Category: weather

Last Dance Class – 2 September 2023

Posted on by Zogman

… for two weeks!

Drove to Brookfield for the last dance class for two weeks, well, the last Ballroom Basics dance class because the teachers are off on holiday. However, Scamp has managed to inveigle us into another dance class in Cumbersheugh to make up our dancing time. It won’t be the same dances and Kirsty’s style will be slightly different, but the language will be the same and a change is as good as a rest. Best of all, it’s just up the road, literally. No miles and miles of roadworks to navigate through!

But today we did have to navigate the 50mph then the 40mph and back to the 50mph and then back to the 40mph before we were suddenly allowed to do a heady 70mph then 60 mph then back to 70mph again all on the same stretch of motorway. It’s confusing.

Dancing today began with Tina Tango danced to Shivers and then a never-ending extended version of Sweet Dreams (are made of this) by Eurythmics (10:23 mins), thankfully cut short by Stewart. After that we went straight into the new Cha-Cha with the Cross Basic which I think I have now conquered. I even managed to get the ‘drunken sailor’ right a few times! A couple of Blue Angel Rumbas finished off the first set.

Feeling quite pleased with myself I expected the next set would be Joy’s Waltz, which we had both practised and were happy with. But surprise, surprise, it wasn’t. It was the Quickstep which we hadn’t practised. However, after bit of one to one with Stewart, and encouragement from Scamp, it fell into place. Another section of this difficult dance done. Just to make sure we were all exhausted, we finished with one track of the Midnight Jive which is non-stop kicks, spins and cross steps.
It felt great to walk out into the sunshine after all those mind bending dances. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to practise them on Thursday at the tea dance.

Back home I re-read an email from Churchill insurance to make sure they really wanted THAT MUCH! for a year’s car insurance. No way was I paying that. That was before I logged in to Money Supermarket and found out that Churchill’s was actually a sort of middle ground insurance estimate. Scamp checked Saga and Esure just to be sure and they were coming up with close to the same numbers. Maybe Churchill aren’t so far away from the mark after all.

Scamp was desperate to get the grass cut, both front and back and I thought I might go out and take some photos later in the afternoon. So that’s what we did.The grass does look a lot better cut short and I did manage to get one photo I was pleased with, so we both achieved our stated goal. I phoned Scamp from St Mo’s to ask what she wanted for dinner. Fish ’n’ Chips from the chip shop in Condorrat was the answer. That suited me too, so I set off for that place. The phone call was also a test for the new connection. EE is now gone and has been replaced by Tesco Mobile. Double the data for less than I was paying for EE, plus the price is frozen for the 24 months of the contract. Best of all, the phone works better with the O2 masts that Tesco use than with EE’s. At least for now, anyway.

PoD was a male Common Darter dragonfly sitting on the boardwalk of St Mo’s. Lovely warm light from the late afternoon sun.

Tomorrow I think we’ll go out somewhere for a walk.

 

The first day of Autumn 2023 – 1 September 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Not as nice a day as yesterday, but at least it was dry.

A lazy morning for me pottering about in the garden. I potted up yesterday’s mint, not basil as I wrote in the blog, well they’re both green! While I was out in the garden, Scamp was off jumping around with the rest of the FitSteps ladies.

Neither of us felt much like doing anything, but Scamp did drive us up to Tesco to get some messages. Later in the afternoon I walked over to St Mo’s and got a few photos of wildflowers and one of some purple Marsh Woundwort became PoD. After a week of cycling, hill walking and Kelpie, active photographing has to give way to a more relaxing (for ‘relaxing read ‘lazy’) time!

I did drop in at Tesco to say that my PAC code hadn’t come across with the goods and the person I spoke to said it might take another day. Came home and found that the EE sim of my two dual sims had died and I was a Tesco Mobile user.

I had to do a bit of maintenance on the dishwasher which is having a hard time flushing out the water from the sump. I think it might be needing a good clean out. So I took apart what I could and washed the mucky filter before I put everything back together again. We bought some dishwasher cleaner and de-gunker today which we will run through it in the next day or two.

No dance practise tonight, but it looks like we have a quorum for a class tomorrow, all being well. Other than that, no plans.

A day at the horses – 31 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Not the galloping kind, but really big horses.

It was a really beautiful morning with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. I kid you not, we do occasionally have good days up beyond Hadrian’s Wall. We discussed where we might go to enjoy this sudden change in the weather after yesterday’s sudden showers. Scamp’s first suggestion of Drumpellier didn’t really excite me and my first suggestion of the Kelpies was always going to be a winner with Scamp. So, we went off to see the big horses. We were so busy talking while I was driving, we missed the slip-road for Falkirk and were heading for Stirling. It didn’t matter, I knew we could turn off just outside Stirling and head along the M9 to Grangemouth and from there it was an easy road to Helix park where the horses live.

We paid for the luxury of parking near to the Kelpies, the giant horses we’d come to see. I’d been there just over a week before, but I didn’t mind going again. There is always something to photograph in the park. Today it was one of the canal boats that grabbed my attention, but the big horses got PoD. We had lunch outside the cafe because it seemed such a waste to sit in a hot cafe when we could enjoy the fresh air outside and look over the park. Just for fun, after our lunch we shared an ice cream boat. It’s a wee boat shaped dish made from thin plastic with two squirts of Mr Whippy ice cream, and a ’99’ with two spoons to share. Just for fun, like I said, but it felt so relaxing sitting in the sun having lunch. Sort of ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe’. The Monet version, not the shocking nakedness of the Manet one!

Another walk round the horses to say goodbye and we walked over the canal and along the towpath to the carpark. I suggested we might go and visit Klondyke Garden Centre on our way home. It was a bit out of our way, but it would be a change from our usual plant specialists. Scamp was in her element. So much so, she couldn’t quite decide what she was going to bring home. In the end we bought a Chrysanthemum ball, a variegated Berberis, a Basil plant and a small ornamental grass. She also found a fruit stall in the centre and bought lots of interesting veg and fruit. An expensive visit, but very worthwhile. I think we may go back!

On the way home, I stopped at Tesco, terminated my connection to EE and joined Tesco Mobile. Not as good coverage as EE, but cheaper with more data allowance and the promise not to increase the price over 24 months. Just waiting now for my PAC code to complete its change over to Tesco. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages, and it was all completed in about ten minutes.

If you care to take a look at what was happening this day in 2022 and then go back a day (it’s easy), you might believe in synchronicity!  Carl Jung was a clever man!!

Tomorrow I think Scamp is intending to go to FitSteps and I’m going to do as little as possible!

 

Heading North – 30 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Both of us heading north, just not together

Scamp was going to Pitlochry with the rest of the witches on the bus and I was driving to Perth to get coffee, tea, lunch and Coltsfoot Rock. The only place I know I can get the rock is in a wee herbalist shop in Perth.

It was a fairly pleasant run up until I reached the roadworks. The works have been advertised for sometime, but were describes as being at Broxden. I assumed they were at Broxden roundabout. Not so, they were for a long stretch of the road before the roundabout and in actual fact, the roundabout was clear of any an all works. It was a 30mph speed limit on the single carriage way through the roadworks and the person in front, whoever they were was holding exactly to the speed limit. I’m guessing they were running on cruise control. It didn’t bother me because I wasn’t in a rush.

Parked at the multi-storey where we park when we’re going to the dance weekends and took too heavy bags of books to the Oxfam shop. Next stop was the coffee shop for beans and tea, then over to Nero for lunch which was a roll ’n’ sausage and a cup of decent coffee. Final task was to get the Coltsfoot rock and thankfully the shop had plenty. With that done, I managed to sneak in to the 1 hour parking category and happily paid my £1.49! At the coffee shop I’d made enquiries of the best way to drive to Kinnoull Hill which I thought I might just conquer in the afternoon.

I found the road up the hill using the directions one of the girls in the shop had given me and parked in a convenient parking place. It was a steep climb and I then realised that my troubled cycling the other day hadn’t been an isolated incident. This hill just got steeper and steeper and soon I had to stop to take a breath. That gave me a chance to check how far I’d walked and how much further I had to go. The answer was depressing. Surely I must be further on than that? But no. The OS map on my phone confirmed what Mr Google said and I’d a long way to climb yet. I thought I could remember driving along what turned out to be a private road with Scamp and both of us walking through some woods to the viewpoint. This was nothing like that path. Eventually I gave up and walked back in the direction of the car. I did find some brambles though. Nice big black fruit that’s now taking up 100g worth of space in the freezer. Back at the car I followed my nose and found my way back through Perth town onto the notorious A9 and after driving through two torrential showers, arrived back home. Conquer Kinnoull Hill in an afternoon? Who was I kidding!

I stopped in Condorrat for 500g of mince and 500g of stew. I vacuum packed the stew and half of the mince to put in the freezer. The remaining mince I turned into a bolognese sauce an ate half of it with spaghetti for dinner.

Not long after that I got the call to say that Scamp and Co were leaving Stirling and I drove up through the rain to pick them up.

It seemed that there wasn’t much to see in Pitlochry, however they had a posh lunch and enjoyed the walk around the town, window shopping. My lunch was basic, but was what I was looking for and I’d ticked off all my boxes apart from climbing Kinnoull Hill. Ill leave that for another day when I’m fitter, or more likely when I find that road we drove up the last time!

No real plans for tomorrow. The wee car is feeling a bit thirsty, so I might put some petrol in its tank.

Not going far – 29 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

I had enough exercise yesterday. I didn’t want any more today.

Scamp was out early to get her nails ‘done’ again, then she was meeting Shona for coffee. I was asked if I wanted to join them, but I decided they would get on better without me!

Instead I stayed home and read for a while and looked through the photos that had arrived in Flickr overnight. The window cleaner arrived and I spent a wee while blethering to him. Basically, I did nothing, or as close to nothing as I felt I could get away with.

After Scamp arrived home with her new lilac nails we had lunch and then I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was one of those days with gusty winds blowing the rain clouds around, creating what the weather fairies delight in calling ‘scattered showers’. PoD went to a rather demonic looking photo of what looks like a pair of horns behind a bush. It’s actually a macro of an earwig’s rear end! There are over 1000 species of earwigs in the world and only 4 are native to the UK.

The competitor for PoD was a shot of a Peacock butterfly with its wings locked together to keep a sudden rain shower out of their delicate upper surface. As soon as the rain stopped the wings folded out and it sat there taking in the warmth from the sun that had appeared after the cloud cleared.

Dinner tonight was an experiment. Pasta Carbonara with mushrooms, shallots and finely sliced bacon. It seemed to go down well and will be worth trying another time.

A short dance practise in the evening  just to make sure the Joy’s Waltz and the new short(ish) cha-cha are firmly in my head.

Tomorrow is an early rise. Scamp and the rest of the witches are off to Pitlochry on the bus for the day. I’m driving them to the Town Centre to catch the bus which leaves at 8.45am! I hope they have a great day. No singing on the bus, though!

Dancin’ Saturday – 26 August 2023

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Driving through the roadworks. Roadworks that will last until the end of September!

We drove over to Brookfield for a reasonably successful dance class, and ignoring the roadworks, it was a pleasant enough drive. Two new members, two girls. One just likes to dance and the other one wore a Fit Steps tee shirt and thought she could do it all. Oh dear, wrong thing to say.

While Jane and Stewart took them aside and explained what we were doing in class, we practised our Joy’s Waltz. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a great improvement on last week. We did actually manage once through the entire routine without a mistake, well, almost without a mistake. Then it went to pieces again as it often, but not always, does! I am improving and when I get things like the Outside Spin right, I can feel that I’m getting it right.

A couple of easy sequence dances to ease the new starts in to this strange old fashioned way of dancing, where everyone does the same moves at the same time. After that we hurtled in to the new Cha-Cha with the terrifying Cross Basic. I don’t know if it is really basic, but it certainly has the ability to make us both cross. For once, Stewart agreed with me about who was moving clockwise and who wasn’t. I’m glad someone agrees with me sometimes. By the end of that part of the lesson, things were making much more sense.

Another sequence dance and then a chance to practise the Quickstep. If there is a great stumbling block in our dances it’s the Quickstep. It really is well named. The steps come at you so quickly it’s almost impossible sometimes to stop and find out where you are in the routine.

All things considered, it was a worthwhile class where we learned a few things and got a chance to practise lots more things in a big dance hall.

We took the M8 – M74 – M73 – M80 route home and stopped at Tesco on the way to pick up lunch. We’d already decided tonight’s dinner was coming from Golden Bowl.

Rain showers all afternoon, but I braved them to take a walk in St Mo’s where PoD was a ladybird hiding under a knapweed flower.

Watched the qualifying for the Dutch GP. Interesting but not as enthralling as the World Athletics Championships, especially the pole vault where the Swedish vaulter Mondo Duplantis cleared an incredible 6.1m.

Tomorrow Scamp is heading to Glasgow for a perfume making class. Thankfully I wasn’t invited!

Out to Lunch – 25 August 2023

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It was Scamp who suggested that we go out to lunch today.

In the morning she went to her FitSteps class and I did some housekeeping. Actual, physical tidying-up housekeeping, but also the more interesting and almost invisible housekeeping on the computer. I was searching for a sofa bed that I knew was in the back bedroom / painting room / spare room. I’d seen it recently under a pile of books, a rucksack and a blizzard of paper. After some rearranging of things, a disposing of rubbish and just finding better places for jackets and hats to live, there, under it all was the sofa bed. It’s not completely unearthed yet, but now I know where to look the next time I might need it.

The computer clean-up took longer, although there was far less physical work involved. It’s so easy to get sidetracked into looking at photos you haven’t seen for a while and then that leads to more photos that look interesting until nearly an hour has gone and you still haven’t accomplished what you set out to do. It was when Scamp returned I realised that I was only half way through the clean up or what became a clear out. However I did manage to get the required photos put in the bin and their replacement put in place. I’ve still to empty the bin, because, well, I’ll need to check that I wasn’t throwing good photos out with the bad, and you never know when I’ll need that one or that one or …

I shut the computer down. I powered it off and we went out to lunch, just as the rain came on. Thankfully it didn’t last long because we’d agreed to walk down to Broadwood Farm for a cheap lunch and a glass of something alcoholic. After all it was Friday and the end of the historical working week. Not that I’ve been involved in any working for a while now, but you have to keep these traditions alive! Fish & Chips for Scamp and small carvery for me. Small because that means two of the three meats that are always available, Gammon, Turkey and Cardboard. It’s actually advertised as Roast Beef, but it’s so dry the gravy won’t be absorbed into it and it tastes like cardboard, so let’s cut to the chase here and call it what it is – Cardboard. Some mixed veg and Cauliflower Cheese brightened up the plate and actually the food was good, washed down with a pint of Tennents for me and a glass of 19 Crimes Red for Scamp. The father of a family sitting on the other side of the room had a broad southern Irish accent, and although he was speaking quite loudly, I couldn’t understand more than about three words in every sentence. This got me thinking: Is that what I sound like to English folk? I must ask Simonne the next time we meet. Scamp thinks Simonne can probably decode my accent by now!

Back home the streets were drying, but not for long. I was just thinking I might get an hour in St Mo’s when down it came, straight down rain. As soon as it had disappeared to bother somebody else, I got my boots on and went for a walk with the A6500 and a 50mm macro lens. The 50 did its magic again. 50mm used to be the lens to stick on your camera. A general purpose go anywhere lens that could handle most things. That part hasn’t really changed, but having the ‘macro’ part means it’s possible to focus down to about 30mm from the front of the lens and still get super sharp images. Kind of two lenses in one. Today it took a photo of a swan drying its wings while standing on a rock in the middle of St Mo’s pond – the swan was standing on the rock, not me, BTW! Daft, but not stupid. It took a photo of a tiny, about 3mm long spider on a web. Last, but not least it took a photo of a Red Admiral butterfly sunning itself on a bush. First red admiral I’ve seen this year and even better, there were actually two of them! The butterfly got PoD and the other two are able to be viewed on Flickr.

Swans are sneaky things.  You’ve only got to ask Jamie about their wiles!  The one referred to in the previous paragraph successfully enveigled itself into the photograph, but it’s now been bounced out and replaced with the butterfly.  Swan’s! You can never turn your back on them for a minute.  Ask Jamie!

A thin G&T each tonight because we’re out early tomorrow intending to drive to Brookfield to demonstrate that we have been practising the Outside Spin, if not the Cross Basic.

Waltzing around – 24 August 2023

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This morning we had a quick practise of the waltz. I needed it.

We spent so long yesterday arguing about whether we were going clockwise or anti-clockwise when we were doing the Cross Basic, I forgot all the stuff I’d learned about the Outside Spin. So this morning we concentrated on the Outside Spin. After a couple of mistakes I got back to the basics of it, and this next section is for my benefit. It will make no sense to anyone reading it, except me and perhaps Scamp:

After the Drag Hesitation, and the backward steps turn right and plant my right foot, then spin clockwise on it around Scamp. After that it’s a Back Lock and we’re nearly finished.

I think that’s it. It seemed to work yesterday and this morning.

That was this morning. This afternoon we drove to Glenburn to a very small group of dancers. First dance of course was a waltz. That’s when I realised I’d left the Outside Spin in the house, I must have, because I certainly didn’t have it with me! I just couldn’t remember how to get my feet to complete that simple couple of sentences in italics I’ve just written. It just wouldn’t come. Disaster! Thank goodness for sequence dances Stewart interleaves between the ballroom and latin dances. They repeat and repeat short ‘sequences’ of moves. That’s where they get their name from and also why they are so popular. After you’ve danced them for a while, they become embedded in muscle memory. I haven’t repeated the Outside Spin enough times yet to embed it.

After the halfway point of the tea dance, after the actual tea and coffee had been served and cleared away, the first dance of the second half is a waltz again and this time I stumbled through the waltz again, but this time it was a bit clearer and I remembered some of Stewart’s prompts and also Scamp’s hints. It was better, but not very elegant.

Barry and Cath, two long serving salsa dancers, and excellent tango dancers joined us after tea time for a blether. Also another dancer lady, Margaret McIver, sat and talked to us at tea time, but the two teachers sat in their little cliques and hardly spoke to us at all. That is not my idea of what teachers should do. They should encourage folk to join in the dance community and mingle. Maybe it’s just me, that I always find fault with teachers!

We left as usual just after 3pm to avoid the worst of the school transport, and we had a fairly easy run home.

I grabbed the opportunity of a few shots of our Japanese Anemone in flower in the garden and that became PoD.

Not the best dancing day, but maybe I’ve finally solved the problem of the Outside Spin and all it needs is practise now.

I think we both felt the temperature dropping a bit today. That seems to be the way the weather is going for next week according to the Weather Fairies.

No real plans for tomorrow, but we may go out to lunch.

A day among the beasties – 22 August 2023

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The beasties in question were damselflies, dragonflies, butterflies and a single little caterpillar with a face that only its mother would love!

In the morning we did little except Wordle and Spelling Bee. Then Hazy phoned and we had a good half hour chat about the Wales holiday with the Welsh side of the family. Pity the house wasn’t quite up to the Cumbrian one, but you always have to take estate agent’s descriptions and photos with a pinch of salt. Glad that everyone took their turn at cooking, and it’s alway good when everyone sits down to a meal together.

Lunchtime arrived much quicker than I expected and after we were fed and watered, we walked down to the shops to get some messages. It was on the way back home that I thought I might just manage to get some more butterfly or dragonfly photos in St Mo’s

So on with the boots and out I went to see what I would find today. It was actually quite warm in the sun and I made the right decision for once and left my raincoat at home and wore a hoodie instead. There were hosts of dragonflies about, but they were too busy dive bombing each other and flying dogfights among the rushes. Mostly they were common darters, with the males outnumbering the females about 2:1. I gave them up as a subject for today. The days are getting shorter as we move into the last quarter of August, so the dragonflies had other things on their mind.

I did find a couple of peacock butterflies sunning themselves on the flowers, but they were too far into the bushes and I knew they’d fly off as soon as they saw me coming. Also, it’s prime tick weather just now and I don’t want any more of these black devils on me. Neither them nor the inevitable clegs which you may know as horse flies. So, no butterflies either. I was busy photographing two hoverflies on a lovely pink knapweed when a common blue damsels dropped in and sat quite comfortably watching me at work before it too became a subject. I kept expecting it to fly off, but it seemed happy and obviously saw that I wasn’t a danger to it. With a couple of dozen photos taken, I headed for home for dinner which was cauliflower and potatoes with a cheese sauce.

It wasn’t until I was processing the photos that I noticed the cheeky green insect (don’t know what it was) poking its head up from the knapweed flower. Photobombed by a tiny green insect. That shot became PoD!

A quick practise tonight of Joy’s Waltz, especially the Outside Spin. Then a run through for Scamp of the new Cross Basic in the cha-cha which is really just another of Jane’s add-ons that are designed to look elegant, but cause a lot of grief! Most of the problems were ironed out … eventually.

I’m planning on meeting Alex from the train tomorrow and we’re heading to Auchinstarry to get some photos of the barges at the marina.  Scamp might be having coffee with Isobel.

Dancin’ again – 19 August 2023

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We were off to Brookfield again today for a dance class.

Unbelievably, less than a month after the months long roadworks on the M8, today they were back again. This time slightly further down the road. Can these numpties not get their ducks in a row and just do all the roadworks at the same time, instead of this Forth Bridge comparison (once it’s finished, start again). Harrumph!

The first of two tracks in the warm-up today was Shivers by Ed Sheeran, much to the delight of Scamp. Two tracks as normal, but the second one was immaterial, it was Ed Sheeran’s that counted. Then it was in to the main event of the day which was a Cha-Cha which started out as a fairly easy amalgamation of moves we already knew, but is gradually building and being refined by the teachers, but really just Jane I think, into a mammoth dancing extravaganza. Today’s addition was a Cross Basic. It was definitely cross (at least Scamp was) but it was never Basic. I think we might need some living room practise for this one.

Next up was Joy’s Waltz which is starting to gel in my head. It’s only taken since May, on and off, for it to stick, but I think I’m getting there at last. I only hope they keep it as it is and don’t go adding any more steps to a dance that is quite doable as it is.

Actually the drive home via the Clyde Tunnel was quite relaxing compared with the drive out, but the warning signs were out predicting another month’s driving misery.

After lunch we went for a walk down to the Broadwood Boardwalk and back via M&S for tonight’s dinner. The PoD came from the boardwalk and it’s Bittersweet Nightshade. Perhaps not as deadly as its better known relative, but I wasn’t risking it and neither were the birds, it seemed.

There had been some rain overnight and more is predicted for tomorrow, although the winds might have calmed down a bit. If we get a dry spell, we may get out for a walk.