Category: Wild flowers

Out on Dewdrop – 31 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Not really a cycle run, more a bramble hunt.

In the morning Scamp went out to get something for tonight’s dinner and came home with three Tesco bags full. While she was out I tried connecting the old Tamron zoom lens onto the Sony A7M2. I’ve made a few changes to some of the buttons and they make it easier to use the lens in manual mode. It does seem to work quite well as a manual lens now and to be honest the autofocus was never all that good. Just a pity the anti-shake doesn’t work now, it was useful. I took some photos of Scamp’s sweet peas in their wee jug that Hazy gave her and they looked quite good. Have a look on Flickr if you get a chance.

After lunch I pumped up the tyres on the Dewdrop and took it out for a short run down to an old path beside the railway where I knew I would get some brambles. Sure enough there were loads of them there and because it’s only a path and about 100m from the road, the fruit would be free from the chemicals given out by the lorries and vans that clog that road. I found another patch on the way home and managed to come home with just over 700g of black berries that are now stored in the freezer.

While I was out Scamp had been making Viennese Fingers and part coating them in dark chocolate without burning her fingers, thanks to H&N’s gift of a silicone jug. What clever folk they are. I’ve been stuffing my face with the little biscuits and can confirm that they taste as good as they look.

I was too busy picking brambles to take any photos today, so after changing out of my cycling gear I took the Sony A7 out with the macro lens attached and got some close-up shots in St Mo’s. No insects today to photograph, but I did get a chance to practise my manual focus skills again and most of the shots looked ok.  It was a Birdsfoot Trefoil that got PoD manually focused of course.

I’d heard a strange engine note while I was messing around in the morning photographing posies of sweet peas.  After a bit of checking on Flightrader 24 it turned out to belong to a Spitfire a tandem trainer version which was built in 1945, making it five years older than me.  It seemed to be based for the last couple of days at Cumbernauld Airport.  I did think I might go up and see if I could get a few photos, but I’d promised to go and hunt some brambles for Scamp, but while I was out in St Mo’s in the afternoon I caught a glimpse of the plane completing a half loop with a roll off the top, an Immelmann Turn.  Sounded wonderful.  May go and have a look for it tomorrow if it’s still there.

Also tomorrow we may go somewhere interesting for a walk, because tomorrow may be us nearing the end of these balmy end of Summer days. Plus, it will be the first day of meteorological autumn.  Night’s will be fair drawing in!

 

 

 

The Far East – 23 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

The weather seemed to be set fair so we drove out into it.

Pointed the Blue Micra in the general direction of Edinburgh and stopped driving at Cramond which was our destination for the day. The day started under a disappointing milky white sky, but as we travelled east the clouds lifted and thinned so that by the time we were parking at Cramond there was definite form to the clouds which were breaking to allow the sun through. We went for a walk.

We walked along the esplanade, again in the general direction of Edinburgh. There wasn’t much choice here, with the Forth estuary to the north, the way we’d come to the south and the River Almond cutting off our walk to the west. If we’d been there earlier we could have walked over the causeway to Cramond Island, but it looked as if the tide was on the turn, so that would have been a dangerous and wet direction to take. Maybe another day.

On the walk we found a community wildflower garden. It was carefully cordoned off and two ladies were carrying metre square grids to help them in taking serious measurements or counts of something scientific. We just liked the colour combinations of the red poppies, blue cornflower and something like a big daisy, but bright yellow. They almost made PoD, but as it happened they only played a supporting role. PoD went to a Small Copper butterfly on a fading cone flower.

I’d hoped we’d get a coffee in the wee café, but Scamp had remembered that it’s only open at weekends, so we walked on. We passed my favourite trees. I don’t know what they are. I must ask someone who knows, but they look so elegant. Tall straight trunks with little bunches of leaves at the top looking like a bad haircut. That’s when Scamp noticed someone hadn’t poop scooped and she’d walked through it. For once I played the good Samaritan and offered to take her shoe down to the sea and wash it clean. Of course, in the process I managed to confirm that the tide was indeed coming in. In to my trainers, that is! That was far enough we decided and walked back to the ice cream van that’s always parked at the roundabout that marks the west end of the esplanade. Two cones by the sea. What’s not to like?

We walked up the path beside the river as far as the falls at the old ruined mill. Again I’d been hoping that a wee cafe that used to be there would be open, but it was under reconstruction, so no coffee today. There’s a great old tree next to the path. It sits on a steep slope and over the years the rain washing down that slope has removed most of the soil from its roots and they are now exposed to the air and covered in colourful fungi. Unfortunately it now has a white “X” painted on its trunk, so it may not have much longer to be climbed on by decades of children.

Back home I made a sort of salmon and pea tagliatelle which was less than successful. Maybe it’s worth another try.

Tomorrow looks like another dry day. Scamp has a hair appointment in the morning, but the afternoon might be free.

Dancing and a walk in the rain – 21 August 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Off on our usual Saturday run to Johnstone. Then a walk in the rain at home.

The drive to Johnstone, or to be more exact, Bridge of Weir was fairly uneventful. Just a steady stream of west bound traffic and a steady drizzle of rain that occasionally got heavier and then threatened to dry up before changing its mind again and getting heavier. It was just constant and after a while I got so I didn’t really notice it.

Today’s class started with the Tina Tango which I’m rapidly coming to grips with. Not so, the Foxtrot which was next. It sort of reminded me of the Hedgehog’s song by Incredible String Band “You know all the words and you’ve sung all the notes, but you’ve never quite learned the song”. We knew all the figures and the steps, but we never quite fitted them together to flow as they should. Jane helped a lot smoothing the transitions between figures, but it still wasn’t right. Part of the problem is learning all the figures for the dance and practising it in the living room. The room is really too small to dance the whole piece in a straight line. We have to dance three or four figures, then turn round and dance the next three or four on the way back.
After the Foxtrot we danced the Sweetheart Cha Cha which is my nemesis. I’m going to get a tee shirt with “I HATE CHA CHA” printed on it. I just don’t seem to be able to understand the reason why you MUST start on beat 2. It makes no sense. The less said about the Sweetheart, the better.
Next was what they called The Zoom Waltz, ie the waltz we learned in the zoom class. It took me a while to work out what it was, but after that light bulb moment, it started to become clear again and we managed a couple of circuits of the floor with the minimal amount of fuss and stopping.
We finished with the Mayfair Quickstep which is a fairly easy dance that reminds me of the Military Two Step we learned at school.
After all that, our brains were full and we needed to lie down in a darkened room. Unfortunately we had to drive home first. The road was even busier than last week and the drive home took over an hour.

After lunch Scamp suggested we go for a walk … in the rain, because the rain hadn’t really gone off since we left the house in the morning and showed no signs of going off now. We dressed for the weather and walked down to Broadwood Loch, round the loch and then round past the exercise machines. I took the Sony 6000 and one lens in my pocket and got a few photos as we walked round. Three photos made the cut for PoD and the final decision was in favour of the dandelion in the rain, although I liked a mono shot of some grass stems and an old fence we passed. You can view it better on Flickr.

Tonight we discussed today’s progress at ballroom class and finally settled on Vegetable Lasagne by Charlie Bingham followed by a cheapo Sticky Toffee Pudding from Aldi. The lasagne was excellent. The pudding was too, but it’s making its presence felt now and doesn’t seem so good second time around if you get my meaning.

Tomorrow we have no real plans, although the weather fairies say the weather is to be better, or at least less rain. We may go out somewhere.

Out for coffee with Margie – 19 August 2021

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But before that, there was the problem of petrol.

Drove up to Tesco to check if my credit card would work with what I thought was my PIN, after the debacle with another of my cards last week. If it did, I was intending to bring back a loaf and get petrol. It did and I got the loaf, unfortunately the petrol station was under reconstruction which was annoying because that’s why I’d gone to Tesco in the first place. However, I’d just have to go back to BP on my way home, which is what I did. Bought £40 worth of that liquid gold which according to my dashboard computer would cover me for just over 400 miles. That got me doing some quick mental arithmetic while I was driving home (who says men can’t multitask?) that meant a quid would get me roughly 10 miles of travel and that’s before you consider Road Tax, Insurance and depreciation. Maybe I should start cycling everywhere instead.

However, if Scamp and I were taking Margie out to Torwood Garden Centre for coffee and a cake, I’d need a tandem with a little two wheeled buggy behind for Margie if I was to change to the eco-friendly method of travel. I put the though aside to suggest it to Scamp at a later date – Oops, too late, it’s out of the bag now!

We picked up Margie (in the car) and drove to Torwood. While I parked the car, the ladies went in and found us a table. It was a great afternoon. We talked about loads of things and I was pleased that she included Tarri in the conversation, but in a realistic, matter of fact way. She is a very practical woman, Margie. After coffee and a scone each we went for a walk round the plants. I could see that Scamp was casting a searching eye over various flower pots and their contents. I think we may be making a return journey to the Garden Centre soon.

While we had been in Torwood, Scamp had asked one of the gardeners how to deal with her ailing 35 year old blackcurrant bush and had been told to prune it to open it out and also to clear away all the leaves from the ground underneath the plant. That made some sense to us and she got started when we got back. We’d dropped Margie off at her house on the way. While she was hard at work with that, I started to pin up our new fairy lights to the fence. They seem to work and are lit as I write this.

With that done, I left her to pruning and dead-heading and took the Sony out for a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see on a day that had dulled down a lot from its promising start earlier in the day. Lots of flies on knapweed and one of them achieved PoD. I was trying out lots of different tricks and tips to make the Sony focus more accurately. I don’t know if the problem is with the lens or with the camera or, more likely, a bit of both.

Another practise session tonight trying to make sense of the Melody Foxtrot sequence dance. It must be one of the most complicated and totally useless dance sequences designed by humans. I think after about a dozen walk throughs we have a fair idea how it works (famous last words!). We also covered the second half of the Foxtrot sequence without anyone falling out with anyone else and almost no swearing.

Tomorrow we may attempt to drive to Hamilton, just for a laugh … and a curry.

Friday the 13th – 13 August 2021

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Not that I’m superstitious of course.

But first there was a funeral to attend. We’d driven the road yesterday and the sat nav had found the place. Today we were going to be brave and go sat nav free. I only made one wrong turning which was amazing in itself. After the service we drove through what used to be Burnbank to what used to be the Zambezi Hotel but is now the Villa Hotel for the traditional tea after a funeral. Apart from John, Marion and their offspring we knew nobody at the tea. We sat and talked to John and Marion for a while, then took our leave.

Drove home and changed before driving out again to get The Messages at Tesco. I needed to fill up the tank of the Blue Micra and then realised I couldn’t remember my pin. I tried two and was on my last attempt when I cancelled the transaction. Thankfully you have to input your pin before you fill up or I’d really have been in trouble. Of course Scamp could have paid with her card, but I just took my card and drove off, in a blazing huff. Back home, and after I’d cooled down, we drove to the BP garage and Scamp paid for the petrol. Then I drove back and requested a new pin from the bank feeling stupid. How could I forget my pin? I’d used it just last week to pay for the camera! I know I’ll remember it tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon we went for a walk in St Mo’s and that’s where today’s PoD came from. We’d been discussing the blue flower and trying to work out what it was. I though I’d just take a photo of it and find it on Google Images Search. Then I was photobombed by a hoverfly that just flew in and wandered over the flower. I got the photo, but I still didn’t find out what the flower was.

Back home it was a Tesco pizza for dinner and humble pie for me, forgetting my pin. Friday the Thirteenth? Indeed it was unlucky for me!

Hopefully dancing in the morning tomorrow, but no plans for the afternoon. It’ll be a surprise.

One out, One in – 10 August 2021

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Hopefully moving forward in the process.

It was a lovely morning after all that rain yesterday. Scamp encouraged me to go out for a walk and I’m glad I did. She was feeling a lot better, but had things to do in the house. Also, we didn’t know when DPD were coming to pick up the GX80 camera I was selling to MPB, so someone had to stay in the house.

I was hoping that yesterday’s rain and today’s sun would have freshened up St Mo’s pond to the extent that there might be some dragonfly activity and that’s exactly what had happened. Not one, but two pairs of dragonflies doing circuits of the pond. One pair were blue and big and they never stopped to rest. They just kept flying round and round. The other pair were much smaller, probably Common Darters and they were much more relaxed, stopping to rest every few minutes on the kerb of the boardwalk or sometimes even on the boardwalk itself. I grabbed a few photos just incase they flew off and, like those big blue beasts, started flying circuits. I’d just found a little Leafhopper when a gang of chattering women came down the path from the woods. We said our “Good mornings” and then I recognised one of the last to pass. She was the librarian at the school and had retired the year before me. We asked each other if we were well and I found out that the ladies were in a walking group and did this walk every Tuesday morning. I replied as my mum would have said “Half kiddin’ and hale earnest” that I’d have to avoid coming this way on a Tuesday morning. We parted, both saying “Not missing It a bit”. The ‘It’ in question didn’t need to the explained.

I wandered on into the woods and tried to find the wasps nest from yesterday. There was still some activity there, but a lot less than yesterday. It looked like a lot of the hexagonal cells had been closed up since then and only a few wasps were still working. I’d read a bit about wasps and their nests and found the entrance and exit holes quite easily, but was amazed at the distance they were away from each other and from the excavation that had uncovered the nest. The triangle they formed would have fitted into a circle about a meter in diameter. That’ was a big nest that nobody had noticed until a badger got hungry one night. I took a few shots of rowan berries that are now colouring up nicely before I headed home to drive in to Glasgow to pick up a new Sony A6000. A compact little camera that would take the same lenses as the big A7m2.

I drove in to Glasgow and picked up a very small box which contained the camera. Surprisingly it has almost all the facilities its big brother has, only the sensor is not quite as big. It’s an APS-C sensor which, without getting the technospeak that at least one person hates, is only two thirds the size of the one in the ‘Big Dog’, so images are a little bit grittier than the ones from a full size sensor. Most of the cameras I’ve owned have had an APS-C sensor or smaller. It’s not such a big deal these days. One big deal is the weight. This camera tips the scales at about half the weight of the A7M2. It should be easier and lighter to carry around for day to day photos. I’m still testing it out, but in a quick shoot in the late afternoon it did not a bad job.

By the time I got home, the DPD man had come and gone with the parcel. Now I just have to wait to see if MPB agree with my evaluation of the camera and lens.

Dinner tonight was Katsu Curry from a ‘kit’ with the Wagamama name on it. We both agreed that the chicken done in panko breadcrumbs and even the rice were good, but the sauce. Oh, the sauce! It tasted bitter and a bit spicy, but that was the end of the taste test. It wasn’t a gravy, it wasn’t a curry sauce. It lacked body. Basically it added nothing to the taste of the meal. Scamp has had a Katsu Curry in Wagamama and says this brown liquid is nothing like the curry sauce you get in the restaurants. I don’t think we’ll bother with another ‘kit’ with Wagamama’s name on it.

PoD was taken with the new camera, but that’s not why it got that position.  PoD is awarded on merit, not on the hardware that is used.  That’s what I say, anyway.  The PoD is a couple of Dead Nettles (Lamium purpureum) which are not related to stinging nettles, but may have evolved to look like stinging nettles as a protection against being eaten by animals.  Y’see, every day is a school day (Sorry Neil D!)

Tomorrow we may go out for a drive in the rain.  I may even take the Little Dog.