Category: weather

No Partridge – 17 April 2017

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Today it was decided that we’d go to the garden centre we had hoped to visit yesterday.  JIC had checked and it would definitely be open.

Before we got there, JIC wanted to visit another *garden centre* which was certainly not allied to any national or regional garden centre chain.  What it was, was a very busy plant sale with prices that were almost as good as those in Poundland, but for much healthier plants.  I felt sorry for Scamp, wandering around the racks of greenery like a wean in a sweetie shop without a penny in her pocket.  Only it wasn’t money she was without, it was transportation.  You see, we were FLYING home later in the afternoon and you can’t carry plants in a plane, at least not the quantity and size of plants she had here eye on.  Also, those glazed pots were really cheap, but can you imagine the damage the luggage handlers would inflict even if you did pay the £15 overhead for putting them in the hold.  Eventually we had to drag her away as we packed the car.  Three of us in the back, Scamp, me and a pear tree.  No partridge.

I got two photos at the plant sale.

  • On 14th April I took 71 shots
  • On 15th April I took71 shots
  • On 16th April I took 28 shots
  • On 17th April I took 4 shots

You can tell when we were going home.  But it’s not quantity, it’s quality that counts and I liked the quality of the above shot which is of a Queen’s Cushion flower.  That said, I find the background almost as interesting as the foreground with its mix of Oof (Out Of Focus) colours.

With the car fully loaded we arrived at the garden centre (a horticultural version of coals to Newcastle) for lunch.  I picked the poorest option which was Chicken wrapped in pastry with potatoes and as much veg as they could cram on.  The veg was great, the potatoes were awful and the chicken was dry.  I envied Scamp and Sim their salmon and JIC his roast lamb.  Oh well, maybe next time I’ll make the sensible choice.  After lunch we drove home and unloaded the car.

To quote Tom Paxton “… All too soon it was time to go …” (Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues), and it was time to go.  We said a sad farewell to Sim and Vixen (the Devil Dog) and JIC drove us to the airport.  For once the plane took off on time and we had a fairly pleasant flight given that the plane seemed to be three quarters full of noisy BBs and their minders.  I don’t suppose you can really call them BBs any more, but Persons Brigaders just doesn’t make sense.  I did laugh at the big cheer that burst from them when we landed in Glasgow.  The view from the plane as it cruised over the city was tremendous with the sun shining through rain clouds.  It reminded me of the cover of the Raintown album.

From the airport we did the cheapo transport to home.  We got the (free) bus from the airport to Queen Street station, then just managed to catch the Croy train after paying the Pensioners price.  At Croy we just caught the (free) bus to Craiglinn and walked home from there.  Last of the big spenders, it cost us £4.10 total to get from the airport to home.

Tomorrow will be a lazy day.

Around and about – 15 April 2017

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Today we started out being driven to Hitchen for lunch and a walk around the shops.  It seemed like a plan as the sun was out and it was fairly warm.

It seems a pleasant wee town with a busy market in the centre.  Had lunch in a Greek restaurant.  I had lamb casserole as my main after a starter of Borek which is filo pastry filled with Greek feta cheese & spinach.  Afterwards we went for a walk around the main part of the town where a Sikh group were giving out free food and cans of juice to anyone who wanted it, free of charge as part of their Vaisakhi festival.  We had just had lunch, but there were big queues at the stall, happy to make the most of the food on offer.  It appears that there is such a thing as a free lunch!

It being Easter, there were a few others stalls dotted around, a town crier shouting the odds and even a couple of Imperial Stormtroopers searching for those droids, I presume.  We were looking for Just Desserts, a dessert restaurant, but it when we found it, it was closed, not just for Easter, but for good.   It had had its just desserts.  Instead of a dessert, we settled for a posh, artisan coffee shop.  Coffee was lovely, if  a bit sharp and there were loads of cakes on display.  JIC and I had Yoghurt and Cranberry slice.  Best laugh of the day was when I went to the toilet and found the toilet brush was stuck in a Starbucks mug!  Someone with a sense of humour and an opinion of Starbucks much like my own.

Back in the town the Vaisakhi procession was in full swing with drummers and marchers who were preceded by two men spraying water on the road in front of the markers, presumably to ritually clean it for them.  It was all quite a jolly and colourful affair in the sunshine.  However, our parking time was nearly up, so we made our way past and old church back to the car with a few minutes to spare.

Went out later to see the new Mill House and it’s quite a revelation although there is still a fair bit of scaffolding enclosing it.  Sketched it, but I’m not impressed with the sketch.  May redo it later.

Dinner should have been in the Benington Bell which is a traditional British pub serving traditional Trinidad food!  I had Aloo Pies to start with, but everybody else had Salt Fish and Tomato.  Main for me was Lamb Curry for me and for everyone else was Chicken Curry.  I just like to be different.  Unfortuntely, Sim wasn’t feeling too good, so we just ate and left. (Since I’m writing this on Sunday, I can tell you that she was fine after a night’s sleep.) The food was really, and I mean really excellent.  Thank you JIC and Sim for that.

When we got home, Sim went for a snooze while we watched Black Mirror on Netflix.  Interesting programme.  Must search for it when we get back home.

Tomorrow (or to be truthful, today 😉 we’re hoping to visit a garden centre.)

To the Manor Born – 14 April 2017

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Actually Wimpole is an estate, not a manor, but ’estate’ didn’t make such a good title I thought.

JIC drove us all there in the morning, and this being Good Friday, there were already hundreds, if not thousands of people there.  Most seemed to have brought their 2.5 children with then.  I did hope there were an even number of families, otherwise it might become messy with that poor 0.5 of a child wandering around.  Got parked and Sim set off in search of the ticket office and managed, somehow, to get to the front of the queue.  Tickets purchased we went in search of the formal gardens.  Most of the other families with their 2.5 children in tow were taking part in the ’Easter’ Egg Hunt which had been cunningly renamed to Cadbury’s Egg Hunt so as not to offend any non-Christians while they searched for eggs.  I thought it was a petty and childish piece of semantics and, as my mum used to say, “That’s how wars start.”

It being early spring, there weren’t a great variety of different flowers in bloom, but the colours of the daffodils and tulips made up for that.  You can see a couple of shots of them above.  As well as flowering plants, there were also veg and fruit plots and it was good to see that many of the plants had been labelled.  I learned on our visit to Kew a few years ago to photograph the label as well as the plant.

The estate farm was quite interesting, but there were too many weans squealing around the place, so I was quite glad when we left.  Even more squealing and grunting was coming from the enormous pigs in the piggery.  It’s not until you see these providers of our bacon that you realise just how big they are. Just as we were leaving the farm, which thankfully is a real farm and not just a petting zoo, an old plane flew over, a biplane.  I thought it was a Tiger Moth, and when I got home and checked the reg, I found I was right for once.  So strange looking at it through the EVF (Electronic View Finder) because it looked as if the propellor was stationary.  Must be due to the refresh rate of the EVF.

I took some photos of the Wimpole Hall itself. It was very grand and enormous.  Such a terrible waste of accommodation.  How the other half live.  Even more astounding was the view down the tree lined avenue which appears to be about a mile and a half long.  Another demonstration of one family’s wealth.

Having said all that, it was a great day out.  A bit cold, especially when you weren’t sheltered from the wind.

Back home, Sim made Trinni Stewed Chicken while Scamp watched and made mental notes.  Chicken was lovely.  Much better than anything we saw the contestants making on Masterchef later.  However I did have a nice bottle of IPA to take the edge off the bald bloke’s “Oh Mate!” exclamations.

Vixen still doesn’t seem to take too kindly to male bearded strangers, especially if they are standing.  Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow we may be going to Hitchin for a walk round the shops in a quiet wee town.

Quart into a pint pot – 12 April 2017

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Trying to cram too much into today.  I got up fairly early and drove to Perth to get some coffee (for JIC) and tea (Scamp was off into town to meet up with Annette).  Got the coffee and tea and also got myself a book.   Another book.  My final purchase was some mounting board to frame up a few of my masterpieces.  Oh, yes, and I finally handed in some books and DVDs to a charity shop.  See Hazy, I’m doing it, almost like the book says a little at a time.  “Start with your sock drawer”.

Perth was beautiful in the morning light.  Cold and windy, but clear blue sky.  It matched my new blue jacket, worn for the first time in public.  Like all things, it’s a compromise.  There are some things I like about it and some I’m not so sure about, but the labels have been cut off and it’s been worn now, so it’s a ‘keeper’.
The book I bought was about sketching, especially portraiture which is one of my big stumbling blocks at the moment.  I’m taking Fred’s advice and trying to build the face from the bone and muscle structure, because that makes sense.  Rules, it’s all about rules.  If you’re good, you can ignore them and just draw.  I need those supporting scaffolding lines.

Drove home, but unfortunately left the brilliant blue skies behind and gathered more cloud and showers as I drove south.  Went to B&Q to look for materials and prices for Scamp’s idea of duckboard to put some of the myriad of plant pots on.  Saw some decking that might provide the surface and some treated square timber that will be the support.  Meant to get some beetroot seeds to plant in the raised bed, oh yes, and some peas too.  See what I mean?  That’s what happens when you try to cram too much in.

Lunch was a grabbed roll ’n’ sausage and a cup of tea, before measuring the space in the back garden that the duckboard would have to go on and found that indeed one length of decking and one length of square support would provide one square plant support 800mm x 800mm.  Perfect.

Did a wee bit of painting and then Scamp sent me a text to say that she was on the way home.  Where did the afternoon go?

Went out to salsa tonight but met Colin in the carpark.  Oh no, It looked like Jamie wasn’t taking the class and it would be another of Colin’s “Slow – Quick – Quick” Salsa/Ballroom classes.  It was worse, it was a Cha-Cha class.  Some of the women weren’t too pleased.  I just grabbed my jacket and left.  The man needs to realise that salsa is totally different from cha-cha.  He’s a good teacher and very inventive, he’s simply on the wrong track these days.  We don’t want ballroom.  That’s not what we signed up for and that’s why the company is called Academia de SALSA.

Beautiful sky on the way home, but I didn’t have a camera, so this morning’s shot of a lane in Perth is my PoD.

A Day of Rest – 10 April 2017

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As usual on the day after a long drive, I didn’t feel very much like going anywhere.  The furthest I got during the day was out into the garden to photograph these flowers.  Scamp thinks the violas look like her earrings and I have to agree with her.  What do you think Hazy?  I like violas, they have such cheeky wee faces.  The red plant is Forest Flame and the red parts aren’t really flowers, they’re leaves.  The flowers are quite insignificant little white bell flowers, like lily of the valley and they are just beginning to fade now.  Scamp’s mum called it a Living Flame and that’s an equally good name.  The white flower is from our Magnolia Stellata.  It was looking very sickly, but Scamp has nursed it back to health.

Like I said, I didn’t do much today.  Tonight I went to salsa and made an absolute hash of the new move, Tambor.  Maybe by Wednesday it will have sunk in enough for me to pick it up again.

I really should have gone out for a walk today because the sun shone most of the day and it was dry, although there was a strong, cold wind.  Must get up and get out tomorrow.  This inactivity is not good for you!

Flying Home, Going Home – 9 April 2017

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We were going home, but unlike Yes in “Ritual: Nous Sommes Du Soleil”, we weren’t flying home, just driving, driving for just over six hours.  That said, I thought it would be good to finish this little break like it started, with a song quote.
It’s always a drag, the journey home.  It’s like flying, sailing, driving home from any holiday, you just want to be there.  When teleportation becomes viable it will immediately become the most used form of transport for coming home from holiday.

We only stopped twice.  Once at a wee cafe in Spean Bridge.  I don’t know what it’s called but it wouldn’t be hard to spot, it’s the only cafe in the town as far as I can see.  It used to be a Little Chef, but re-opened as, what looks looks like a family run cafe.  It’s a great place to stop coming back from Skye because it’s roughly half distance.
The other stop was at Balachullish to stretch my legs and check the tyres when I accidentally bumped the kerb.  Legs were stretched, tyres were deemed ok and the above photo was taken.  On with the journey.

Once back on the road it was a straight run home with very light traffic.  Weather was dry for the most part with just a couple of light showers, not the downpours that were predicted.  Jackie did send a text to say that it was pouring in Skye.  So for once, we brought the dry weather to Skye and took it away with us!  Murd will not admit that.

So, after 761.3 miles and 17.8 gallons of petrol, we were back where we started.  Thank you Jackie and Murd for the hospitality (and the mince ‘n’ tatties and the ‘wee’ drams).  Thanks Mairi for the entertaining stories and for being a foodie in the making.  Nice to see Jaki again, even if it was just for a few minutes.  We’ll be back DV.

 

Happy Birthday to Me – 8 April 2017

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Another year older.

After I opened my birthday prezzies this morning (thank you all!) and had my breakfast, it was time to head out.  My choice of destination.  I chose Broadford and that’s where we went today.  It’s ages since I’ve been to Broadford.  Obviously, we’ve passed through it ever time we come to Skye, but we rarely stop and get out of the car there.  Hazy phoned me just as we stopped and parked.  Had a pleasant talk with her, even if the temperature she was talking about down there was almost twice what we were enduring.  That said, they have the weather, we have the scenery and we were staring out  the windscreen at that sort of scenery.  Out across the water was the pier  and the youth hostel.   But, as Scamp said, no dolphins.  You can’t have everything.

We went for a walk along the shore walk, then down the road before Scamp found a coffee shop where we stopped for a coffee and a scone.  Unfortunately, it was a cheese scone and I ordered it with butter AND JAM.  Apparently, you don’t have jam on a cheese scone.  Coffee was the best I’ve had on the island with the exception of Jackie’s of course.  It was just after I started it, I discovered that I didn’t have my phone.  Oh dear, did I drop it on the walk or did I leave it in the car?  Only one way to find out.  I had to curtail my coffee and go find out.  It was in the car.  Thank you, the birthday fairies who look after lost phones.

Drove back up the road and parked ourselves by the slip to watch the waves and listen to the birds.  Went looking for photos and found that there were even more wee men parked around the boathouse.  I don’t know who is planting them there, but whoever they are, they have a great supply of araldite to weld them to the stone.

Drove Scamp back to the house and dumped the day’s photos on the Mac before venturing out for the last sortie of the week, up again to Loch Gangaig.  On the way there I caught sight of a couple of walkers up on a ridge heading for the Quiraing.  I was cold a couple of thousand feet below them and with the comfort of the car beside me, I’d imagine they were much colder and less comfortable where they were.  Got a few photos of the loch and one or two of the wee lochan I’d visited yesterday.  After that, there was nothing for it but to head back to Burnside for a dram and a plate of Mince ’n’ Tatties.  Superb.  Thank you Jackie.

Tomorrow, we drive south.

The Lodger – 1 April 2017

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The back bedroom has been *my room* for a long time, and the front bedroom is the spare room with just insufficient room to swing a cat, so when the lodger appeared, we were a bit lost about where he should go, but we needn’t have worried. He had provided his own bed in his own room.

When I got up to make breakfast this morning I was amazed to see a wren sitting, no, not sitting, dancing on the clothes rope in the back garden. Singing his heart out, he was obviously full of the joys of spring and eager to entice Jenny, or any other lady wren to dance along to his tune. After I’d grabbed the nearest camera and taken a few shots, then grabbed a more suitable camera / lens combination and repeated the exercise, I noticed him fly down to the back door. At first I couldn’t see where he had gone, then I realised. Scamp has a plant pot hanging by the back door. It’s called a Wanderella and is conical in shape with the wide part of the cone at the top. It’s almost full of peat and has holes about 2cm diameter all down its length. I’ll try to get a photo tomorrow. I guessed that Mr Wren was using one of these holes as an impromptu nest. It was actually a good ploy as Scamp had upended a bowl on the open end of the wanderella to keep the peat from getting waterlogged during the winter.
Later in the morning when Mr Wren was out carousing outside the garden we risked lifting the bowl and there was a beautiful hollow ball of moss with two entrance holes, just the right size for a wren. The nest was empty, so we put it back in place as carefully as we could. It wasn’t until much later in the afternoon that I noticed that he had returned. I hope we didn’t disturb things too much because a lot of work had gone into that green moss ball.

We drove through torrential rain today to go to Vecchia Bologna for lunch. Mine was one of the worst pizzas I’ve ever eaten, but Scamp said her veggie penne was lovely. I know I should have complained, but this is the first time I’ve had a poor meal in the restaurant. That’s one of their lives gone. Two strikes and you’re out. These days there is far too much competition for food to be sloppy about cooking and presentation.

Waitrose, then home. It looks like Crazy Water Fish tomorrow. Something we learned to cook in Sorrento at a one day cook school. It’s a long time since we’ve made it, but Scamp thinks she still has the recipe.

Fought with iTunes in the afternoon and eventually managed to get it to give up the forty tracks it insists on leaving on my iPhone every time I try to clean it out. I’m a great Dylan fan, but if I hear Abandoned Love one more time I think I’ll risk the six points on my license just to throw the phone out the window. Anyway, with the help of the Interweb, I finally ditched the forty songs. I also managed to get rid of the ‘greyed out’ tracks on iTunes. It’s amazing the little tips you pick up on the iTunes forums. I’m a firm believer that Bill Gates wrote the code for iTunes. It’s clumsy, it’s bloatware and it never works properly. Typical Windoze crap. I rest my case.

Had a quick walk around St Mo’s just before the sun completely disappeared, but only got a few almost usable shots of a coot sitting on its nest. Not great, but not too bad either.

Tomorrow we may be going to the (F)Art Galleries to hear a choir. Scamp will probably listen to the choir and hopefully, I’ll sketch. No Sunday Social until the arm is healed 🙁

A day out with the boys – 29 March 2017

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Today five auld guys had their first meeting of the year.  In fact, it might be the first meeting since August last year!  How we drift apart.  After a couple of beers in the Horseshoe Bar in Drury Street, we moved across to Paesano in Miller Street for a pizza.  Five pizzas later ( five total, that is!) three of us headed back to the bar for another beer before we split up and went our separate ways.  Thankfully, Scamp came to pick me up from the train station because it had started to rain.  It was good to get back in touch with everyone and we must do it again, but not leave it almost half a year next time.

Earlier, in fact quite early, I went for a walk in the woods at St Mo’s and found that a group of little ‘Hobbit Houses’ had arrived.  I’m guessing that this is the work of one of the local secondary schools.  Behind each door was the picture of an animal.  A lovely idea.  I think I got photos of all the little doors.  After that Scamp ran me to the train station where I met Fred.  We went for a walk through the ’Toon’ before we headed to the pub to meet the others.  The walk involved a quick trip to Cass Art of course.  Bought myself a mapping pen and some nibs.  Old school drawing, but I like the effect you get with indian ink and it wrecks fountain pens, but doesn’t damage the old fashioned dipper pens.  I was looking for a bottle of granulation medium, but that’s too unusual for them to carry, so it looks like I’ll need to go to Millers later in the week.  How I miss the Art Store now.

No sign of the weather improving tomorrow, or Friday.

The end of summer – 28 March 2017

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Like they say, “What a difference a day makes”.  Gone were the blue skies, gone was the sun, and with it the warmth.  At least it was dry, but the forecast for tomorrow is for wall to wall rain.  That being so, I rest my case m’lud.  The end of summer.

Up and out early to take the Megane to the garage for new front brake disks and pads and a new trackrod .  Spoken like someone who knows exactly what they are.  I know what brake disks are and what the pads do.  I’ve also got a basic knowledge of what a trackrod does and the fact that it’s got an end, probably a beginning too.  What I can say for certain is that, combined, they cost pennies short of £300 which was duly paid around lunchtime when I went to collect the car.  A car that will now stop when you tell it to, and one that will go round corners properly.

Earlier, partly to take my mind off the fact that the Megane was under the knife, and partly because we needed ‘messages’, Scamp drove me to Asda at Robroyston with the inevitable coffee at Costa afterwards.  It was there we saw a *STAR*.  ’Shellsuit Bob’ from River City, no less!  Looking much the same as he does on TV.  Our lives will not be the same from now on, knowing that ’Shellsuit Bob’ is a real person.  We watched River City tonight knowing that we had been sitting within feet of a *STAR*.

After lunch and having picked up the car, the sky lightened a bit and I went out to see what I could see (and photograph) over in St Mo’s.  Took my new favourite lens with me, hoping for some macro shots.  It’s amazing what you see when you’re looking for close-ups.  Most of todays pics were taken with the D7000 and Sigma 105mm combo.  Obviously the deer shot was taken with the 300mm end of the Tamron, and it looked quite good.

Hopefully off for beer and pizza with the Auld Guys tomorrow … in the rain.