Category: weather

Planting – 16 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was a dull morning with one of those depressing white skies.

According to Scamp it was likely to brighten up in the afternoon. I liked her confidence and hoped it wasn’t misplaced. My first task was to split up my five dwarf sunflower seedlings in their tiny wee pot and two gangly mixed sunflowers in their pot, then repot them all into slightly bigger, individual pots. I built up the wooden garden table and got to work. They split easily and all had good root systems. I was about halfway through the seven seedlings when the first spots of rain started falling. I hoped it was just a shower, but as it got heavier, I adjourned to the kitchen and worked on the draining board. I did get them all potted up neatly. Then Scamp took over and was doing the same thing with her Calendula plants. The difference was I had seven plants, but Scamp was thinning out what must have been a hundred wee green plants. By the time we were finished, the rain had stopped. We watered the plants and they went to live in the greenhouse.

The postman brought a surprise letter for me which had my new Travel Card in it. That was pretty good delivery time by the robotic sounding AI voice I was ordering it from last week. I can go on a bus again with a clear conscience.

For lunch we went to Torwood Garden Centre. I had a quiche which tasted ok, but wasn’t, because I could feel it wasn’t happy in my stomach all the way home. It was a dodgy egg mix, I think. We did get some flowers, though. Carnations, leeks, rhubarb and geums to name about half of them. They all fitted nicely into the boot of the car. Drove home and unpacked. Then Scamp started organising them into the places they were going to live, while I went for a walk in St Mo’s. Today’s PoD was a Dogrose that had just flowered today. Two days ago it was wrapped up tight as a bud and today it was soaking up the sun that had appeared while we were in Torwood.

Dinner tonight was a slice of Salmon with Jersey Royal potatoes and a wee salad. I didn’t really want anything because of my dodgy quiche, but I was glad I did, because everything on the plate was lovely.

Today’s prompt was A Sunhat or A Pair of Sunglasses. The sunhat was the easy one. Sunglasses are the most awkward things to sketch. I sketched my Tilley Sunhat. Probably the most comfortable hat I’ve worn. It’s usually quite expensive, but I got it for less than half price after applying two discounts!
It keeps me cool in the summer and, because my hair is thinning on top, prevents me getting sunstroke in foreign climes!. One of the best things about it is it’s ability to be folded into a tiny space and when needed it pops out without a single crease.

PS. I’m not affiliated to Tilley, I just like things like this that simply work!

Tomorrow Scamp is hoping to go to FitSteps after missing out last week. Other than that, we have no plans.

Rain! – 14 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Last night it rained and this morning “the streets were wet again with rain”.

It was strange to see rain again after a couple of weeks with any. It was good soaking rain, to, the kind the gardens need. The rain lasted all day which is great, as long as it remembers to turn itself off again tonight, because Alex and I are hoping to do a photowalk in Glasgow tomorrow and rain would make it uncomfortable.

We had an early lunch because the computer was set up for Neil’s Gran’s funeral service. This was the second funeral service we had watched. The first was Simonne’s mum’s just before the end of the Covid restrictions. I was impressed with Canute’s eulogy. It was very well presented and he spoke clearly. Towards the end, the choir sang one of my dad’s favourite hymns, How Great Thou Art and that nearly had me in tears.

When it was done we got around to normal things again. I walked down to the shops to get tonight’s dinner, which was going to be Prawn Stir-Fry. On the way back I attempted a few photos of dandelion ‘Clocks’ the dandelion seed heads. ‘Attempted’ because I knew when I was taking them that they weren’t very good and I was right.

Back home I sketched out today’s prompt request, A Dachshund. I don’t like dogs, but the prompt asked for a sketch of a dog, so I spoke to Mr Google and he kindly sent me in the right direction to find one that might fit the bill, and that’s what you see here. My interpretation of a Dachshund.

Dinner was ok, just ok, but I have to admit I fried the prawns perfectly, for once. Just before I started the cooking I grabbed a few shots of ‘Golden Torch’, probably Scamp’s favourite rhododendron. A close-up of a rhododendron flower got PoD.

We watched a cookery program with Jamie Oliver making springtime meals. I found it a bit tedious after a while and started counting how many times he said ‘Beautiful’. Just over 15 times in one 15minute section. One a minute, but it felt like more.  Although it passed the time. But both Scamp and I were impressed with the Rhubarb and Custard pie he made. That looked ‘Beautiful’. I think Scamp may try it.

As I said at the start, I’m hoping to meet Alex for a photowalk tomorrow. Just a daunder around Glasgow.

Now who sang those lyrics in the first line of today’s blog? And what was the name of the song?
As Scamp will tell you, I love quoting lyrics!

Change in the weather – 13 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We woke to white skies all around. No sign of the blue skies we’d been enjoying last week.

I was out in the morning to get bloods taken at the health centre. Two chatty nurses kept me talking after the bloodletting had finished. I though at first it was my magnetic personality and my scintillating conversation that was dazzling them. Then I realised they were just making sure this auld guy had been sitting in the chair for the mandatory five or ten minutes, whatever it was, before releasing me into the wild world outside.

I’d got out early and decided I’d pick up a loaf and some fruit, plus Scamp’s meds on the way home. With all the warm weather we’ve had, the trees have been dropping their sap on the cars, and mine felt like the bonnet was covered in sandpaper, so a trip to the carwash would be a good idea … except, it seemed that everyone else in Cumbersheugh had the same idea, so instead I drove home.

Back home Scamp was edging the concrete slabs we have spread across the grass at the back of the house. If you don’t keep cutting the grass back it attempts to cover the slabs. Scamp was doing a good job of disabusing it of that idea.

After lunch she started cleaning up what we laughingly call a patio. It’s just a load of badly laid concrete slabs placed end to end, but we did make some wooden duckboard plates to allow some air in under the plants, but other forms of detritus had found its way in too. Between us we managed to sweep it up and add it to the compost bin.

I took some time out from the garden to sketch today’s topic which was A Songbird. The Blackbird is our finest and most easily recognised songbird. Years ago you could hear Larks and the occasional Song Thrush, but the urbanizing of our countryside has ousted them all, that and the seagulls and magpies. I’m just happy to listen to the blackbirds singing in the morning and in the evening.
We try to encourage them into our small garden, leaving chopped up apples for them to tear apart as repayment for their song.

After that, I took the A7 over to St Mo’s and got some decent photos. It was a toss up whether PoD went to Mrs Wolf Spider hauling her egg sac behind her, or the wilderness garden with aquilegia, poppies and dandelions that has sprung up in the last two weeks at the end of our road. In the end Mrs W won out.

Dinner tonight was Red Pasta. That is a tomato based sauce. This time with Cirio concentrated tomato puree. We couldn’t get it anywhere, then a couple of weeks ago we found it on sale in Waitrose, so we got two packets. Lovely strong tomato flavour. Not a bad dinner with basil and spinach leaves too for more texture.

That was about it for today, except to say that it’s raining tonight, not torrential, just good soaking rain. Scamp had feared that we’d need to start watering the garden, but Mother Nature did it for us!

Busy tomorrow afternoon.

Toasting – 12 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Another warm day, but a close, uncomfortable heat, rather than the sunny summer heat we’d had last week.

It wasn’t too hot or uncomfortable to prevent Scamp from doing a bit of plant shifting in the back garden. Between us we have worked out a possible two tier plant stand between the greenhouse and the back fence. Plans are at the pie-in-the-sky stage, but we both have an idea what is needed. The problem is we may not both be thinking about same idea. Only time will tell.

After lunch I suggested we drive to Coatbridge to get a new toaster. The old Tefal single slot toaster has been working at less than 100% efficiency for a long time and we’ve been fighting a losing battle to get it to work. Today we made the decision to buy an new one. Not one of the all singing, all dancing gigantic ones, just a long slot one like the Tefal, but one that would work all the time. What we settled for was a twin long slot toaster. Slightly bigger than the Tefal but not by a lot. It would still fit into the space the old one came out of. It was a sad day to see the old one go, but that’s progress. We drove home and had to put the air-con on for the first time this year.

Before dinner I managed an hour in St Mo’s but that’s not where the PoD came from. I found a nice little bunch of Aquilegia growing beside the fence of a house on my way back home. They made PoD.

Today’s prompt was A Gemstone. Not being much of a gemologist or a jeweller, I asked my old friend, Mr Google and he pointed me at an Aquamarine which I purchased on-line so that I could sketch it for today’s prompt. It was a lot smaller than I’d anticipated, but with the help of a camera and a macro lens I got a big enough image to sketch the gemstone you see here.

You didn’t really believe that story, did you? No, I’m sure you didn’t.

Tomorrow Scamp needs to get her meds from the chemist and I need to give a thimble full of blood to the vampires!

A Lazy Day – 11 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Yesterday was a rush, but today was a day to relax.

We walked down to the shops to get some cheesey bread, ordinary bread, potatoes and teacakes. After yesterday’s buying spree, today’s was frugal.

We walked back up the road and after lunch, Scamp installed herself in the wee patch of sunshine that had appeared in the back garden. I walked over to St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a Common Carpet Moth.  I’ve not started on the prompt for today which is An Umbrella.  I might manage to squeeze it in after I write this.

It was  a beautiful day again today, temperature in the mid 20s centigrade.  We sat in the garden for most of the afternoon and enjoyed the sun

Dinner tonight was Spaghetti with Crab and Chilli.  Long, long time since we’ve had that.  It was delicious.

That was our lazy day.

I just got a red alert on my phone for a possible Aurora!  I’ll believe it when I see it.

No firm plans for tomorrow, yet.  Maybe a walk down Glasgow Green.

 

Talking to the big horses – 9 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

But earlier we were looking for fish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dancin’ – 2 May 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Another fun-filled day at Glenburn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

The last day of April – 30 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old Friends – 29 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gardening – 28 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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