Category: weather

Another dismal day – 6 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

6 SeptI spent the morning working out exactly why and how I wanted to put a contact box on this, my blog. I think the answer is in my description. The key phrase is “this, my blog”. It’s My blog. It’s a documentary of my life now, in this new phase of my life, meant for me, my family and my friends. However, it is in the public domain and I realise that others may want to read it and I’m very happy to let them do it. With that said, here is my solution. The blog is a daily publication, one post every day. If you want to read it, feel free, especially if you know me, but nobody wants an email every day to remind them that I’ve added another ‘slice of my life’.  I did try with Hazy’s help to create a weekly update on posts for the previous week, but that became too complicated and unnecessary as far as I was concerned. If you want to keep up to date, I suggest that for the present, you save “www.https://dhcampbell.co.uk/blog/” in your favourites so you don’t miss a single episode of this unfolding story.  What I suppose it boils down to is that I won’t be adding a ‘contact box’ to the website any time soon. However, I reserve the right to change my mind any time I feel like it.  Thanks for the suggestions and help with the contact box, Hazy.  It may make an appearance some time in the future and I’ll need more help then.  You know me, always changing things. To all the (all because there are more than two of you now!) rest of you, I hope you continue to enjoy the read, and the photos of course.

So what of the day then? It started off a bit dank, damp and miserable in the morning, but with the prospect of better things to come in the afternoon. Unfortunately, that prospect never materialised because the dank and damp became dull and drizzle in the afternoon. Undeterred, I went out on my bike to pick some brambles, the wonderful free, hedgerow fruit that some misguided people mistakenly call ‘blackberries’. Managed to gather just over half a kilo (which sounds better than 500gms to my ears) before the drizzle strengthened to full tilt rain. Strangely, this happened at much the same time as yesterday’s deluge. After that I gave up and cycled home. I stopped near the wet corn field and grabbed a shot of tractor tracks that I knew I could convert to a gritty black & white in Lightroom. Now, here’s a tip for all you budding typists. When you are keying in a word like ‘white’, don’t let your left ring finger slip down a row on the keyboard from the ‘W’ to the ‘S’ key. Just a little heads-up there. The other photo in today’s meagre mosaic is of a couple of flies on bramble leaves. I just liked it.

Tomorrow the weather WILL be better, just repeat three times:
“The weather WILL be better”
“The weather WILL be better”
“The weather WILL be better”

Who knows, it might work.

A Run in the Rain – 5 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Today I was going out on my bike.  In the rain.  I lost a good pair of cheap glasses last week.  Like I say they were cheap, but they were perfect for wearing when I am working at the computer and they were bright green, very designery.  There were only one or two places they could be and today I was going to find them.  The fact that it was the restart day for Gems, had nothing to do with it, nothing at all.  Anyway, it was just a wee bit damp, not really raining.

Checked out the first place on my list, but they weren’t there, nor were they at the second which was just across the road.  The corn I had photographed was still there uncut.  Poor farmer must have been waiting for another couple of days of sun to dry it out perfectly and he got this drizzle instead.  Who would be a farmer?

Third place drew a blank as did the fourth.  Either they are deep in the undergrowth or some lucky bugger has picked up a lovely pair of designer(y) green glasses.  I’ve tried Tiger, now rebadged as Flying Tiger, reminiscent of Braddock and the Flying Tigers.  Brilliant book. Well, it is when you’re a twelve year old schoolboy.  I digress. I’ve tried Tiger and they still have something like the green designery glasses, but not them.  Oh well, nothing lasts forever.

By the time the search had been called off, the drizzle had turned to full force rain and I was getting soaked.  It didn’t matter too much because it was quite a mild day, so the rain was warm.  Headed home to a quieter house than I’d left, made the dinner, went to salsa and came home from that bathed in sweat and with a smile on my face.  Salsa does make you happy.

5 sept
Today’s mosaic is very spider orientated.  If anyone out there is an arachnophobe, then I apologise to you.  Just put your hand over the picture and avoid clicking on it, because that action will release the spiders hiding behind the picture.

Better weather forecast for tomorrow.

Bike Porn – 4 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Today, for the first time ever, or at least for a number of years, the Tour of Britain cycle race started from Glasgow.

We drove in early to be sure of getting a good place and spent an hour or so wandering around the pits, with me marvelling at the equipment on display.  All of it shiny and clean.  Something you can’t say about my own bike.  There were bikes everywhere.  On the team cars there were wheels, frames, complete bikes.  Enough to cover every eventuality.  As well as equipment, there were also the mobile homes for the teams.  Scamp was wondering why someone called Wiggins needed two mobile homes, and if he was actually in one of them.  The enormous crowd round them seemed to think he was.  I did actually grab a shot of him later in one of the race pics.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t actually focusing on him, but rather on the rider behind him as he was wearing a white top that helped the camera achieve focus better than on the superstar in front.

Bike Porn 4 SeptAfter our *’pit walk’* we walked over to the corner of George Street and Montrose street to get a good view of them coming along the straight.  After the usual preliminaries of motorcycles, polis and team cars, the juniors came through, followed a few minutes later by the professionals.  That’s when I noticed the error on the card – not writing!  Flicked the card out and wrote to the other card.  One big benefit of the D7000 is its two card slots.  I got a few shots there, but they were only cruising at this time, just the warm-up for the real race.  After the warm-up we had a few minutes to choose a different viewpoint and I moved round the corner a bit to get some shots of the riders coming round that tight bend before climbing up the fairly steep hill towards Cathedral Street.  Scamp stayed almost where she was to act as a spotter!  We had a bit of entertainment when a guy on the First Aid bike bravely pedaled up Montrose Street to a massive cheer from the crowds.

Scamp tipped me the wink that the peloton was coming and I got ready.  Hammered off about ten shots as they rounded the bend and hoped for the best, then the camera jammed.  Don’t know yet what it was.  Yes, the buffer was full and emptying itself, but the lens wouldn’t focus.  Swore for a bit, but I’d got most of the photos I wanted.  Then as mysteriously the problem went away and I got some shots of the cavalcade of team cars driving up Montrose Street.

Cycling 4 sepI thought they had another lap to do round the city centre circuit, so we wandered down to Ingram Street, but they had gone past on Clyde Street and over the bridge heading for Castle Douglas and we were heading home.  Before we went I got a photo of a bloke standing across the road.  We’re both sure it’s Scamp’s cousin, an ex-polis who took early-early-retirement and went to live in Spain.  Home on holiday or another Brexit Exit?  We’ll never know because she wasn’t absolutely certain it was him.

Had lunch and watched another *’exciting’* F1 GP, at least that’s what the over-enthusiastic Ben Edwards told us.  I think he must have been watching a different race, or maybe you just had to be there.

Sunday Social in the early evening was good, except there seemed to be two salsa tracks to one bachata which became boring after a while.  One or two bachata dances a night are good enough for me.  Tonight was overkill.  We think someone wanted extra practise time.  Spoke to Carol and Ailsa whom we haven’t seen for ages.  Sti.

Rain forecast for tomorrow, but it had been a lovely sunny day today.  Just right for a nice bike ride.

Groundhog Day – 3 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

3 septToday we were planning to go to Dundee to the Flower Show. We’d been there long ago, maybe ten of fifteen years ago to be a bit more accurate, but when we looked out the back window this morning, the hills had gone. That’s an indication of low cloud and therefore a good chance of rain. The streets were wet although there was no rain falling at the time.   So, it had been raining, and it would be raining again. This was the hiatus between showers (or longer periods of rain). The upshot was we decided not to go to Dundee. Instead, we went to Vecchia Bologna for lunch and afterwards wandered round Dobbies in Stirling and came away with an armful of plants to provide some autumn colour. The place was undergoing a bit of a tidy up with great areas of empty space. Surely they’re not getting ready to put out the (whisper it) Christmas stuff already. Could be!

From Dobbies we went on a mystery tour to find something decent for me to photograph and I thought I’d found it when I saw a sign for the Sauchie Tower. We never found it. The signs just sort of faded out. We did see the ruined tower of a windmill on top of a hill that might have been it, but some eejit had allowed the area around it to be built up with a new housing estate that had masses of traffic calming ‘street furniture‘ and nowhere to park. Who employs these pinheads? When we got to Alloa we saw a sign for the Alloa Tower, but weren’t taken in by the direction post. We knew it was another wild goose chase. It might as well have had a red fish of the herring persuasion nailed to it. Instead we headed for Kincardine and went for a walk along the Riverside Walk out to the old pier. Got some photos there and that was it for today’s outing.

It was only as we got near to Cumbersheugh that the first spots of rain splashed on the windscreen. Typical, we could have been to Dundee flower show.  It just seemed like re-run of yesterday’s indecision that led to the failure to go to Ayr Airshow.

Tomorrow, we’re going in to Glasgow to see the start of the Tour of Britain. What will we do if it’s raining? We’ll go and get wet.

Any comments on the new galleries, anyone?

The Galleries and the Airies – 2 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

2 SeptScamp was out this morning having coffee with her niece.  This gave me time to sit and swear at both WordPress and Galleria.  WordPress provided the bad plugin I wrote about yesterday and Galleria is a gallery making piece of software I’ve use for a few years now.  Galleria works well.  WordPress works well. The problem is that they don’t work well together.  This morning I made them both shake hands and play nice together.  It took a lot of swearing and a fair bit of trial and error, but they did eventually produce a decent photo gallery in my WordPress blog.  Like my pal Val says, it was “a wee challenge”.  Now that I’ve managed to do it more than once, I’m quite happy to let it go and revert to the simple gallery I made last night.  Time wasted?  Yes, but a couple of lessons learned.  You should learn something new every day.

In the afternoon, I started cutting down a rogue tree growing out of the wall at the corner of the back garden.  Once I’d dumped the cuttings in the council dump, I went for a walk along the Luggie Water to find some photos.  I had thought to go to the free day at the Scottish Airshow at Ayr, but it was the thought of standing in the rain watching for the ‘airies’ descending through the clouds and then disappearing again into them, wishing that it was a lovely sunny day with the ‘airies’ shining against a blue sky.  It had rained on and off all day and there was no sign of a letup.  With that said, we decided not to go.  We should have, because at 4pm, the sky started to clear and the sun came out.  Unfortunately the show was due to start at 5pm and it was too late for us to get ready and drive down to Ayr to see the ‘airies’.  Oh well, a walk along the Luggie would have to do.  I liked the light on the ‘Bucky’ bottle under the road bridge and with a bit of post processing the gigantic ‘rhubarb leaves’ looked quite impressive.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow, because it looks like wall to wall rain.

Autumn – 1 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

IMG_3374- flickr--245This is the meteorological first day of autumn, so the weather fairies say.  Just thought you deserved that information.  It was a bit cooler today, but not inordinately so.

On Saturday we had intended going to Tea Jenny’s for lunch, but for a variety of reasons, we didn’t manage it.  Today, I suggested we remedy that and off we went to play the 500metre traffic light game and have our lunch in TJ’s.  Luckily the traffic was a lot better today and we managed to pass the traffic light test quite quickly.  Tea Jenny’s is simply a tea room in Falkirk, an old fashioned tea room with odd (as in random) china cups and teapots with hand knitted tea cosies.  Although you can get a full lunch there, the main attractions are the soups and sandwiches, oh yes, and the gigantic meringues.  None of these really hit it off for me.  For me it has to be Stovies.  If you don’t know what stovies are, then you almost certainly aren’t Scottish and will need to Google the word, because I’m not going to describe stovies.  Everyone has their own version.  Today’s stovies had potatoes, onion and sausage in it.  It’s not as good as my mum made, nothing would be, but it ‘filled a wee space’ today.  One of the attractions for us is the variety of tea cosies.  Today’s candidates are shown above.  The photo was taken by the best camera in the world, the one you have with you.  In this case, my iPhone.

With my fingers firmly crossed, I’m going to say that I think I’ve solved the gallery problem.  It looks like the problem was caused by a rogue plugin messing things up.  The plugin has now been severely spoken to and has been banished to the ‘Deactivated’ box.  It has also been grounded for the rest of the week.

 

The last day of summer? – 30 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

30 AugIt looks from the weather forecast that it will rain later tonight, so this may be the last day of summer. Who can tell?

Day two of the new early rising regime and resolve is flagging already, but at least I didn’t stay in bed all morning. Scamp, on the other hand, was showing how it should be done and was up and working before I’d switched the shower on.

Went out in the afternoon, equipped with a tripod to get some more photos of the mini toadstools I’d seen on Friday, but when I got there, the toadstools were gone. There were some slug trails, but not enough to explain the complete decimation of the toadstool forest. I knew they had a short life-span, but I didn’t think it was that short. Disappointed, I looked for other photo opportunities, but none were to be found. It seemed too good a day to waste by going home early, so I went for a walk over the grassland of the dump, but there were no deer, not even a rabbit. The closest I got to a decent photo was on the way home when I took the shot of the corn field with the nice wee sinusoidal path. When I got home I found that I’d dropped my designer green glasses somewhere on the road or the paths. Must go back and find them soon.

Made some Tiger Bread today. Attempt 1 is not too successful. The actual bread is fine, but the Tiger part is too thick. More testing required.

Finally got photo galleries to work on my newly themed blog. This time they are totally within WordPress and not using the Galleria widget, thingy. It was proving just too clumsy and untrustworthy. To be honest, the basic ‘Classic’ theme worked fine except for the black background, but the paid-for ‘Twelve’ theme wouldn’t cooperate at all, so I used a much simpler WordPress plugin that did the trick for now. May revisit them later.

Beer with the Old Guys tomorrow. Usually a good laugh.

Don’t Look Hazy, Just Don’t! – 29 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

29 AugWe decided at the weekend that we need to get out more. In the winter it’s ok to lie in bed longer than is good for us, but in these late summer days, we should be out getting some good fresh air into our lungs. With that in mind, we set ourselves the target of being out by 10am. Today we managed that, just!

Drove to the petrol station which was buzzing with police and ambulances, then got into an argument with a dumbo driving a tank, you know what I mean, great big gas guzzler and a tiny wee brain behind the wheel. There he was sitting looking smug, at least a metre away from the pumps while his wife filled the tank. I tried to park beside him, but it was an impossible situation, so I drove out and back in to a different pump, but not before mouthing to him “Prick!” While I was filling my own tank he came out of his pride and joy and said “Can I help you?” I smiled at him and said “Well, you can pay for my petrol if you want.” A smile and an unexpected reply usually baffles the dumbo. “Oh, I thought you needed something from me” he said after he had thought for a while. “Well, a bit of space would have been nice.” I said and walked away. This did not compute. CPU overload. Dumbo had to get back in the tank and plug his brain into the USB socket. I paid for the petrol and when I came back out, there he was again, brain freshly rebooted. “I don’t usually drive this car.” was his starting gambit, followed by “I wasn’t doing it to be ignorant. I had to do a very tight turn.” This is what always happens when you reboot a computer, it does random things. It looked like his CPU was still in the process of rebooting and was making his mouth spout rubbish. He should remember ‘Engage brain before opening mouth’. Not a big shouting match, but it started the day well, outwitting a dumbo. When we drove out he was still trying to remember how to start the tank. Then we saw the reason for the heavy police presence. A Post Office van had embedded itself in the wall of the garage!
We drove to Culross, parked in the carpark and walked along the coastal path in the general direction of Torryburn until we came to what on Google Maps on the phone looked like a path, but in reality was a pair of overgrown tractor ruts. We headed back and found another path that, according to Google again, would take us back to the main coastal path. It did, and was much more interesting from a photographic point of view. We sat for a while and watched the world and a few boats go by then walked back to the town, but called in at the Red Lion pub for lunch on the way. Lunch was a shared Chicken Salsa Wrap with Chips and a Salad and two cups of coffee. Oh, it was hot, and so was the weather. In Scotland we moan about the weather. If it’s cold we moan. If it’s hot we moan. If it’s windy we moan. If it’s not we moan. Never satisfied, that’s us. I got a few shots of the new pier and then we went home

Salsa tonight was interesting, fast and painful for me. My shoulder complained from start to finish, but we’re home now and I’m sitting upstairs in the front bedroom avoiding the Three Sisters below. There’s a mountain range up north called the Five Sisters of Kintail. This is the Three Sisters of Cumbernauld.

More journeyings tomorrow if the weather is good. If not, I may go a-hunting the Bramble! It’s that time of year.

Lighthouse and Lightroom – 23 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

23 AugNow that normal service has been resumed to the train line into Glasgow, I accepted Scamp’s kind offer of a lift to the station today to travel into ‘The Toon’ to visit a photographic exhibition in the Lighthouse.  The cunningly titled “Nobody’s Home’ by John Maher  ex-Buzzcocks.  The blurb says: “John’s photographs of decaying man-made objects set against a backdrop of stunning Hebridean landscapes have appeared in a wide variety of publications.”  I’ll bet they have.  These are beautiful photographs up to about 2m square, obviously taken on a large format camera and mostly with wide or ultra wide angle lenses.  Some looked very staged with incongruous articles lying around the rooms.  I find it hard to believe that the average Harris crofter would have time or inclination to read Good Housekeeping magazine.  The lighting in some was confused to say the least with general illumination being achieved with ‘light painting’ using torches I expect.  However, it’s the textures he achieves that really impressed me.  That and the colours.  While the photos are restrained, they aren’t dull.  An hour well spent I think.

After wandering around the gallery, I went for a wee bit of climbing, taking the stairs up to the viewing gallery at the top of the Macintosh water tower in the building.  Strangely, my iPhone didn’t manage to record any flights of stairs climbed!  Possibly it was just a case of information overload.  It just couldn’t believe I could climb that many steps so quickly.  The weather wasn’t as good as it was down London way where the mercury was reaching over 30ºc and wall to wall sunshine.  In Glasgow it was more like half that temperature and wall to wall grey.  However, I still managed to get the shots I wanted of the backs of well known streets and interesting ‘looking down’ views.  Then I got the train back home and got a lift from Scamp back home.  Macaroni  Cheese for dinner Hazy!  Lovely.  Then I dumped the photos into the Mac and that’s where Lightroom worked on the Lighthouse shots.  A tenuous link, I know, but a link none the less.  Here’s another link.  This one will take you to John Maher’s website.  Clicking on the mosaic at the top is another link, the usual one to my Flickr page!

Cushions – 20 August 2016

Posted on by Zogman

20 augSome people will complain about anything.  Today as we were getting off the bus in Glasgow, one wee woman was berating the driver because the seats were too hard on the bus.  She told him in no uncertain terms that he should be supplying cushions for the seats.  The poor man just agreed with her.  It was certainly the path of least resistance today.  The bus he was driving was definitely a bit rickety and seemed to be playing the complete percussion section of the First Bus Orchestra all by itself, but cushions?  I think that might be a step too far.

We had been promised rain today and we got it in abundance.  After walking down Buchanan Street in the rain, it simply got heavier as we waited to see the Gay Pride march go past.  We felt really sorry for them plodding along in the rain trying to look suitably festive in their rainbow capes, rainbow flags and rainbow scarves, soaked to the skin.  Scamp was looking for one of her friends who was supposed to be taking part, but she later confessed that said friend was probably still in the pub.  I might have felt sorry for the marchers, but I felt even more sympathy for the poor drivers in town who had to sit and wait for about half an hour for the parade to pass through, with only two short breaks to allow the traffic jam to partly clear.  Polis were nowhere to be seen at any of the road junctions.  Total shambles.

Lunch was a pizza each in Mediterranianeo in Ingram Street, then we went for a walk in the rain to get a couple of DVDs for tonight’s viewing and avoid another night of the dreadful Rio Olympics.  Then it was home again on the bus, and who was sitting behind us?  That’s right, that same wee woman.  It was a different bus from the one we went in on and the seating on this one was far superior.  I don’t know if she critiqued the cushioning as she left the bus, but I wouldn’t have put it past her.  See JIC, it’s not just me.

Dry weather forecast for tomorrow.  Not sunny, but dry.  We’ll take that.