Category: Wild flowers

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.

Smelling Sweetly – 27 August 2023

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Scamp was off to a hotel in Glasgow to learn how to make perfume. I stayed well away!

Scamp met Annette on the bus in to Glasgow. I’d walked over to Condorrat with her and was quite pleased that I did, because it was there I found today’s PoD. While the two friends went in to Glasgow, I walked back home and, having my camera with me took to opportunity to get some photos of the Honeysuckle flower that was to be PoD. Back home I sat down to read another chapter or two of The Brass Verdict. I did a bit more clearing out in the back bedroom and also considered putting some air into the Kona’s tyres, but didn’t quite get round to that.

I checked the recipe for tonight’s Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto – one of the easy ones that you bake in the oven and don’t have to stand for half an hour stirring. We needed a few things and I grabbed a bag and walked down to the shops. It wasn’t a heavy load to carry back, but I had bought more than I really required for dinner. I don’t think the recipe had mentioned Crunchy Ice Lollies or Jam Donuts, but for some reason both of those items had found their way into the message bag. How strange.

On the way back I found a strange looking object on a wall. It looked like the broken lid of a Jerry Can and had a flower growing out of the top. It looked a bit like an alternative flowerpot and was interesting enough for a photo or two. Try as I might I just couldn’t get a good shot of it. Eventually I decided I’d taken enough photos and spent enough time on it and walked up the rest of the way home.

It took about five minutes to process the honeysuckle flower. It took about an hour and a half to piece together two photos of the alternative flowerpot. In the end they both went in to Flickr, but the honeysuckle won PoD hands down.

I was just finishing the flowerpot when Scamp texted me to say she was on the bus home. I said I’d meet her at her stop and walk home with her because it’s a lonely path over the motorway and although it wasn’t that late, it’s always better to have somebody to walk with.

It seemed from her description that the perfume making was quite an interesting experience. Not just a cobbled together talk with a Powerpoint presentation and a bottle of smelly stuff to take away. There were 24 different ‘notes’ divided into three categories of Base notes, Middle notes and Top notes. All the participants could blend them any way they chose. Everything measured by drops, or even ‘half drops’. It sounded fascinating, but not really for me, I think! I did sample some of the testers and ‘Wood’ definitely did smell woody. Similarly, Passionfruit had that sharp sweet scent that only passionfruit has. But the one that stood out for me was ‘Rose’. I immediately smelled Turkish Delight which, of course is made from rose water. It sounded an interesting afternoon for Scamp and Annette and I don’t suppose the two glasses each of Prosecco did any harm too!

Watched a crazy Dutch GP with drivers splashing through rain, driving in the sun and finally back to torrential rain which resulted in the race being stopped until the clouds rolled away and the track dried out. An interesting race for once.

The Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto was delicious, but that was more down to fresh smoked haddock than to my skill. We might make arancini with the leftover risotto tomorrow.

No plans for tomorrow.

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.

Gardening and wildflowers – 20 August 2023

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A lazy day, with little to recommend it.

We did a bit of gardening in the late morning, just pruning the Buddleia in the hope that it would encourage more flowers, but I really think it’s past now and needs a serious haircut before the winter winds arrive. Scamp was busy moving some Honesty plants from the nursery pots to the pots they will hopefully live in until they flower next year. She can be quite ruthless with plants, ripping them out if she thinks they are ‘going over’, ie not producing the flowers they should be. I was also chopping down as much of the Aquilegia I could get away with. It’s well past first flush of flowering and there’s just the chance that it might flower again before the end of the year. More work needing done:

  • Sunflowers need staked.
  • I think we need to think about some winter colour.
  • We need to remove this year’s flowers from the Rhododendrons. This one is contentious. Some folk think we shouldn’t remove the old floret stems and some think we should.

Basically the garden is doing well. The few veg I have are coming along nicely, especially the leeks and the kale. Maybe we should plant some tatties soon for a Christmas crop.

In the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got a few interesting wildflower photos, there being very little insect life about apart from the usual skittish Common Darters. It was a very green photo of a Pineapple Plant that got PoD. I remember when I was wee, being amazed that they did actually taste like pineapples! They smell like them too. As they are low growing, it’s probably best to just smell them rather than eat them as you don’t know what has been ‘watering’ them!

Dinner tonight was a Chicken Milanese we got from the butchers a week or so ago. Scamp was not impressed and I have to agree her version is better. Dessert was Apricot and Brioche Pudding. A bit like Bread and Butter Pudding, but posher!

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard about his posh dinner on Friday. Sounded lovely. We must go look for The Unruly Pig. That’s the name of the restaurant, by the way.  We think our garden is growing well until we hear about their garden and then ours pales a bit in comparison.  However, ours is easier to maintain.

No real plans for tomorrow. It depends on the weather.

Tidying up – 14 August 2023

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Not my room this time, but the car.

Tomorrow is MoT day for the wee blue car and there were some things that needed fixing before it went in for its first checkup. I watched a few YouTube videos about replacing the rear wiper. I never knew there were so many variations of rear wiper blades for one model of car. It took a while, but I eventually found our model, or near enough our model and it seemed really simple, except the old blade refused to come off until I coaxed some WD40 into the pivot and then everything went like clockwork. Drove up to Halfords and found the correct blade. It cost £5.95 for the blade and it would have cost another £5 to get them to fit it! Thank goodness for WD40. It saved the day again.

The car got a wash a couple of days ago but today it was the inside that needed cleaned. Crushed leaves and the sticky covering of buds from the trees, with the addition of the usual collection of parking receipts and sweetie papers all had to be hoovered up. I drained the battery of the portable Dyson and put it back on charge while I decanted the mats from the footwells and brought them in to the house to be hoovered with the big plug in Dyson. The boot too was emptied, everything hoovered and put back in place.

Dusters were flying around the dashboard too to make everything look sparkling, or as sparkling as it can be if I’m doing it. Filled up the washer bottle and cleaned more detritus from the wiper sockets and we were ready to go.

Time for a relaxing walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see and the rain clouds were rolling in, so it was just once round the pond. PoD turned out to be a stem of Purple Loosestrife which has rings of purple flower at intervals up its height. Allegedly it is an invasive species, but so are humans, they say, and we’re still here!! I had a fallback photo that I took in the morning, a Peacock butterfly on our Buddleia bush in the garden.  I now have proof that our buddleia does indeed attract butterflies!

I lost track of time when I was out and that meant the dinner was about an hour late, but it was penne pasta in a vegetarian sauce with “what’s left in the fridge” contributing to its richness, plus some of our home grown herbs bolstering basil from the pot on the window ledge. That was Scamp’s idea and it’s a good one.

She is intending to go to meet one of her friends from work tomorrow after she gets her nail polish professionally removed. I’m driving the blue car in to Glasgow to get its first MoT done, hopefully, successfully!

One in – One out – 31 July 2023

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That was the rule we made. If one thing comes in, another one must go.

<Technospeak>
Last week the A6500 came in and today the A6000 had to go on a visit to Norwich to find a new owner. The A6000 was a decent camera, still is, but the a6500 was a big step up. The viewfinder is definitely clearer and the IBIS anti-shake is a boon with a small, fairly light camera. I’d had the A6000 for a couple of years and the one thing it taught me was that it was possible to go on holiday with one small camera and two lenses and not feel restricted. That combination weighed almost as much as my big A7iii alone. Admittedly the A6000 couldn’t produce the same quality as the A7iii, but for its size it punched above its weight, if you excuse the pun. I hope it teaches someone else that good things can come in small packages.
</Technospeak>

Spoke to Hazy after I came out of the shower this morning and we heard all about the preparations for the Welsh holiday with the family. Good to hear that Neil is coming out of ‘teacher mode’ and getting some ‘me time’, visiting galleries and wandering round London.

I drove up to Tesco in the town centre hoping to get a large sized plastic posting envelope. They didn’t have any plastic envelopes, just thin bubble wrap ones with a paper cover, you know the ones I mean. I went back to Tesco Craigmarloch and found a packet of them there. Sometimes the smaller stored trump the big ones. I wrecked the first bag trying to get the almost cubic box into it neatly. With Scamp’s help I did manage to get it in to the second bag and using her wrapping skills it was a neat package. That’s when she said “I thought you’d just use this one”, holding the brown cardboard box the A6500 came in. Of course! If the big box could hold the A6500, it would hold the slightly smaller A6000! Why didn’t I think of that. So the neatly wrapped up box went into the big box with its ‘sausage balloon’ cushions to keep it safe. I stuck down the labels and took it to the post office in Condorrat were it was scanned and went straight into the waiting post van with the other parcels, most of which were going to Amazon!

I walked back in the rain to St Mo’s and got PoD which was a Purple Vetch flower, a wild flower. Lots of it flowering beside the path. I also got a photo of a bent down grass stem, beaded with water. That was the extent of today’s photography.

Dinner tonight was Pasta Carbonara and was one of the best I’ve made for a while. Don’t know why, it just was.

Tomorrow Scamp is out for lunch with one of her ex workmates. If it’s good weather I may take some photos. If not I’ll do a bit of ‘open heart surgery’ on the iMac.

Rain, Sun and Wind – 2 July 2023

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Three words to sum up today as far as weather goes. There was rain. Sometimes heavy sometimes light, but always there on the horizon. Then there were occasions sunbursts, sometimes while the rain was falling, but welcome when they appeared. Lastly there was wind for the third day recently. Gusty wind blowing in from the west. Very unseasonable weather after a Flaming June.

Scamp was out planting her new flowers. They are a white Salvia and a white Penstemon. Both in the new pot she bought (but didn’t wear) yesterday. They are now ensconced in the front garden to strengthen the barrier and hopefully prevent the Scottish Terrier from round the corner from crapping in our front grass. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll have to resort to digging pits with sharpened spikes at the bottom, between the pots or the ‘nuclear option’ – Land Mines. Anyway, for now the flower pots are doing a good job of keeping Hamish at bay. In the afternoon I swear I saw Scamp out in the front garden watering the plants while the rain was tipping it down. I now have seriously concerns about her sanity.

Later in the afternoon I put my boots on and went for a walk in St Mo’s, hoping to get some photos of some yellow Flag Irises, but was disappointed to find that they were long gone. That spell of hot weather had forced the flowering of these elegant plants way ahead of their usual blooming time. What I did find was a couple of Batman hoverflies, so called because they have what looks like the Batman symbol on their thorax. Then a Five Spot Burnet moth feeding on its favourite knapweed flower. After some discussion with myself, the Burnet moth got PoD.

Watched a crazy Austrian GP with almost half the field succumbing to five second penalties for exceeding ’Track Limits’. For once, Charles Leclerc didn’t find the wall!

We don’t have any plans for tomorrow.

 

Driving everywhere – 3 June 2023

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The dance class for today was cancelled due to too few numbers, so we used the daw wisely by tidying up loose ends.

We drove to The Fort in about 23ºc of heat with the intention of getting a pair of Crocs for me and a pair of shorts for Scamp. Neither of us achieved our goals and we went for lunch at Wagamama to console ourselves. Prawn raisukaree for Scamp and Chicken raisukaree for me (raisukaree = curry) with Ebi Katsu to share (butterflied prawns coated in panko and deep fried)

Fed and watered we next drove to B&Q to get an adapter that would allow the hose to be used from the kitchen tap without the use of a great deal of swearing and fountains of water. I think we got the right adapter this time, but I believe we may be testing tomorrow.

I fancied getting a hat (Hazy, similar to Neil’s) and that meant a trip further into darkest Coatbridge, but with the satnav to help us, we found Go Outdoors. There they had the hat I wanted in a size that fitted but at a price that was a little more than I’d intended paying. However, if you bought a discount card for £5 we got roughly £15 off the price and a further 20% off the remainder. That brought it down to what I’d call a reasonable price!! Pity they didn’t have Crocs!

We drove back to Cumbersheugh, trusting the satnav to get us back to ‘civilisation’ and I finally snagged myself a pair of Crocs to replace my ancient and crumbling pair I bought in Fuerteventura many, many years ago. Just a bit annoyed that I had to pay full price for them! Scamp also managed to get herself a pair of shorts and we drove home slightly emptier of pocket, but with new purchases.

Back home it was still hot, so to cool down I changed into shorts and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Managed to capture my first damselfly of the year, an Emerald. Also photographed a wee fly, looking a bit like a robber fly sitting on a buttercup. The robber fly got PoD. On the way back home I dropped in at the chip shop in Condorrat for a Special Fish Supper to share with Scamp. Sat for a while in the garden reading, watching the birds queue up to get some water from the birdbath.

We watched a fairly interesting Spanish GP tonight, with a few drivers demonstrating their off-road skills, but thankfully no crashes.

Got a message from Jamie to say their new boiler has been installed. Hot and cold running water is a great thing, isn’t it. That and a real shower! We know how you pair feel.

No plans for tomorrow, although we may water the garden, hopefully without flooding the kitchen!

Recovery – 22 May 2023

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Today was a day of recovery. No dancing, no red hot feet!

Scamp was out meeting Isobel for coffee while I ran the computer red hot, rather than my feet. I wrote up three days of blog, if you can call yesterday’s a blog. Saturday’s epistle made up for it though.

When she got back, Scamp started on the garden. There were flowers to plant and seeds to sow and tidying up of pots to do. There were snails to capture and put in a bag for later disposal. Our lupins have been covered in snail slime for weeks now but before we went to Perth, Scamp dusted the pot with lots of slug pellets. It wasn’t slugs that were doing the dirty on the lupins, it was snails. How they managed to haul their big fat bodies and their shells up those fine stems I will never know, in fact I don’t want to know. They have nearly all been dealt with. Hopefully the remainder will go for a walk with me tomorrow to St Mo’s. It’s said that snails have a homing instinct. Well, good luck to them crossing the road from St Mo’s!

After lunch I took the A7iii out for a walk in the woods and that’s where I got today’s PoD. It’s a pair of Lousewort flowers (Pedicularis sylvatica). Tiny little things. There wasn’t much else on offer today. I was hoping the warm weather would bring out some damselflies, but none were to be found. I did find a couple of Wolf Spiders squaring up to each other with their little pedipalps raised like a couple of prize fighters wearing boxing gloves. They were a bit quick for me, I’m out of practise at catching spiders on the hop.

By the time I got back, Scamp was sitting in the garden reading with a glass of wine in her hand and I chose to keep her company with my glass and a book. The book is Jimi Hendrix Live In Lviv. It is very, very strange. Based in Ukraine around 2011 and translated from Russian!

Dinner tonight was yesterday’s leftover risotto made into arancini (deep fried rice balls dusted with breadcrumbs) and they were really quite filling. We both scoffed them.

The prompt today asked for Vegetables.
The basket full of vegetables I have for you today, carrots, onion, leek and mushrooms, would make a good pot of soup, perhaps ‘Just Soup’, given some water and a stock cube or two.

No plans for tomorrow as yet. Something will turn up, I’m sure.

 

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

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For the parcel to appear.

The parcel was for Scamp and it was being delivered by Royal Mail. According to Royal Mail it would be delivered yesterday, and I quote: “Thursday 4th May 2023 by 3pm*” note the asterisk! The parcel didn’t appear. Today I got a message from Royal Mail to say: Your parcel will be delivered Today, Friday, 5 May 2023* Between 12:07pm and 2:07pm*. Again, note the asterisks. If you read the very small print on the email you discover a footnote that says: *Please be aware any time or date shown is not a guarantee. This is their Get Out Of Jail Free card. The parcel didn’t arrive until 3.15pm. Why bother to give an exact time slot when you can’t keep to it. This new time slot thing is something they’ve pinched from DPD and others, but the difference is that, at least in my experience, DPD stick to their time slots. For Royal Mail it’s just a fantasy.

Right, I’m glad I got that off my chest. At least the parcel did arrive. We’d decided on risotto for dinner, real risotto for a change, made in a pot with a lot of stirring with the fancy risotto paddle. Scamp plumped for Mushroom Risotto and we didn’t have any mushrooms, so I loaded a camera and a couple of lenses into the bag and walked down to the shops to get some. As usual I came back with more than I set out to get, but at least I did get mushrooms. I won’t list all the other things I got, because you’d only get jealous! On the way there I found a clump of daisies and grabbed some photos of them. On processing the shots, I wasn’t impressed, so went out again with the LensBaby Sweet 50 and a +1 diopter Close Up lens (Don’t worry Jamie – that information is for me in case I need it sometime). The resulting photos were much better with a lot of swirly distortion round a sharp central flower. In fact one of them became PoD.

It’s ages since I’ve had to hand make the risotto and it was a bit of a chore, but the finished article, while looking a bit like lumpy porridge, tasted fine.

Today’s prompt was for a Traffic Sign. Mine is one of those old signs that don’t get used much and therefore don’t get updated. It’s actually a warning sign (triangle) for a level crossing without a gate or barrier sign. It’s a bit confusing because it looks like warning, steam trains ahead.

I spoke to Val this morning.  He’s not in a very good way, physically and is considering getting a motorized wheelchair.  He’s having difficulty standing and can hardly walk unassisted.  Having said that, he’s cheerful enough and we had a good blether this morning.  I must go and see him soon.  He was asking after Alex because he’s still interested in radio and so is Alex. It’s just a reminder that we’re all getting older and less mobile than we used to be.

Well, it looks like the holiday is over. Tomorrow we may be heading for an hour and a half lesson on Charnwood Cha-Cha, a new Waltz and the Jive routine we started before the Teachers’ holiday. Back in the old routine as they say!