Category: weather

Another cold one – 17 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

 

Temperature this morning was -7ºc when breakfast was being served – in bed.

I downloaded a To Do app last week and am beginning to use it. I had three tasks for today and took great delight in ticking them off one by one. I even added another couple to the list and ticked them off. How long it will last, I don’t know. Probably until they start asking me for a subscription and start removing parts of it or adding adverts. That’s when it will get the heave.

The first task was to post my calendars to some folk. I actually really like the photo on the front page, but it’s more than halfway through the first month and the poor folk will only get this one for half the time it deserves. Unless, of course, they get crafty with a pair of scissors! I’m not saying what the picture is, but it’s not alcoholic, that’s all I’m telling you. I only did five this year. One for me one for Alex and one each for three lucky people. I strengthened the calendars with some corrugated cardboard, so they should arrive intact. I also spent ages working out how to mail merge my database of “Where Was It Took in 2023” into a Word document, eventually giving up and using first Scamp’s computer and then my old Tosh to do the job. Mickeysoft make some clever office apps, but they don’t give a toss about whether they work on a Mac or not. Anyway, I digress – as usual. At least one of you recipients didn’t get a copy of WWIT2023, so if it’s you and you really want to find out what was taken where, email me and I’ll send you a PDF of the script.

I walked over to Condorrat and posted all three off to their recipients. Then walked down to St Mo’s with the shiny new lens on the A7iii and let it take some photos for me. I think it was 35 photos in total today and about 5 of them ended on the cutting room floor. Not bad odds. Everywhere was white. Not snow, just frost. Best of a bad lot was one of a St John’s Wort flower well covered in frost. Despite being well wrapped up, I was beginning to feel the cold on my face and any other bits of exposed flesh, like my hands. I did have a pair of cycling gloves with me, but they are a bit cumbersome to wear when you’re operating a camera. I was glad to get in to the warm house and heat up some soup for lunch. Scamp was away to a birthday bash at Castlecary Hotel, so she wouldn’t be needing any, I thought.

Next task was to order some coffee. I still get it from The Bean Shop in Perth and get it delivered to me. It’s the sensible way to get it. £3 for DPD to deliver it and about twice that in petrol costs to drive there and buy it. DPD are pretty good at delivering it within the one hour time slot they state. I also ordered a new UV filter for the new lens. The old one I had was ages old and showing its age with a handful of scratches. However it was protecting the lens for now at least.

As it turned out, Scamp’s lunch date hadn’t been all that good. Two of the group, Scamp included weren’t impressed with the quality of the food which is a a pity as it was always a good restaurant. But, as we know, things change.
So it was Mince ’n’ Tatties for my dinner, cooked by my good self and Fish Fingers ’n’ Tatties for Scamp.

We watched the weather report on BBC and tomorrow looks just as cold as today, if not colder. I’m booked to meet Alex in Glasgow. We were going to go to Paisley, but if the weather is so bad, we may, at Scamp’s suggestion, take the subway up to Kelvinbridge and have lunch in the Paesano there, then spend the afternoon in the warmth of the Botanic Gardens greenhouses!

 

 

 

 

Oh what a day – 16 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

The snow we were warned about never quite came

It was actually a bit disappointing. We were ready to batten down the hatches and put on extra blankets to keep ourselves warm and when the first flakes started falling just after the predicted 9am we felt vindicated. This was going to be a real winter. Then the snow stopped and the temperature actually rose slightly, and kept rising very gradually.

Hazy phoned to tell us that they were planning to get out for a week’s holiday some time around Easter. I don’t blame her. Everyone should have the opportunity to get away somewhere after the dull depressing winter weather we’re having. Just something to look forward, that’s what we all need. She also told us about the cats needing their claws trimmed. I’d never heard of cats getting pedicures, dogs yes, but not cats. She also talked about long term plans for a family cruise, maybe next year, with the D’Aguairs.

When she’d gone off to bed again to dream of holidays and cats feet, Scamp and I tried to fix a problem she had with her computer, or to be more exact with New Outlook not providing notifications of emails. I sent her an email to see if we’d fixed the problem and that’s when everything fell apart.

The first indication of a problem was when the email I sent was returned to me with a note from Google to say it had been rejected. It was exactly the same problem I had at the back end of last year. Also I couldn’t open my blog. The blog started out over ten years ago just as a bit of fun but now there’s almost ten years of work in it. That’s over 3,000 pages of typing!

I tried to fix the problem myself, but had to contact my web hosting company where someone talked me through the repair process. I fixed the email in a few minutes once I’d remembered how it was done. The problem with the blog was a bit of code I’d put in the wrong place in the DNS section of the website. Luckily the person I was chatting with online gave me the instructions for the repair and said it would take about forty minutes for it to propagate which is how they described the code being updated in DNS readers throughout the world. I waited an hour, and when nothing happened, shut it all down and went for a walk to clear my head. Got a few photos when I was out, but by then it was 4.30pm and almost dark by the time I was coming back. It took three hours before the blog returned, the email worked and I had access to everything. Relief beyond belief as they used to say on an old advert!!

One of the first shots I took was destined to be PoD. It was a wee robin, well fluffed up to give it some insulation against the cold that was coming tonight. I took it with a new lens I’d ordered on Sunday and which was delivered today in the middle of the turmoil. It’s a heavy chunk of glass and mainly plastic, second-hand of course. Hopefully it will replace an old worn out standard lens I’ve had for years and which doesn’t operate very well now.

Tomorrow I’ve a letter to write and some boxes of stuff to organise for putting up into the loft for another year. Another cold night tonight.

 

 

Going over old ground – 15 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was a crisp morning, sub-zero, but we were going out. It had been snowing during the night, just a light covering, and then a hard frost had made the place look quite, well, … frosty!

Scamp needed either to get her glasses repaired, or a new frame, so we were driving over to Larky to see what the optician or his glamorous assistants could do. Terrible driving conditions, with the low sun shining right into our faces and the road salt on the windscreen having to be washed away every few minutes, but we made good time.

When we got to Larky, Scamp told me to meet her at the Co-op in half an hour or so. I didn’t need to be asked twice. I drove down to Millheugh to grab some photos. First place I looked was again looking straight into the sun, but with a great view of ‘The Boards’. That’s another name for a dam that created a sluice to power a waterwheel in the old bleachfield long before my time. The sluice, which we always called the Lade, is still there, but the bleachfield has gone long ago. Took a few photos there, then knowing I’d lose track of time, I set a 15 minute timer on my watch and went for a walk through Morgan Glen.

It used to be a great walk on a bright summer’s day, along the banks of the Avon, but the whole glen is a bit run down these days. It’s years since I walked along there. Now that I think about it, it’s MANY years since I walked along it, but bits of it haven’t changed much and other bits are broken down and hidden in the undergrowth. I found some Hair Ice which, according to the Met Office “… is a rare type of ice formation where the presence of a particular fungus in rotting wood produces thin strands of ice which resemble hair or candy floss.” As you can see here, that’s a fairly accurate description.

Not long after I found and photographed it, my timer buzzed to tell me it was time to head back. Sometimes when you turn back, the view and the light is totally different from that you saw walking out. So it was today. I took ‘a few’ more photos on the way back. My total for the day was 42 photos, 38 of which were ‘keepers’. Not a bad percentage. Then I drove back up to meet Scamp at the Co-op with her new glasses! Then we drove home with the sun at our back this time for most of the way.

I did think of giving the blue car a wash when we got home, but the temperature was just above zero and I didn’t want my wash water to freeze and cause an accident for some poor soul driving up the hill, or even walking up the hill, after dark. There are warmer, or less cold days to come we’re told.

Scamp made her version of Minestrone soup for tonight’s dinner.  Her version and mine are completely different from each other.  Both of them are from old books and both of them over time have had additions and subtractions from the basic recipe.  Both are good warming soups with loads of veg in them.

PoD turned out to be the Hair Ice, but it was a close finish between it and a photo of a tree stump with ivy dangling from it, taken against the light.

The forecast is for more snow, lots more snow, they say, and down to sea level for all of Scotland. We may not be going far.

A slow awakening, then Samba – 13 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was a slow climb out of the depths of sleep to the reality of morning.

It certainly took me a long time to clear my head enough to realise that it was morning. Too much to eat and too much to drink. I’m usually careful when I know I’m going to be driving in the morning the next day, but I’d so enjoyed the company last night that I’d kind of overindulged.

Once I was showered and dressed I felt better and we drove in to Brookfield in good time. Beautiful blue skies with white fluffy clouds all the way. First dance was a Blue Angel Rumba which I’m coming to terms with. Next was what, before we joined this class, was called the Christmas Waltz, but which has now been renamed the Spring Waltz. Again, I was a lost soul to start with, but I’ve grown to realise it’s not as complicated as I thought, even if it does have a Back Corté. Whatever that is.

Next was the Samba. I used to hate the Cha-Cha until I realised I could dance it fairly competently. Now the Samba is my most hated dance. It doesn’t help when one of the teachers seems to be more critical than is really necessary when ‘helping’ us. She really needs to remember that we are giving her money each week to be taught, not to be criticised for everything we do. Not the most friendly person I’ve ever met. Maybe I just have a thing about some dance teachers. Anyway, I much prefer anything in the Cha-Cha to the Hopalong Cassidy ‘Voltas’ that seem to delight everyone in the Samba. I honestly do not see myself ever dancing this in public!

Drove home under blue skies and white fluffy clouds again, just the same as yesterday and spent the early afternoon clearing up the living room and the kitchen. I went for a walk to St Mo’s later for some photos with the intention of coming home with a loaf. I actually came home with a bit more than that, but with a potential PoD or two.

In M&S I bumped (almost literally) into a former colleague who is now deputy head in Glasgow and commiserated with her because her school is being inspected soon. Right now the big news is the Post Office postmasters and mistresses who have been accused of stealing money. It wasn’t really stolen, it was a dodgy computer program called Horizon that went ‘ape’ for a while. But when I heard about those folk being accused of what amounted to theft by the investigators, I remembered how I felt when the HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspectors) came to interrogate us. These people should be ashamed of themselves.

On the way home I was watching a big swathe of pink/white cloud stretching up behind a bunch of Scots Pine trees and trying to find the best angle to shoot them from. Finally found it and that became PoD, relegating a photo of the setting sun to “almost a PoD”.

That was about it for today. Dinner was much more restrained than last night and was a pizza with a glass of wine.

Hoping to get out for walk tomorrow.

A busy day – 13 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was a busy day today. I was lucky, I was only making the main course, while Scamp was making starter and dessert. Dinner would be about 7.30pm, but the work started about 11am, in fact, Scamp’s dessert was started yesterday and left to infuse overnight.

Once the kitchen was cleared, I powered up the Instant Pot and got it to fry the chicken. That was a mistake, because it’s difficult to get the heat at the right setting. Too low and it just stews the chicken, too high and it burns, and there are only three settings. Even the middle setting is a bit fierce. In the end, I used the wok to fry the chicken. Ten chicken thighs done in three batches. For some reason the three onions that were to be sliced and fried worked perfectly in the pot! Some things work better than others. From there in, it was just a case of following the recipe and after about 45 minutes everything was working well and the Instant Pot was in Slow Cooker mode and just chugging along.

We’d missed a couple of ingredients, so I volunteered to drive to Tesco to get them while Scamp worked on at the ice cream. When I returned, we began deep frying the haggis bonbon starters. Scamp formed them and fried them while I transferred them to the kitchen paper on a tin in the oven.

By the afternoon we could have lunch and rest a while, knowing that everything was fairly well under control and working. Later in the afternoon I took a camera out for a walk in St Mo’s and got a decent view over the pond with the clouds reflecting on the water. PoD in the bag.

It was nearly 8pm before Crawford & Nancy arrived. While I was at Tesco, I’d bought half a dozen bottles of beer, because I know Crawford likes his beer, only to find that he had nominated himself driver for the night! Ok, not a disaster, because I can always drink a bottle of beer!

Dinner was Haggis Bonbons for starter with Chicken Tagine for main, then Homemade Yoghurt Ice cream for pudding. The tagine was a bit tasteless, but the rest was lovely.

It was a great night, even if I did eat and drink too much and we said goodnight to them just before midnight. That left us about half an hour to load the dishwasher for morning and go to bed. Tired, but fairly happy.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing at Brookfield.

Dancin’ – 11 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was going to be a busy day, so I took the opportunity to go for an early walk in the woods.

The sky was clear and the sun was shining, but it was cold when I was walking over to the park just before 11am. That’s early enough for me, these days. There was a time when I was driving to work just after 7am. Thankfully those days are gone now and in the past they will remain. Fewer dog walkers in the morning, although there were some. Mostly it was couples or single walkers unfettered by canine accomplices. Although the weather was good, there were very few opportunities for photos. I took a few, but when I got home and inspected them, there wasn’t much of interest. Anyway, time was marching on and we were going to Glanburn just after midday for the first tea dance of the year.

The hall was filling up nicely for today’s dance. First up was a waltz and we opted for Kirsty’s Waltz Nioli. First track was a bit of a mess, but in the second track I found my feet or more likely, my feet found the script and it turned out fine. In fact, the Rumba, Cha-Cha and even the Quickstep all fell in to place today. I hope it’s not an isolated instance.

It seems that Stewart & Jane have started a new regime where the first half of the dance is devoted almost entirely to Ballroom and Latin. After the tea break, the second half is now almost all sequence dances. I’m not sure I like that approach, I prefer mixing the styles, but I don’t run the show and possibly that’s for the best. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed today’s dance and it’s not often I say that. I think it was that I’m beginning to become more confident in the routines and a lot of that is down to the work Scamp and Kirsty put in pointing me in the right direction. Short routines that can have extra parts added to them or awkward ones removed. After all we are doing this so that we can dance, not so that we can blindly follow the teachings of others.

Drove home feeling that we’d achieved something today. Then when we got home, Scamp got a text from Kirsty to say that she’d fallen today and broken a bone in her wrist and would be in plaster for at least two weeks! Poor Kirsty will be distraught, and so will we! One day back in her class and disaster strikes.

Since Scamp was going to be busy getting ready for Crawford and Nancy on Friday, I suggested an M&S curry might be best for dinner and the suggestion was accepted.

I eventually settled on a picture of a path through the woods at St Mo’s for PoD. It was the best of a bad lot, but not really all that bad.

Tonight the prep for Friday started for Scamp, but tomorrow I’m intending to make my half of the bargain, the main course.

Out on the Ice – 9 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off in the morning to meet Shona and June for coffee and a blether. I stayed at home.

Well, I’d things to do and the first one was trying to locate Katy. I’ve photographed her before a few years ago before she changed her name to Katy. It took a bit of searching to locate her, but I finally found her back in 2017, skating on a frozen pond. That was my intention for today too. I though I could get a few shots of her skating on a slightly smaller pond, a frozen bird bath to be precise, but first I had to find her. Like most of my ‘weemen’. Which for the sake of political correctness can be pronounced ’wee men’ or the Glaswegian ’weemen’ which translates as ’women’ in English. I was sure she lived on the window ledge in the bedroom, but she was nowhere to the seen there. Some weemen live in various stages of disassembly in a big cereal box and a smaller subset of ‘favourites’ can be found in a smaller Lock & Lock box, but Katy was not in any of those places. After Scamp had left, I finally tracked her down to a turned square wooden dish I’d made many, many moons ago, when I had skills.

After dusting her down and ensuring she still had her skates with her I set up a tripod in the back garden next to the ‘skating rink’ cum bird bath. I just couldn’t get the shot I wanted despite using two cameras and umpteen lenses. I finally settle for a hand-held A7m3 camera with 50mm macro lens and got a few shots with of her standing on the ice, looking like the star she is.

It was a cold day, but the temperature must have been just above zero, because by the end of the photo session, pools or water were appearing on the ice. Poor wee soul looked frozen out there on the ice. Back inside in the warm, she got a place on the bookcase while I checked the quality of the photos and they passed muster.

By then Scamp had returned from the coffee and blether group and it was lunch time. Yesterday’s rolls warmed up to hold some slices of bacon for me and an egg for Scamp.

The next task I had set myself was to try to mail-merge a spreadsheet of photo info using Microsoft 365 on the Mac. I had cancelled my subscription a few days ago, but had a few days grace left on it. I tried everything I could think of to get MS Word to work with MS Excel, but they kept finding errors. Eventually I borrowed Scamp’s HP PC and using the same apps and the same data set, at the first attempt got exactly what I wanted. Just to be awkward, I tried to do the same thing on my old slow Toshiba PC laptop and after a lot of huffing and puffing (from the laptop, this time!), it too came up with the goods. I went online to find a solution to the problem. I didn’t find it, but I did find a lot of people with exactly the same problem. All of them trying to get Word and Excel to work together on a Mac. In one case, 695 folk had the same problem as me and Microsoft were no help to them at all. And they wanted me to pay £80 a year for their faulty software? The sheets are printed out now, so if I need a “Where was it took in 2024”, I’ll know to use my old Windoze 7 Tosh laptop with MS Office 2017.

That was today’s two tasks completed so I de-stressed over Fish Fingers, Egg and Chips for dinner, followed by the last piece of Scamp’s Apple Pie.

Tomorrow we may need more shopping to cook for visitors on Friday.

The ice is melting – 8 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

And not before time say some!

But first things first. We were in dire need of food, so Scamp and I drove to Tesco to see what they had to offer. Blueberries, onions, bacon and razor blades were high on the list as well as bananas, milk and bread, but for some unknown reason there were no rolls. Real rolls, that is. There were plenty of those soft fluffy pretend rolls, but none of the crusty or well fired variety. You couldn’t call those soft things “Rolls”. This dearth always seems to happen on a Monday. Maybe the bakers were joining the junior doctors and going on a one day strike every week. Maybe the bakers really are qualified junior doctors and they had been called up to plug the gap in the NHS. For whatever reason, it looked like we’d have to forego our roll ’n’ banana today.

I had a plan that might avoid a roll-less day. On the way home we drove in to Condorrat where I managed to pick up a half dozen crusty rolls for £2.22. I even paid for I using cash. Real, hard cash, coppers and silver coins counted out carefully into the lady’s hand. We would eat a lunch of roll ’n’ banana!

Suitably fed and knowing we wouldn’t fade away from starvation, I went for a walk in St Mo’s, hoping to grab some of the sunshine that was coming through holes in the clouds. Ah, but as soon as I got to St Mo’s, the holes were filled in again and the sun slid from sight. I should have known. Still, I managed a few interesting photos. The first was a hogweed which had been covered in ice that was now gradually melting. The second one and PoD was one of my Dangerous Dan shots. Take an expensive camera with an equally expensive lens. Place it on the ice of the pond. Point it in the general direction of a subject and press the shutter button, lightly. As soon as the shutter clicks, whip it away before the ice knows it’s there and tries to grab it. Of course I’d tested the ice first to make sure it would hold the weight of the camera. A passing bloke walking his dog asked me I was all right, kneeling on the boardwalk. I told him I was fine, but afterwards I wondered if he was asking me if I was “alright in the head!” Maybe I’m not, but I love taking photos from strange angles.

After what I hope is the final adjustment to Lightroom Catalog 2024, I think everything is back to firing on all cylinders. The photos went into Lightroom and came out the other side looking better for their trip through its many and varied boxes of tricks. They are now on show in Flickr and one of them, the Dangerous Dan one is at the top of this page.

Dinner tonight was pasta with a nicely spicy Amatriciana sauce ( bacon, tomatoes, dried chilli flakes and basil) dusted with some Parmesan cheese.

Tomorrow Scamp is booked in the morning for coffee and a blether with June and Shona. I’m hoping to parcel up the calendars and get them sent out to the north of Scotland and the south of England and some places in between.

Freezin’ – 7 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It really was freezing. Freezing fog. Temp just below zero.

Just to check it out I took out the rubbish, slipped on the icy step and landed with a bump, knocking over the bin in the process. I don’t do it every day, but occasionally I do try to get a bit of gymnastic practise in and this seemed like a good time to do it. Thankfully it was foggy, so nobody was about to see my wee slide. Then I went round the garden in baby steps picking up all the fallen cardboard and yoghurt tubs. I think Scamp got a bigger fright than me!

Back inside I grabbed a camera and gingerly walked out into the back garden to grab a photo of what were our sunflowers with trails of frosted ice crystals hanging on them. It wasn’t a day for hanging around, so I equally gingerly made my way back inside again to the nice, warm, safe kitchen.

If you read yesterday’s blog (published today), you will have read that last night I gave up on trying to fix the botched attempt at clearing up the mess of the Lightroom catalog. Well, I did sleep on it, and somewhere in the restless night, I came up with a plan. Why build a new catalog when you can just adapt the one you’ve used for a year. There must be a way of changing the name from 2023 to 2024. There was and it was a Scottish lady who explained the intricacies of the renaming in a YouTube video. It was really simple, but also convoluted, with some parts being done while Lightroom was active and others when it was shut down. Long story short, it worked. So now it looks like I have an operating catalog for 2024. However, I’ll know better tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was the opposite of last Sunday’s three course meal and was lentil soup with apple pie and custard for dessert.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about aquaplaning cars and flooded fields and roads. However he says it’s not too cold in the house and the builders start again this week. So work is progressing.

The frosted sunflower stalks with their necklace of ice crystals were PoD.

I think we will have to go out tomorrow to get some much needed supplies. Just simple stuff like bread and milk. No alcohol was mentioned!

Dancin’ – 6 January 2024

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Scamp was out first to defrost the car. We were driving to Brookfield for the first dance classs of 2024.

The temperature was hovering around zero when we drove out to Brookfield, but the sun was almost blinding, shining from a bright blue sky. Thankfully we got there without any roadworks apart from the usual 40mph drag through central Glasgow.

First surprise was that the tiny dancers, who usually take ages to leave the hall, had already gone! Maybe someone had complained. I should have asked Jane if it was her. Only four couples ready and waiting to go dancing. Last in were Peter and Gillian who travel almost the same distance as us.

First dance was the Blue Angel Rumba which we’ve almost mastered and was the gentle entry into this years dances. Next was the, new to us, Christmas Waltz. It looked complicated, but taken in bite sized pieces it wasn’t so bad, although there were a few unpronounceable and complicated bits to it. In retrospect, I think we managed not too bad in it, but it will need some practise during the week to cement it into my head. Finally a fast and frantic Samba with Samba Walks, Botafogos and Voltas. Voltas were described by Jane as “Like kids pretending to ride a horse”. A sort of “John Wayne dance step.” Google it and you’ll see what I mean. By then, my little brain was full to bursting and I was glad to change my dance shoes for clumpy black street shoes and drive us home.

Lunch was two bits of bread with a slice of square sausage between them. Scamp had similar with an egg substituting for the square sausage.

I struggled for a while trying to work out what was going wrong with the 2024 catalog on Lightroom. Eventually I gave up and as the sun was still shining I went for a walk in St Mo’s. The road and paths were quite slippery, but the boots coped with it. The sun was low by the time I was walking along the path behind the woods and I got a few decent shots of the trees and the shadows they were casting. One of them became PoD.

Dinner came from a cold walk over to Condorrat to Golden Bowl. As I was coming back I could see the mist lying about a metre above the grass. Quite creepy looking. I tried to photograph it, but failed to get the impression I was looking for.

Later in the evening I tried again and almost managed to repair the damage to the catalog. I gave up and left it until tomorrow when hopefully a night’s sleep will make things clearer

Temperatures around zero predicted for tomorrow. That will decide what we do.