. We had a good lunch as usual in TCH. China tea to finish the meal. It’s probably the only place where I would have this tea. To be recommended – The Cotton House and the tea.

Previously, I’d been out fairly early to St Mo’s to get some pics of dragonflies. I saw a dragonfly egg laying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. It was good to go out early rather than at the end of the afternoon. Light was good then and with the sun a bit lower in the sky, it was easier to get good shadows and textures. It’s all about the light.
Today’s picture is of a dragonfly’s wing. So often I feel that I must show the entire insect, but just stop and look at the detail in that wing and wonder at the refinements that have taken place in the 325 million years they have flown over this earth.

Earlier still I got a text from Scamp asking if our water was running normally. It appears that the main water pipe to Abronhill had fractured and the water supply to half of Cumbernauld was either undrinkable or nonexistent. Ours was ok, but the burst had caused a landslide that affected the railway to Falkirk and Forrest Road was closed. Luckily it had happened early in the month before the ‘Abronhillers’ have their monthly bath.

After lunch, yes I know that this is a bit disjointed, but that’s the way it goes – it’s my blog not yours, so to get back to today …
After lunch, I went to Dobbies and got some Cyclamen and an edging tool for Scamp. As the family gardener, she was delighted.

A mixed up day for me as much as for you.

A day to recover from the biz of the last week. A day when I didn’t have to go out which was just as well, because my stomach was in pain and decided to alert me to the fact at regular intervals. Something I ate or the change of water, it could be either. However, the upside is it gave me a chance to update both my Flickr account and my blog. Both are now almost up to date. Just today’s photo to get sorted and that’s me done. Aye, there’s the rub. Can’t gee myself to take anything. Nothing of interest here and there’s been hardly any decent light all day, just that Scottish milky sky. No texture, no shadows, no highlights either. Just some garden flowers trying to brighten the day.

The day after the day before. Another early rise to pack bags and get on the road North. Said our goodbyes and walked to the station where we were just in time to get the train to Vauxhall. On the walk I spotted a couple of restored classic cars I’d seen on Friday. I just had to get a photo of them.

From Vauxhall we took the tube to Kings Cross St Pancras and walked the ten miles through the station up escalators along corridors and up stairs (always up) until we reached Kings Cross Station. I took the usual and now traditional photo of the roof of the station. Such an icon. After that I managed a few shots of silhouettes on the walkway at the end of the concourse. Soon the train was posted and we were off on stage four of the journey. Comfortable if quite old rolling stock for our run to Embra. Took our time when we reached Embra to get some milk and bread and then it was onto the train to Croy. Phoned ahead and the taxi was waiting for us just as we got in to Croy. Completed stage six and after we had cleared away all the junk mail from behind the door, made some tea and had a seat in our own house.
Nowhere, no offence ND and Hazy, is as comfortable as your own home.

One last thought. When we were on the stage one part of the journey we passed a house with a sign at the front saying “NO Junk Mail”. I wonder if it works.

Not without a little trepidation, we were up and out to Morden to get the train or to be precise a combination of trains to get us to Notting Hill. The rain that had been torrential through the night had all but stopped as we walked out of Holland Park tube station. Then CD put on his raincoat and that presaged the deluge that was to follow. Ponchos on, we got to the meeting point at corner of Ladbroke Grove and Elgin Crescent and found a dry(ish) spot under a chestnut tree. Met up with JIC and Sim and we were good to go. People were assembling near us and we were standing just beside the booze wagon. What better place to be. After an hour, it looked and sounded like the carnival was set to start when the bombshell hit. Police and licensing board arrived and started to unload all the booze into two box vans. It appeared that the ‘band’ ( the group we were walking with) didn’t have a license to sell, or even give away (!) drink. I seriously thought there would be a riot, but some bloke got on the speaker and told everyone that they didn’t need alcohol to have a great party … and he was right!

After another half hour or so, we started walking. At first there was a bit of confusion because we weren’t wearing the proper uniform. Tee shirt and headband on (Scamp and I refused point blank to wear the shorts), we were in. I reckon I must have danced my clumsy way along the road for an hour before I realised that I was totally sold on this madness. After that, it was just a case of trying to get some photos of the carnival and keeping to the beat. That and avoiding people ‘wining’ in the middle of the road. Until we went to Trinidad in 2014, I’d only seen dogs doing this in the middle of the road. If you don’t know, ‘wining’ has nothing to do with wine, but everything to do with Soca. Google it, that’s my advice.

About 3.30, Scamp decided that we should give it another half hour and then make tracks for home, well, Hazy and ND’s house. CD agreed and after another 20 minutes or so we made our excuses and left the band. Tried to get to Holland Park, but the police said that wasn’t possible, so we made our way to Kensal Green, thence using CD’s excellent knowledge of the Underground system by a variety of lines to Morden where we had started this surreal day. ND picked us up and after dropping off CD, took us back.

Later we shared pizzas because I knew it would settle my stomach. I blame the Coke in the Rum and Coke that had helped fuel our day. Yes, I know, the polis and excise had taken away all the booze, but that hadn’t stopped Sim from nipping out of the band on a couple of occasions to the off license to get a bottle of rum.

It was early bed tonight, because of our tired little toes, but oh what a wonderful day we had. I don’t believe in ‘bucket lists’, but if you have one, add Notting Hill Carnival to it. You won’t regret it.

Not the brightest day. A late start because ND was at church. He was going to try to get us a poncho, not at church, but in the Poundshop. When he got back empty handed, he suggested we go to Kingston and try to get one there. This was all on the suggestion of JIC who thought we might need them on Monday. Anyway, we got the ponchos and then went for a walk along the river. I met a relation of Mr Grey’s. I think it might have been a distant cousin. He was a rather scraggy looking heron, definitely a dark grey heron. After that we headed home for risotto made by ND, then an early bed for an early rise tomorrow.

Today started with rain.  Torrential rain, not just ordinary rain, but real thunderstorm stuff, luckily without the actual thunder.  The upside of this was that the rain washed all the seagull crap from my car – I wasn’t looking forward to washing that off myself, so thank you rain.  Got an invite to a retiral night for teachers at my old school who had seen the light at the end of the tunnel and recognised it as sunlight or who had moved on to pastures new.  I was quite glad that I’d been invited.  I know I’ve really enjoyed this last year, and will happily tell them that.  I went in to school to hand in my acceptance, but there seems to be a lot of long faces there and a realisation that this is not what they signed up for.

Had lunch at Milano and spoke to an ex-pupil of mine who works there part time.  Found that she had recently graduated and was now looking forward to the ‘World of Work’ as it is euphemistically known.  Scamp and I have often said that we wouldn’t like to be young now, with all the difficulties that includes.  She, the ex-pupil seemed so happy and I could imagine how she saw her opportunities opening up before her.  Good luck to her, I’m sure she’ll need it.

Drove around looking for a subject for PoD and found it after I’d left the school.  It’s a statue of a stag made from what looks like steel reinforcing bars and stands at the front of a local powder coating company’s offices.  It took a while to get a decent angle on the sculpture, but with the help of the excellent Snapheal Pro, I managed to get rid of bits of building and fence that were obstructing the view.  Snapheal Pro is worlds away from the clumsy healing brush in Lightroom 5.  Come on Adobe, get your act together and improve this.

Dancing at night, but no drag of a drive in via the M8.  This time we travelled in comfort by train and subway.  The only what to travel!  Well done Scamp for suggesting it.  Well worth the extra expense.