Category: weather

A day in the Town – 6 June 2024

Posted on by Zogman

I met Alex in Glasgow as usual at midday.

After a coffee we agreed that Kelvingrove Art Galleries would be the best place to go as the weather was far from settled. Sunny one minute and raining the next. Just short, sharp showers. We arrived just after 12:30 as the organist was getting things in order for the daily recital. After a few shots inside, Alex suggested we go for lunch.

We got a seat in the conservatory, and both of us settled for sandwiches for lunch. The building was quite crowded today, mainly due to a number of school trips being bussed in, and also a few sightseeing trip buses arriving. I suppose we have to accept that at this time of year. We usually visit in the winter or the early spring when it’s quieter.

We went back to the main building to get some more photos. Lots of opportunities to people-watch. Alex was off looking for new angles on the “Hanging Heids” in one hall, while I was looking for perspective shots down the long corridors. I found a model of an ancient glider hanging above the Spitfire in one of the halls. I had never seen that glider before in all the times I’ve been in the building. PoD went to one of the long corridor shots.

We did consider taking a walk up to Glasgow Uni to get some photos in the cloisters, but something was said or we turned a different way and both of us forgot to go back. Maybe another day. Instead, we got the bus back in to Glasgow, got off at the top of Sauchiehall Street and I manage to coerce Alex into walking to the WEX camera shop where I wanted to take a look at a couple of lenses. Both more expensive than I wanted, but worth a look. Came away without a front runner. One looked quality, but didn’t quite deliver. The other looked a bit cheap but produced better images. Both are on the back burner for now.

Walked down the shambles that is Sauchiehall Street now. Roads being dug up all the way down almost to Buchanan Street. What must visitors think when they see this level of disruption in what was once the second best street in Glasgow, now a building site?

A coffee in Waterstones cafe and then we were on our way to the bus station. We agreed the next photo walk will be in about 2 weeks, all being well. I got an email from Alex later to say he’d taken about 250 photos. I’d taken 55! Of those 55, 19 were test shots with the lenses in WEX. So, in reality, 36 photos taken!!

Scamp and I watched another Rebus episode an I agree with what you both said about it Hazy. That’s not Rebus. His voice isn’t born and bred Edinburgh. He doesn’t have the east coast lilt, and the Siobhan in the books was nothing like the poor wee girl in the series. Maybe she’ll toughen up in later episodes. I do like Cafferty, though!

I think we may be going out for lunch for the second time this week, tomorrow. Out with June and Ian.

 

 

Computers, Bah! – 5 June 2024

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This morning and some of the afternoon was spent wrestling with Outlook and Windows 11. Now I know why Alex rejected Outlook in favour of Yahoo.com.

It was a simple thing to do. Create a set of photos of the garden, reduce their size in Lightroom and link them to some descriptions, but Outlook didn’t seem to know what to do with the fourteen images. The old Window 10 mail app could do it and I’m sure Alex’s Yahoo could do it too, but I couldn’t find a way to get Outlook to download the photos into a folder. Eventually I found a clumsy solution. I did the resizing in Lightroom on my MacBook Pro and then copied the photos onto an SSD. Sneakernetted it (physically took the SSD) to Scamp’s new Windows 11 machine and plugged it in there, then dumped the folder of files into the on-board storage, avoiding OneDrive like the plague that it is. From there Scamp was able to link the text to the photos and send the file to Hazy, where it just worked! Hooray! We did it …eventually. Maybe some clever person can now explain what went wrong with saving fourteen photos that Outlook couldn’t separate, only download them as a fourteen photos chunk. The instructions said to find the down pointing arrow and click on it, but there wasn’t any $%&*@ arrow!!

Ahem. Now for the rest of the news.

We drove to Tesco to get some stuff for tonight’s dinner which was to be Cabbage, Bacon and Potatoes. Sounds boring, tastes great. Drove home, thankfully missing another rain shower. We had a few today. Heavy rain showers blown along on a cold north wind. Flaming June!?

I walked over to St Mo’s to get a few photos and found the bees were busy in a sheltered bit of the park, feeding on nectar from the Bramble flowers and collection pollen to pollenate other flowers in the process. That’s the way the world goes around. That’s where today’s PoD came from.

Dance class tonight was a bit shambolic. Disorganised and stop-start. Neither of us were really sure whether we were doing the units properly or not. I did take a few videos, so maybe they will make things clearer. Perhaps Kirsty was also having a bad day.

I’m booked for a photo walk with Alex tomorrow. Hope the rain stays off long enough for us to get some photos.

Lunch with Shona – 4 June 2024

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We were out to lunch at La Bella with Shona today.

Shona was running a bit late today, which was just as well, really because the roundabout at Broadwood had ground to a halt, simply because one of the lanes was coned off for grass cutting and the ‘Smart’ traffic lights weren’t smart enough to deal with two lanes trying to merge into one. This left us about fifteen minutes late, but Shona was late too, so nobody moaned. Nobody except me, that is!

Food in the restaurant was good. Starters were: Mussels for Scamp, Chicken liver pate for Shona and Arancini for me. Mains: Penne Amatriciana for me Mushroom Risotto for Scamp and Lasagne for Shona. Dessert was Tiramisu for all.
Like I said, food was good but I simply ate too much and am suffering for it now. Only myself to blame.

When we were done, Shona was going to get a new cover for her phone and, as we were already at the town centre, she walked there. We drove home.

The weather was strange today and it was all the fault of the jet stream again, according to the weather fairies. That and a cold front that was bringing in cold, gusty winds from the direction of Greenland. The sun when it shone was warm and comfortable, but then that cold north wind stole all the heat away.

I decided I’d take a risk and went for a walk in St Mo’s, well bundled up with a hoodie and a raincoat, just in case. The rain did come, but didn’t last long, thankfully and I was glad of the hoodie. PoD was a weather related landscape shot across the pond towards the hills in the north with what might be that cold front blowing in.

I think Scamp and I spent most of the evening trying to work out how to extricate a dozen photos from the clutches of Outlook. Wouldn’t it be great if two operating systems would talk to each other, but it will never happen I fear. Maybe tomorrow we’ll come up with a solution.

It’s been a long day and I’m off to bed. We had some rain today and we’re hoping for some more tomorrow, or else the hose will need to come out.

 

Water – 3 June 2024

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Today, for the first time this year, we watered the garden this evening.

Yes, we had splashed some water on the plants before, like when we had planted them out, but this was the first time the front and back gardens had been given a good soak.  For weeks we’ve been told to expect rain and none came.  Now that we’ve taken the bull by the horns and used the watering can on all the plants, it will probably rain tomorrow.  For today, though, it’s been watered.

In the afternoon I gathered a few bags of stuff that either wasn’t working or had been gathering dust and took it all up to the skips to be disposed of.  As always, there was a constant flow of folk bringing similar car loads of garden refuse, electrical equipment and what is generically known as “General Household” to these great big bins and the crushers were there working their magic to reduce what was once a carefully assembled chest of drawers to matchstick.  That must be a satisfying job.  I saw the delight in one woman’s face as she tipped a two layer glass TV stand into one empty General Household skip.  It made a lovely crashing sound as it disappears into thousands of little chips of broken safety glass.

I drove out of the council tip and up to Fannyside.  It was a lovely day until I opened the car door and it almost blew shut again.  Fannyside is quite exposed and the gusty west wind was stronger than I’d anticipated.  I was hoping to see some dragonflies, but not today, not in that wind.  I did see some swallows, though. I stopped to watch them and a Stonechat which I’d heard of but never seen before. Then I listened to a skylark singing as it rose, and there it was, watching me from the the field. A Fox. It just sat there on its haunches, in the long grass, looking at me.  Not fazed at all but the human with the big black tube pointed at it.  When I turned to walk away, it did too.  I had one last look at it, but it didn’t turn back, it just walked into the water weeds that surround a bog in the field. I did get half a dozen or so photos of it.  This is one of the best.  I’d been thinking of buying a longer lens for photographing wildlife and birds. Maybe this was the signal that it might be a good idea.

Back home Scamp was reading in the garden, so I brought a bottle of beer out with me and joined her.  For some reason the weather fairies didn’t like my interruption and clouds began to roll in and the wind became gustier until I was forced to go in to make the dinner.

I think we may be going out to lunch tomorrow with Shona. Her treat this time.

Down the Green – 2 June 2024

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The day arrived bright and shiny, but it soon dulled down to a white sky.

Despite that, I suggested we drive down to Glasgow Green and go for a walk. We also needed a replacement bulb for the oven. I’d already replaced one which lasted about three days. Hopefully down at Pearson’s electrical shop in the Barras we’d get one that would outlive the last one.

We found a parking space fairly easily at The Green, quite unusual for a Sunday, and walked down to The Barras and it was jumping! There seemed to be folk everywhere, all looking for a hidden gem in the junk pile. I blame Bargain Hunt and such like on the TV. We found Pearson’s and got two bulbs in a blister pack for £3. The rest of the Barras was pretty run down. We walked around it for a while and then headed back to The Green. Even as we were leaving, there were hoardes of folk scrabbling through the broke cups and saucers for a goblet of gold that must be there somewhere.

We walked a different route round The Green. Down the avenue of carefully clipped conical conifers then down to the road that runs parallel to the Clyde. Stopped to take a photo of the murals on the Chivas Regal distillery, then on to the suspension bridge to watch the rowers in twos and fours and some singles going upstream on the left side and down again on the right.

When we’d had enough of that we walked back to the car and drove home. About a three or four miles from home we both heard a roaring noise and a white BMW came scorching along past us on the hard shoulder, nearly colliding with two cars broken down on the hard shoulder, then crossed two lanes passing one car and cutting back in again immediately. It all happened in about 5 seconds. Thankfully I’ve got the reg on dash cam and I’ve stored it away until I decide if the polis would like to see it. I daresay there were a few folk would have their own version of it on their dash cams.

Thankfully that was the excitement over for the day. I strimmed the edge of back grass and then grass hoovered it with the mower. The mower only took about five minutes, probably less to cut the wee postage stamp garden, but it took me about a quarter of an hour to clean it.

Dinner tonight was a trout fillet served with potatoes, chives, spiced beetroot and some salad leaves. Perfect for a day that was finally beginning to brighten up.

PoD was a photo I took on The Green of a lady cycling past the trees. Amazing range of greens in those trees.

Tomorrow looks like rain, but that’s what the weather fairies said about today too, so we’ll wait and see. No real plans.

Dancin’ – 1 June 2024

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This morning we were off on the road again to Brookfield on a beautiful day.

Today we started with Midnight Jive which was ok. I think everything started going wrong after that. The teachers were concentrating on refreshing our memory of dances for the summer Gala Ball in a couple of weeks and they started with Cha-Cha. I don’t like Cha-Cha. I never have and I doubt if I ever will. I knew the dance we were being taught, and we had done it many times before, but I just clumsily bungled my way through it, despite Scamp’s best efforts. I was just glad when that section came to an end.

Next up was a Foxtrot, but to make the dance simpler and easier to dance, they chopped it in half. I don’t really think it made the dance any easier, in fact it became a bit disjointed. I would agree, however that it would be easier to dance on a crowded floor, because it was so short, but it just lacked the flow that the full length dance had. Nothing to do with the fact that it had become one of my favourite dances. Lovely smooth lines that went together well. They did go well before it was made ‘easier’. After a couple of sequence dances we were set free. Maybe I was just clumsy today and that made me grumpy too. Maybe it will all work out next week. I hope so for Scamp’s sake.

Drove home, still in brilliant sunshine and stopped at M&S for bread and cooked chicken. Today’s dinner was to be a salad made to one of Neil’s recipes and the chicken is one of the main constituents.

Lunch was cold ham for me and cheese for Scamp. After lunch we went for a walk in St Mo’s where a Common Blue damselfly made PoD. I was using the A6500 with a lens from the A7iii. A strange combination that didn’t work for me the last time I tried it, but which produced some lovely images today.

A seat in the garden with a glass of wine and a book after the walk was the order of the day. It really did feel like summer which it is today. Meteorological summer starts today.

Scamp turned a chicken breast into a lovely dinner tonight. The mix of dressings made it extra special. Perfect food for such a lovely day.

A bunch of photos had arrived on our phones this morning from Jamie and Sim on holiday in Suffolk. Looks lovely, but I think we have better weather! Enjoy it. I’m sure you will have found some interesting walks there.

No plans as yet for tomorrow.

A morning in Town – 28 May 2024

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Just a morning wander around Glasgow while the car got a checkup.

The blue car was booked in at Macklin Motors for a safety check on the seat rails and Scamp and June were going to a funeral celebration of the life of an old choir member. I didn’t know him, so I just dropped her off at Ian’s/June’s house, then I drove in to Glasgow.

I was early getting there, so I dropped off the keys and went for a walk in the town. I had only three places I planned to go and the weather looked good, although the weather fairies were predicting heavy rain later in the morning.

First thing to do that wasn’t on the list, was coffee in Caffè Nero. Note the spelling. I’ve been spelling it wrong for years! Caffè Nero it is from now on, at least until I forget and resort to MY spelling again. Anyway, coffee first, then plan out the rest of the morning.

Anyway, I walked down to the Apple shop to find out how much I’d have to shell out on a new iMac. The answer was that it would take all my savings, tripled to get what I would like. I found a couple of ‘advisers’ who talked to me in a language I understood. Not ‘Topsy & Tim’, but not too technical either. Interesting to look at the back of the model that would probably replace, my present one. No USB-A (the big rectangular plug we all know). Everything was USB-C the tiny little oval plug that goes in either way round). Much smoother and allegedly a much quicker transfer of files. Sorry, Jamie, just a little bit of ‘Technospeak’ there.

I came out knowing a bit more about the new models and gratified when the first ‘assistant’ said that a seven year old iMac wasn’t ‘old’. At five years old it was described as Archived by Apple!

Next stop was Tiso just 100m down Bucky Street. I’m looking for a new waterproof jacket. My old blue Spray Way has so many tears in it, it looks like the patches are there to hold it together, which is probably what they are doing. I did actually find a Berghaus at a reasonable price and joy of joys, it had a zipper inside pocket. It also had a net lining which means the Goretex lining doesn’t stick to you. It’s on the list to be approved by the Boss!

I just stepped out of the shop and the rain came on. I looked at my watch. It was 11:20. The weather fairies were right! Next stop was Cass Art, for a 0.5mm pump action pencil, for light sketching. I also got a putty rubber to clean up my smudges and some charcoal ‘paint’ to make more smudges. Then my phone pinged to send me the video of the visual check on the car and to say that it was ready. Walked back to the dealership, signed the form picked up my keys and drove home. After lunch Scamp phoned to say she was ready to be picked up from Costa Drive-In.

Scamp made dinner tonight and it was a beautiful Prawn & Pea Risotto. Traditionally cooked, not my bake-in-the-oven one. Lots of prawns and peas and lots of fresh lemon juice to season it. Dessert was an Italian Cream Bun I’d picked up on my walk to the dealership.

Every day it seems we’re finding more things we can do with OneDrive. There are strange restrictions too, like being told I’m using Illegal language is data I’m trying to back up. It turned out that there are symbols that can’t be backed up with OneDrive! Perhaps my new Windows Monkey can explain the next time we’re speaking to him!!

PoD was a photo I took in Exchange Square in Glasgow of a bloke passing a poster in a shop window with a message that read: “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?”. I thought is was comical given the weather.

Today’s prompt asked for A Butterfly. We haven’t had many butterflies visiting the garden this year. It may have been the wet spring we’ve had or the cold, long winter. I had hoped for some Orange Tips or Peacocks, but even they have been in short supply. Hopefully with summer just around the corner, we might get some butterflies fluttering by. We can but hope.

Again, this is a catch-up.  I’ll be glad when  EDiM is over.  The painting/sketch is quite enjoyable. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour.  Then the hard work starts.  It has to be scanned, cropped and exported. Then the blurb has to be written and both the artwork and the text have to pasted into Flickr and then Facebook. The whole procedure takes on average an hour to an hour and a half. That’s on top of the normal photo for PoD. That’s why I’m seriously considering making this the last of these sketch challenges.

Maybe some light shopping tomorrow, but nothing else planned.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting – 24 May 2024

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For the DPD man to call.

Scamp’s new laptop was due to arrive today, but eventually we got the message that it would arrive just after 1pm and as usual with DPD, it was right on time.

I’d forgotten how many times you have to sign your life away when you’re setting up a PC. Macs seem to be much easier and lighter on the crap that comes with the computer and nobody really wants. Eventually it did its inevitable updates and restarted four or five times, then we finally got to play with it, well, Scamp did. I was Tech Support today. The lady in the shop where we didn’t buy the laptop told it was easy to get the files and data from the old computer and on to the new one, but then she told us that anti-virus software was desperately important and that McAfee wouldn’t slow the system. I just shook my head and smiled. I knew she was lying, because her lips were moving. The in-store sales team will tell you anything to get your money and get you out of the store. We had gone by the short cut and ordered online from JL. No lies to listen to, just pay the money and wait for it to arrive.

Setting up the machine was fairly easy, but getting it to load the data and files from the old one took a good 2 – 3 hours. First it wanted to load all that data on to One Drive, got stuck and told us that we’d need a bigger One Drive. That’s when I got hot under the collar and removed One Drive, then put the data back old style by copying it from the backup I’d made in the morning. Now, only about 8 hours after we started it’s beginning to look like a real computer. It’s actually got a nice clear screen and the sound from the B&O speakers impressed Scamp’s musical ear. We’ll see how easy it is to work with after a few days.

I did manage a quick walk in the afternoon after waiting for a downpour to clear. Just a few minutes of really good light, but it cheered me up from the struggle with Mickysoft. PoD was a low level shot of dandelions with their bad hair day look after that rain.

Dinner was Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti (from a tin). Just what I needed.

Today’s prompt was A Tree. This is a tree across the corner from me. Like many of the trees this year, it had no leaves until the beginning of May, then tree and leaf growth went into overdrive. I think it was the warm weather coming after a decidedly wet and dull spell of weather. All the trees around seemed eager to be out in leaf. The lightly sketched car is intended to give an idea of scale.

I’ve just discovered what a good, comfortable chair the Poang from Ikea is. I’d a sore back after all that peering over the laptop keyboard. An hour with Angry Birds on the Poang relieved the pain.

The teachers are back from their latest voyage and I think we may go to dance class tomorrow to demonstrate all the things we’ve forgotten!

 

Raining again – 23 May 2024

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Just light rain early in the morning, but it got heavier later in the day. I think it’s time for the clouds to turn the tap off now.

We had another discussion this morning and decided to order the laptop from John Lewis.

  • Same price as everywhere else
  • They had them in stock (not display models)
  • They do next day delivery
  • Two years warranty

No brainer.

I drove over to Tesco to get some missing elements for tonight’s dinner which was Lemon & Turmeric Chicken. It was the second one this week to turn out ‘ok’, just ok. It might have been tough chicken thighs or maybe it needed to be cooked for longer. Neither of us was all that impressed. HOWEVER! The Rhubarb & Custard Pie that Scamp made was excellent, I thought. Scamp wasn’t all that complimentary about it. It’s a bit of a faff to make, but I’d say it was worth the effort. Plenty left for tomorrow.

While I was in Tesco I bumped into Fred and we had a blether for about 20 mins with topics covering: Chemists, Surgeries and Painting we also discussed Rishi Sunak standing in pouring rain, with no shelter or umbrella, announcing that the General Election will take place on the 4th of July. Why?

When I got back and after lunch Scamp had started making the aforementioned Rhubarb & Custard Pie and I went for a walk in St Mo’s just as the rain started, but unlike Rainman, I had a raincoat on. One decent photo of a field of buttercups. That became PoD.

Today’s prompt was for a Gift Loop or a Gift Bow. Since I had no idea what a Gift Loop was, I chose a bow instead. It eventually morphed into a red bow on a green box which probably held a gift or maybe it would be a Jack in the Box. That would probably have been funnier, but it’s done and dusted now and cannot be changed. My drawing – My rules. The judge’s decision is final.

Hopefully if DPD are as efficient as they usually are, they should deliver a big box tomorrow. Not too early I hope, but not too late either.

Today the rains came – 22 May 2024

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One of those days when you knew the weather had indeed turned for the worse.

Well, I guess the plants don’t see it that way, They are desperate for some fresh water even if it’s at the loss of some of the heat they’ve become used to.

<Technospeak>
Scamp had been complaining for a while that her watch wasn’t synchronising with her phone. We tried a few of the tricks resetting the phone and the watch we even did a soft reset of the watch. Nothing seemed to work. Eventually we did a factory reset of the watch and installed a new update that seemed to clear everything. It only took about three hours to work out the best way forward, with a stop for lunch in the middle. However, we did get it going in the end, but sometimes you just have to rely on your instinct rather than the wahoos who claim to be gurus.
</Technospeak> (Not seen that warning in a long time Jamie)

The next thing to do was investigate the situation with a new laptop for Scamp. Her storage is being eaten away and the battery is failing, so a new machine is on the cards. We thought we’d found an ideal solution in the HP Shop. But then we checked them on Trustpilot and it looks like they are going through a rough patch. Lots of complaints of punters paying for goods that just don’t appear. HP claim a delivery within 2 working days, but 2 weeks seems to be the norm. After another look round the stores, we decided that the HP store are a bit too risky

We’d had some spits and spots of rain during the day, but then the rain got heavier and heavier. I stood at the back door to shelter and took today’s PoD of wet roses in the rain. The title was “Raindrops on Roses. No Whiskers on Kittens.”

Not long after that the distant rumble of thunder came from the east and it rolled along the valley heading west. I didn’t actually see any lightning, but there was plenty of thunder.

When the rain finally abated, I drove down to Tesco to get a bag full of veg to make a stir-fry for dinner. Usually I buy an M&S set of protein, veg, noodles and stir-fry sauce, but today everything was either from the store cupboard or bought fresh or as fresh as Tesco veg is. It wasn’t the best stir-fry, but bits of it were good. Good enough to try again another day.

Today’s prompt was A Staircase.
My sketch was Just an attempt at a sort of perspective view of a dangerous looking open plan staircase. No handrail! No balustrade! No soft fluffy cushions to break your fall. It was a Health & Safety nightmare. Should have a warning “Do not ascend after drinking alcohol.” Parachutes an optional extra.

No dance class tonight.  We’re not sure why. Maybe too many people called off because of the weather. Maybe something came up and Kirsty wasn’t able to run the class. I’m sure we’ll find out in due course.

Tomorrow, perhaps the search for the world’s best laptop will continue.