Uncategorized – Page 6 – My Photo Blog

Ten Hours in a Plane – 27 January 2017

Posted on January 27, 2017January 30, 2017 by Zogman

The first line in an old John Mayall song, but also a good description of today.

The day started with an alarm at 6.30am. After a quick shower, dressed and a key drop, we were out of the Hilton and into the check-in. Quickly through there for once and then into security and then breakfast. After that we just waited for the call to the gate. Basically, everything went smoothly.

Up through the light fog and cloud layer and we were out into blue sky. Second music quote of the day is “Up above the clouds there’s always a blue sky” Can’t remember who by, but I’ll maybe remember by the end of this write-up. It’s a long flight, but a wee snooze on the way and a film on the way helped – “Miss Petegrine’s … “ had to do because Ghostbusters 2016 didn’t want to play. Over eight hours and with an hour stopover at St Lucia. Landed 15 minutes early in Port of Spain. That’s when it all stopped working.

Immigration at Port of Spain is a nightmare. Over an hour just to hand in our passport and a piece of paper that we’d already filled in. The officials are so laid back, they might as well be going backwards. We saw Irish, Czech and Africans being refused entry until different parts of the form were completed satisfactorily. In some cases, until money had changed hands too. We were dealt with quickly and efficiently by official number 9 and eventually got through to pick up our cases and meet M&J who were waiting patiently outside. That’s where we realised that the air-con in the immigration hall was really efficient. It was warm outside at 7pm.

Got driven back to M&J’s house. The same one we stayed in almost three years ago. Drinks, catchup, supper and a very early night. When was the last time we went to bed at 9pm, although in real time that was about 1am.

A Thursday that feels like Friday – 29 December 2016

Posted on December 29, 2016December 30, 2016 by Zogman

Because Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, the entire week has been one day out. Well, that’s my excuse anyway. Today was Thursday but it felt like Friday.

Scamp was away in the morning taking her sister to a Costa for a coffee. I got the sewing machine out and swore at it for a while then repaired the pocket of an old pair of jeans, then swore at it a bit more before patching the pockets of another two pairs of jeans. I finished off the process by swearing at it a bit more. It doesn’t really owe us anything as it was bought over 40 years ago. It cost about £25 in those pre-millennium times.

In the afternoon we drove in to Glasgow. For a change we thought we’d park in the Concert Hall carpark. We always get parked there in the basement. Not today. Basement was full and we had to go all the way to the roof to get a space. It’s ages since we had to go all the way up there. Brilliant view. That’s where today’s PoD came from.

I was in Glasgow to get my hair cut and Scamp was going shopping. However, it was standing room only in the barbers, so I decided to wait until next year to get my hair cut. We wandered round John Lewis looking for bargains – there were none. Then through Buchanan Galleries but there were no bargains there either, or if there were, they were well hidden, so we went for lunch in JL. Had another look at new sewing machines, but they didn’t have the one I wanted – out of stock, but in stock in Embra. Apparently this one just works, you don’t have to swear at it. I wasn’t sure I’d like that. It’s the swearing that makes it interesting you see.

Back home I made the decision and bought the machine from the Embra store. It will come in five working days, but with New Year a few days away, there’s no telling how far that ’five working days’ will extend to. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve made the right decision. Will I like a sewing machine that you don’t have to swear at? I’ll find out in ’five working days’, and I’ll let you know. Effin’ sewing machines!

Scamp was out again tonight to a ‘Gems’ meeting (For ’meeting’ read ’drinking session’) and she had not actually been to the house before, which made it interesting for me as I was doing the driving. We got to the street and then she admitted that she wasn’t absolutely sure of the house number either. Honestly, you couldn’t write this stuff, although, I suppose you could. Well, I could because I’m writing it now, but you know what I mean. Eventually after a couple of dead ends, we found the house and the car was decanted.

Not sure what we’re doing tomorrow.

An Early Rise – 25 November 2016

Posted on November 25, 2016November 25, 2016 by Zogman

Up and out of bed before 8.00 this morning, but it wasn’t the desire to take photos in the frost that was sparkling in the morning air that got me up, it was someone knocking the front door. It turned out to be the wrong address. The gas man was actually looking for the bloke next door. However, it did get me up and that led to me achieving yesterday’s target.

Walked through St Mo’s and got a few photos, some of which are in the matrix above. There was quite thick fog when I left the house with a temperature of -5.6ºc, but when I reached St Mo’s a few minutes later, the fog had gone, taking with it my chance of some ethereal early morning shots. I did see a deer, but it was far to far away and moving like the wind.

By the time I got home, Scamp was scraping her car and since I was meeting Fred for coffee later, I decided to clean mine too. The joker who lives a couple of doors down had parked next to me last night and left my car in the shade of the early morning sun that I’d hoped would have thawed it out. People should think before they park next to me. So it was frozen hands for me before lunch, but at least the windscreen was clear.

Met Fred for coffee and swap shop. 2 CDs from him to me. 1CD from me to him. Not a lot to discuss today and I think the cold is getting to all of us. He’d done some sketches of course and so had I, but not as many from each of us as we’d had in the past.

Fred had to leave early so I did too. I walked along the Luggie again and, probably with the thought of sketching in my head, got a quick sketch of a bridge done. Not the most beautiful structure, but architecturally interesting and demanding from a perspective viewpoint. It’s not quite finished, but it was quite cold and my fingers were getting numb and I’d got a likeness of it. I had my leather gloves with me, the expensive ones. Two pairs for a fiver in Perth one year! I should have worn the fingerless gloves Hazy gave me to keep my hands warm but my fingers free. They’re not just for FOTO GRA4s! (in joke). They’re going in my jacket pocket tonight. I got some photos down the Luggie too.

From the 44 photos I took today, I whittled them down to 14 and from that I chose my 5 favourites. That’s what you see above in the matrix.

Be careful how you touch the blog today as it might still be a bit greasy, that’s because dinner was a small fish supper for Scamp and a special fish supper for me (fish in breadcrumbs) eaten with the fingers of course. I was feeling generous, so I shared my special fish with Scamp.

Looks like it won’t be quite as cold tomorrow. Ice is nice as long as it doesn’t stay too long.

Wallflower – 14 September 2016

Posted on September 14, 2016September 14, 2016 by Zogman

Sitting it out at Salsa because there are too many men in the second class which is an unusual state of affairs. It’s not a problem really as the sweat is running off me as we’ve just completed our second advanced class of the week. I did think of joining Colin’s class, but I’m never sure what it is he’s teaching. Sometimes it’s definitely salsa, sometimes it’s more like bachata, sometimes it’s almost certainly quickstep or tango or something else ballroom and there are times when it’s something entirely different. It’s difficult to see where they blend together. I did do his warm-up which is always a challenge, just keeping up. Tonight was no exception. That probably explains why I’ve reached melting point.

We had intended going to Kirkcaldy on the bus, but lethargy got in the way. It’s been postponed until another day, a sunny day, because sunny it was not today. After we had dithered around for a while, we decided to go for lunch instead and then went for garden stuff at B&Q.

I had a go at a couple of small watercolours and finished off an acrylic that’s been languishing against the wall for too long. I may frame it up and see if I’m happy with it. I’ve decided that even for sketching and wash, it’s far, far better to use watercolour paper, even cheap stuff.

I did manage a quick visit to St Mo’s later in the afternoon and was thinking that with the warm, damp weather we should be getting to the season for toadstools and mushrooms when I chanced upon a neat little creamy white umbrella, right in front of me. To get the shot, I wanted a low point of view (POV). That meant I couldn’t check focus through the viewfinder, but one of the Oly designers had considered this eventuality and made the back screen articulate so you can turn it horizontal. Even better, you can set the touch screen to activate the shutter. So clever.

As I mentioned, it was a dull, damp day. I’m hoping tomorrow will be better.

The Galleries and the Airies – 2 September 2016

Posted on September 2, 2016September 2, 2016 by Zogman

Scamp was out this morning having coffee with her niece. This gave me time to sit and swear at both WordPress and Galleria. WordPress provided the bad plugin I wrote about yesterday and Galleria is a gallery making piece of software I’ve use for a few years now. Galleria works well. WordPress works well. The problem is that they don’t work well together. This morning I made them both shake hands and play nice together. It took a lot of swearing and a fair bit of trial and error, but they did eventually produce a decent photo gallery in my WordPress blog. Like my pal Val says, it was “a wee challenge”. Now that I’ve managed to do it more than once, I’m quite happy to let it go and revert to the simple gallery I made last night. Time wasted? Yes, but a couple of lessons learned. You should learn something new every day.

In the afternoon, I started cutting down a rogue tree growing out of the wall at the corner of the back garden. Once I’d dumped the cuttings in the council dump, I went for a walk along the Luggie Water to find some photos. I had thought to go to the free day at the Scottish Airshow at Ayr, but it was the thought of standing in the rain watching for the ‘airies’ descending through the clouds and then disappearing again into them, wishing that it was a lovely sunny day with the ‘airies’ shining against a blue sky. It had rained on and off all day and there was no sign of a letup. With that said, we decided not to go. We should have, because at 4pm, the sky started to clear and the sun came out. Unfortunately the show was due to start at 5pm and it was too late for us to get ready and drive down to Ayr to see the ‘airies’. Oh well, a walk along the Luggie would have to do. I liked the light on the ‘Bucky’ bottle under the road bridge and with a bit of post processing the gigantic ‘rhubarb leaves’ looked quite impressive.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow, because it looks like wall to wall rain.

Did you remember to bring the coconuts? – 24 August 2016

Posted on August 24, 2016August 24, 2016 by Zogman

Last night we made plans to go down to Ayr, or Troon, or Largs, or Millport today. Definitely somewhere west or south west, because that’s where the best weather was to be. Today we went east, well, east (ish). Sort of north east. Not west.

We made sandwiches (pieces) and filled a flask and we left. We headed in the morning sunshine in the general direction of Stirling and thence to Callander which we hoped would be free from blue-rinsed drivers on this, our midweek journey. They usually only come out in their hordes on Sundays. Despite being in a long line of traffic behind an articulated lorry we had a fairly pleasant run through Callander and on to Lubnaig. It was Scamp’s idea to stop at the loch for a coffee. I wasn’t too sure about it to start with, but when I saw the reflections on the loch, I just knew I wanted to stop. When we stopped, we discovered that a Rabbies minibus had just arrived and there were tourists everywhere. We’re not tourists, we’re Scottish.

After coffee and fifty odd photos, we headed further up the loch and across on to the Loch Earn road. I’d half intended to drive to the end of the Loch Earn road and then drive back down the other side of the loch. I also wanted to find out where the ‘reflective man’ was. It’s a statue of a man covered in mirror tiles and it stands in the water. I knew it was on the north side of the loch, just off the road. I found it, but there were too many tourists near it. I’m not a tourist, I’m a photographer. I didn’t stop. I didn’t take the south road either, I just drove on. And on and on and on.

We passed through twee little Comrie but didn’t want to go all the way to Perth, so we turned right and pointed the car at the Braco road. We climbed up one side of a hill, across the top and down the other side, and eventually we found Braco. Braco has a main street and a shop called, conveniently, the Braco Shop. From there a signpost pointed to Stirling and we followed it and put Braco and the Braco Shop behind us. Instead of continuing to Stirling, we diverted to Doune to eat our ‘pieces’ and drink our coffee in Doune Castle, and that’s what we did.

Doune Castle is where bits of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was filmed. One of the great scenes in the film is where the knights pretend to ride horses while their pages click coconut shells together to simulate the sound of the horses hooves. Part of that scene was filmed around the castle. A few years ago when we were at Doune Castle an American boy pulled a couple of coconut shell halves from his bag and proceeded to clip-clop around the internal square of the castle while his mother filmed him. Like I say, he was American. When we were sitting in that same internal square today, Scamp asked me “Did you remember to bring the coconuts?” Had you worked out the cryptic clue Hazy?

While we were there, I got a sketch done of the castle tower. It’s only when you sit and study these old castles, you realise how different they are from todays buildings All the windows are different sizes and shapes, as are the doors. You can see where bits have been added, bits removed holes have been cut in the walls, only to find that they are in the wrong place, so the holes are bricked up and covered over. Just like Cumbersheugh Town Centre in fact. History repeats itself. However, the castle was much more fun to sketch than CTC.

When we got home, Scamp suggested we walk to the local pub for fish and chips and a pint. I thought it was a wonderful idea. A great end to a great day.

Green – 17 August 2016

Posted on August 17, 2016August 17, 2016 by Zogman

I’d read on a blog somewhere about taking shots of part of an object or even parts of an object and allowing them to define the whole and another about taking more time to study a shot before taking it. They must have struck a chord with me because that’s what I found myself doing today. First when we went to Strathaven this morning after we’d picked up our new reading glasses in Larky. We were sitting having lunch in a wee cafe. The local secondary school was coming out for lunch too and for a time we were surrounded by school weans. I felt quite nostalgic for a while. Aye Right! (that mean’s “No I DId Not” in Scotland). Anyway, we were sitting next to a wall and over the wall was the Powmillon Burn and a beautiful fern lit by contré jour light (backlight). It looked good, and it still does after Lightroom has had a go at it. I took another wide angle shot from the same position, but it did not come out of Lightroom very well. In other words, it was rubbish.

That sort of set the tone for today’s photos. Also,most of them were green, like the fern, but one that bucked the trend was a shot of a Yellow Wagtail which wasn’t a plant and wasn’t green, but it WAS only a part of the frame, because I couldn’t get closer and I only got one shot. Remember, it’s better to have one shot in the bag and then try to improve on it rather than fart about trying different compositions but then miss the shot entirely and end up with nothing. The other one that wasn’t green was the blue blobs shot which was taken with the intention of having only one flower of the three in focus.

After Strathaven, we came straight back home as I wanted to get the ingredients for tonight’s dinner and Scamp wanted to cut the grass in the back garden. Grass is also green, or am I stretching this too thin now?

With the dinner half made and having solved today’s Sudoku puzzle while sitting in the garden, I went for a walk to St Mo’s to see if there were any other parts of things I could isolate and that’s where the leaf and the two grasses came from. Back home I finished making today’s dinner – Thai Green Curry. Total coincidence!

Possibly one more glorious day tomorrow before the rains come.

Homeward Bound part 2 – 21 July 2016

Posted on July 21, 2016July 21, 2016 by Zogman

After yesterday’s journey into the epicurean dungeon that is Lancashire services I decided that we wouldn’t risk salmonella, dysentery or norovirus and would leave earlier than planned hoping to find a cleaner service station.

I woke around 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep, but I lay until almost 7am when Scamp, having been woken by me asked if I wanted to just have a cuppa and head off. I agreed with her suggestion and by 8am we were washed, dressed and on our way north again. As I expected, the traffic was much lighter today and we made good time. We stopped at Southwaite services. What a difference. Light, clean and with people who wanted to serve you. Apparently their dishwasher was working because they had proper cups, not made of cardboard. I don’t know what it is about cardboard cups I don’t like. I think it’s something to do with the feel of the cardboard against my lips. Picky? Not me. Anyway, having had a proper breakfast and a proper coffee, or peppermint tea in Scamp’s case, we journeyed on. Weather was much more Scottish as we crossed the border and we even manages a little bit of rain. Not a lot, just enough to welcome us home. It was much cooler too, around 19ºc most of the way. We turned into our street just after 11am. Last week we were just getting on the road at that time.

The rest of the day was spent lazing around, backing up computer stuff, posting photos and generally winding down. I got ready to take my bike out later in the afternoon, that was when the rain came on, so I did nothing instead. A bit of a waste, that’s the way it is.

Tomorrow, the bus will take the strain.

PS
I mentioned yesterday about the poor WiFi in the Travel Lodge. I didn’t manage to get the blog posted using it. I imagine there were too many words for it to handle 😉
What I finally did was use my iPhone which was connecting with four bars of 3G. I created a personal hotspot and used that to finally upload the blog post. Isn’t technology wonderful when it works.

Open Heart Surgery – 17 July 2016

Posted on July 17, 2016July 17, 2016 by Zogman

The open-heart-surgery wasn’t on me, it was on my blog. Or to be more exact, it was on my website architecture, but more of that later.

Not such a lazy start to the day, by which I mean that I was up and having breakfast just after 9am. That’s early enough for me – on my holidays. After that, Scamp and I went for a walk through the woodland path near the house. Much better paths than back in Cumbersheugh. The managed woodland is wedged between two halves of a golf course and is wild enough to feel as if you are miles from anywhere, but with the knowledge that you are only a mile at most from civilization. I got a few photos, but on the way back, the battery on my ’10 packed in, so I swapped it out with the one in the ‘5 which is much more frugal with its energy. When I got back to the house I found I’d lost the battery cover for the ‘5. It’s the weakest part of the design of this camera and pivots on a flimsy plastic hinge, or doesn’t in this case. I reckoned it was lying on the path somewhere and as it was black and the path was hard packed black dirt among trees, there was little chance of recovering it. It was lost for good. Duct tape would make a reasonable substitute when I got home, until then I need to be careful.

For ages, Hazy has been promising she’d help me organise my website to make it more simple to navigate. Today we sat down and after backing everything up, we set about the open heart operation. Actually, the backing up was the hardest part. Once that was complete, the reorganising was pretty straight forward. Straight forward, that is if you have someone who knows what they are doing sitting right next to you, not on the other end of a phone line, or worse still, someone who had been sitting in their room in California six months ago writing a blog post telling a numpty like me how to do it. So, once again, thank you Hazy for not making a drama out of a crisis. You are a gem, and you know it.

After that scary thing, Scamp and I drove out to Tolworth to get dinner. This was another scary thing. Here I was driving in London, well, in the outskirts of London, but driving with the rest of the lunatics. My God, I thought I was impatient – I am impatient – but I have nothing on these folk that need to be everywhere, like, yesterday! The only thing to do is to join them and be as mental as them. Turn a rubber ear to all horns and turn your blind eye to the gesticulations. Fire a few well chosen Scottish sweary words back at them. They won’t understand the words, but they’ll get the gist. I’d hate to drive through this every day going to and coming back from work. I dare say you get used to it.

So, we reached M&S and got parked too. Almost as soon as the engine had stopped a bloke came over and offered to wash my car for a fiver. If I thought he could have removed the dried seagull crap from the back wing without steel wool, I’d have got him to do it! I saved him the trouble by saying “Thanks, but it’s ok as it is.” Had coffee after M&S to fire me up for the drive back, which incidentally was much more pleasant than the drive there. Maybe I have joined the lunatic fringe.

Scamp had already stated her intention to go and sit in the sun in the garden for the remains of the afternoon, but that battery flap was still bugging me, so I set off to see what I could see. I’d hardly walked for five minutes along the path when there it was! By luck it had fallen with the chrome inside facing up and glinting in the sun, completely confounding the Centre of Gravity theory that states that bread always falls butter side down. Too difficult to explain after a stressful day – Google it. Happy now, my step was a lot lighter as I retraced my steps of this morning and walked the wild woodland again. Saw a beautiful pale blue dragonfly, but it was too busy looking for another pale blue dragonfly to bother with the likes of me.

Dinner was Sea Bass en Papillote with new potatoes and broccoli. Followed by Apple Crumble with cream. Tonight’s film was the mystifying Now You See Me. Third success from Hazy.

Tomorrow we may be going to Hampton Court … on the bus. Enough driving excitement for me today.

Other peoples conversations – 13 June 2016

Posted on June 13, 2016June 22, 2016 by Zogman

We had a mixed bag at the breakfast table this morning. All english and all patently ignoring us after we’d said our “Good Mornings”. Maybe they didn’t understand the accent, but the lower case ‘e’ in ‘english’ should give an indication of their standing in my eyes. I decided to use their part conversations to start today’s blog because you don’t put baby in a corner. They will probably never read this blog, but you will and, are doing

Lady 1
“… He’s not a lap cat. If you pick him up he bites you. Well, he bites me anyway …” I can see why madam!

Man 1
“Mum died a couple of years ago. We’re cruising on mum. She always looked after us really well …” Too well, you ungrateful, ignorant idiot.

Lady 1
“… I have a disability …” <she pauses for effect>. Spoken in a ‘bird with a broken wing voice.’ Those wishing sympathy, please for an orderly queue behind this lady. By the way, being english is not a disability.

Man 2
“We’ve been to Rome. We’ve seen the Coliseum and the Parthenon …” Oh, so they’ve moved it from Athens to Rome? Is this to help clear the Greek debt?

Scamp keeps telling me off for listening in to other people’s conversations, but sometimes they are hilarious.

Today was hot, so we wandered off in search of some shade, gave up and Scamp went off in search of two sunbeds next to each other and I packed my painting materials and headed to Deck 18 to learn how to mix colours, something I’ve been doing for years, ever since I got an Alwyn Crawshaw paint box in the ‘90s with only six colours and learned how to work with a restricted range of colours. However, I soldiered on and ‘learned’ that blue and yellow make green! Who knew? Then we discovered that if you add a two contrasting colours together you get mud. This really is a very basic art course. There may be a few beginners, but not enough to necessitate this ‘Topsy and Tim’ approach. On Saturday (the next sea day) we get to paint a sunset.

Once the turgid lesson was over, I found Scamp at the stern of the ship where she had acquired two sun beds. We did a bit of sun worshipping under a hot sun until I deemed it time for lunch. Salad and cold meat for me. Salad and fish for Scamp. We went back to the room after lunch for Scamp to compose herself for the afternoon ballet lesson and I had a snooze and also finished off yesterday’s washing in the tumble drier. After that it was back to the stern again and more sunbathing (it’s a hard life this, don’t let anyone kid you that it’s all plain sailing!! Winking smile ) and I went for a dip in the pool too.

Tonight was a Black Tie night, so it was kilt and waistcoat and jacket and all the gear. I don’t mind it, in fact, I’d go further and say I really enjoy the kiltie experience. Our cabin boy, Jemmuel who may possibly be gay, seemed entranced with the sight of me in the kilt. The night was marred slightly when we came out of Metropolis on deck 18 and bumped into a drunk scotsman (see, it applies to Scots too) with his “Hey Jimmy! Like the kilt”. I didn’t give him air time, but foolishly Scamp replied. That made him think he was Billy Connolly and that he had an audience. He claimed he’d been drinking coffee, but when he terrorized a wee girl with her mum in the lift and then went on to say loudly “I’m gonnie fart!”, I thought, “Dobber!” It’s not only the english we have to avoid. Unfortunately we have scots to avoid too. Both sides of the border have their ‘stupids’. They walk among us.

Ville Franche tomorrow. May get the train to Monte Carlo and try to post the blog there.