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A brighter day.  No rain, and a blue sky.  We went to Summerlee Herigage Park in Coatbridge.  When it opened, it was the only one of its kind in Scotland and an attempt to rival Beamish in England.  Unfortunately, things have changed over the years, and not for the best.  The exhibits which were so impressive now look tired and untidy.  Some of the exhibitions have the wrong labels on them.  in the main building, many of the bulbs need to be replaced and as a result, it’s impossible to read some of the descriptions of exhibits.  Outside it’s worse.  There is a lot of what can only be described as scrap metal – old radiators, railings etc lying around.

The trams still run, well, we saw one running and it seems that the walk-in  pit is still open to the public, as are the houses in the village street, but so much needs to be done to repaint and repair some of the attractions.  Typical NLC.  Create something then hope it will look after itself.

Crow sitting on the winding gear at Summerlee Heritage Park in Coatbridge.

Sheet metal bandsaw at Summerlee Heritage Park in Coatbridge.  Such a pity there is a load of scrap metal piled up behind it.

The displays originally contained saws, chisels and hammers.  Not a good selection to have on display in Coatbridge.

Point me at the sky
St Mungo’s church pointing to the sky above the trees in Cumbernauld.

Title comes from Pink Floyd (1968).

For my birthday, my son got me a coffee grinder.  My daughter got me a café freddo maker.  I like coffee.  I drink a lot of coffee.  I have a cup devoted to coffee.  I only drink coffee from it.  Some folk would say I drink too much coffee, but what do they know, but drinking Star*ucks?  I don’t think so.

Some of us drink coffee and some of us drink Star*ucks and never the twain shall meet.  I don’t want to go into a coffee shop and have to give my name before being served.  I simply want a good cup of coffee, not a Star*ucks.

Some of us drink  whisky and some of us drink *uckfast (photo taken at the same place, just a week different, by the way!). A similar comparison in my book.

Oh, just as a final thought.  I had to turn the cup round to get the best angle on it and it was still full.  Looks like I have at least one person who agrees with me.

Seen outside the STUC in Glasgow sitting on a parking meter. What will be there next week?

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Scamp was feeling a lot better today.  This improvement was strengthened by the arrival of a pair of ‘magic shoes’.  Her words, not mine, although I must admit they look very pretty.

Went for a run in the car in the afternoon looking for Oakwood Garden Centre which we both remembered as being near Killearn.  Just to be sure I used the satnav on my phone.  As usual, it tried to make me go in the ‘wrong’ direction to start with. However, after driving for about 15 minutes it was still trying to correct my direction.  In addition, the distance to my ‘target’ was increasing, not decreasing.  I eventually decided to follow my nose and reached the garden centre with very little difficulty.  I checked the satnav when we were in the carpark and it told me I had thirty odd miles still to go.  Eventually, I discovered that although I’d used the correct postcode, the satnav was trying to get me to Dunblane.  Worse than that, I’d have been a few weeks late for the wedding!

Lunch in the garden centre sitting in front of a large panoramic picture window looking over the hills.  Great views of the clouds and the snow showers.  Lunch over – super-size strawberry tart to finish with – we drove home the way we’d come.  Outside the garden centre there are the remains of an old wartime hospital.  It looked a really depressing place.

Went for a walk round St Mo’s in the late afternoon and caught the last good light.  Feeling rough tonight.  Hope I haven’t caught Scamp’s lurgi!

Smoke on the Water
Well, it’s actually a cloud, but who’s caring.  It made for a good title.  As usual, all is not as it

seems.  I exposed for the highlights to retain detail in the sky.  After adjusting the levels in Lightroom, I added two graduated filters.  One on the sky to darken it slightly and add a pale amber colour.  I also used two adjustment brushes on the foreground and mid-ground to lighten it a bit and also to add more colour.  I think the adjustments improved it, but I also think it looks slightly faked.

I saw this and edged round until I had a black, or nearly black background..  I liked the simplicity of the result. Just cropped and levels done in Lightroom.

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Woke again to sunshine and to Scamp phoning in to say she wasn’t going in to work.  I’m amazed her office has modern communication like telephones.  They do have computers, but are in the throes of changing over from XP.  The don’t even have email communication with the outside world.  Anyway, at last she’s seeing sense and putting herself first, before work.

Lazy sort of day.  Had to have my eyes photographed at the retinopathy clinic and had to rely on public transport because I might have had drops in my eyes to dilate the pupils  Didn’t have drops, but I did see a couple of ex-pupils (joke).

Started to make dinner in the afternoon and looked out to see snow falling, and not silly little flakes, but big fat white blobs – real snow!  Weather man said tonight to expect more snow tomorrow.  That’s just nonsense, snow in late April.  I want real spring back, with warm sunshine and fluffy bunnies.

Scamp decided to forego salsa tonight, which was a good idea as she’s not quite over this cold yet.  Getting better though, better than yesterday. 

Today’s photo is a bit of a mashup.  It’s difficult to get both birds looking in the right direction at the same time, so I took the liberty of using Potatoshop to take the sparrow from one shot and add it, subtly, to the photo of the bluetit and the feeder.  I think it was a jolly good job.  Think yourselves lucky I admit this here.  On Flickr I just infer it was my skill at bird-ography.

 

There was a queue of five birds waiting for their turn at the peanuts today.  It was a really dull day with occasional snow showers.  In late April?!  Taken through the kitchen window.  The ISO was 12800 and that’s not because the window was dirty!  That’s how low the light was.

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Possibly this is the last of the contenders for the offline blogging software.  This is Scribefire and it’s an add-on for Firefox.  So far, it’s the nearest to what I’d ideally want.  It’s neat, I can add photos with it, I can save my progress as I go along and, as it’s attached to the browser, it’s platform free.  It’s also totally free which, while not an essential, is a step in the right direction.  I’m still tempted by Desk, but I’m not predisposed to upgrading my OS just to spend another £20 or so on, what might be, another white elephant.

Scamp was not a lot better today, so it was a lazy morning and a light lunch for her – a normal, meaty one for me.  She was determined to get out in the afternoon, so we went to Auchinstarry, just to be caught in a rain shower.  Stayed in the car and when it passed, we went along the railway path, across to the Forth & Clyde canal and then back to the car.  Round trip (or frogmarch as S described it) of about 2.5 miles.  Thankfully the rain stayed away, but the westerly wind was cold.  Saw a poor buzzard being mobbed by a gang of crows. I actually felt sorry for it.

 

I’d only just filled the peanut feeder when this fella commandeered it of his breakfast meal.

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So today I started out trialling Blogo. I finally found a trial copy which lasts for 21 days and thought that would be as much as I’d need to evaluate it. It only took about 15 minutes to decide it needed a bit more practise, so it’s back to Mars Edit for the next few days:

 

The day started well, with blue skies when we had been expecting rain. Scamp was still feeling a bit under the weather, so we decided not to go too far. Finally made the decision to go to Stirling for a curry.

Oh no! They’d changed the menu and both our favourites were no longer there. This was after about 10 or 15 years of knowing exactly what we were having before we got the menus. Oh well, everything changes or so they say. After lunch we wandered around Stirling. S went to clothes shops, I went to the book shop. Dropped in at Dobbies on the way home to get a hose (at last). Hopefully no more lugging watering cans around!!

Managed a walk over to St Mo’s in the late afternoon. Although it was sunny, there was still a cold breeze. Managed a few shots of Mr Grey, the heron. Disturbed the deer as usual and as usual they got away from me. It’s really remarkable the speed with which the trees are putting on their greenery. There’s just that sheen of green over everything now and little sprouting green shoots on the forest floor. It’s amazing how much more you see when you visit an area each day rain or shine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It started out as a decent day, today. Warm with blue skies and sunny. Decided to take a trip into Glasgow to get some paint and a new reservoir for my pen. Just entered the carpark when I heard a clicking noise which seemed to be coming from the driver’s side front wheel. When I parked, I felt around the tyre, and there it was, a cross head screw and a cross headed me too. Oh well, nothing could be done here at the Concert Hall carpark as there doesn’t seem to be a tyre fitter’s garage there. Wandered round the town and took a couple of shots of my favourite building of the moment on the corner of Ingram Street and Queen Street. The glass frontage with the curved corner gives some beautiful reflections of the nearby buildings.

Got back to the carpark to find, as I feared that the tyre was deflating. Used my portable compressor to get it back to about 25psi and drove carefully home to get it fixed at Jim Dickson’s. Back in business again!

Leading Lines

The buildings in Exchange Square reflected in the glass face of the new bank building.  I liked the leading perspective lines and the inferred perspective from the striplights inside the glass building.  Too arty?  Tough, that’s my take on it.

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Really warm.  Temperature was nearly 20º.  Real “Taps Aff” weather.  We went to Torwood Garden Centre today, as did half the pensioner population of Central Scotland it seemed.  Grey hairs were everywhere.  I wasn’t one of them of course!  We went to get some plants for the garden.  It’s probably safe to get them now.  Easter is the time to buy plants, but May is the time to buy the plants that will grow – mainly because most of the frost is gone by the start of May, although, I remember my mum telling me of snow falling in May!

Went cycling and had planned what shot I was going to take.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned to charge the battery on the Oly.  It’s charging now as I write this, so it SHOULD be ok tomorrow.  I really must get a spare battery for it and for the Nikon too.

First night of Kizomba at STUC at night and a great starting lesson.  Really looking forward to the rest of these classes.  Stayed for the 8.00 salsa class to help out with the beginners, but dear, oh, dear, it was not the usual teacher.  It was the chauvinistic poser.  Full of macho crap and innuendo. Doesn’t he watch the class and see people cringing?  Some people were just not cut out to be teachers.  Do you get the impression I don’t like him?  Neither did any of the class that I spoke to.  One lady in particular was incandescent!  Hopefully it will be the usual teacher next week or we won’t be helping out.

A cheeky wee bucky sitting on a parking meter in Glasgow.  This one is entitled The Angels’ Share.

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The Red Road Flats seen from a distance with an Oil filter applied in PS.  Makes them look good!  Not so picturesque up close

Val and I had some business to attend to this morning.  After that we went to Falkirk for lunch at Tea Jenny’s.  Burgers to die for (or from, depending on whether you are a diet freak or not!).  After lunch we went to visit the Kelpies.  Val’s first visit and he was as taken with them as anyone we’ve introduced to these animated looking statues.  The rest of the day was spent snoozing and visiting friends in Dunblane.  Lazy night watching tv.  Beautiful day, but tomorrow I’ll take a real camera.

A beautiful blue sky and the Kelpies gleaming against it.  Problem?  No camera.  Took this with my iPhone and it looks good enough for me.

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For the first time today I wondered about the internal structure of these statues.  It must have taken the team of designers many hours and lots of computer time to design the framework that holds the Kelpies up.  Interesting to note that a crow seems to be nest building in this one’s mouth, and that’s straight from the horse’s mouth!