Category: weather

Out before 11am – 27 November 2019

Posted on by Zogman

Success!

It was a foggy morning, but by the time I was up and dressed, it was just misty. Scamp went out to go to the chemist and when she got back I took the initiative and went our for a walk to see the work being done on St Mo’s and also to get some photos, although the mist had gone by then. Work seems to be progressing quite well. The asphalt teams were still busy laying paths and probably one of them in particular was lying on the paths! (See Monday’s post if you don’t understand that last sentence.). I got a few shots and one or two were worth becoming PoD. But the time I was coming home, the sun was breaking through the clouds and spreading its light on the Campsie Fells. Best of all, I’d just got out before the 11am deadline. Feeling quite pleased with myself.

Drove to Glasgow and we thought we’d danced our new routine quite well. There were some mistakes, but not too many. Then Anne Marie wanted to go back reprise Over The Rainbow. Again, I made a couple of mistakes, but nothing too serious, I thought. AM then proceeded to make me repeat and repeat one of the moves until I said “Enough” and walked off. One way to make sure someone fails is to make them repeat and repeat a mistake they’ve made the first time. As a teacher you learn that three is the magic number. If a pupil repeats the same mistake three times, making them repeat it for another three is going to be counterproductive. Leave it. Move on. Come back to it later when, hopefully, the grey matter has managed to unfankle (brilliant word) itself. But she wouldn’t leave it, that’s why I said “Enough”. I felt bad afterwards because I know Scamp enjoys the Wednesday ballroom and jive class and my actions today denied her that enjoyment. I may go back next week, but right now I’m not so sure, and that makes me feel worse.

We walked back into town to get some Christmas prezzies for Scamp’s friends and while she was in the shop I managed to get the makings of today’s PoD. Like I’ve often said, taking the shot is done in a couple of seconds, the making of the photograph takes a lot longer. Workflow tonight was Lightroom to ON1 2019 to Lightroom, but I was happy with the result. The sky was taken from another photo, but was representative of what I saw in the finder. No, I didn’t use Luminar4 with its AI. I relied again on LOI. The finished thing got PoD.

“Tomorrow”, Scamp says “is another day.” Let’s hope it’s better than today’s disaster.

Coffee – 26 November 2019

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Three auld guys moaning.

The three auld guys in question were Fred, Val and myself. It was more of a discussion than a moan today. We hadn’t met for quite some time, so there was a lot to discuss. Books exchanged, new tech demonstrated and coffee drunk. Even made plans for a bite to eat and a possible pint in Glasgow soon. Thankfully no politics muddied the the waters.

Drove home and found that my much needed tea and always needed coffee had been delivered by the DPD man. Such a clever and useful delivery service, flexible too. Worth the three quid I paid for it.

Scamp wasn’t feeling too great but she was still having lunch when I got back. It was too wet to go back out again and I had no notion of what I could photograph in the dull, dark landscape, and anyway it was raining, so I settled for an inside ‘flooer’ photo instead. When Scamp came back she got a phone call from the doc’s to say that there was a prescription for antibiotics waiting for her. I volunteered to go for it as it was getting dark now. I didn’t even bother to take a camera. Flooers it was then.

When I got back from the chemist and after a quick raid of Tesco, I made some soup along the lines of Scamp’s Just Soup and that was dinner with a couple of slices of good bread. Not home made bread, but good all the same.

<Technospeak>
Thought I could do the fancy 4K Post Focus trick with the new camera but then realised if I was going to use room lighting with low ISO it wouldn’t work. The Post Focus trick takes about twenty odd shots in 1-2 seconds. To get them all taken in that short time, it needs to use electronic shutter and the electronic shutter don’t work with exposure times greater than 1/30th of a second. Basically, this is a bright daylight only trick. Bummer.
</Technospeak>

Got the shot done using the E-M1 and it’s a rose from some cut flowers. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it works, and it’s PoD.

I was playing around with a trial version of a new prog called Luminar4. It has the amazing ability to change the sky in a landscape instantly to any one of about 40 different ones. It apparently uses AI to accomplish it. It really is a brilliant trick, but where’s the fun in doing it instantly when you can take an hour or so in Lightroom and ON1 to do it with a lot of swearing? AI? Not for me I prefer LOI. Lack Of Intelligence.  Typical result below.  Original sky on the left.

Tomorrow if we’re fit we’re hoping to go dancing.

Up and out before 11am – 25 November 2019

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Well, that didn’t happen.

It was a great plan and would have worked too if it hadn’t been raining. To be honest, it had been raining all night and the morning was just the continuation of the deluge. Maybe I shouldn’t call it a deluge, it was mainly just rain in all its glorious variations, but whatever variation it was in, I wasn’t going out in it, at least not yet.

By lunchtime and with Gems looming, I decided I’d go “For the messages”. Scamp gave me a list. I put on my big Bergy jacket and drove off to get some food. Raided Tesco and got everything on the list and a few more things too, and still it rained. Came home, put away the messages, grabbed my camera and went for a walk in the rain.

They were actually laying tarmac on the paths round St Mo’s pond when I went over and I saw the strangest sight. My brother has a saying “The things you see when you haven’t got a gun.” The thing I saw today was a bloke in the full hi-vis rain suit lying stretched out on the freshly tarmacked path while the aforementioned rain fell continuously. I was just getting worried for his safety or mental state when he got up and stretched in a leisurely way. I imagine the warm tarmac was quite comfortable to lie on. I just hope there’s not a man shaped depression on the finished footpath. Maybe a ‘tarmac angel’. Of course I had a camera, but I’d only brought a short lens with me and wouldn’t have been able to get a good shot of it, but what a shot that would have been!

Found a few bits of wildlife around and about, mainly in and on the trees. Tiny wee snail about 4mm long, a fly that presumably had hatched in the relatively warm spell we’re having. Similarly a shield bug, bright green underneath and dull green and brown on top. Perfect camouflage when sitting on the bark of a tree. The fly won PoD.

After dinner we drove in to Glasgow to find that Shannon was taking the class. Big disappointment and big surprise to even the other young teachers. We vamoosed to the kitchen area and practised our jive, quickstep and waltz for a while. Scamp hadn’t been feeling too good today because she has waterworks problems and they were making theirselves felt towards the end of our enforced practise, so we left early after warning everyone coming in that Shannon was taking Jamie’s class. We’re guessing after some research by Scamp that he’d been caught out by a train blockage between Aberdeen and Edinburgh. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and let it be.

Scamp may be going to lunch with Mags tomorrow all being well and I might be having coffee with Val and Fred all being well. We’ll wait and see. It’s still raining!

Dull, Foggy and Wet – 24 November 2019

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Typical Sunday!

Drove to B&Q in the morning to get some Jeyes Fluid to clean our smelly dustbin. We’ve definitely got some. I know because I bought it last year. After spending about an hour searching everywhere it could have been we gave up and bit the bullet. I went to B&Q to spend £3.50 on a new bottle. Hardly worth the effort of searching every cupboard in the house, only to come up empty handed. It was just as I reached B&Q that I drove into the fog. The motorway had been misty, but B&Q’s microclimate turned that into thick fog. Drove back out of it on the way home and it remained misty here for the rest of the day.

Took a walk to St Mo’s in the afternoon to try for some moody shots in the rain. The light was a bit too low for the new Teazer2 to do its best work, but the Oly came up trumps and got the best shot of the day, the little spider on its wet web. That became PoD

Spoke to JIC in the evening and discussed managing people, Welsh folk with guns and sports massage! Watched another slow episode of His Dark Materials. It’s certainly dark, but does it have to be so slow? I don’t remember the book dragging on like this. It’s becoming too tedious to watch.

There wasn’t much more you could say about the day, in fact the title of the blog sort of summed it up. Dull, Foggy and Wet. These days, realistically, if you don’t get up and out by about 11am, you’re not going to get any worthwhile photos. That’s what I might do tomorrow.  One good thing that happened was Scamp making a lovely Coq au Vin for dinner.  We were very restrained and managed to keep some for tomorrow’s lunch.  A great sacrifice!

Gems tomorrow and hopefully dancing at night.

A curry, a walk and a creepy old building – 23 November 2019

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Today we went to Hamilton for a curry.

Yesterday was such a grim day and a bit of a let down, so we decided we’d go to Hamilton today for a curry.

And a very good curry it was too. Actually too much for both of us and with the size of the nan bread in this restaurant, you are really full when you waddle out the door. We walked back into Hamilton itself, although there wasn’t much to recommend it. It was the night they turn on the Christmas lights and as usual there was a fair attempt at a celebration … in the rain. There was a band in the rain and there were dancers in the rain. I really felt sorry for the dancers. At least the band were under cover as was the master of ceremonies, but the poor dancers were out in the rain, some of them lying on the wet ground. Poor wee things. We stayed for about five minutes before we chose to take a short cut back to the car.

We walked through parts of Hamilton I’ve not been in for years, down beside the Cadzow burn. In the summer it’s quite a pretty place with walks along the burn, but in the winter it’s dreich. Did you notice that ‘dreich’ is the number one favourite Scottish word? That’s because it’s so often dreich in Scotland. It was certainly that today. On our walk down to Hamilton town, we’d passed one of the creepiest building I’ve seen in the UK. It used to be a department store and there is a well researched history here: https://bit.ly/2s4yE3p Certainly worth a read.  With the right lighting this really is a sinister looking building, especially from the Cadzow Glen.

Our walk took us right back to the car and we drove home in the rain. It really was a wet day. The photo of the creepy Keith’s Building made PoD.

No Sunday Social tomorrow and no plans made. We’ll just have to see how the land lies in the morning.

Dinner cancelled – 22 November 2019

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It looks like Crawford has suffered again from a little infection. Thankfully it’s him this time not me this. It’s almost a year since I brought one back from Lanzarote.

WhatsApp message from Nancy this morning that Crawford has another case of a little painful infection so they have to cancel tonight’s dinner date. Such a pity, I was looking forward to it. Scamp suggested to June that we should re-schedule. All that work last night making eight panna cottas and nobody but us to eat them. Felt a bit down for the rest of the day.

The rest of the day was a drive in to Glasgow and a walk up Sausage Roll Street for a cup of dirty brown water pretending it was coffee and a panini in Nero for both of us and a walk back down SR Street in the rain to drive home under a cloud, and not just a rain cloud either.

Spent the rest of the day flying planes out from London City airport on X-Plane. How clever these pilots are to thread the needle and land on that tiny strip of reclaimed land.

By the time I was finished, the light had gone and PoD was a panorama of a dull, grey Glasgow I’d taken earlier in the afternoon.

Some days are like that. Tomorrow will be better, I’m sure. We may go to Hamilton to get a curry.

Waking to reality – 20 November 2019

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Woke to temperatures at least 10º below what we’d been used to lately.

Thankfully the wind here was a lot calmer than in Fuerteventura, but the temperature was unbearably low. That didn’t stop Scamp encouraging us both to get up and go in to Glasgow to Jive, Quickstep and Waltz our blues away. Actually, I quite enjoyed it. The Jive was ok with another move added to our repertoire, The Arm Through. We’d actually done it as part of another set, but this time we were doing it properly. The first Quickstep we did was very smooth, I felt, but after that, every one was worse than the last. The Waltz went quite well, considering almost a fortnight without dancing ballroom.

Coffee and a discussion of our merits and demerits then home. I did get a couple of shots in Glasgow. My favourite was the stack of roundabout horses in George Square, but the most impressive was the one of the glass wall of 110 Queen Street. The horses won PoD.

Tomorrow we’re getting the messages for Friday’s dinner with Crawford and Nancy. A trip to Stirling or Falkirk.

All Good Things etc. – 19 November 2019

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One last chance for some sun before we return to sub-zero Scotland.

After breakfast we found those sun beds again and put them to good use, then the clouds started rolling in, but we didn’t mind, in fact we were quite glad for an excuse to get up and go for a walk. We walked round the garden to the manmade waterfall and there stood a heron. At first we both thought it was a fixture, a model to scare real herons away from the fish in the pond. Then it move. Camera out and grabbed a few shots. Moved closer and took a few more, as did Scamp. Finally we were almost inside zoom range and had to back off a bit, that’s how close. We walked through the cave and another photog appeared and took some photos. Still the heron blanked us. It must be really used to tourists in the hotel and the fishing must be good too.

Back to the room and did the final change into winter clothes and sealed up the bags. Taxi was due for 12.30pm we waited until 12.45 and then went to phone the help line. I was just getting put through when Scamp shouted that the taxi had arrived. I went out and all I could see was a big bus, no taxi. That’s when the bloke took my case and bag and put them in the hold of the bus. The bus was our taxi to the airport. I think we laughed all the way to the airport, just the two of us on a big tour bus!

The laughing stopped when we got through security and saw that our flight was delayed. The only one that was on the whole board. We needn’t have worried, it was only delayed by about 30mins and we were boarded fairly quickly. The captain explained that the temperature in Glasgow in the morning was -5ºc and in his words “None of the ground crew seemed to want to come out and work.” I think he was choosing his words very carefully because he really sounded as if someone was going to get one helluva bollocking when he got back to Glasgow.

Flight back was fairly uneventful and we were actually slightly ahead of time when we landed. Back home, the heating was on and the house was warm, thankfully because it was about 3ºc when we were driving into Cumbersheugh.

PoD was that heron. What else could it be

Tomorrow, believe it or not, Scamp wants to go dancing!

Heliotropic Sunbeds – 18 November 2019

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Another scorcher for our last full day, but there were a few clouds in the sky.

Grabbed those two seats again. The ones we could rotate to face the sun. Heliotropic is the word. Lay there baking for a few hours before our peace was broken by Pepe doing his round of the pools. Pepe, by the way is a multicoloured caterpillar with a big friendly smile, and is the emblem of the Kids Club at the Elba hotels. All the kids seem to love him (and at least one adult too). Once Pepe had done his round, we went for lunch.

After stuffing our faces again, Scamp headed back for more sun while I headed off to the badlands for one last walk on the wild side. Today I chanced upon a Southern Grey Shrike that was perfectly happy to pose for me. Didn’t see any evidence of its ‘larder’. Shrikes are known as ‘Butcher Birds’ because they hand their kills on the spikes of bushes. Viscious wee devils! I finally found some of the green and yellow rock plants I’d been looking for. I presume their bulbous leafs store water to see them through the dry spells. I also found a ‘Mother of Thousands’ plant looking quite graphic with its dark leaves against a light sandy background. A host of Painted Lady butterflies and a Snowy Egret completed my collection of flora and fauna for this visit. On the way back I saw one of the blokes with the carabiners and the ropes from the other day, abseiling down from the roof to wash the windows. Nice way to spend your day.

Back at the hotel, Scamp was just finishing off a cup of sangria delivered to her by a dubious Ladyboy with a dodgy lopsided wig. So she said, anyway but she had no photographic evidence to prove her story and she was just finishing off a cup of sangria. I rest my case.

The night was spent packing and consuming a few more G ’n’ Ts. Probably a few more than was good for us, but it was the last night and tonight’s entertainment was Bingo or a Quiz. G ’n’ Ts won.

PoD was the Shrike. First one I’ve seen on Fuerteventura although I did see a few on Lanzarote.

Tomorrow the dreaded flight home.

A sunny Sunday morning – 17 November 2019

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At last some sun and respite from the wind.

Spent the morning sunbathing in much calmer surroundings. Found that sheltered spot again and claimed the sunbeds we had yesterday. Same ones, same spot and just lay there angling the beds round to face the sun. The wind had dropped considerably overnight. This was the holiday we’d booked!

After lunch I decided to go for a walk over to the Museo de Sal and Scamp came along with me. It took us a lot less time to go there and come back than I usually take. We didn’t actually go in to the museum because we weren’t all that interested, but we did take a few photos around and about it. The walk back was much more pleasant than recently with the reduced wind strength.

Nothing much of interest at night. Dodgy singer who sang with a Polish (?) accent. We were not impressed. Entertainment, with the exception of Pepe and Tina, is not a strong point of this hotel.

PoD was some fluffy flower seed heads. Seen on the way to the Atlantico Centre for some ‘supplies’.

Tomorrow hopefully more sun.