Category: weather

Not the best day – 8 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

img_3380-flickr-252We woke to torrential rain. It’s a great feeling to be able to lie in bed reading in the morning, knowing that lesser mortals are struggling through the deluge on their way to work. Sorry 😉

Around lunchtime we went for a swim at Stalag Luft III also know as Westerwood Leisure Centre. The new rules state that you will check in with your membership card. You must pay £2 (refundable) for a locker key. You must also sign in for the aforementioned key and must sign it out again when you leave. You must bring your own towel. For heaven’s sake, you’ll have to bring your own water soon. It seems as if these rule changes have been designed by committee. You know what I mean, someone has an idea, someone else has a different idea, then a third person also has a further idea. Rather than choose one of the ideas, the committee decide to implement them all, even if they contradict each other. As you might have guessed, a new centre manager is in place and it looks like she’s more of an idiot than the last one. Once we got in to the pool, we found that water aerobics was in full flow. No room in the pool, so we sat in the steam room while the steam was coming out of my ears. Couldn’t get in the jacuzzi because it was covered up, no doubt waiting to be fixed. Thankfully they had finally sourced a piece of wood and a joiner skilled enough to replace the missing slat in the seat of the sauna. Once the aquarobic group had left the pool, the spa girls took over the middle of the pool to have a giggle and shout contest. I’m going to suggest to the new centre manager that it might be a good idea to make the middle of the pool 2m deep, then the ignorant bastards would drown as they giggled and shouted. You might have worked out by now that I’m not a happy bunny. I don’t see why I should be paying for a facility that isn’t really meeting my requirements. Looking back a year in this blog I’m reading that at least twice and sometimes three times a week I was getting to the gym in the morning. That’s not happening now. It would appear that the new centre manager has taken the pleasure out of leisure. I’ll give it until Christmas and if things haven’t improved, I’ll cancel my membership, which would be a shame as Scamp appears to be satisfied with the changes.  By the way, we returned our keys but didn’t sign them out.  Oh, oh.  That will mean a visit to the headmistress’s room or lines for us next time.  “I must always remember to sign out my keys”.  “I must always remember to sign out my keys”.  “I must always remember to ….”.

Outside it was still raining and we went on a pilgrimage to find a new cable for Scamp’s old style Samsung tablet. According to the Internet, Maplin had the cable, but when we got there all five of the assistants were more interested in getting a group selfie than in actually selling anything. It never ceases to surprise me that this store is still in business.  They never seem to have anything useful in stock, their assistants have less knowledge than an Apple Genius and I rarely see anyone actually buying anything.
Tried Currys – Nope
Tried Tesco – None
Tried B&M – Nada
Drove to Glasgow to Staples and, you’ve guessed it, no Samsung cables. Even tried Poundworld with the same result. When we were driving home the rain stopped and the sun came out for a while.
Finally solved the problem when I went to the bloke in Cumbersheugh town centre who sells phone covers. He also sells old style Samsung cables. Got one, and now the tablet charges, but the rain is back on.

Today’s photo is of a selection of our James Grieve apples from our miniature apple tree. The rest were made into a lovely apple pie.

More rain tomorrow. Oh what fun.

The Accidental Selfie – 7 September 2016

Posted on by Zogman

7-septSorry JIC, but we went to Helensburgh today. I thought it was only fair since we went to your sister’s least favourite place last week, we should go to your LFP this week.

It’s not my favourite place to drive to because it always seems such a dreary journey. Nothing much to see until you get past Dumbarton. As an aside, this is another Scottish anomaly. The town of Dumbarton is the county town of Dunbartonshire. That’s not a typo, Dunbartonshire with an ‘n’ and Dumbarton with an ‘m’. Why? Because that’s the way it is. Back to the story. Once you get past Dumbarton the scenery gets a bit more interesting with great views across the Clyde estuary to Greenock and Port Glasgow. Before then, it’s just motorway. Helensburgh is a very run-down looking version of its former self. Too many shops closed or in the process of closing on the main street to impress any passing tourists and although the front has undergone a bit of tidying up, it’s not the place it used to be. We walked along the front and I took some photos because the light is usually good there with the estuary and the hills in the background. After we walked back, we had chips and a pizza. Even the pizza wasn’t as good as it used to be. A sad state of affairs.

When we had stopped at the carpark there was a bus parked there with its engine chug, chugging away. It’s driver reading the paper Three hours later when we left, it was still chug, chugging away and he was still reading the paper. He must have been a very slow reader. Wasn’t there a law passed recently that banned drivers from having the engine running while the vehicle was stationary. Probably doesn’t apply to bus drivers. Either that or he hadn’t managed to finish reading that whole memo.

Helensburgh pier used to be a great place for sea fishing. I’ve fished there myself a few times. Like the town itself, the pier is looking a bit worse for wear now with more bits cordoned off or barricaded off than are actually useable. There were very few fishermen on it today, it seemed to be attracting more jakies than fishers.

The titular photo was indeed an accident. I was in the process of taking off the 9mm fisheye and had the 12-32mm zoom ready to go on when I inadvertently pressed the shutter. I like the finished article. It would be useful for keeping the weans away from the fire, if we had any weans or a fire, that is.

Went to Salsa at night. One class of sort-of advanced and one beginners. Great exercise. Bummer of a drive home. Motorway closed right through Glasgow. No warnings. No diversions. Just find your own way out, we’re not helping you. It took almost an hour to find our way home. A journey that should take 15 minutes.

Rain forecast for tomorrow. Don’t mind because today the weather was lovely, if a bit too warm for September.

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

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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

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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

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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

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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.