Category: weather

A dull day – 21 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It rained. Nice weather for ducks and also swans.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and got a low down on weather in Epsom, which sounded exactly the same as it was here. Wild and wet. Found about their trip to Wales and pleased that Neil D is expecting to return to work on Monday. A nice rambling conversation that brightened our day.

We drove to Stirling after the phone call mainly to visit Lakeland, but also to get out of the house for a while. No point in attempting a walk the rain stopped that idea. We went to the mini shopping centre that holds Lakeland and Dobbies, one of the last Dobbies after the business was chopped up and sold off. It still holds the Dobbies name, but who knows which conglomerate owns it now. The big “D” was once a garden centre, but now it’s become more of a department store with various different enterprises under its roof. Strangely, it’s possible to walk through from Lakeland to Dobbies although they are separate businesses and don’t share the tills. Scamp wanted a new cling film dispenser in Lakeland and I wanted some proofing wax or cream for my new boots. We got both, but also an assortment of other useful things, plus tonight’s dinner and a couple of plants. I took some photos of the Wallace Monument while we were there. It was a bit distant, but it was sitting under a glowering, but interesting sky. It made PoD. We drove home with a pizza for lunch from Sainsburys and tonight’s dinner from Cook. All from under that same Dobbies umbrella.

When we got home and after lunch, Scamp started the ironing and, as the rain had stopped and the clouds had lifted a bit, I went for a walk in St Mo’s, sticking strictly to the paths. Not much to photograph or to challenge the Wallace Monument for PoD, although I did laugh at the two resident swans out swimming with their seven, yes, SEVEN cygnets. Initially Mrs Swan was trailing three of them and Mr Swan escorted the other four. Then after some unseen signal the two groups of cygnets merged and created a convoy with mum at the front and dad at the back. Then off they paddled to the nest on the island. A photo is on Flickr.

We had a curry from Cook for dinner. Scamp had Chickpea Curry and I had Chicken Jalfrezi. Scamp complained that her’s wasn’t spicy enough. I had to add some yogurt to mine to cool it down. Maybe we should have mixed them for a medium hot curry. Still, it was as good as an M&S curry, but with a bit more flavour. I think we’d try it again.

I bit the bullet today and signed up for the subscription deal with Adobe. So far it’s working really well. It runs faultlessly on both machines and although it’s more expensive than other photo processors, it’s the one I know best. Some of it is pretty useless to me, but that’s always going to be the case. I’ll check it for the fourteen days I’m allowed before I need to buy it and then I’ll decide.

No sketch done today. Too much nonsense to get cleared away. I’ll do a catch up tomorrow.

No real plans for Saturday, but we might go out somewhere for a walk. It’s forecast to be a brighter, but colder day than today.

 

Right on time – 20 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It was promised for 11am and at 10.50am the first drops fell

Today was dry when I was making breakfast around 8.30am. It was cloudy and it was dull, but it wasn’t raining. I checked my weather app around 10.15 and it was predicting rain at 11am. Later I went out to photograph today’s PoD which is an anemone which is sitting on the back step and when I looked closely there were raindrops on the petals. Two quick shots and that was enough for me. They looked sharp and there wasn’t any reason to hang around. Went out front to collect the empty bins, Thursday being bin day, and when I was coming back in it was definitely raining. I checked my watch and it was 10.50am. Rain arrived right on schedule. Fifteen minutes later it was coming straight down. Glad I got those two shots when I did.

The rain did go off again for a while, but in the afternoon we went to Calder’s garden centre to get a plant Scamp had liked the look of earlier in the week. She didn’t have time to buy it then, but she got it today. When we came out of Calder’s it was raining again. To be fair, all of the foregoing was predicted by the weather fairies yesterday and for once it came true.

That was about the end of our activities for the day, although our electricity went off for almost an hour just before dinner time. We’re in a warning listing with the electricity company and we always get an automated call when something like this happens. They were predicting a two hour delay before it would be connected, but the lights came back on after an hour. Luckily we both had fairly well charged laptops so we could continue to play games and fritter away some time without power, but without internet it was a different story. Scamp was resourceful and used her phone’s hotspot to save off the work she was doing to the cloud. It’s amazingly useful to have a decent phone and a bit bandwidth to do stuff like that nowadays. Who’d have thought twenty years ago that power like that would be at your fingertips.

Strangely I was just about to download the new Lightroom/Photoshop bundle when the outage happened, so it’s not installed yet, in fact it isn’t even downloaded yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Today’s sketch prompt was for a corkscrew. I drew the Waiter’s Friend we keep in the drawer in the kitchen. Probably the best corkscrew I’ve ever used . So simple and easy to use. A true design classic. The problem with classic pieces is that everyone knows what they look like, so your sketch has to be fairly decent. Mine is reasonably accurate, but not exact. It looks like the real article and that’s good enough for me.

Tomorrow we may go shopping to Stirling or Falkirk. We’ll maybe toss a coin.

Off on our travels again – 19 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Another beautiful morning. Scamp suggested we do the ascent of Barr Hill or drive to Dunfermline for lunch. I thought if we went to Dunfermline I might get a chance to play with try out my 6 stop ND filter at Torryburn on the way home. That seemed to meet with her approval, so I bundled two cameras in the car (the tripod was already there) and off we went.

Parked at Pittencrieff Park and with the Oly in its old brown bag slung over my shoulder and the tripod left to look after the Sony in the car, we walked over the park. Trees were beautiful carrying a full head of blossom. We walked down past the big glasshouse which was locked as expected due to Covid restrictions and round the formal garden which looked well maintained although hardly any of the flowers were blooming. Just too early in the year for that. Lots of primary kids on activities week running races and having shouting matches in the big empty spaces of the park. Two folk were doing a meditation under a bit tree. I don’t know what kind of tree it was, we weren’t close enough to do an ID, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a Bo tree!

We walked over to the aviary and found one shy peacock that would strut along the outside of the fenced enclosure, take a look at us and hurry back. It did this three or four times. All the peacocks and peahens had names and identity rings on their legs. Two old guys were discussing them as if they were family members or friends they met at the pub. Today’s PoD came from there and was just a lucky shot, catching the bird with that “What you think you’re looking at?” look on its face. We said goodbye to the peacocks and the peahens and headed into town. We went in to Nero and I had the best coffee I’ve tasted (except my own) for about a year or more. After the first wave of the pandemic, Nero started selling coffee in takeaway cardboard cups and seemed determined to fill the cups to the brim, diluting the coffee so much it was undrinkable. Today’s coffee, while not up to my or JIC’s standards was certainly a much more palatable drink than those watery waste of taste cups from last year. Even better, the coffees were served in real cups. Surely a sign that things are returning to normal.

We both wanted to get a cheap Hoodie, just to keep in the car for emergencies. Right next door to Nero was Primark. Less than £20 for two hoodies seemed like a bargain. They’re not top quality, but they will serve the purpose they were bought for. We walked back to the car, not stopping to count the boarded up shops that won’t open again for some time. Some shops that have been in the town for years have now disappeared. That’s sad. Dunfermline was a bit of a ghost town before Covid hit, but not even the ghosts have gone, it seems. Maybe it will rise from the ashes, but it might take some time.

Drove back via Torryburn where I was hoping for high tide, some heavy clouds and a bit wave movement. Unfortunately, the tide was right out, the sun was shining and you couldn’t even see any waves. We didn’t even get out of the car, we just drove home.

Stopped at Tesco to get yet another birthday card (count back 9 months from mid May and that might give a clue to the reason for those births 😉). Scamp got herself a pair of leisure trousers.

Scamp had bought me a tray of Calabrese yesterday, so when we got back I planted a row of them in the raised bed and watered them in. I don’t really think they will need watered, because we’re due some heavy rain tomorrow. I also completed today’s prompt which is “The View From Your Window” That was tough. I’m not totally happy with the result, but it’s finished and it’s uploaded now, so I’ve completed today’s challenge.

Tomorrow, because of the weather forecast, I think we might go for a drive if we’re going out at all. I don’t think a walk will be on the cards.

Another beautiful day – 18 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It was another beautiful morning. Too good to stay in bed and even too good for a morning coffee. That kind of good!

Scamp had booked a table for her and Margie for early afternoon, so a walk, not local, but not too far was the request. I thought maybe the walk along the canal to Twechar would probably be too long for today and the short version with the shortcut across the plantation would be too short. Maybe Colzium. It’s a week or so since we’d been there and there were a couple of little waterfalls I wanted to investigate in the park, so there was another bonus. So it was that we drove out through Kilsyth to the once private estate that is now open to the public.

We have worked out a decent route around the park with some short hill climbs and interesting scenery past rushy streams and walks through the woods. Just to make it a bit different I chose a path we hadn’t walked before, not knowing it had a long climb in it. It took us to a bridge over the Colzium Burn. I thought we’d crossed this particular bridge before, but Scamp disagreed and she was right. When we walked down the other side of the burn we came to the bridge I was thinking about. That’s where I got today’s PoD. Again it was Scamp’s observation that brought the heart shape hanging from the tree branch to my attention. I was quite pleased with the composition, positioning the heart against the white of the falls. We walked on down.

We walked down the wide avenue from the ‘Big House’ to the old curling pond. Some of the rhododendrons were in full flower, but most were like our own and just coming into flower. The trees, though, were glowing with colour. Strangely it was autumn colour, but it seemed to work with the green around it. We drove home.

While Scamp went off for lunch with Margie, I started today’s sketch. As usual, some of the prompts are slightly random. Today’s was An Interdental Brush. I decided to be generous and sketched both of mine, one with its holder. It’s amazing how useful these little wire brushes are. My friend, Fred, describes them as miniature toilet brushes. I’ll leave that thought with you!

Next task was a bit of technology (That’s your five minute warning JIC). Lightroom is having problems with the new Mojave OS and it simply won’t run on the new laptop. With that in mind I’m thinking about moving to the new Lightroom/Photoshop package from Adobe that is a subscription system. To do that I need to create a new Adobe account. Now many years ago Adobe was hacked and my email address was one of the ones that was sold off by the hackers. Despite changing my password as soon as I knew, I eventually had to shut down that address. Just in case the same thing happens again, I created a new email address for the new account. For some reason it was simplicity itself to set up on both machines. Maybe Apple are making improvements with these new operating systems. Now that the email works and has been checked, tomorrow I’m ready to sell my soul to Adobe for a Lightroom for the 21st century. (OK, JIC it’s safe to come back.)

When Scamp returned I was putting the finishing touches to the Interdental Brush still life and she pronounced it good enough to post.

Spoke to Fred tonight and we discussed politics, Rangers supporters and how boring life is these days. Then the conversation turned to cars before touching down for a while on painting.

That was about it for today. Tomorrow we’re hoping to get out for another walk, because it may be the last dry day for a while.

Socks and a hot curry – 14 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off on a walk with Veronica and I was starting today’s painting early.

Scamp was booked for a walk with Veronica. Just a walk round Broadwood Loch. I was staying at home, hoping to get today’s sketch started early. Started, yes, finished, no. Today’s topic was A Pile of Socks. Not something I’d have chosen, but that’s what’s interesting about working your way through someone else’s list of topics. You don’t get the chance to draw and paint the easy stuff, you just do the best you can with what you’re offered. Sometimes it takes lateral thinking, sometimes there’s no way out, you just have to do it. I had a pile of socks to put away, so I used them as my starting point. Pencil sketch to start with, then some watercolour. That didn’t look quite right, so I added some watercolour pencil to it. That was better, but it still needed more. When Scamp came home from her walk, she suggested I add one of her socks to the mix. It couldn’t do any harm, so I added the yellow sock to the pile, partly tucked under another two. Yes, that altered the composition in a good way. You might recognise a bit of darning and Scamp’s sock, Hazy! I left it for a while and we had lunch.

Wednesday’s Challah bread was being cut down fast, but we both knew it wouldn’t stay fresh for much longer. The recipe that came with the ingredients said that the bread made great French Toast. That’s what we had for lunch. It was good, but the eggy mix didn’t really add anything to the bread. Also you expect French Toast to be savoury, but the bread is naturally sweet, so the tastes don’t really marry up.

After lunch and after hearing that Glasgow was likely to remain in Level 3 with rising cases of the Indian Variant, when almost the rest of Scotland would go to Level 2 on Monday, we rethought our plans for tomorrow. We’d considered going for a walk down Glasgow Green, but maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea now. We decided we’d go for a walk today at least because the weather was pleasantly mild and we’d leave tomorrow until tomorrow. We walked round St Mo’s, twice round the pond. On the second circuit I was photographing a fly on a Marsh Marigold when I noticed on a flower nearby just the hint of a spider’s front legs. Sure enough, there was a spider dangling from one of the petals. I assume it was waiting for some unsuspecting fly to drop in for lunch, the spider’s lunch. The flies must all have seen this trick before, because they kept a good distance away from the secret spider which became PoD.

Back home we were planning our dinner and Scamp suggested a curry mix. We’d bought a Biryani kit the last time we were in Waitrose and that’s what we made. It was supposed to be a “Two Chilli” curry. I think the printer must have missed out the “Twenty” before the “Two”. Boy, it was hot. It was tasty too, but you’d have to take it down a few notches before you noticed the taste. Thank goodness for a tub of yoghurt to cool our mouths down.

It was now time to decide if the socks stayed as sketch of the day or if they were replaced with something better. I decided they stayed, dated and signed the sketch and we were done.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk somewhere that’s not running scared from the Indian Variant. I have an idea, but you’ll need to wait until tomorrow to find out where!

Dull, dull, dull – 13 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

White sky this morning. No texture in the clouds, just milky white

At least it was dry and it remained so all day. The furthest we got was a walk down to the shops and back. Apart from the ‘messages’, Scamp got some Bizzy Lizzies for her Wanderella planter that hangs by the back door. She did get some last week too, but they turned out to be too big for the holes in the planter and were used up elsewhere. These ones were much smaller and fitted perfectly. I got some chocolate limes to which I’m addicted. Tonight I divided them up into bags of five. When I go out for a walk I allow myself one bag. When they’re done, that’s it until the next day. If I put ten in the bag, I’d just eat them all without thinking about it, that’s why I limit myself to five. Not much chance of a walk in St Mo’s today though.

Last night I found a tick. First one for ages. Today I found another. That’s the walk in the woods at St Mo’s off the list until the first hard frost, because the ticks don’t seem to like the cold. Neither do I, but I hate ticks and that makes the cold bearable.

<Technospeak>
Apart from slapping Germoline and TCP on the tick bites, I found time to delve into the old NAS drive’s hard drive. I found that if I booted from a Linux distro (a live Linux installation on a USB stick) on the Mac, I could access the drive. All the files are still there on the hard drive, but the drive is formatted to Linux and can’t be read on a Mac or PC. What I didn’t know was that I could drag the files from the old NAS drive on to an NTFS (PC) formatted memory stick and load them on to the Mac. I wanted Office 11 for Mac and that was in the downloads I’d stored on the old NAS. It worked! Well, it almost worked. The new Mac is running Catalina and it doesn’t allow you to open any 32 bit apps. Office 11 is a 32 bit app. Game Over. Apparently I can still get Office for free by connecting to iCloud. A bit cumbersome, but it might work.
</Technospeak>

In the afternoon I did a bit of photography in the garden and that’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s a Strawberry & Cream Aquilegia with a Spirea bush behind. That was in the hour or so of sunshine we had today. I managed to get a few shots of plants just coming in to flower. Good to see it.

Today’s sketch was to be A Close Up View of Something. I chose the pliers of the multi-tool I drew earlier in the week. Lots of lovely detail in the mechanics of the tool which allows the jaws to open and close, but to fold away again when you’re finished. Cleverly designed.

I forgot to post a photo of the Challah bread I made. As you can see we really needed to test it, even before I could get the photo taken. It’s just as nice today.

No plans for tomorrow. Scamp and Veronica are out in the morning, so I might get some painting done.

 

The Fort and the Vogon – 12 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

This morning we were off to the great shopping extravaganza that goes by the name of The Fort. Before we went I started today’s bread of which more later.

We were out to get a new duvet. One for the spare bedroom. We had taken a few of them away to the skips some weeks ago. This one would replace them. I let Scamp do the choosing because she had a better idea of what she wanted. It was quickly chosen and I volunteered to wait in the queue to pay for it while she went to peruse what was available for the woman about town these days. It’s just so strange to be able to go in to an actual shop and touch things again, rather than page through a listing on a computer screen seeing things in 2D but not being able to imagine what they really look like.

I dumped the duvet in the car and went for a browse in Waterstones. I saw a few books by authors I like, but have missed on shelves in stores that have been boarded up for six months or more. I felt like I’d been marooned on a desert island since some time last year. I didn’t buy anything, but added a few names to my wish lists. We were both window shopping today, I think.

I did buy something in Boots, eventually. I needed a new cutter for my electric razor. I found it without any problem, but when I went to pay it was a different story. After I scanned the offending article and placed it in what I thought was the out tray the computer voice told me to place it in the correct area. So which one is the correct area? Neither of them were marked IN or OUT. I assumed the wrong tray, but without any hint from the machine how was I to know? When I tried to pay I was told to wait for an assistant. The bloke behind me was the assistant and he told me he had to sign me off because the thing I’d bought was a “restricted item”. I asked him why and he told me it was because it was a razor. I tried to complain that it was an electric razor, but to no avail. “Resistance is Useless” as Douglas Adams’ Vogon Captain said! He then took the razor head away to remove the security tag. I told him to be careful he didn’t cut himself but all I got was a blank look. Now he might have been smiling behind the mask, but I don’t think he’d been on the “Smile at the customer” course yet. Boots used to be a good place, now the machines are against you and the assistant don’t assist with a smile.

Back home for lunch. We’d intended going to Costa, but the queue was far too long. Heavens, there was even a queue for Starbucks and they don’t even sell coffee, they sell Starbucks and you probably don’t want to know what’s in that. After lunch Scamp went to post another birthday card. I stayed home and struggled with another hard Sudoku after that, the rain came on. That gave me the incentive to finish this month’s bread which was Challah. It was lovely tasting bread, but oh what a faff to make. Dough was made from flour, yeast, sugar, salt, vegetable oil, two eggs, milk and water. Try kneading that for ten minutes. It’s a tough job being a baker. Anyway, the hard part was still to come. The dough had to be cut into six equal parts and each part was to be rolled out until it was 45cm long. It felt as if it was made of rubber. As soon as I’d stretched it and rolled it out, it shrank back to about half its size. Then the six sausages had to be plaited into a loaf. Mine looked ok, as long as you didn’t look too carefully. I allowed it to rise, then baked it after a final wash with beaten egg. It looked and tasted lovely when it came out he oven. I was impressed.

Went over to St Mo’s to unwind and see if there was anything interesting. PoD finally went to a dandelion trio. One bald one with all the ‘parachutes’ blown away. One with the ‘Dandelion Clock’ still intact and one bright yellow flower still to go through the metamorphosis. A picture of a neat little hoverfly, the first one I’ve captured this year almost made it, but not quite.

Sketch of the day was a pile of dishes which was what the prompt asked for. I was quite pleased with the result.

Tomorrow we have no plans, although the weather looks wet.

Rain – 10 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

That could have been the callsign for the day. Rain … Dry … Repeat!

In the morning, Scamp braved the rain and wind to go to Condorrat to post a birthday card for Moira. I stayed in and painted the first of two paintings to get my EDiM back on track. I also performed some open heart surgery on the new Oly which not only had a hair on the sensor, but also a tiny wee speck of something sticky too. It might have been a bit of sap from the trees in St Mo’s, or a bit of chewing gum (joke!). Whatever it was, it would need a wet clean to get rid of it. At the weekend I’d found an unopened pack containing three swabs and a tiny little bottle of expensive sensor cleaner. They were actually meant for an APS-C sensor, but I knew that the long edge of the MFT sensor is almost the same size as the short edge of an APS-C, so they would fit with a downward stroke on the Oly. I realise I should have put in a <Technospeak> warning before that explanation, but you’re a big boy now and can take the occasional bit of Technospeak, JIC.
Two wipes with the swab and it was done and I now have a clean, unsticky sensor again.

When Scamp returned, dry, from Condorrat we had lunch which was yesterday’s Chicken and Black Beans, and watched the rain for a while before I started on the second painting. I was almost finished when there was a knock at the door. I’d completely forgotten we were getting a Tesco order today, and here was the poor bloke standing in the rain with the baskets. Quickly got the baskets emptied and returned then stored the groceries in the appropriate racks. After that I finished off the painting while Scamp read.

After checking the weather, we decided we’d manage a walk in St Mo’s, maybe even a couple of circuits of the pond, and that’s what we did. I got my PoD which is a fern ‘crozier’. I also found a bramble bush with last year’s leaves still attached in their autumn colours. Autumn leaves in May! These particular leaves have survived the winter snow and winds and are still hanging in there.

Dinner was a lighter than normal tomato pasta because we’d had a fairly substantial lunch. Later we had a couple of runs through the Bellissimo Cha-Cha we’d started yesterday, a couple successful turns of Catherine Waltz and finished up with a Tango.

That was about it for a warm but wet Monday with temperature reaching 15º. Out to lunch tomorrow, with the chance of some landscape photography if the weather is obliging.

 

We went shopping – 9 May 2021

Posted on by Zogman

In the morning we went shopping for chicken and fruit and stuff.

I was a bit of a mixed bag of weather today. Some light rain and a few gusts of wind, but overall, quite a good day. We went shopping in the morning, just down to the shops with a walk around St Mo’s for me flung in for good measure. That’s when I got today’s PoD. It was a wee daisy sitting up proud against the sky, with a dandelion flower as supporting act. Walking across the boardwalk I got caught in one of those April showers that come in May. It was heavy, but only lasted for a few minutes. Just one circuit of the pond, then it was time to go home for lunch.

Later in the afternoon I went for a second bite of the cherry and found a great swathe of small white flowers. I couldn’t remember their name at first, but knew they was related to Oxalis, then the name came to me, Wood Sorrel. They were interesting, but not as interesting as the Daisy and Dandelion combination from the morning. It wasn’t until I was looking at the photos of the Daisy that I noticed a big straggly ‘dust bunny’. Dust bunnies are small dark dots on a photo and are caused by dust particles on the sensor. This was a bit of hair or a fibre from a jacket. It was easy to remove from the sensor, but the picture took a while to clean up. I’ll probably need to clean the sensor tomorrow to remove any residue.

Dinner tonight was courtesy of Scamp and was Chicken Chilli Pot and although the promised heat was turned down, it was tasty and there’s more left for tomorrow’s lunch.

Dancing tonight started with the Catherine Waltz. We seemed to do well enough to be awarded a ‘pass’. Next was a Cha-Cha and I found it hard to keep up with the music. I’d eventually managed to put together all the parts in the right order, but my feet kept going in the wrong place and too far behind the music! Lastly it was the Midnight Jive which I’m beginning to get to grips with. An exhausting hour.

Spoke to JIC later and hear all his news for down south. How strange it must be to go in to work one day a week and work from home all the rest of the time. I find it hard to come to terms with things like that these days, but for those who need to do it, it must be an even stranger feeling.

Didn’t quite have enough time for today’s sketch but I’m hoping to catch up with the work tomorrow. That and also the sketch for tomorrow, plus, of course the PoD. So glad I don’t have to go in to work, even for one day!

We needed some rain for the garden – 8 May 2021

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Today we got it.

We went out for a walk in the morning when it was just a drizzle that was falling from the sky. If we’d gone out half an hour earlier we’d have had a dry walk, but then again, if we’d gone out half an hour later we’d have been soaked. We just got a little bit wet. Came home, had a coffee and sat and watched the rain. I hadn’t taken one photo on the morning walk. I just hoped it would dry up later and I’d get the chance to capture some photons.

Lunch was Tortellini fairly fresh stuff, soft and tasty. Not like the dried pasta variety which never really softens properly until you boil it for ages, then you lose all the stuffing. Like most things, it’s worth the extra to get good pasta. Struggled with Lightroom after lunch. I don’t know what the problem is. I blamed the virus killer I installed, but now I’m thinking it’s the update to Mojave (MacOS 10.14) that Lightroom doesn’t like. There are some folk writing on the InterWeb about it and I’m beginning to think it’s true, because the new laptop is running Catalina (MacOS 10.15) and it just refuses to allow Lightroom to install on it. Perhaps Mojave was the thin end of the wedge and it just causes problems for my long in the tooth, old Lightroom. Such a pity, because up until now it has been bombproof. Still, nothing lasts for ever.

Finally I gave in. The birds were singing, which is usually a sign of a dry spell. I put my boots on and grabbed the camera. Scamp was hard at work preparing a rhubarb pie and a small apple pie to go with tonight’s dinner which was Giant Fish Fingers, New potatoes and Marrowfat Peas. I did get some photos on the new Oly. My favourites were the Cowslip flowers with the raindrops still fresh on them and one of them got PoD. Actually the rain was still falling, but I didn’t mind it much. I stood watching the swallows dive and spin around St Mo’s pond catching insects on the wing and occasionally just skimming across the surface of the pond, presumably catching them as they hatched and lay defenceless on the surface film. Fascinating to watch, but pointless to try to catch. That’s not to say I didn’t try.

Dinner was as excellent as I hoped it would be and, even better, there’s more rhubarb pie for tomorrow. The two of us scoffed the apple pie between us. Some of Scamp’s best pastry skills on show today with a light, crisp pie that tasted as good as it looked.

A short dance practise tonight just to make sure we can indeed perform the Catherine Waltz to music. I’m sure that’s my problem. Dancing it without music doesn’t seem to be a problem, it’s when we try to keep to the soundtrack that things go wrong. Hopefully tomorrow’s class will show us to be faultless.

Today’s topic for EDiM was Eyes, Ears, Nose, Hand or Feet. I chose Hand and made a mess of it. I know I left it too late, but I finally got the grip of it by making a fist of it!

Tomorrow, hopefully there will be less rain and it won’t stay all day. A little dry time would be good, weather fairies. If you’re listening.