Category: Uncategorized

The day the car passed its MOT again without any problem.  I realise I should be touching wood when I say that, but there’s so little wood around, I’ve got to search for it.  Everything seems to be chipboard in this house.  Does that count.  Other than that little celebration there was little to recommend the day.  It snowed, but immediately melted.  I went to look for a tablet, but couldn’t decide on any.  I finally got a scraper to clean my painting palette.  Not a great thing you might think, but I’ve been looking for one for months as the old one is getting a bit blunt.  £3.50 in B&Q where I was age checked because the scraper had a blade in it.  The bloke made my day by asking his mate if he should ask for my ID!  Nice to see some folk still have a sense of humour.

Prisoner Cell Block H?  Actually it’s an old printer factory in Cumbernauld.  Looks quite intimidating under that gloomy sky.

Westway
Another example of the beautiful architecture and accessories around Cumbernauld.  It really deserves that sky.

Today’s nature pic.  This little bluetit was quick to discover that the peanut feeder had been reloaded.  I liked the fact that (accidentally) I’d caught one of its rejected bits of food.

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Yesterday it was birds.  Today started with birds and ended with a close encounter with a deer.  It never ceases to amaze me the variety of wildlife that’s on our doorstep.

Thrush on the apple tree outside the kitchen window this morning. Thankfully it stayed there while I got the camera. Such a nice wee bird.

I managed to get within 4 metres of this young deer before she saw me. Missed the shot, when she ran, but as always she stopped when she thought she was a safe distance away and I managed a half dozen shots. This was the best one. Taken in a local park.

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It rained from early this morning until after sunset, not that we saw much sun today.  Unlike yesterday, I didn’t have to wish for clouds, they were there all the time!  Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Throw out some bread and they will appear out of thin air. Starlings the commensurate survivors.

Two juvenile starlings waiting their turn at the stale bread.

As soon as Darth the Crow arrives, everybody else vanishes.

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It was Scamp’s turn to slip the lead today.  I had a day on my own and the sky was a boring blue.  Not one cloud.  Had a lazy morning finishing Alan Cumming’s excellent “Not my father’s son”.  I recommend it to anyone.  Like my daughter said, it reads as if he’s talking to you.  An uncommon skill.  After my reading session in the library and also after lunch, I took myself out to get the makings of dinner and to take some foties as the sky was no longer a boring blue, but had some clouds and some character.  Drove around some of the country roads I’ve not been on for ages and managed a few shots.

The trouble with using Autopano and other similar progs is it makes you lazy.  So it was today.  I just couldn’t be bothered going back to the car to get my short lens, so I just kept the 70-300 on and shot 12 or so images with the short end and later processed them into a wide shot in Photoshop.  Having said that, it took PS 20 mins to build the pano and it would have taken 5mins for me to change lenses.  Pointless technology!

This was a straight part of the country roads I was on. Possibly the only straight part in the whole system of roads. Still, I liked the compo and the trees looked good against the clouds.

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Got the bus into Glasgow AGAIN today because the Department of Work & Pensions needed a copy of our marriage license.  Why?  Don’t they have a copy in one of their multitude of departments, or don’t they speak to each other?  Probably not.  Anyway, we had to go to Glasgow to get a copy and had to pay £10 for the privilege.  Interesting to see that the assistant registrar simply printed off a copy of the original then signed it in ink using a fountain pen.  We are in the 21st century aren’t we?

On our way home I bumped into an ex-colleague from school who is also retired and now lives in France.  Haven’t seen her for about twenty years!  I was complaining about the above DWP requirements until she told me that she has to write a letter every year to tell them she is still alive.  That made me feel a lot better.

I really like listening to this guy whose pitch is at the top of Buchanan Street in Glasgow.  It’s difficult to get a clean shot of him without too many punters photobombing you.  Only one today and he was just trying to work out how to text with his new phone.

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It was the need for coffee that brought me to Perth today.  We drove there and despite heavy rain on the way, it was fine when we got there.  Went to Cafe Tabou as usual and lunch was simply superb.  It’s been a week of great lunches.

Tonight, I found a way of forcing Firefox and OSX to let me use a British dictionary rather than the deplorable US version.  Isn’t it nice to be able to do things your way rather than the boilerplate foreign version?

When did you last see a Curio and Antique Repository?

Which is your choice?

Toy giraffe outside a toy shop in Perth.  Its owners take great care in preparing it for the vagaries of the Scottish weather.

This is part of a panorama from the same place as the ploughed field.  It looks across the strath.

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On the road home from Perth I saw this recently ploughed field.  I tried photographing it from the other end, but finally decided it looked better from this side.  I liked the lead-in from the fence posts and the colour of the newly ploughed earth.

After the excesses of yesterday, it was back to normal today.  Car booked in for MOT next week an a short walk along the Luggie.  Dancing at night. Happy.

I saw this glove stuck on a branch.  From this side it seemed to be waving bye bye.  From the other side it seemed to be making a rude sign!

I watched a buzzard today being mobbed by a couple of magpies. It seemed to toy with them for a while then said “watch this boys” and off he went, giving them a demonstration of what flying is really about 😉

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Today is our wedding anniversary, and Scamp had booked lunch at the exclusive Rogano, so we took ourselves into Glasgow to enjoy ourselves, and that is what we did.  Great lunch with a bottle of wine, then another wee drink in the Counting House.  As Scamp said, it was like both ends of the scale of food and drink in Glasgow, but both have their place and both were enjoyed.  Needless to say, we were travelling by public transport to avoid the depredations of the Scottish government Don’t Drink and Drive policy!

SNP, we take the fun out of everything.

I travelled light today with only my ancient TZ3 in my pocket.  I’d forgotten just how much use I make of RAW files.  The old TZ3, despite being a great camera with a sharp lens, doesn’t shoot in RAW and that fat was brought out in no mean terms when I post-processed today’s shots. Loads of grain after dragging detail from the shadow areas and that is with an ISO 100 setting.  Partly this is due to the small sensor and partly it is due to the lack of RAW storage.  Still a good camera, but with limitations.

Bucky Street in Glasgow (Not its real name, so don’t go looking for it) on a cold, dreich day.  Not as dull as it looks here, but still nowhere as good as yesterday.

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I had decided to go for a walk along the Forth & Clyde canal in Glasgow today, just for a change.  It really is an interesting place.  Watched kayakers doing a white water course.  Photographed some swans and saw Glasgow’s architecture from a different viewpoint.  An interesting Monday.

I liked the colour of the sky and also that the cross at the top of the building was mirrored in the cross shape of the street lights.

I watched a few of these blokes in kayaks completing the white water course in Glasgow. It wasn’t until I saw one from behind I noticed the POLICE stencil on his life vest! Oops, sorry guys. I’ll delete the other shots 😉

A swan preening. Seen on the Forth & Clyde canal at Maryhill in Glasgow.

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It was decided that we go for a walk this Sunday morning and it was further decided that we go to Mugdock park.  Fine, it had been a long time since we’d been there and although it as a bit of a boring walk, there were certainly some photo opportunities, so off we went.  Got there to find there was an ‘event’ on.  Nothing surprising as there is usually an ‘event’ on almost every Sunday.  Of course the carparks were full.  Why don’t they make more carparks?  It’s not as if they don’t have the room.  The place is ginormous!  Anyway, we drove past the visitor centre and found a new, almost empty carpark on the far side of the park.  Had an interesting walk along to the castle.  On the way we passed what turned out to be the remains of WW2 anti-aircraft gun emplacements.  It’s amazing what you find out when you go for a walk.

On the way back, we found that the ‘event’ people were leaving the main carpark and a host of others were arriving, but as the carpark had overflowed on to the verge of the road, we now had potential two way traffic on a single track road.  It would seem that the idiots (not) coming and (not) going along this stretch had never been to Skye and therefore did not understand the queuing system or the concept of ‘passing places’, so resorted to getting out of their cars and shouting at each other, which was productive.  Hmm townies!  What can you do with them?  A good walk almost wasted.  It did give me an opportunity to use my extensive expletive collection and have a good laugh at the welly wearing idiots, though, so not entirely wasted.

Mugdock park.  Snow on the ground.  That is to say, a ‘snow’ brush was used on the ground to make pretend snow.  Then I used a tinted graduated filter on the sky to give it that creamy snow laden look.  I was quite impressed with the overall effect.

Looking over Glasgow from Mugdock Country Park.  A bracing walk on a Sunday morning.  Some of the sheepy mehs were surgically removed with SnapHeal Pro (what Lightroom’s spot removal should have been) and the foreground lightened and Clarified with a custom brush in Lightroom.  I liked the layers of the city in the background.  It reminded me of an early attempt at digital painting Jim Cochrane the art teacher showed me ages ago, in another lifetime.

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