Category: weather

Coffee with Isobel – 7 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

We were out this cold morning (-0.4ºc) for coffee with Isobel. Always an entertainment. Straight talking, never bothered who hears her and straight to the point. She never changes and that’s what’s so great about her. She and Scamp had a long conversation about her extended family and I listened because there wasn’t much chance of getting a word in edgewise. When the two of them had finished their discussions we dropped Isobel back at her house and then came home via Tesco.

After lunch which was a bowl of Scamp’s rather delicious lentil soup, I dragged my boots on and went over to St Mo’s with the A6000 and a couple of lenses. Again I was just that half an hour too late to capture the trees lit by the setting sun. One of these days I’ll get it right. However I did get a shot of a duck feather sitting on the ice with tiny little frozen water drops hanging from it. That became PoD. The contender for the accolade was a low down photo of a single dandelion with its seed head closed, waiting for a blustery day to release those seeds to the vagaries of the wind. It’s on Flickr if you care to look.

Dinner tonight was paella which I haven’t made for ages. It tasted good, so good in fact that we ate the whole lot. I’d hoped to keep some of the rice to make more arancini tomorrow, or next day.

We watched the Portrait Artist winner for this year painting her portrait of Lenny Henry. I wasn’t impressed with her, or the painting, but I was impressed with him. I hadn’t realised he’d worked to get a PhD. What impressed me most about his was his quiet manner. No longer the noisy shouting comic, but a man who looked comfortable in his skin. We both agreed that the portrait didn’t look like him, and isn’t that what portraits are all about? Nice perspective and control of things like foreshortening, but there was only a fleeting likeness of him in the face. Disappointing.

Tomorrow I’m heading in to Glasgow to take some photos with Alex and hopefully to have a pizza for lunch.

 

Nothing but Blue Skies – 5 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

One of those cold, bright December days when you just have to get out.

Admittedly, it took a nudge from Scamp to make me get up and put my boots on and even then, it was about half past one in the afternoon before I managed to set foot outside the door. By then it was far too late to drive to Drumpellier which had been our stated destination, but Scamp agreed that a walk round part of Broadwood Loch would be a fair substitute.

So with both of us suitably dressed for the winter weather, we walked round the boardwalk at Broadwood, which is where today’s PoD came from. Technical details later. From the boardwalk we walked over the dam and I saw a bloke photographing the seagulls on the outfall of the loch with what I think was a Canon with a serious looking lens. Probably at least 500mm. It certainly outgunned mine, but it was fitted on to a ‘plastiCanon’. Not a real camera at all IMO. I tried a shot of the gulls too, but as usual, the result failed to inspire me. I hope he was skilful enough to get a good result with inferior equipment.

We walked over to the exercise machines and then up past the ripped up ground that will soon be converted to a ‘Micky Ds’. Allegedly they’re hoping to have it up and running for Christmas. I can’t imagine that happening, but who knows. It just might. We were going to the hole in the wall machine at the BP garage for some read cash in case the man who is coming to service the boiler tomorrow hasn’t got a card machine. With ‘real’ money in our pockets we headed for home and found the heating had noticed our absence and warmed the house up for us, all by itself. Scamp, of course, complained that it was too warm!

Dinner tonight was going to be Arancini (deep fried rice balls) using the remainder of yesterday’s risotto. Scamp was in charge of the arancini production line. She shaped the rice into little balls just smaller than a tangerine, dipped them in seasoned flour, then coated them in egg. Finally dropping them gently into the bowl of breadcrumbs. I was making the tomato sauce to go with the rice balls and also at the end of the production line, rolling the arancini in the breadcrumbs then easing four at a time into the hot fat from a wire scoop and fishing them out again onto kitchen paper a few minutes later. It may sound complicated, but it worked really well and without argument on either side.

The proof of the Arancini was in the tasting and we both agreed that they tasted fine and were filling enough with the tomato sauce. Quite messy though and would be even more messy without a dishwasher.

As I said, the PoD was a shot of the boardwalk at Broadwood Loch. In fact it was a panorama built in Lightroom from five separate images. I liked the finished result. The light was really good this afternoon and that warm glow from the afternoon sun gave it a wintry feel.

According to the weather fairies, we may be experiencing another ‘wintry feel’ this week with the chance of the first snow of the winter. We’ll hope it’s not too serious an attempt from the white stuff.

I’m off to the doc’s tomorrow morning to see what he has to say about my leg. Also, the bloke is coming to service the boiler, also in the morning.

I saw the sun today – 4 December 2022

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I did, I saw the sun. I also saw cloudy skies and rain, but for about an hour I saw the sun.

I thought we might get out for a run, maybe over to Cramond for a walk along the esplanade, but it wasn’t to be. The rain came on and scuppered that trip. The longest walk we managed was down to the shops to get some ingredients for dinner and then we walked back. I chose to go further and went round the pond at St Mo’s and a quick foray into the woods. A few photos came from that walk, and PoD was a backlit leaf with lovely golden light and little bubbles of refraction called ‘bokeh’ from the sunlight shining through the water drops that were everywhere. It did rain for a while, but I was too busy to really notice.

Scamp had gone home to start baking her three Christmas cakes. Why three? I think it was because if she made just one big cake, it wouldn’t all get eaten and she’d end up throwing some of it away. The mixture would make three cakes. Two would go upstairs to rest for later and one would be for our Christmas. I could be wrong, but I think that’s the plan. When I got back from my walk, she was just filling the last cake tin and was almost elbows deep in cake mix. My contribution to the cake was finding the parchment cake liners in the bottom of the kitchen cupboard and putting them in the cake tins. Baking was now up to Scamp.

About three hours later, dinner was an old favourite, Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto. The bake in the oven version. So just after the cakes come out, the risotto was ready to go in. It turned out a bit more watery than usual, but Friday’s Sweet Potato Soup wasn’t and it had some croutons too, cut from a thick slice of my bread, also from Friday. A fairly substantial Sunday dinner, washed down with a glass of shiraz that Crawford and Nancy brought on Friday.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard that they had their new Christmas tree built up and lit. It looked very grand in the living room. Also, Jamie just dropped it into conversation that they had their log burner going to keep the place warm.

No where planned for tomorrow, but if it’s dry we may go to Drumpellier for a walk in the woods.

 

 

Cold and dull – 29 November 2022

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Struggled to find the word in Wordle and didn’t finish the Spelling Bee. Such is life.

However, I put that disappointment behind me and started thinking about tonight’s dinner, which was going to be Spag Bol for me with chopped up chicken livers for extra meatiness. That meant I had to be on the ball, getting the meats out of the freezer to defrost. The mince had been chilling away in there since April! Scamp was having cauliflower cheese, so no early prep was necessary there.

With that done, we started packing a parcel to go down south. Then we realised that it should really have gone yesterday to avoid getting caught up in more postal strikes that start this week. Not to worry, we could send it with DPD which is usually pretty good at getting things done on time … touch wood! Even better, we could send the parcel from Matalan which is virtually on our doorstep. Drove down to the shops and sent the parcel on its way.

Two things done. The next thing to do was finish the backup for the newly refurbished and SSD powered iMac. A walk in St Mo’s got me a PoD which wasn’t looking very hopeful to start with, mainly because it was so dull and it looked like being a 3pm sunset, but after dunking it in Lightroom, scrubbing it and hanging it out to dry, it looked far more interesting.

The walk also cemented the backup strategy in my head and when I came back I got started on moving things around between the SSDs. An hour later the job was done and the photo was ready to post on Flickr. It’s a trio of bramble leaves shining brightly against a grim looking St Mo’s sunset. I liked it. Three tasks completed!

My Spag Bol turned out reasonable tonight, but probably needs more basil and oregano to brighten it up tomorrow. I think I might try some tagliatelle instead of spaghetti too. Scamp’s cauliflower cheese looked lovely by comparison.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot.  Yesterday I had washed the car just as it was getting dark.  Today when I was driving down to the shops, I found loads of mucky bits I’d missed.  I may have to take it through the car wash now!

Tomorrow I’m told we may need some shopping.

Another day in the Toon – 27 November 2022

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We’d discussed the possibility of driving home via Glasgow yesterday, but the weather was so depressing, we left it until today.

It was a much better day today. Sunshine aplenty from early morning, so we drove in to Glasgow. Scamp had things to buy and I had photos that would need taking. Between us we achieved our stated goals. It wasn’t quite as cold as we’d thought, but when you were out of the sun it gave a better picture of the air temperature. Maybe it reached double figures, but not by very much.

We also made some time for coffee and a cake, but decided we’d just go home for lunch. The Christmas Market was jam packed with punters today, so we gave it a body swerve and headed up Buchanan Street. There were four little groups of children dressed in costumes and all well chaperoned who were performing dance routines all the way up the busy street and collecting for charity. I think we saw four of the groups, some with five or six dancers, some with just two, but all were very accomplished. We also saw a bloke who was jumping through flaming hoops and hoops with knives round the edges. He was collecting too, but not for charity!

I found my PoD at the bottom of the street. A low level shot of a bloke selling helium balloons. Those big bunches of brightly coloured vinyl balloons and I was lucky enough to catch him removing one to sell to a little girl. That was my picture of the day right there. I got a couple of mono shots too that made it to Flickr.

Back home and after lunch Scamp headed down to the shops to get a chicken for dinner while I worked on the photos. By the time she was coming home the light was beginning to fade, but by then the photos were uploaded into Flickr, so I didn’t need to worry about going out for more shots.

Dinner was roast chicken with potatoes and roasted veg and it was quite delicious. Pudding was just as good. It was a slab of ice cream with meringue crumbled over it. A healthy squirt of raspberry sauce finished it off.

Spoke to Jamie later and broke the news to him that we wouldn’t be coming down to their house for Christmas. The trains are too risky with every week bringing more strike announcements. The flights are overpriced as a result and for him to drive to the airport and back, picking us up and then delivering us back again would take a large chunk out of his day on what should be holiday time. We did say that we like to come down in the spring and we’ve agreed a possible time. Hope you’re not too disappointed Jamie. Glad you’ve booked a trip to see Jaime in Trinidad.

That was our day. Tomorrow we’re hoping to take Shona out for lunch. Out to lunch again, I hear you say?! Well, we haven’t been out for lunch this week yet. Mind you, it’s only Sunday!

 

Dancin’ – 26 November 2022

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Drove through the rain to Brookfield to find an enormous marquee sitting in the car park.

Thought for a minute the class had been cancelled, or that the marquee was for us to dance in. Neither was the case. It appeared that the marquee was for an event later in the day and unfortunately the class hadn’t been cancelled. We filed into the hall to find tables arranged round the hall. More obstacles for us to dance round or collide with, depending on our dancing skill. The class started with a Melody Foxtrot, two tracks of it. Then it was full pelt into the Cameron Quickstep and almost all of the practise we’d done last night went clear out of my head. Gradually it returned after I listened to Scamp’s whispered directions, but it wasn’t the resounding success I’d hoped for. Although, neither was it the disaster that it could have been, so we’ll take that as a positive.

Midnight Jive was next just to give us a chance to clear our heads before the teachers decided to throw in the Jetlag Waltz, which we’ve only danced once or twice, but like most of these dances, consists of dance ‘units’ that are bolted together to form a complete dance. It’s knowing what order the units are in that makes for the level of difficulty. According to Scamp we have that one on video and so should be able to make more sense of it by next week, all being well.

I thought we were going to be forced into the Christmas Pudding Rock to finish with, but instead we did a round of the Sally Anne Cha Cha. I don’t know who Sally Anne was, but this wasn’t a cha-cha. Again it was a series of dance units bolted together in what seemed like random patterns. Noisy and energetic and fairly good fun. Got our blood flowing ready for the drive home.

The actual drive home wasn’t too bad although the weather wasn’t too clever. Still raining and I really need to replace the wiper blades soon. The way they rattle across the windscreen sets my teeth on edge. We stopped at the shops on the way home to get milk and donuts and cakes, because we’d been good and not made a total mess of the morning’s dances.

I took a walk over to St Mo’s in the late afternoon because the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing for a warm looking sunset. Warm looking, yes, but it was getting cold, so only one circuit of the pond. PoD was a shot of a woman walking her dog along the boardwalk with some early evening light.

Dinner tonight came courtesy of Golden Bowl. Chicken Chop Suey and Fried rice for Scamp and Chicken Chow Mein for me. Very nice, if a bit dry.

We watched Hidden Figures on TV. It’s based on the true story of three women of colour in America attempting, and succeeding in working for NASA to make a success of the first American in space. Yes, we’ve seen it before, but the message was still there and the fact that we’d both lived through such ridiculous bigotry shocked both of us, just as it had on our first viewing.

Tomorrow looks a lot better than today according to the weather fairies. I hope they have it right.

Checking out the Humans – 25 November 2022

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Not an early start today, but I got a fair bit of work done once I was up.

Scamp was out at 11am for her FitSteps class and I began my cleanup of the back bedroom, my painting room. I managed to clear most of the chest of drawers. Some of the things I wanted to keep went into a drawer, most of it went into the bin. I even dusted the two bookcases in the room. It’s not nearly finished, but it’s started and that’s the main thing.

After lunch we drove over to The Fort and while Scamp went shopping, I went looking for photos of Provan Hall which I remember sketching about fifty years ago. I’ve still got that wee sketch somewhere. Drawn with a dipper pen in blue shellac based ink. Unfortunately once I’d battled through a rainstorm, I found that the 15th century building was getting a facelift and seemed to be in the middle of a building site. I did get a few photos, but they were more record shots than anything creative.

I walked back to the car in the gathering gloom looking for a last minute photo, then I remembered the three deer who are always ready for a photo opportunity. Instead of the usual face on view or the profile shot, I chose to shoot over their bronze heads as they checked out the Humans, and wondered what the glitz and jingle bells nonsense was all about. I used a wide aperture, meaning that the background of the shops in their festive splendour would be just a warm blur.

We drove home and Scamp wisely used the Hive app to turn the heating on for a half hour ‘boost’ when we were halfway home, ensuring we had a warm welcome when we arrived. It had been a cold, wet day and the house was indeed toasty when we got back.

Dinner tonight was Scamp’s veggie chilli and a baked potato. Like soup, the chilli tastes better the second day, or as was the case here, the third day.

Tonight we had a practise run through of the Cameron Quickstep and ironed out a few problems, then we did the same with the Gershwin Foxtrot, a lot of which had slipped my memory.

Both of these dances will be contenders for further changes and additions tomorrow at Brookfield.

Out to lunch – 24 November 2022

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This going out to lunch is becoming a bit of a habit, I hear you say. We would disagree.

Today after we’d solved Wordle and Spelling Bee we got a bit better dressed and drove over to Motherwell. When we parked at Alex and Carol’s house, Alex told me to park the car and we’d take his daughter’s car to Gouldings for lunch.

It was very, very busy at the restaurant. Usually they hand out a buzzer to tell you when your table is ready. Today that wasn’t going to work. Today we had to queue. Actually it didn’t take that long for the queue to go down and we were seated at table 40 out of 41. Take 41 tables and multiply it by 3 to get an average of 123 people all eating or drinking or just talking at the same time with the kitchen and servers keeping things going smoothly and you see just how efficiently this restaurant works. I’m not going to list what everyone at our table had for today’s lunch, but I’d say that we were eating, drinking (non alcoholic) and talking for a couple of hours and it was really good.

Scamp hadn’t met Alex or Carol for close to twenty years. In that time three children had arrived in their family and two of our ‘children’ had been married. There was a lot for the ladies to catch up with. Alex and I had already talked these things through over the past year and a bit.

We had a walk round Xmas which had been delivered to the nursery, almost replacing the plants that are usually sold there. After the walk through and the disbelieve at the number of light-up reindeer that can be crammed into a given space. Although according to the signs in Xmas, you can run 1,000 LED lights for thirty days for 55p. That’s what they say, but how would they go about proving it? And why?

Alex drove back to Motherwell and we said our goodbyes and then drove home. It was a much brighter day than we’d expected with a sunset beginning at about 3pm. Thankfully I’d grabbed a few shots this morning in the garden and I managed to create a PoD from one of them. It wasn’t what I intended, but it made a decent abstract after being dunked in three pieces of software. Sometimes Ansel Adams quote about ‘Taking’ a photograph and ‘Making’ a photograph rings true.  Just in case you’re interested, it’s a macro of part of a Curly Kale leaf.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending going to FitSteps and I’m hoping to stay home and drink tea!

Another early rise – 22 November 2022

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This early rise was because I’d an appointment with the doc.

A misty morning and a bit cold for a drive up to Kenilworth for a consultation with a doctor. The sister, at my annual checkup a week ago, recommended that I take my leg with me to show it to the doc. I’ve had sores appearing and disappeared on my right leg for almost a year. The last meds they gave me seemed to cure the affliction, only for it to return a month or so later. Phoning for an appointment only results in the receptionists telling you to take a photo of the problem and sending it in to the surgery so everyone can have a good laugh at it. However if the request is properly phrased to a form like: “The sister recommended that I make an appointment …” That get a fast track to actually speak to someone face to face.
That’s what got me to the surgery at just before 9am. The doc had a long look at the sores and gave me a stronger prescription and booked me for a further consultation in two weeks time. Let’s hope it’s not so strong that it melts my leg. That would be a problem.

Drove home and had a slightly late breakfast after I’d dropped my prescription off at the chemist. Scamp and I worked on our Wordle workout and then went on to Spelling Bee. Surprisingly I got a 4 for Wordle and found the hidden seven letter word in Spelling Bee. What DID we do for entertainment before Wordle and SB?
With our brains suitably exercised, we drove up to Tesco for “The Messages”. Lots of them. I was beginning to think we’d need a bigger trolley!
Then it was time to stick a posh cotton bud up the nose and down the throat, then package the whole thing up and seal it in its posting bag which Scamp had offered to take to Condorrat to post. Then the awful, boring, badly written survey form had to be filled in. Tedious is the only printable word I can use to describe it, but it’s done and sent.

While Scamp took the evidence to the post box, I gathered up all the odds and ends we’d collected in the past couple of months and took them to the skip. That left me a decent amount of time to drive up to Fannyside to get some decent landscape photos. As I passed Fannyside Loch, I could hardly believe the reflections. I had to stop and get a photo … or five. I asked a lady who was just about to leave the clubhouse if I could park there for a couple of minutes. She said that I could, but she was just about to lock up. No time to use a tripod, then, but I was pretty sure the A7 would handle it easily. The colours and the reflections took only 1/125th of a second to record, but I knew they were fine without spending time checking. I thanked the lady and showed her the photo, then I drove over to the parking place I usually use and watched as the mist rolled down the valley, flowing like water around the trees and then round the old ruined farmhouse that sits on a wee hill.

By the time I left, the sun was almost setting and I met a couple of photogs. Not Scottish, possibly Polish photographing the loch from behind the fence. I had had a much better view uncluttered by chain link. I told them where I had been and suggested they might like to try a few shots from there. They agreed. The girl was building a portfolio to get her into college and her boyfriend was there to carry the gear, I think! They headed off to find the mist and I drove home to download the photos and start dinner.

For the first time in ages I ran through 71 photos and didn’t even reject one! My favourite, and PoD was one of the first shots I took of the loch.

Tomorrow I’m intending to meet Alex and take some photos around Glasgow. Not such an early rise, I hope.

Up far too early – 21 November 2022

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We were both up and on the go by about 8.30am which, for me at least, is far too early.

Today the plumber was coming to fit a new kitchen tap. We were ready by 9am, but he didn’t make an appearance until 11am. By that time Scamp had driven down to The Village to have coffee with Isobel and Isobel had phoned me to ask if Sheila was still at our house. Then she cut me off to say “Oh, she’s just coming in the door.”

It only took the plumber about twenty minutes to swap out the taps. I paid him what he asked for which was really too much for twenty minutes work and the price of a cheap mixer tap. Ok, there were two of them, but one was just there to mop up the water that had dripped out of the old tap. Still, we’ve got a tap now that doesn’t drip … so far and we won’t use that plumber again, but if anyone ask us to recommend a good plumber his name will be mentioned as someone to avoid.

With the main event of the day over, I walked over to the post office in Condorrat to send back a pair of dance trainers that were a size too big. While I was there I managed to get some sliced sausage, black puddings and half a kilo of diced stew at the butchers. Finally I took a trip round St Mo’s to see what was happening there. It was cold. The temperature when I left the house was just over 4ºc but the wind made it feel colder. Bunnet on the head and fingerless Foto Gra4 gloves on the hands.

The pond was really full of water, almost flooding over the path in places, because the channel that’s supposed to drain the excess water down into a soak-away and eventually on to the River Kelvin was blocked. The blockage was caused by the horsetails that grow on the verges of the pond dying off and floating towards the outlet. The council sometime clear them away, but they must be too busy putting up Christmas lights in Motherwell. As I headed home I dialled up the Hive on my phone and set it for a quick half hour boost of 21.5ºc. If you’ve got the technology, use it!

Today’s PoD was what will probably be the last of the low views of the reed beds with the camera held about five centimetres above the water surface. I had a dream last night where I leaned too far and fell in. Dreams do come true, but hopefully not that one!

So in the morning today I’ve spoken to Isobel, paid the plumber, been to the post office and the butchers and taken at least one photo. Scamp came home half an hour after I got back and it was time to investigate the ‘better quality’ of the sliced steak sausage. It was delicious.

I spent most of the afternoon poring over the poor quality photos I’d taken, but eventually decided on one that, with a few dunks in Lightroom and Photoshop became PoD.

Dinner was chicken soup again with croutons this time followed by more cake, stewed apples and cream. Good warming food.

We watched The Big Scottish Book Club with Damian Barr doing a great job of keeping everyone on the right track.

Another early rise tomorrow to go to the docs for 9am. Then, I’m told, we may need ‘some messages’. Such a hard life!