Category: weather

So, the plan was … – 6 September 2019

Posted on by Zogman

We’d plans to go for a bracing walk somewhere nice, but the weather had other plans.

Really, what can you do with these weather fairies? They tell you it’s going to be windy, cold, but dry. What happens? Well, we get the ‘windy’, we get the ‘cold’, but in place of the ‘dry’, it rains, on and off all day. They have a great suite of weather tracking computers, but really all they do is stick their hand out the window and that gives them their prediction for the day. It wasn’t really as bad as that, but it was quite bad. The sun shone for a short while in between the showers and then, later on, just before sunset, the sun shone, when it was far too late to go out for a bracing walk anywhere.

We did manage a wee run to the new shops for some essential provisions. Basically bread, fruit and fish. Later in the afternoon I managed to get an hour almost dry down the Luggie Water, but no butterflies were flying, no hover flies were hovering and only one solitary bee was buzzing. My PoD was a snail, snailing away up a cow parsley stem. Not much, but the best of a bad lot.

On the way back I thought I’d drop in at M&S for a wee bottle of Rosé and some chicken for a snack tonight or tomorrow. Also bought a pot of Basil that I would promptly cut into four pieces when I got home and plant each piece in a pot that will hopefully provide four basil plants in due course. Since I had so little in my basket I thought I’d use the self-service tills. Big mistake. First question from the girl in charge was “Cash or Card?” I said “Cash”. That got the reply “You’ll need to wait.” Nobody was at the till nearest to me, so I asked if I could use that one. “It’s broke.” was the answer. “What about the one at the corner?” although I knew what was coming. “Broke”. I gave up at this point and went to one of the Card Only tills, which wasn’t ‘Broke’, and finally got my three items paid for and as I was leaving the woman at the till next to me was trying desperately to grab the girl’s attention. Presumably her till was also ‘Broke’. Opened on Tuesday to great fanfare. By Friday almost half the ‘Cash or Card’ self-service checkouts were out of order. That’s not good.

Tomorrow we have a plan, but just incase the weather fairies are listening, or reading this blog, I’m not revealing it just yet.

So now we know – 4 September 2019

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Scamp went to see the nurse today, but the news was not what she expected.

We sat about in the morning watching the rain, but our minds were on tomorrow and the rail journey south. Little did we know. Scamp was determined to go to the new M&S shop and we did go along with half of Cumbersheugh. Yes, it looks good, but contrary to predictions it doesn’t have a café, at least not yet. Got a whole bundle of stuff. Some for today, some for tomorrow and some to come back to. Got to the tills just as St Mo’s school decanted all their pupils into the shop. Most were directed to the self-service tills, some waited in the normal tills and the rest shop-lifted. Back home we had lunch and then waited until the big hand was at the 6 and the little hand was halfway between the 2 and the 3, then we went up to the doc’s.

Scamp was in with the nurse for a lot longer than I’d thought, but then I heard her voice saying ‘Thanks’. The half smile on her face told me it wasn’t what we’d expected. The nurse had immediately confirmed it wasn’t insect bites, it was Herpes zoster AKA Shingles. Now it all made sense. The pain, the itch, the cluster of ‘bites’ that was actually a rash. Yes, she was past the infectious stage but we weren’t sure now whether to go or not. I was going to drive to the butchers for some stewing steak and a mutton pie to take down south, so that would give us both thinking time. Scamp was off into the Co-op to get a cake for tonight’s pudding (sponge with our stewed apples and custard).

When we met up again in the car, she’d decided to wait and see what Hazy said when we could speak to her. We weren’t sure if I was clear of any infection yet, so all three of us reluctantly agreed that it would be best to postpone the visit. Not the result we wanted, but I was relieved that Scamp wouldn’t have to endure a four hour train journey with not even a free bottle of wine to take away the aches and itches. Anyway, it wasn’t cancelled, just postponed.

We thought we’d just have to bear the brunt of the loss of the train fare, but no! Scamp phoned the help line at Trainline and managed to find a sympathetic ear at the other end in Sam, who gave her an address to send our tickets to and told us that in this case she’d get a full refund. Y’see, there are good people out there.

The sun had come out for a while, but by then it had gone back behind the clouds again and the rain was back. I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to get out to take any photos today. That’s why I’ve resorted to ‘cut flowers’ again. Hopefully the last of this month. It’s a close-up of a Chrysanthemum flower that made PoD.

Tomorrow we’re planning to take the bus in to Glasgow to ‘A Play, A Pie and A Pint’ in Òran Mór.

A sign of things to come perhaps – 3 September 2019

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Today the Red Juke was going in for service and I had a courtesy car booked and it was a surprise!

Drove to Stirling in the morning and was passing the ‘New Shops’ just around 9.30am. The new M&S food store was opening at 10am and the crowds, half an hour before it opened were a very, very long snaking queue along the shop frontage, along part of the car park and down the side of the building. At a guess, I’d say between 500 and 700 people were standing in the rain hoping for one of the Golden Tickets that would give them up to £200 worth of shopping vouchers and a bad dose of the flu in to the bargain. I phoned Scamp to warn her that she was too late already. She just laughed

I had to wait half an hour for the courtesy car to be delivered, but when it arrived it was a ’19 plate Micra. Then the service manager dropped the bombshell. It was also an Automatic. I’ve only rarely been in an automatic car and certainly never driven one. How was I going to get this home? Luckily the lady was very positive about it and explained quietly how it worked and drove me round the block. She then offered to sit with me to allow me to get used to driving it round the block. Oh dear I must have looked terrified, but I took her up on her offer anyway. Then it was time for me to ‘go solo’. Despite knowing that there was no gearstick, I still tried to change up and down with the drive selector for the first few roundabouts, then concentrated a bit more and found it was quite a natural way to drive. When I got it home, I took Scamp out for a drive, but she refused to have a go. It’s amazing how quickly you adapt to a completely new driving style. By the time I was taking it back, it was as natural as any other car I’ve driven.

When I got to the garage the same lady came to deal with me and all I said was “Well, that was a lovely car.” I didn’t add “I want one.”, but she knew that was in my head. However, outside was a shiny clean Red Juke that will need two new front tyres this year, so I put the thoughts of an Automatic Micra to the back of my mind for now, paid for my day’s insurance and left with a smile on my face. Western Nissan aren’t so bad after all.

The drive back home took almost twice as long as going, because everyone in Central Scotland seemed to want to go the same way. I was hungry and was looking forward to Scamp’s Prawn Stir Fry for dinner, otherwise I’d have taken it for a run away from the motorway bizz to test out the updated sat nav card they’d plugged in as part of the service. Maybe we’ll get a chance to try it out tomorrow.

PoD was a shot of the last of Scamp’s sweet peas standing up to the incessant rain today. We were promised some sun. We got rain instead.

No dancing tomorrow because Scamp has an appointment with the doc to check out the insect bites she’s got, and no other plans. No dancing at night either because Jamie the Salsa teacher won’t be there. Even worse, he won’t be there next week either.

A man with a plan – 2 September 2019

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Today I had plans to organise a busy day. They sort of worked too.

Today was a Monday and Mondays can be split easily into three parts. Morning – Just relax, because it’s going to get busy later
Afternoons – Get out of the way of Gems for a couple of hours
Evenings – Another couple of hours and it’s time for bed.

In the morning I put the finishing touches to the picture of the four apples I’ve been messing around with. It started out as a wet-in-wet watercolour. That rarely works, but when it does it looks great. It didn’t work. The rule then is if there’s enough good stuff in it, try wet-on-dry and add ‘glazes’ and see if that improves the situation. That can work. If it doesn’t, just tear it up. You’re wasting your time. I tried ‘glazes, which are layers of thin, transparent watercolour that gradually build up a range of colours. So far I’m happy with it. It’s certainly better than it was yesterday. I will do no more to it.

By the time I got it looking reasonable, it was lunchtime and after lunch, Gems would descend and I’d get away. Today I’d to take some rubbish to the local tip, then collect my stuff from Colin and finally post a CD to Crawford & Nancy. I actually got all those done in a couple of hours, which pleased me.

Then it was time to make dinner after a quick flight in X-plane 11. I’m still not getting the hang of flying with instruments. Years ago I could do this quite simply. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong now. More practise required.

After dinner we were out to Salsa and learned a couple of new moves called, confusingly New Move, New Move 2 and Other New Move. Stayed for two classes, but was getting bored and tired by the end.

Decided that today’s PoD would be the painting of the apples and so it transpired.  Not a bad day.  Got stuff done, even if it rained from morning until night.

Tomorrow I’ve to take the car to Stirling for service and the rest of the day is my own … possibly!

A better day – 1 September 2019

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One of those days where you just get things done. Well, some things done.

Went out early to make sure I had a photo for PoD. Yesterday I saw some toadstools over in St Mo’s and today I thought I’d go better prepared and get some wide angle shots of them. Unfortunately, when I got to the spot where I was sure I saw them, there was nothing there. After a bit of searching around I finally found where they’d been, but of the fungi there was nothing left but a bit of the stalk. It looked like something had eaten them. Hope they were mushrooms and not toadstools then!

I did see a brightly coloured Red Admiral butterfly, but it simply refused to settle on any of the Scabious flower heads. I finally gave up after getting one distant, out-of-focus shot of it, just to check when I got back home that it was, indeed, a red admiral. It was. The Peacock that became PoD was a much calmer individual and posed quite happily for me.

Dragonflies were out in force too loads of Common Darters (Sympetrum striolatum). They are fairly small dragonflies. Red/orange coloured and easy to photograph as they like to sit on the metal strips on the boardwalk at St Mo’s, where I’m guessing they can pick up some heat from the metal after it’s been heated by the sun.

I made some beef olives today using beef ham that had been battered flat to help it roll round the mince core more easily. They would have been good if I’d turned the gas off after cooking them for half an hour, unfortunately it wasn’t until I smelled burning that I realised I’d turned the gas DOWN, not OFF as instructed. Oh dear. Well, the carbon is good for the digestion they say. Actually it’s people who burn things a lot who say that!

Dancing at the Record Factory in Byres Road tonight and really quite enjoyed it. We went a bit later, we thought, but it didn’t liven up for nearly an hour after that. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally by the time I called a halt. Scamp would have been happy to dance more! I think she is beginning to get over the Lurgi that’s been hanging over her. Maybe she needs a wee holiday.

Tomorrow I’m going in to Glasgow, hopefully to get my hair cut, because Gems will be here for their first practise of the new session. That’s usually a good time to be elsewhere.

Flowers, Green Beasties and The Proms – 31 August 2019

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Today we were going to Chryston Flower Show to see how my submissions fared. Scamp declared that she was feeling a fair bit better, thank goodness!

It had rained hard during the night and when we woke around 9am, it was still pelting down. That continued until around midday when we got ready for the show and drove out to Muirhead to have lunch in 3 Regazzi I liked the name, 3 Guys. It was standard Italian fare. Scamp had Bruschetta as a starter followed by Chicken in a creamy sauce, with veg and roast potatoes. Mine was Potato and Broccoli soup followed by a spicy Penne Arrabbiata. Both were fine and tasted authentically Italian. We’ll be back.

Walked down to Chryston HS where the flower show was to be. First thought was that there were a lot more folk there than last time. Also the produce was better and more varied than last time. Flowers were the usual incredibly high quality. It’s hard to believe that these people are doing this, basically, for fun. It’s got to be for enjoyment because nobody is going to go to all this trouble for a £1.50 prize for a First, £1 for a Second and £0.50 for a Third. Like my pal Colin says, it’s not about winning, it’s about taking part. My painting got me a First. One landscape photo got a Second and another got a Third. My waistcoat got a Second, so all four were placed. Result!

After we’d spoken to Colin and Evelyn and after Scamp had won a host of prizes at the Tombola we drove home.

The rain that had plagued us for the past two days had tailed off by then and by the time we got home the streets were drying, so I took myself out for a walk in St Mo’s. Not much of interest until I was almost home and that’s when I found a Hawthorn Shield Bug. Sitting on a Dogwood plant minding its own business, it became PoD.

That was about it apart from listening to a quite excellent concert from the BBC Proms with Lisa Fischer and Ledisi presenting an evening honouring Nina Simone. I was amazed by Lisa Fischer’s seamless switch from jazz to Henry Purcell (which Scamp tells me was When I Am Laid In Earth.). Singing with two microphones, she played some clever vocal gymnastics. I wasn’t so impressed with Ledisi, but she too was worth listening to.

Tomorrow looks like a better day than today. We may go dancing.

A portrait session – 30 August 2019

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Today we were out fairly early to drive to Larky.

We should have been going to Crawford & Nancy’s for dinner tonight, but since Scamp’s pain started, she can’t sit for longer than about an hour without stretching out (which she’s doing just now), so we decided to cancel tonight. When Scamp suggested to Nancy that they could meet for coffee, just to catch up, Nancy invited us out to the house instead. That’s what we did. The best of both worlds. Scamp got to meet up with Nancy and also to play with Imogen, C&N’s granddaughter, and I got a chance to catch up with Crawford. All of that within a timeframe of an hour and a bit which was comfortable for Scamp.

While we were there I managed to take a few (over 60) photos of Nana, Papa and Imogen. The light was really good in their new sitting room although it was tipping it down outside. Really pleased with the results from the E-M1 with the 30mm lens. It’s becoming a well used combination. The 14mm lens would have been too short and would have caused distortion and the 45-200mm would have been too long. The 30mm was the ‘Goldilocks Option’ – just right!  Imogen herself was a great model who happily posed for photo after photo.  Beautiful blue eyes and for most of the time a happy temperament.  Happy for her papa to teach her some basic gymnastics.

Tried to drive down to Asda in Larky when we left, but had difficulty finding it. It’s stuck down behind the baths and next to the new, new Larkhall Academy. I say ‘new, new’ because there have been two new academies since I went to the original one back in the ‘60s. That makes me feel ancient.

Drove home in the rain that had been falling incessantly since early morning, in fact, since last night. Took today’s PoD of a poor waterlogged Gazania in the back garden with a lens hood made from a piece of A4 paper folded in half and wrapped around the lens, not so much to keep out the sun as to keep out the rain. Useful thing to keep in the camera bag.

Tomorrow we’re hoping for a little bit of sun for a trip to Muirhead for Colin’s Flower Show.

Getting ready for the show – 29 August 2019

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I thought all I had to do was stick a couple of photos in frames, but for the artist there’s always more things to do.

After talking to Hazy on the phone for half an hour or so and catching up with all the Wimbledon gossip, I was fairly sure I was ready to start the picture framing.
I was reusing old picture frames for my submissions to the flower show. The painting was all framed up yesterday, so today was the photos. Didn’t like the photos bare in the frames, so decided to cut a couple of mats to clean up the presentation. Those looking at the photos wouldn’t notice, but I would. Couldn’t find my mat cutter, couldn’t find a ruler, the Stanley knife was blunt. I just wasn’t prepared properly, sooo.

  • Clear a space.
  • Find the tools and get them organised.
  • Agree with myself on mat colours and then off we go.

Didn’t actually take that long once I was sorted. Happy with the results, it was time for lunch.

After lunch and under supervision by Scamp, I pressed the waistcoat using her fancy super-zoomer steam iron with the separate steam generator. Now I see why she bought it. It simply does an excellent job, and if I could get almost all the creases out of the fabric, then it must be good. Thanks Scamp!

After that it was off to Colin’s in torrential rain to get the photos, painting and handicraft (because there isn’t a separate category for Waistcoats made by a Man in the show), so I’ll be up against all the macrame, crochet and knitwear. Not that I’m competitive, like! Got some of Colin’s home grown tomatoes while I was there, then it was off to Tesco for some provisions.

Back home and Scamp was looking and sounding better. Maybe it’s the painkillers starting to work or maybe it’s the actual pain easing. It’s hard to tell after just a couple of days, but I’m happy it’s an improvement on yesterday.

I think I may be saying ‘Goodbye’ to the Linx laptops. Windows 10 is just taking all the joy out of them. Last night I was trying, and managing to download a large file from my NAS drive. When I checked on the progress I found the cheery message

”Lets get you back on track”

Windows 10 had halted the download to display this big blue message box informing me that it was about to re-install the update I’d removed before we went on holiday. It’s not meant to do that. It’s meant to return the OS to the previous (working) version, not the bloatware it had just installed. I give up. Because of the weird bootsector on the Linx, I can’t install Linux and be done with it, which would be the sensible solution in this situation. I’m stuck with this half-arsed, laughingly poor operating system. I’ll wipe the drive. Remove the micro SD card and sell the lump of plastic to someone who appreciates an OS that interrupts you every month or so to do what it pleases, not what you want.

PoD is a wee wet flower in St Mo’s this afternoon. Just missing the rain.

Tomorrow we may drive through the rain to Larky to visit Crawford & Nancy – in the morning.

Coffee with the boys – 27 August 2019

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Thought I had plenty of time to do stuff before I went to meet Fred and Val. I was wrong.

Just after 8am and Scamp had already phoned the docs to speak to the nurse. She’d been complaining of pains like a stitch, just under her ribcage for a couple of days. She suspected she had pulled a muscle, maybe when she had been evacuating her stomach contents last week. The nurse, when she phoned back agreed and gave her an appointment with the doc at 10.30. In the meantime, she decided to do a washing. Why waste time she said! Drove up to the doc’s and after examining her, the doc said she had torn a couple of fibres in either the diaphragm or on the abdominal wall. She gave her a prescription for Co-codamol which should take the pain away and with the added benefit that she can sell any she has left outside St Mo’s. We’ll know better tomorrow if the painkillers were successful. Once I’ve coaxed her down from the ceiling.

Coffee with the boys was the usual bun fight with everything except Brexit and religion being fair game for discussion and a severe slagging. However, we were a bit more restrained than normal. Must be something to do with summer coming to an end soon. At least that’s my theory.

Went for a walk in the afternoon and got some lovely close up shots of a patient dragonfly. This was the fifteenth shot in a series that started off with me about a metre away and ended up with the lens almost, but not quite touching the insect’s wing. It’s a game. Take a shot move in a bit. Repeat. No time to chimp, just assume that the shot worked. After a while you begin to wonder who’s watching whom. I definitely get the impression that I’m the one under surveillance when I’m photographing dragonflies. Damselflies are much more shy and timid. Dragonflies are just sizing you up.
Earlier in the day I’d taken a couple of shots of Cumbersheugh’s remarkable architecture, but decided that, like the town itself, it was a bit grey and boring. A bit of sun would have been an improvement, but it wasn’t on offer then. The dragonfly was a clear winner of PoD.

Almost finished making my final selections for the photography part of Colin’s flower show submission. Tomorrow I’m hoping to frame and mat the painting. Such a lot of work for a flower show.

Hopefully Scamp will have a restful night’s sleep and be fully fit for dancing tomorrow. For some reason the pain doesn’t affect her when she’s standing or walking, so maybe the dancing will be good exercise for her.

Another roaster – 25 August 2019

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It was a beautiful morning. Today was set to be another hot one.

Scamp wanted to go looking for plants today to bring some new colour to the garden. We headed off to Torwood to see what they could offer. As there was a 20% reduction on all plants, we expected there to be a big queue, but surprisingly the carpark was only half full. Grabbed a bundle of flowering plants and also some curly kale plus some leeks. Just something to fill up the raised bed.

Back home and after the usual Sunday fried lunch I had a bit of a longer snooze than I’d anticipated while Scamp planted out her flowers, then sat and read in the garden. I don’t know how she can do it with the noisy neighbours, their adult kids, plus the grand weans shouting at each other. I think some of them must be deaf. That’s why they keep shouting instead of conducting a normal conversation.

When I woke I realised I still hadn’t a firm favourite for PoD, so I put a pair of shorts on and went over to St Mo’s to see what was what. Spotted a Painted Lady right away, feeding on a scabious flower. Banged a few shots of that into the E-M1. Got a few shots of a dragonfly too, but it was really far away across the bog and I wasn’t going wading in St Mo’s bog. You never know what’s under your feet there. Well, you do know, and that’s worse than not knowing.

That sort of summed up Sunday. Just another hot day, but finally I have a picture of a Painted Lady to present to the waiting public.

Tomorrow Scamp’s off with the Witches to Glasgow and I’m off the leash for a few hours.