Category: weather

Talking to the big horses – 9 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

But earlier we were looking for fish.

We finally settled on what to make for tomorrow’s dinner for Crawford & Nancy For it we needed some cod with the skin on. To get fresh fish in Cumbersheugh is difficult, but we reckoned we could get what we were looking for at the fish van that hauls up just outside Calders garden centre. Yes, he had cod, but he’d just skinned it, because that’s what people want these days. However he said he was happy to bring us skin-on cod tomorrow. He took our name and email address and we bought, (well, Scamp bought) some crab meat for us and some veg. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get the cod.

Drove back to Tesco and what did they have in their chiller cabinet? Cod with the skin on, but it wouldn’t be fresh, it would be deep frozen pre packed cod that had been thawed out. Fresh cod would be better. It was like a Monday shop on a Thursday but with some extra bottles of wine.

Once we’d unloaded the car, we drove over to Helix Park in Falkirk, which is where the Kelpies live. The weather was beautiful. Lovely blue skies and light fluffy clouds. We had a walk round the Kelpies and then went for lunch in the cafe. It was Mac ’n’ Cheese for Scamp and Lentil Soup for me. Good filling stodge. Then we went for another walk round the big horses and listened to the birds, probably nest building, inside them. An ice cream cone with a flake each rounded off our lunch and although there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of folk taking selfies and photos all around the Kelpies, they stayed serene and the background noises seemed to disappear. We just sat and watched. Of course I took some photos too. PoD went to a shot of Duke looking down at a couple who were photographing him.

We drove home and I started making tomorrow’s pudding which is Creme Caramel. It’s a bit of a faff to make, but not as much a faff as trying to type the Grave accent on a Mac keyboard. I think it’s made now, but the Grave accent still doesn’t work on my Mac keyboard.

Today’s prompt was Hippopotamus! Hard to spell, but almost impossible to sketch. I have a painting, but I’m not willing to make it public yet. Maybe tomorrow morning will be better.

Tomorrow it looks like we’ll be baking and cooking all day.

Dancin’ – 2 May 2024

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Another fun-filled day at Glenburn.

Actually it was quite a good day. Beautiful weather. If it hadn’t been for the cold wind, you would have believed it was summer.

In the morning I was still puzzling over that cryptic message on the iMac. I then did what I should have done in the first place and copied the first line of the message and pasted it in Google. There were a mass of complaints about exactly the same message as I had. It seemed that the problem is most prevalent on Mojave and later operating systems, including mine, Monterey. Most of the replies gave the usual ‘helpful suggestions’ like “Just do a restart, that will fix it” or “Use Disk Utility”. Neither of these work, but then I found a suggestion to dig into the Library module and search for “/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports“ then find and delete “Sleep Wake Failure” in the Diagnostic Reports. That sounded like a solution, but we were going dancing and Scamp was getting ready to leave, so I put the idea on the back burner until we got back.

At Glenburn we were sitting at the same table as Barry and Cath, who are a laugh. We think Barry was a polis before he retired and he now does executive tours of Scotland, mainly for Americans coming off cruise ships, or flying up from London to ‘do Scotland’. He tells some wonderful stories and I think most of them are true.

We danced a bit of everything today and excelled at none. Not really surprising, considering that we’ve had about four weeks without teachers in the last two months. We did eventually manage to almost complete the Waltz Nioli, but it was a struggle. We quickstepped round the hall without bumping in to anyone, but again, it wasn’t great to watch. Our greatest success was the Tango we were learning in Kirsty’s class. We actually finished the routine and it was so good to dance on a real floor with room to move, instead of on a postage stamp.
There might be a dance class on Saturday, but we think the teachers are off again for another fortnight in the sun after that, “Working”, they call it!

On the way home, Scamp wanted to pick up her dance shoes that the woman in Fitness Fashions was repairing for her. We were late getting away from Glenburn, but we did manage to get to Rutherglen before the shop closed and picked up the shoes. Another tick in another box.

I went out for a quick walk when we got home, but before that I searched out that Sleep Wake Failure script and dumped it in the bin, then emptied the bin. It worked! Twice now I’ve started the iMac and there was no warning message. Success!
I brought back about a dozen photos from the walk and the PoD turned out to be a bunch of Cowslip flowers that had been thrown into the pond at St Mo’s. I’m guessing it was some children who did it. I thought it made an interesting photo.

Dinner tonight was Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti. You just can’t go wrong with that!

The first two sketches are done and posted for EDiM. First one, Lighthouse is a bit ropey, but the second, Chicken, is quite acceptable. More practise needed.

 

Tomorrow, Scamp is hoping to go to FitSteps in the morning and I’m intending going back to Larky to get my second eye pressure test.

 

The last day of April – 30 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It seems to have been a long month in some respects and a short one in others.

Today poor Humza went down to the Job Centre to see what they had for an unemployed former First Minister. Poor man. Because he resigned, he won’t get any unemployment benefit. Seriously though, the sharks are circling now, sensing blood in the water. Who’ll be first to grab the sword of Damocles?

We put these things behind us and went for the messages. Traditionally it’s a job for a Monday, but as I was out with the boys yesterday, it became a Tuesday job for a change. No change at Tesco, still no ’Real’ rolls. What it going on with the world when there are no rolls to be found in Tesco. No ‘Well Fired’ ones and no ‘Ordinary’ ones. This has to be the new first minister’s duty, to find out what’s going on at Roll-gate!

Back home and after a piece ’n’ flat sausage for me and some French toast for Scamp, I started again at the never ending job of refilling the bookcase upstairs. Meanwhile Scamp was out doing some weeding. I ended up with a sore back and I’m sure Scamp was the same. But at least the garden was looking a bit brighter and we were finding places for books and stuff to go in the bedroom. Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet Alex for a walk and a blether and I’ll also be taking some books to the Oxfam shop.

Dinner tonight was Haddock and Prawns with Fennell and Leek. A fairly easy recipe that all happens in one pot. Fiddly in places, but basically you just bung things in as you go along. It worked fine, as it usually does.

PoD was a pink tulip from the garden. Sitting up proud and bouncing around in the breeze. It was actually warm today, noticeably warm for a change. It must be spring right enough!

That was about it for the day. Tomorrow a fairly early rise to get the train in to Glasgow.

Old Friends – 29 April 2024

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I met Fred and Val today for coffee and a long blether..

Three Cortados, one each, and we were off discussing what was going on in our worlds and what we were doing. Val had a new whizzo electric wheelchair and we were impressed with its manoeuvrability which he was keen to display. We exchanged books I returned two to Fred and gave him one. Val got another one of mine and Fred gave me one of his. Fair exchange is no robbery! Another round of Cortados was needed to keep the talk going, and I think we spent about two hours discussing everything from politics to religion. Fred, remarkably, had a lot of good things to say about the now resigned former First Minister Humza Yousaf. I think we were all in agreement that he had been handed a poisoned chalice. Val’s wife had been to Tesco and by the time we were breaking up, she arrived and we agreed to do it again in about a month. I think I’ll put a note in my diary to book another meet-up.

Back home lunch was a soft roll with banana and a chance to listen to the resignation details. Poor bloke, hung out to dry by all and sundry, including myself at times.

Later in the day I went for a walk in St Mo’s in the rain.  First rain for about a week, but I got a few shots. PoD went to a close-up of moss, cladonia and some seed heads. Don’t ask me why, it just spoke to me!

After dinner the TV went off. At first we thought the circuit board had tripped, but then Scamp found a message on her phone to say that most of Cumbersheugh was without power. It took about an hour to get it back on. In the interim, Virgin Media claimed that they were the ones who were working on the repair! That would be a first. I think this fault was more like a substation outage, than a Virgin one.

Finally we agreed on a hotel for Gillian and Ed’s wedding. All booked, but not paid for yet. I felt the tension go out of Scamp when she got the confirmation. The delay was mostly my fault for not doing my bit earlier. However it’s done now and we can go to a wedding DV.

Tomorrow is a day for doing the messages. Maybe we’ll manage to get some real rolls, not the silly softies we had today. Mea culpa!

Gardening – 28 April 2024

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Today I was determined to get my next batch of potatoes planted.

Before I could really get started with planting them, I had to tackle the grass in the back garden. Scamp had been saying for weeks that she needed to start cutting the grass and since I had nothing to do and the sun was shining, I took it upon myself to cut the grass. It didn’t take too long, because there majority of the grass was fairly short, but in the middle of the garden there were great tufts of the stuff, so that was where I started. Chop down the big stuff and the rest will fall. That theory seemed to work. Next was the time consuming edges.

My method here was to lift all the pots from an edge and use the mower, rather than the strimmer to cut all the straggly bits in one fell swoop. I did two sides in that way, but the other two would need to be strimmed. That worked fairly well too, except I accidentally pressed the starter and instead of strimming, I found myself digging a short trench in the grass. Now all that was needed was the cleaning of the mower and the strimmer. As usual, that took even more time than the actual cutting. A squirt of WD40 to keep everything clean and they could all go back into their boxes for a week or two.

I’d tested my new potato bucket yesterday and although there were no green leaves poking out of the soil, the bucket allows you to see what’s going on underneath and there were a healthy number of white roots appearing.

Using the soil that is left in the old raised bed, I managed to half fill two potato bags and plant three seed potatoes in each one. With the tops rolled down to hopefully keep them open, they are now sitting under the old Rowan tree ready to produce lots of Charlotte potatoes for us.

I had just enough time to get some photos of flowers in the garden before I started making dinner which was Carrot & Lentil Curry. Not long after I’d taken the photos and had the curry bubbling away, I got a text from Scamp to say that they had missed the connection for Glasgow at Perth. The Witches weekend away was turning into a disaster. Broken down bus yesterday and a missed connection today. They eventually got a connecting bus after a half hour wait. And while they were doing that I was at home processing the photos.

Best shot and PoD was a group of Honesty plants that just seem to continuously self-seed. Our Magnolia Stellata came a close second.

Scamp eventually arrive about an hour late and I picked her up then we had dinner together comparing our experiences of the days ‘off the leash’.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet Val and Fred for coffee.

Off the leash again! – 27 April 2024

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Scamp was off to Aviemore with the rest of the Witches this morning which left me with a lot of time on my hands.

After breakfast I read for a while before settling on The Crow Road as my target for today. Crow Road is a road in Glasgow. The Crow Road (all capitals) is a novel by Iain Banks about the twists and turns in a Scottish family. But what I’ve always known as The Crow Road is an equally twisty road that climbs from Lennoxtown to Fintry which sits in the ‘waist’ of Scotland, between the River Clyde and the River Forth. It’s a challenging road in a car and it must be terrifying on a bike. Motorcyclists love it for its twist and turns and changes of elevation. I’ve driven it in Reliant Robin three wheeler, but never on a bike or a motorbike, nor would I like to. Today I was driving sedately up to the Campsie Car Park to park and watch the nutters on their bikes, both motor and road variety.

That was one reason to go, but the other and equally interesting was to walk down the path to the foot of the waterfall, the Campsie Falls. Treacherous path down to the rocks and boulders, but not impossible if you take care. I’m too old and fragile now to risk a twisted or broken ankle just to get a photo of the waterfalls. Daft, but not stupid … most of the time. While I was there grabbing photos of the falls, folk were tramping around behind me, just folk out for a walk in the fresh air. I did notice one girl perched on a big boulder, reading, when I made my descent to the pool. The next time I saw her she was swimming in the pool. I was careful not to take any shots of her, just in case, but that water must have been cold. Brave girl.

After I’d been there for half an hour or more, I had all the photos I was going to get, besides folk were bringing their dogs down and the dogs were getting in my way, so I called it a day and started the climb back up to the car park. I’ve heard it said that the way down is easier than the way up, and I’ve experienced that myself, but for some reason, the way back up was easier than the path down. Easier, but not easy. I was out of breath by the time I got on to the zig zag path that some sensible person had made. It took longer but it was easier on the legs and the lungs.

A bottle of water revived me and I was on my way back down the hill and onto the main road fairly quickly.

PoD was a view from the car park looking west towards Loch Lomond. The nickname for the parking place is The Car Park in the Sky! That’s a good name for it.

Back home Scamp phoned to tell me of her adventures with a “Murderer” on the bus who was taken away by the polis. He was over 80, Scamp guessed, and slightly inebriated. He was led off still shouting that he was a “Murderer”. Then the bus broke down and they had to wait half an hour for the next bus to pick them up. Still, they appeared to be in good spirits and heading for dinner which may have been posher than mine, but I enjoyed mine.

Tomorrow, I may do some gentle gardening and maybe a jaunt into town.

A lazy end to the week – 26 April 2024

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Scamp was going to FitSteps and I was left to write a blog and get organised.

I have been keeping a log of my blood pressure, once a week for the last month and a bit, so I got that sorted out first and recorded it in a spreadsheet. I also needed to write yesterday’s blog and by the time Scamp had returned, I had finished and posted it. Then I drove up to the Health Centre to book an appointment with the nurse who asked me to keep the log of my BP. After that I was free of most of my commitments.

We went over to Brodens for lunch. Unfortunately they had a group in from a funeral, so we were put in the upstairs lounge and the poor bloke who works there had to keep going up and down the stairs all the time we were in. By the way he spoke, it sounds like we weren’t the only folk who had been in the upstairs lounge. Poor guy. Food was just as good as usual and so was the pint of Guinness!

Later in the afternoon, Scamp started her packing for her two day visit to Aviemore. I packed my camera bag and went for a walk in St Mo’s in the sun. It was a lovely day and I really enjoyed the walk. So much so, that I quite lost track of time and was shocked when I was walking home just after 6pm.

Watched another silly episode of Glow Up and wondered at the amount of time these youngsters take to put on their, often theatrical, makeup.

PoD was a low viewpoint shot of a fallen blossom flower on the path to St Mo’s. I really liked the isolation of the flower from the trees behind.

I think Scamp is sorted now and has everything packed. I’m intending dropping her off at the Town Centre just before 9am, then I’m coming back to have breakfast before I decide what to do with the rest of the day and where I’m going. I’ve a couple of options so, as usual, it will depend on the weather.

 

Off to Larky – 25 April 2024

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Driving up to Larky this morning to get my annual eye check.

It was the usual rigmarole, reading from the charts and assessing brightness differences between the green and red panels. The “Is it better with … or without? … With or without?”. Then the hated spot the white light test.The outcome was that I’m slightly more shortsighted than I was last time. I’ve to go back in a week to have some checks on my eye pressure done. It was a new optician who looked as if he’d just finished secondary school, but that’s probably just a sign that I’m getting older!

I’d managed to break my old sunglasses earlier in the week when we were in Sunny Dundee and Scamp encouraged me to “get a DECENT pair”, ie not a pair of Poundshop ones. I bought a pair from Boots and they worked well, They would have been perfect to cut out the glare from the drops the optician had put in my eyes today if I’d brought it with me! The glasses were in my raincoat which was in the house.

I’d driven us up to Larky, but Scamp was driving us out into the countryside because I couldn’t see to drive. We went to Chatelherault for a walk and a bite to eat afterwards. It was a lovely afternoon and warm when we were in the sun and out of the wind. We walked over the Duke’s Bridge to the Cadzow Oaks and sat under one of the ancient trees. Then we walked back to the cafe for a coffee and a scone each.

Scamp had to drive home because I still wasn’t safe to drive. I know she doesn’t like motorway driving, but there wasn’t really any other option today and she managed perfectly well.

Later in the afternoon I walked down to the shops via St Mo’s to get some chicken for tonight’s Paella. It was on the way to St Mo’s that I got today’s PoD which is, I think, some apple blossom from a low branch of a tree.

Back home and after dinner, I managed to work out how to get Lightroom to automatically apply lens correction when importing photos. I realise this will mean nothing to anyone reading this, but it has been bugging me for a couple of weeks now and I was one click away from fixing it last week. However, finally I’ve found the answer until Adobe ‘improve’ the procedure. I’m going to put a link at the bottom of today’s post to remind me!

Watched another two episodes of Death in Paradise – Series 1. One of the best nonsense programmes on BBC. Ok, the accent isn’t quite proper Caribbean and the acting is a bit wooden, but it’s easy, relaxing watching. So much better than the last series.

Tomorrow we’re back to normal again, hopefully. Scamp’s intending to go to FitSteps and I’m maybe going to have a quiet hour reading.

Link: Automatically apply lens correction when importing photos.

 

A lazy Sunday – 21 April 2024

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Weather wise, it was a dull day with just a hint of rain.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and heard about their holiday. It seemed to be a lovely peaceful place, but the house and especially the bedroom weren’t really anything to write home about.

We watched a Chinese F1 GP that was fairly eventful at times, but in the end it was the usual suspects who stood on the podium.

I went out for a walk in the afternoon once the rain had petered out. There wasn’t much sunshine, but I did find some interesting moss fruiting bodies with bright red stems where they are usually green. One of them got PoD.

Spoke to Jamie later and he sent us some photos of the house revealed after its scaffolding and plastic sheeting had been removed. It looked very good, sitting proudly in the sunshine with a roof line that wasn’t wonky any more! Beautiful house.

That was about it for this lazy Sunday. Hoping for more good weather tomorrow.

On the bus – 20 April 2024

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Just as I promised yesterday, today we went somewhere interesting on the bus.

Got the X3 up to the Town Centre, then got the bus to Dunfermline our destination and “somewhere interesting”. Quite a comfortable journey and it was good not having to drive. We started off as usual with a cup of coffee in Nero and then walked round to the Abbey which is in ruins, but still interesting ruins. Clambered down a very narrow spiral staircase, which if we’re being pedantic isn’t really a spiral, but a helix. Wandered round most of the abbey and then crossed over to the Abbey Church which is a functioning church, not a ruin. Scamp wandered off to speak to the organist who was rehearsing his music for tomorrow’s choir piece which was written by John Rutter, one of Scamp’s heroes. While they were talking I took some photos of the inside of the church and also found a beautiful modern lectern made from layers of oak and ebony laminated and curved into shape.

From the church we walked down into the park and found the hot house was open, and warm, trapping the sun but excluding the cool wind. I got a few photos of exotic plants growing in the glasshouse. It seemed that the formal gardens were still in limbo. Not quite warm enough to burst into full bloom, much the same as Scamp’s own garden.

By then it was lunch time and we headed back into town and got a table in Wetherspoons where we had our usual Fish ’n’ Chips with a G ’n’ T for Scamp and a pint of Birds & Bees for me. First time I’ve tasted it in draft.

From there we walked up the street. Scamp heading for M&S and me heading for Waterstones, but there was little in either shop to interest us. We walked down to the bus station which, while not the most interesting place, was at least 100% more attractive than Cumbersheugh’s Gulag. The bus arrived on time and we were soon in that Gulag waiting for an X3.

PoD was the Abutilon Pictum Thompsonii or Chinese Lanterns plant we saw in the hot house at Pittencrief Park.

No plans for tomorrow so far.