Category: weather

A day in town – 15 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was determined to go into Glasgow today despite her heavy cold.  I needed my ‘Pure Afro’ hair reduced to a normal thatch.

Drove in today. Scamp was in no condition to face the rigours of travelling for forty-five minutes on a cold bus. It’s a known fact that the heaters on the X3 bus only work from June to August. The rest of the time they blow cold air. Surprisingly for a Saturday, we got parked on level 4 of Buchanan Galleries without any bother. I’m guessing that Storm Dennis was keeping folk at home. On the topic of Named Storms. I think we may run out of names soon. This is only half way through February and we’ve already used up almost a fifth of our name quota.

While I went to the barber, Scamp investigated the bargains at M&S. As it turned out when I eventually came out of the shearing shop a tenner and a good bag full of hair lighter, it was me who secured the bargains at M&S. Got a new zip-up jumper and another new bunnet for my number 2 Bergy jacket.

We’d intended going for lunch somewhere, but after walking in driving rain for a while, we chose instead to have coffee and a bite to eat in Costa and then deal with dinner when the time came. As it happened, Scamp had made some Just Soup and that fitted the bill for both of us.

Drove home through more torrential rain and Scamp stocked up on alcoholic beverages for her trip to Inverness tomorrow.

Back home I struggled with today’s topic of Rooftops. I usually find roofs and houses no problem, even from my imagination, but today I drew a bland. Well, actually I drew a few things that would have been better if the page had remained blank, so I left it until tomorrow. It’s not the first time this February I’ve had to play catch-up.

PoD was a shot from the JL bridge showing a view of Glasgow that you wouldn’t see on a postcard.

Tomorrow Scamp and her sisters are travelling to Inverness for a ladies overnight, and I’ll probably be getting caught up with my blog, drawings and photos.

Recovery – 14 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

It was a wet day again and we were still in the grip of one weather system with the second waiting in the wings. Where’s the ‘warming’ in Global Warming. All I see is rain, wind and cold.

Scamp’s cold doesn’t seem to be lifting much. We both think it came about wandering around in a cold wind at the tower of London. Most of the day was spent in recovery mode, just trying to come to terms with the wet and windy weather we’ve been sheltered from down south.

I went for a walk across at St Mo’s. I couldn’t really be bothered, but it had to be done to comply with the new ruling that the 365 must continue. PoD is of green shoots. A sycamore seedling pushing up through the leaf litter. Maybe spring will push its way through the storm clouds some day soon.

Managed to clear the backlog of drawings and paintings for February with a fairly decent ‘Day at the Seaside’ painting which covered the Wave topic, followed by a dire black and white sketch for the ‘Light’ prompt.

That’s about all you can say about today, other than tomorrow will be better.

The Men in Red – 11 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Today we went to the tower. Luckily we came back again.

Walk to the station. Train to Wimbledon (no Wombles again!). Underground to Earls Court. Change train for Tower Hill, and we’re there. Tower of London awaits.

Walked to the ticket office and got our tickets, concessions of course. Had our bags searched and joined the crowd for the first of many interesting and really entertaining bloodthirsty stories of the tower’s chequered history told by the Yeoman Warder in his black and red uniform (Don’t dare call it a costume!). Beheadings, stranglings, hangings and interments, they were all laid out in their gory glory. It was great fun. The only problem was the wind. It stole away any warmth in the sun and nearly blew away our Yeoman Warder’s hat. Poor bloke must have been chilled to the bone having to stand there and give his talks.

After our 45 minute tour we went in search of some coffee and possibly some soup to warm us. It was tomato and basil soup and it was very welcome. Next Scamp wanted to see the Crown Jewels. Now I’m not entirely convinced that what we saw were the actual Crown Jewels, but they were certainly impressive. As well as the Crowns, lots of them, Sceptres another bucket load and a cardboard box of Orbs, there were platters, plates, punch bowls (one big enough to use as a bath) and assorted cutlery and tableware. All behind glass and looking splendid, but how would I a non-expert be able to tell if they were real or fake? I reckon the real stuff is in a vault somewhere guarded by a dozen big Alsatians and a battalion of the SAS. The vault itself is on an island with a moat infested with crocodiles and the Loch Ness Monster’s wee brother. That’s where I’d put the Crown Jewels, not in a glass box for every Tom, Dick and Harry to gawp at. They weren’t even in the Tower itself. They were in a building across the road. The Tower is used to display all the guns, swords and assorted weaponry from down the ages. Interesting, but pointless these days. (Note: Some of the swords were definitely NOT pointless. They had very real points.). It was the tower that provided the PoD.

When we’d had our fill of riches and weapons and been told all the blood-thirsty stories, we took the trains back to Hazy’s and dinner. It was good to be somewhere warm after all that freezing wind.

Today’s prompt was ‘Burn’. My take on it was burning the candle at both ends. We all do it. We all think we’re getting away with it, but sooner or later, that plan of action will catch up with us.

Windy Willy – 9 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Windy Willy was doing his best to make life difficult today.

Actually, Willy had nothing to do with it today. The trouble was all caused by Storm Ciara as it swept in from the Atlantic. Even in Hazy’s fairly sheltered bungalow, the wind was fairly thumping the roof as it bounced around the houses.

The storm didn’t stop Canute and Delia arriving and taking us to lunch. Just the two of us because Hazy chose to stay and rest after the excitement of JIC and Sim’s visit and the revelations after dinner. We drove to Chessington Garden Centre. I didn’t think it would be open with all the storm warnings and Canute said there were a few trees blown down near them. However, we needn’t have worried. There were hungry people out there with money to spend, so the garden centre was open and doing a brisk trade in meals.

After lunch we browsed what was available in the garden part of the garden centre. Scamp wanted to pot up a London Pride which my mum always called Nancy Pretty so we got a bag of compost an a pot. Canute and Delia also bought something, but it’s redacted until ND comes home.

Canute drove us back thorough more stormy weather, flooded roads, road works fences spread across the road, tree branches blown down, the usual aftermath of a storm, except the storm was still there as the news broadcasts were happily telling us.

PoD turned out to be a fig still clinging on to the tree in H&N’s front garden.  SoD was a padlock because the prompt was “Lock”.  For some reason ink drawings get fewer ‘likes’ than watercolours in EDiF and 28 DL.  Must try a pencil sketch soon to see how that fares.

Tomorrow we may go to Epsom if the storm has subsided a bit.

Tiger – 4 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

A beautiful bright morning. Seemed a shame to waste it.

Drove over to Drumpellier Park and walked round the loch in the sunshine. On the far side of the loch the water had overflowed into the bank of trees and it looked just like a mangrove swamp. We were expecting to see crocodiles in the water and a snake or two hanging from the trees, but all we saw were a gang of Mallards quacking away as they paddle through the maze of tree trunks. We went for a coffee in the wee cafe, at least it was coffee we asked for, but I think we got Babychinos instead. There certainly wasn’t much coffee in evidence. The place seemed to be full of mums and babies, three of whom were having a laughing competition to see who could make the most noise. Even the scones were a disappointment today. Not a good day at the cafe.

Drove home and after lunch I thought I should start today’s sketch and the topic was Tiger. I’d thought of doing a Tiger Lily or a De Havilland Tiger Moth, but finally put pen to paper and copied a tiger from a Google Images shot. My first attempt wasn’t all that good, so I tried a practise piece on my doodle sheet, beginning with the nose rather than the eyes. Then the beast you see above appeared through the doodles! It became PoD.

Scamp and I were discussing PoDs this morning and I was admitting that the quality of my PoDs of late has not been really worthy of the name. On dull, wet, dark days it’s difficult to find suitable subjects for the PoD, or even a decent photo to put into the 365. I’m loathe to stop the 366, but I have to say that the time it takes to make a silk purse from a pig’s ear photo, even in the best of software is disproportionate to the quality of the finished product. Also, taking the photos, processing them, sketching something that fits the February day’s prompt and then posting both shots, plus the blog takes a lot of time. As some of you will have noticed, if anything else happens on any given day, the blog is the one that suffers and I find myself playing catch-up next day.

With that in mind, and it being February, I intend to still take a photo if the light and the weather suits, but hopefully I’ll manage to complete a drawing or painting from the month’s list and this will become PoD. Hopefully once February is over and we are into the lighter days of March there will be more opportunities for photos DV. If not, then I will probably suspend the 366 and just post the occasional good quality photo.

Plans have been made for tomorrow. Hoping for some decent light to get some photos too.

Dreadful Dancing – 3 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

But before we come to that, it was a windy, wet day, but I posted a letter, solved a problem (perhaps), got rid of some stuff and I got one decent shot.

So, with Gems coming today and no Margie because she’d called off, I grabbed the letter and a bag of old laptop batteries and went out to solve a problem. The problem was the poor mpg on the Juke. I took JIC at his word and checked the tyre pressures. Front 31psi should be 36. Rear 29psi should be 31. The rear ones weren’t a problem, but the front ones certainly were. Crouched in a heavy rain shower and got them all up to the recommended pressures with the automatic pump at the petrol station, because I don’t trust my old pump that plugs into the lighter socket. It seems to be working JIC. Mpg seems to have improved after a very rough and ready check. Will keep you posted.

Next on the list was the letter. I’d recently signed myself fit in mind and body to drive a motor vehicle and was given a new plastic driving licence free of charge on the understanding that I’d cut through the old licence and return it to the DVLA. I cut it up over a week ago and today I posted it away.

The stuff I was getting rid of was a collection of old laptop batteries. Two HP and two Apple batteries. Easy peasy, there is a metal container at the recycling centre where you can drop them off. There’s a load more stuff that needs recycled from the back bedroom, but that can wait until next week.

With that all done, I drove up to Fannyside Moor looking for some inspiration. It came in the form of a bank of cloud lying over the loch. I’ve photographed that tree for many years with many cloudscapes behind it and with varying degrees of success. Today wasn’t one of the best, but it recorded the day.

With that I drove home and started to make dinner. Tonight it was red pasta day. Just a basic sugo with some finely chopped shallots and mushrooms mixed in. Seemed to work well.

Now the dancing. We started with the Saunter Together which I thought we’d mastered, but I was wrong. After a couple of dummy runs we did a passable version of the first part, but the second part still eludes me. Next was Foxtrot and I was confident we’d have that off pat. Again I was wrong. We just kept making mistakes. I got lost. Scamp was determined to turn the opposite way from the one I was trying to turn her in (for once, I was right too!). We just made a pig’s ear of it. Finally the Waltz, and finally we found we could dance that. Not perfectly, but definitely much the best of all tonight’s dances. Only stayed for an hour because our brains were befuddled.

Came home and I sketched tonight’s Burger. I don’t like salad on my burger and I detest mayo on it too, so my burger is a hamburger with a nice piece of melted cheese. If I’m going to have to draw and paint it, I might as well make it the burger I’d actually eat.

So, some successes and some work in progress. Wind seems to have died down a lot after a very stormy night last night. That said, it was sleet that was falling when we were on the way to the dance class tonight.

Tomorrow no real plans. Maybe move the settee round and clear the floor for some Foxtrot practise.

I saw shadows today – 2 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

It was another of those dull days we’ve grown to accept this January and February. I went out for a walk and saw some shadows.

You don’t get shadows on a dull day. They only appear when there’s direct sunlight. It didn’t last long, but I managed to get a few shots in the time it was there. One of them became PoD and that’s what you see above.

Earlier, in the morning to be more exact, I started to recover the back room from the piles of rubbish and not-so-rubbish that was covering every horizontal surface. I used my usual FKB method. File, Keep, Bin. Some of the stuff was in the Keep box. Some went into the File box, in fact some of the stuff that had been put in the Keep box got moved to the File box in phase 2. The remainder dropped into the Bin which is now overflowing. The bonus from this is that I’ve once again found the top of the chest of drawers and with just a little more work, I’ll be able to sit on the sofa.

Later in the afternoon, I went out in the rain to try to find some photos, that’s when I found the sunlight and grabbed my few shots. Back home I started to make dinner – paella. We were just finishing dinner when Scamp’s phone announced that tonight’s Sunday Social had been cancelled because the Record Factory was hosting a Super Bowl evening instead. I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes when Shannon goes eyeball to eyeball with them tomorrow. That Canadian snarl will freeze them to the floor. Seriously though, 15 minutes before the social was due to start and we get a message to say it’s been cancelled. Somebody somewhere has some explaining to do.

At least it gave me an extra two or three hours to get my February drawing done. Today’s topic was Paris and rather than do the usual and expected Eiffel Tower, I drew one of the gargoyles from Notre Dame. The purists will know that you can’t actually see the Eiffel Tower from this angle, but that’s what artistic licence was designed for.

Tomorrow is a Gems day. I’m hoping for another few minutes of shadows to allow me to grab some more photons.

A Day in Perth – 1 February 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Just a gentle drive up the M9.

Drove up the M9 at a sedate 63mph trying to find out why the Juke doesn’t seem as economical as it used to be. It could be JIC’s suggestion of the new tyres or possibly they are under inflated, but the fuel consumption was extra poor today. Can’t explain it. Saw the new Juke in the shopping centre in Perth. The ergonomics of the controls on the steering wheel seem to be even worse that the Red Juke’s. Not sure I like it. Of course the display model was top of the range, so not a real comparison with ours.

Anyway, we’d hoped we’d be driving away from the rain today, but that wasn’t to be. It followed us up the road and dumped even more of the wet stuff on us. Took back a pair of summer sandals that didn’t fit Scamp and got some bags of coffee and tea then drove back down the road again getting the same mpg as we had going. One brighter was driving along past Stirling with a rainbow arching over us as we drove. It seemed to be keeping pace with us. Never seen that before.

PoD was the ‘Perth Moonshot’ which was an old church with masses and masses of scaffolding shrouding it. It looked like Cape Kennedy with the nose cone of a rocket just showing above the scaffolding.

Back home it was soup and bread for dinner. Both were deemed great.

First drawing done for EDiF (Every Day in February) and 28 Drawings Later, both on Facebook. Hopefully I’ll get it posted after posting this.

Tomorrow we may go dancing.

Out on the town – 30 January 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Today was the anniversary of the day we first met. A much more sensible anniversary than the day we married.

Simply put, if we hadn’t ever met, we wouldn’t ever have married, but if we’d met and never married, it would have made little difference to us. To other people it would have been important, but to us it would have simple have been a convenience.

We got the bus in to Glasgow today. Not the slow X3, but the much quicker X28 from Condorrat. True, we had to walk over to Condorrat, but it was worth it not to have the bus stop at every one of the 5,000 stops all the way to Glasgow. Well, it seemed like that anyway.

We went for coffee in Nero before we walked down through the town. I watched an older woman struggling with a smartphone until a young bloke helped her to dial her friend on it. After a couple of attempts she managed to complete the connection and asked the bloke the name of the coffee shop she was in. She then relayed this information to her friend who told her he/she would meet her outside the Concert Hall. Again she asked for help from the young bloke, but this time he couldn’t help as he didn’t come from Glasgow, so another couple provided directions (it was actually just next door). We take technology like smartphones for granted and for those of us who are adept at using it, we can find all the information we need at the touch of a button. For others it’s a bit of a trial. It’s easy to forget how bamboozling modern technology can be. I hope she found her friend.

We walked down Bucky Street and I grabbed today’s PoD outside the Apple shop. I wonder how much business SimplyFixIt gets from this sign? Walked further along Argyll Street an up past the old fruit market for lunch in Gandolfi Fish. Lunch was Smoked Haddock Goujons as starter for both of us followed by Oven Baked Cod with Pomme Anna and Kale for Scamp. For me it was Sea Bass and Prawn Risotto. Washed down with a bottle of Italian red. For once we had a pudding: Panna cotta with Strawberries and Basil for Scamp. All of it absolutely brilliant. Service too was done with a smile which always helps. Had a drink in the Gandolfi Bar next door, but it was a dull, cold and uninteresting place. We wouldn’t go back there, but Gandolfi Fish is on our list now.

Bus back to Condorrat and then walked home in a gathering gale with splashes of rain. It didn’t matter, because we’d had a great day.

Tomorrow we’re cooking for six!

It rained – 29 January 2020

Posted on by Zogman

I think it had an early breakfast to give it the strength to keep going all day.

There was no chance of going out photographing today without a pair of waders or a wetsuit. The furthest we went was Tesco to get the makings of tonight’s dinner and also some of the makings of Friday night’s dinner. At Tesco I bumped into the bloke who used to own the garage we always took our cars to. Now his sons run the place and he’s retired. I asked him how he was getting on with having so much time to himself and although said he was keeping busy, I didn’t get the impression that he was totally relaxed with it. It takes a while to leave one lifestyle and embrace another.

Back home we ignored today’s dinner and Friday night’s dinner and concentrated on tomorrow’s itinerary and lunch. I think we have it sorted now. Hopefully I’ll be singing its praises tomorrow.

For dinner tonight Scamp made Chicken Cacciatore. It was delicious. I couldn’t attempt something like that. I’d take my hat off to her if I was wearing one.

Today’s PoD was a tabletop shot of my partly disassembled pens and a drawing to prove that I’m getting ready for 28 Drawings Later which starts on Saturday.

Tomorrow, a day in town for lunch and hopefully not so much rain.