Category: weather

A late start – 14 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

After yesterday’s late home, a late start today wasn’t all that unusual.

We watched a recording of Laura Kuenssberg ripping another politician apart. These politicos don’t ever tell you anything, they just recite the same party line day after day, week after week and year after year. Occasionally someone will accidentally let slip something worthwhile, but even then you wonder if it IS accidental or if it’s just another teaser.

Afternoon was spent writing up yesterday’s blog, and with it posted, we could turn our thoughts to tonight’s dinner. It ended up being Rosie’s Vegan Curry from Sophie Wright’s recipe book, “Home at 7 Dinner at 8”. It’s been a go-to book with us for ages. Probably out of print now, but still worth searching out, second hand.
We needed a few things from the listings in the book, so I took the Sony A7c for a walk down to the shops, via the long path through the trees. There wasn’t much decent light, but I did get a photo of two little daisies flowering beside the path. With a bit of jiggery pokery, that became the PoD. By the time I got back to the house at about 3pm it felt like we’d skipped evening and gone straight to midnight.

The one hour slot promised by Ms Wright wasn’t quite accurate, or maybe because it was my first time cooking this one pot wonder I was being too careful. However, it was approved by Scamp and although there was a little bit more chilli than we’d expected, it was accepted, mainly because I’d made flat breads to go with it, I suspect.

We watched yesterday’s and today’s Strictly and Scamp correctly guessed the loser tonight.

Later we spoke to Jamie and heard about Simonne’s possible new job opportunity and the simplicity of packing a suitcase for a few days in a warm place. Not a holiday, but a task that needed completed sooner rather than later.

I’m hoping to get this posted earlier than normal. Hoping for an earlier rise tomorrow.

Unlucky 13th – 13 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

A dull day that never really got off the ground.

It was a will we? Won’t we? Kind of day. We did think about going in to Glasgow, but it would be mobbed as the Xmas mobs start to congregate everywhere there is a shop open. The sky was looking like the weather fairies were on the ball with their warnings of heavy rain. We decided that the best plan of action was inaction and stayed at home.

I set up a still life later, a shot of a Christmas cactus against an out of focus window spattered with raindrops. It’s become a tradition, to photograph some tabletop shots around Christmas, and this was one of them. Scamp has been feeding the cactus with coffee grounds, a tip she saw online and it seems to be working because this plant is much healthier looking than its companion in the next room. Maybe I’ll start feeding that one too. Anyway, that was PoD sorted.

You may remember I was out in the woods yesterday and found a sixteen spot ladybird. What I didn’t know then, was that a little tick had found me. Didn’t find it until this morning. Luckily I have a tick remover tool on my keyring, Scamp gave me it about a year ago, and I managed to get the tick out. A tiny wee thing. It’s now been squashed. Put some TCP on the spot where it was and took Piriton. I would have thought all the wee beasties would be tucked up in bed at this time of year. Just shows you, you have to be careful.

In the evening we got dressed for dancing and headed off through the rain to Brookfield for the last social dance of the year, a Christmas Social. I wasn’t greatly looking forward to it, I rarely am, but as usual, mixing with folk I like, I did manage to have a good time. I didn’t dance as much as I usually do, but enough to get round without making too many mistakes. We left just before the last dance and drove home through a busier than usual motorway, all the way home almost without stopping. It’s a great luxury driving through an empty Glasgow at night.

We arrived back home just before midnight to find that some kind person had left us a parking space. Whoever you were, I thank you! A wee snifter of sherry for Scamp and a slightly larger glass of brandy for me, then off to bed. Of course, you know by this time that this is written the next day!

No plans for tomorrow (today)!

Hunting Beasties – 12 December 2025

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We went as far as the shops today. Only a 15minute walk. Better than nothing.

We were looking for batteries for a couple of garden lights. Plenty of the wrong type of batteries, but none of the ones we wanted. I suppose we could have driven up to the town centre, but to be honest, neither of us could be bothered. I may go in to Glasgow today or tomorrow on a battery hunt, but it depends on the weather.

Actually, today was quite a clear day. Plenty of blue skies and light clouds, but cold. I went out later to see if there was anything worth photographing. I don’t know why I went for a walk in the woods, clambering over fallen trees everywhere. Halfway through my walk I found an old friend. It’s an Orange Sixteen Spot Ladybird (Halyzia sedecimguttata) to give it its posh Sunday name. Just about the length of the nail on my ring finger and tucked into a crevice in a tree. Apparently they don’t feed on aphids like most ladybirds, but on mildew on trees like oak, sycamore and ash. It’s amazing what you find out when you go walking through the woods. That was my PoD.

While I was out, I bumped into a man walking his dog. I’ve spoken to him in passing many times, just saying ‘Hello’, or a comment on the weather. Today he stopped and said he was intrigued by me walking round St Mo’s pond with a camera. I told him about my plan to take a photo every day and just laughed. He is a bit older than me, but strangely enough, he and his family had moved into Cumbersheugh not long before we did. Like us, he complained about the way the estate has gone down hill these days. I think I’ve bumped into him most weeks for about ten years and this is the first time we’ve said more than ‘Hello’ to each other. It’s good to talk, sometimes.

Scamp and I did go over to the shops which were crowded with loads of folk, all doing their best to get stuff, any stuff from the shelves, because the shops wouldn’t be open on Christmas Day! What will we do if the shops are shut? We’ll all starve!! We did get some cheap tinned anchovies in Lidl, though, so the walk was not in vain.

Scamp’s now got Jamie’s wee tree draped in coloured lights. In the afternoon they look quite good, but at night the shine really brightly. A few other bits and pieces are adorning the inside of the house too. It is beginning to look like Christmas.

No great plans for tomorrow. The Dyson has been put on the back burner for now, so we’ll see what the sales bring, if anything worthwhile. We may go to the last evening dance of the year later tomorrow.

The Gas Man Cometh – 10 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

We’d booked a service on our boiler and the engineer was coming today, maybe early.

As it happened, he wasn’t that early, arriving about 10am. The service only took about 40 minutes. He’d noticed Scamp’s Essential Tremor and told us that one of the people whose boiler he works on has a special vibrating watch that temporarily numbs the effects of the tremor. It’s got a chargeable battery, but no face, presumably to make it look like a normal digital watch that defaults to a black screen. We might look into it. Good of him to suggest it.

When he’d gone, we had a sandwich and a coffee and then I had some shopping to do. I drove to The Fort and felt the car still get a buffeting when I was out on the open road, all courtesy of Storm Bram that was still roaming around.

I couldn’t believe just how busy The Fort was. Loads and loads of people buying ‘things’, anything that they could get their hands on. I wanted to go to Hobbycraft to get some fabric to make a new bowtie for the evening dance at Brookfield on Saturday. The selection was poor, much poorer than I’ve seen it before. Also, the queues for tacky Xmas things extended half way down the shop, so I gave it up and went looking for a book in Waterstones, with no luck there either. I finally came home with some odds and ends from M&S. I may go looking again on Friday, all being well.

While I was galavanting in Glasgow, Scamp was putting up more new curtains, this time in the bedroom. She’d also washed the inside of the windows too, the rain battering on the outside of the windows kind of put her off washing the outsides.

When I got home she started making a curry and it both smelled good and tasted good. Hotter than we expected with plenty of flavour.

We watched the final episode of Shetland. Everything was explained down to the finest detail. Now we just have to wait and hope for a new story in the series, all things being equal.

Today’s PoD was a view along the avenue of The Fort with its sparkly lights.

Tomorrow we may take Isobel out for lunch at the Smiddy near Blair Drummond if the weather holds, and we may even bring her back with us if she behaves herself!

Wild and Windy – 9 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Today began with a trip to Tesco.

Just a shopping expedition for the basics, fruit, veg, cereals. All the usual stuff that we need to stock up on, and one of the reasons we need a car. Imagine having to carry, drag, haul a trolley full of shopping the couple of miles to the house without a car, any car. Life would be impossible without one, but for my mum it was just a way of life. Granted, we didn’t live far from our local Co-op, but we didn’t have a car, so carrying stuff was the norm.

Anyway, we do have a car and it was loaded with all the aforementioned ‘stuff’ then between us, Scamp and I carried it from the car to the house. We had just closed the front door when there was an almighty downpour. I had been going out for a walk, but decided it would be better to give it a chance to calm down a bit first.

After lunch I did get to go for that walk over to St Mo’s because according to the weather reports it was going to be windy later. Not a particularly cold day, but a breezy one. I was glad I did go, because I spooked at least three deer. One adult and two juveniles. These were the first deer I’d seen in St Mo’s for months. I was beginning to think they had fallen foul the local nutters, but, although I didn’t manage to get a photo of the deer, I did see them so they are doing well.

PoD turned out to be a slightly edited version of a shot looking along the boardwalk in St Mo’s that shows just how high the water from last night’s rain had been. Further round the pond the water was pouring through the outfall, but the path was still flooded too deep even for my trusty boots, so I did what I usually do and walked back around the pond and then home. By about 4pm Storm Bram was ramping up and even now at just about 9.30pm it’s still rambling around us, but maybe not just as fiercely.

Scamp and I managed to put the new curtains up this afternoon and they do look very good. I think we’re both pleased with them. They should keep the living room much cosier in these windy days. I say Scamp and I, but she was determined to climb up on the tv table and do all the fancy hooking and I was left to hold her hand when she wanted down.

We’re hoping to get out somewhere tomorrow if the wind calms down a bit more.

Out on the Town – 8 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Nothing exciting, no parties and no drinking. Just shopping for stuff to go to Santa.

Scamp had the whole thing organised. Bus in to Glasgow on a wet, drizzly day. Through Buchanan Galleries passing JL on the way into a shop in Buchanan Street then across the street to yet another shop. Across the street to one more shop, then along Argyle Street to Next to get a shiny top for Scamp and M&S where I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

Bumped into Lorna and Andrew from Kirsty’s class. Then we managed to find an empty couple of seats in Nero and had a short respite from the walking, taking time out for a cake and a coffee.

Fed and watered, we walked up to Tiso to get proofer for my Rab jacket, but discovered we didn’t need it, because it’s lined with Goretex. We walked back up to JL to get new curtains (Strawberry Thief by William Morris – very posh) for our bedroom then we got the bus home.

Except … the bus broke down on the slip road of the motorway and we had to wait for a mechanic to come and fix it, which only took about ten minutes, either that or the driver had forgotten his dinner time piece box, then we were on our merry way back to Cumbersheugh.

I lost count of the shops we visited today, but none of them were selling cameras or lenses, so they were no fun at all.

We just got in to the house when Scamp’s phone beeped. It was Kirsty to say that since it would only be us at the evening’s class, she was thinking of cancelling. We agreed and could relax.

Next thing to do was to convert our Virgin V6 box to a Virgin TV 360. The remote and the instructions had dropped through our letterbox in the morning before we left on our whistlestop tour of the shops in Glasgow. After a false start, everything just worked. Now we have a whizzo box that does everything except make the tea. Scamp had it sussed in no time at all. I just sat there and watched, making the occasional sarky comment.

PoD was a girl playing bagpipes in Buchanan Street in Glasgow. I felt sorry for her. What she played was lovely, but she looked cold.

Tomorrow I believe we may be going shopping. Just local shopping for necessities.

Dancin’ – 4 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Today we were heading to Glenburn for a Tea Dance.

Before that Scamp offered to drive to Tesco in the morning to get a loaf and some veg for dinner and encouraged me to go for a walk in St Mo’s because the sun was shining. Yes, the sun was shining until I got to the park, then the sun disappeared and it started raining. However, I have to thank her for getting me moving and I did get some photos of Cladonia lichen to make a PoD.

For once, the hall was a bit more empty than we’re used to. Not that it bothered us much. We still managed to do the usual circuits of the floor, but to Christmassy music to emphasise the coming of Christmas with all that entails.

We started with a Waltz as usual and stumbled through two tracks. Then a few sequence dances just to get more folk on the floor, I think. That was followed by a Cha-Cha and a Rumba One ( which is always followed by a Rumba Two – Just a little bit faster than a Rumba One ). Another sequence dance and time for a blether with David and Carol, before the tea trolley came round.

As usual, tea time tended to last a little bit longer than was really necessary. The second half was a fair copy of the first half, with a couple of different sequence dances to fill the floor again. We had a chance to talk to Barry and Cath and interested to find that Barry has been told he has crystals in his ears. I’ve had that a few years ago. It seems that the solution hasn’t changed in that time:
1. Sit facing forward and move your eyes slowly from left to right and back again, without moving your head.
2. Sit with your head facing left and try to move your head as far as you can to the right without moving your eyes, then repeat in the other directions.
No crystals fell out of my mouth or ears in all these exercises and I felt no great benefit. Barry was in total agreement.

Spoke to Ronnie and Millie later. Ronnie was in hospital for a while earlier in the year with heart problems. He looks a lot better now than when we last saw him and he still bounces when he dances. He’ll never change!

We drove home through today’s rain and crawled over the Kingston Bridge. I’d hoped we would make better time that way than going the M8/M73 route, but I guessed wrong.

Hoping to meet Alex tomorrow for a day in Kelvingrove Art Galleries taking photos.

 

A haircut on a cold day – 3 December 2025

Posted on by Zogman

It wasn’t my turn to get my haircut, it was Scamp’s, but I think my turn is coming soon.

You know how it is when you’ve been reading a really good book and you are desperate to find out how it finishes, but don’t really want to rush through it? That was me today. I did finally give in and finish the book, and it was a satisfactory finish. I won’t spoil the final pages, but The Fathers is a great book. Well worth the time I spent on it. One of the top three books this year. I commend it to you.

Once I was recovering from the book, I dressed for the weather and walked down to the shops to get some bread and some fruit for Scamp who was almost ready to drive to the hairdresser’s. I took a camera with me, but didn’t bring it out of the bag. After lunch I walked round St Mo’s with the same camera and another lens or two hoping to get some shots of the geese on the pond, but there were none. Maybe I was too early or maybe too late, but the birds were otherwise occupied, so today’s PoD was a bunch of dried up brambles instead.

When I got them home they weren’t all that interesting, but after using an old preset, they began to look their moody best. I quite liked them. Not at all comfortably coloured, in fact they were the exact opposite and that was what I was aiming for today.

A knock at the door signalled the arrival of the man from Virgin who just switched on the V6 box and said it needed replaced, just as we’d suspected. It took him less than half an hour to replace the old one with a new one and tune it, then we were good to go and so was he. Poor bloke sounded like he was heading for a dose of the cold of flu.

At last we could sit and watch the programs on a real TV. No more crouching over a laptop, although the laptop had been a great idea of Scamp’s. It got us through what would otherwise have been a boring few days. Scamp has already loaded up our mainstay programs.

Tomorrow looks like a Tea Dance day. I don’t mind tea dances. There’s usually a lot of cheerful banter.

A cold day – 30 November 2025

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I don’t think the car turned a wheel today.

We were eating out of the freezer today. I found a couple of Lamb Neck Fillets in the freezer and a couple of sausages. Scamp dug deep and found some Trout fillets. Both needed defrosting, but the sausages were the important ones, because they would be needed first. Lunch for me was sausages, egg and half a Tattie Scone (potato scone for those of you who are not Scottish). Scamp had the other half of the tattie scone with an egg for her lunch. Sausage wasn’t the best I’ve had, but it filled a space. Meanwhile, Scamp was watching Laura Kuenssberg trampling roughshod over anyone who dared to cross verbal swords with her.

In the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s and found some Common Haircap Moss (Polytrichum commune) deep in the woods. The seedpods look like little trumpets. That made PoD. By the time I was coming home just after 3pm it was getting dark, but I had at least one decent photo in the bag.

Dinner was the meat for me and the fish for Scamp then we made plans as we often do on a Sunday evening. Finding places we’d both like to visit either before Christmas or soon after. We have a list of possibles now. All we need is the weather to go with them.

We watched the second last F1 GP of the year and it was a disappointing affair. The sort of race that failed to bring any excitement to such a prestigious event.

Spoke to Jamie and Scamp gave him a fuller description of her problems with the new meds and Jamie for his part explained how these pills work. We all agreed that she had made the right decision. Jamie also complained about the cost of absolutely everything in London. I well remember thinking I might need an extra mortgage to pay for a pint of beer and a glass of red wine in London.

Tomorrow, Scamp is meeting a friend for lunch. I’ve got some tidying to do on the computer. End of the month stuff.

Dancin’ – 29 November 2025

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Out early as usual on a Saturday, heading for Brookfield and our weekly dance class.

The class started with House of Bamboo which is Stewart’s idea of a warmup. I suppose that’s what it is, but a very gentle one – sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.

Next was the first real lesson and it was the Christmas Waltz. We managed quite well at it and by the end of the lesson we were almost there.

Next was the Feta Foxtrot. Most of it was ok, but there is a reverse turn at the end where the man dances round the lady and the lady dances round the man without either of us tramping on each other’s toes. We’ll get it done, but it will take some time.

To give us bit of a break from dancing, dancing, dancing the complicated stuff, we did a couple of well worked sequence dances beginning with Shivers by Ed Sheeran, then the Tina Tango to Annie Lennox. That gave us the chance to cool down.

Next was Samba, my nemesis. I hate this fast, shambles of a dance. In fact I wouldn’t even dignify it with the word ‘Dance’. I first saw it danced with Kirsty years and years ago and didn’t like it then and my attitude to it hasn’t changed. Jane, the teacher, didn’t even attempt to interest me in it. I think she knew it wasn’t going to work. I clock-watched all through the 25minutes I wasted on trying to learn these steps. Scamp did her best and to be honest, after the time was up, I was getting most of the steps right, but nowhere near the speed of the rest of the class. I will say no more.

We didn’t drive straight home, but we navigated our way through Glasgow’s streets and eventually found a way into Buchanan Galleries carpark, parked and walked down to The Briggate to go to a Pot Fest in one of the big galleries there. A Pot Fest is where potters come to sell their ceramic pots, bowls, mugs and other hard-fired glazed clay pieces. Scamp bought herself a lovely big fruit bowl, decorated with leaf imprints.

That was about all we did in Glasgow itself, but walking back past Paesano (my favourite pizza shop) the light was lovely just catching the light on the old sandstone buildings. I took a few photos. PoD was that street with the sun shining on it.

We parked at the house and unpacked the new bowl which looked just as good as it did at the show. Then I walked over to St Mo’s to get two small fish suppers – one each. That was lunch and dinner combined.

We’ve just finished watching the F1 GP pre-race.  Strange to watch on Scamp’s laptop, but it will have to do until we get our old V6 box fixed.

No plans for tomorrow.