Sunday 23 September 2012

MY GRATION


Alastair, 4 years old, keeps us smiling.


Iain and I took Ishie, 5 years old, and Alastair out for a walk in the moors near our home.  The area is supposed to have birds in the vicinity so we got talking about what kind of birds we might see and why.  I brought up the fact that we might see geese who are moving south for the winter.  (The children are certainly familiar with the fact that we sometimes see fish from warmer waters here in the summer.)  I introduced a new word "migration"  at which point Alastair burst into song:

My Gration lies over the ocean
My Gration lies over the sea
My Gration lies over the ocean
Oh bring back My Gration to me.

Rather good, I thought ...  we changed the last line to "Oh bring back the birdies to me."

 

 I took this photo on my iPhone.  It was a lovely autumn day and the colours are really clear. That is Ben Lomond in the far blue mountain (centre) distance.

 Meanwhile back at the ranch we had been baking:


Spiderman cakes are our thing ... and as Alastair declared, he is getting to be a good "sheriff! !!!



Friday 21 September 2012

WORKAROUND: MAC SAFARI DOES NOT ACCEPT FLASH

This is a Mac 10.7.4 and I operate Safari 6.0 as my normal brouser.  I have been in the habit of downloading BBC iPlayer files on the to computer and am having trouble these days.  The problem appears to be a Safari problem. I don't think it is a BBC problem but I may be proved wrong here.

This is the message that appears.  When I download Flash 11.4  it doesn't recognize that it is there.


First the good news: I also have Chrome 21.0 and Firefox 15.0.1 which I use as browsers.  They work fine, i.e. dowload absolutely no bother. Therefore this is the workaround.

 

The bad news: from reading all the very good stuff that is on the web about this problem it would appear that Flash is "old technology".  Things are moving on ... where and in what way I do not know. 

Wednesday 19 September 2012

EARLY MORNING LIGHT

In these early autumn mornings the sun is moving away from its northernmost points.  Now the early morning rays are coming into the back "garden" room on the house.

Here is what it looked like this morning:

The last of the violas that I raised from seed.  

The vase is my mother's (1940s) and the grey object on the left is the remote control for the up and over garage door.  The green and yellow tape is electrical tape that I put on it so I can find it in  poor lighting!  (In just the same way I put a wee bit of this tape on the car radio aerial so that I can find it in a car park.  These "flashes" operate in much the same way as a flash on a bird's wing.)

Small greenhouse tomatoes grown locally and sold by our butcher.  

The dish is also my mother's of the 1940s.  I seem to recall it was "a pickle dish".) 

 Mairi's geranium, rescued from the back porch, has produced a flower this week. 




In full colour are my neighbour's begonias.  Their garden is chock full of them ... and I get to enjoy the show especially when the sun hits them in the early morning!

Tuesday 18 September 2012

FLOWERS IN THE SUNLIGHT

At our orchestra practice tonight, in Cairns Church, I arrived (as I do to set up the chairs) to find the sun streaming in the high windows and on to these flowers which were on the 2 main pillars.  The flower arranging person/people deserve a pat on the back - they were quite lovely!




Monday 17 September 2012

GLASGOW BROOMIELAW TODAY

Where once ships unloaded cargo and people, and industrial goods and emigrants departed from Glasgow now are bushy trees and flower beds.  


This is the Broomielaw today - to be exact, it is the area opposite at the bottom end of Washington Street where I was paying a visit the Clyde Cruising Club office.  There were no ships plying the Clyde here. However moored just out of the picture is the old Renfrew ferry where gigs, I presume, still go on.

Walking up Washington Street to the office block I passed waste ground  - been like that for years. Other old buildings are still in use and being used as, for example, scrap merchants and studios for rock bands (honest!). 




Sunday 16 September 2012

SCOTCH THISTLES

One begins to feel old when one's contemporaries are having their 50th wedding anniversary!

We drove through to Dumferline, Fife, to attend a luncheon of very old friends of Iain's .... friends from long before I arrived on the scene.

  

Thistles in the garden.


 

Colours, pixel by pixel, of the thistles.




Dahlias, picked from the garden, in a vase in the Ladies Washroom.



Sunday 9 September 2012

SUMMER LILIES

A hidden feature of our garden is a bunch of white lilies tucked away behind a holly tree.  I know they are there, and enjoy them, because they are emitting a wonderful fragrance these days.


I dare not move them because they are healthy, increasing in number of flowers and seem to have no problem with slugs.  I wish I could say that about many of the other plants!  They are enjoyed by my neighbour as they are nearer her back door than mine.  That's fine..... Resolution: get some more!

Friday 7 September 2012

LIMERICK IN THE SUNLIGHT

We have been away in Limerick, on the west coast of Ireland.  The aim was for Iain to attend a meeting at the University of Limerick.  We went a couple of days earlier in order to explore the surrounding country.

These photos were taken in the area called The Burren which is north west of Limerick.  It is geologically interesting with its landscape of limestone rocks.  The weather was lovely as seen in the following photos of the churchyard and an adjacent wall and field.