East End Park

Yesterday Dunfermline were awarded their hard won championship trophy at East End Park. A nervous 2 - 1 win over Clyde sealed the afternoon's competitive program. The final whistle was followed by the somewhat clunky and un-fan friendly trophy presentation. The antique PA system's strangled tones hardly helped inform the crowds as to what was actually happening. This was somewhat put to rights by a gratifying slow motion pitch invasion that allowed the fans and players to mix and mingle and enjoy a rare moment of triumph.

Canned Fish

Is it actually good for you? Turns out that it is quite good for you most of the time. “Canned fish is a convenient and affordable source of protein, and depending on the type of fish can also be a great source of omega-3 fatty acids and other essential nutrients.” For many years I have believed this and acted upon it in my dietary explorations (I still have the body and constitution of a young Greek god, not sure which one though). So I'm glad to be found living on the right side (?) of food history. Austerity has been a policy of simple economic and social disaster, I'm fighting back via the canned fish diet. It makes no sense but nothing makes sense anymore. I also like composition and colour of this photograph of the virtuous tinned fish.

Yesterday, a Feather

Looking at the coffee cup picture below ("Yesterday, a feather" by LB.) I wondered what piece of music might fit with it. In the end I decided I could go with this; "Ashes, the Rain and I" by the James Gang from the "Rides Again" album. Released in about 1970 this tune's been heavily sampled over the years. It was also formed part of the soundtrack to my moody teenage years and some of those early James Gang recordings were a big influence on me. I like to come back to it from time to time.

Hip Flask

Hitting the stylish bottle again. Funny how nice some drinks are when supped from a shapely bottle. So it's a Scottish tradition, the hip flask; rhubarb yes, maybe not the lime unless you were a sailor trying to avoid scurvy. Limes grown in an orangery? I'm unclear as to the actual spirit, there's no breakdown of ingredients but I'd guess some type of fashionable gin, fresh from the streams of the Angus glens and mashed up with local produce in a small distillery near Brechin. Hugh and Rowena are in charge of operations. They drive and old Landrover Defender and keep goats and chickens. Their Aga is an oil burner.

Drinking Gin is the current thing: Unlikely it's as simple as a bathtub operation, that seal and bottle design are way too classy. I'm tempted to smuggle it into a football match for old times sake. I'd probably get grassed up or I'd just throw it at an official, missing by miles. I would be setting such a bad example there, just a daft old man who's forgotten that too much time has passed. When I've swallowed it all I'll probably do that weird thing of keeping the empty bottle without ever quite getting round to using it again.

Sheds

Having spent most of last week painting a shed my interest in sheds is probably slightly higher than normal. That's not too high so don't get over excited, I'm not. Here are some buildings that might, at a stretch be described as sheds. They certainly function as sheds and we all know that in building terms an Amazon, asda or an IKEA are just big sheds anyway. So let's celebrate the shed, large, small or slightly tumbledown and not really a shed at all.

Glen Esk Daily Red Squirrel

Caught sight of this red little fellow helping herself to the bird food without a care in the world.

Dalgety Bay Daily Photo

Nice flower display outside a plumber's merchants in sunny Dalgety Bay. The once radioactive jewel of the West Fife coastline. It's always good to find alternative and productive uses for ordinary household objects. I suspect this one is not now in regular use for the purpose that it was built for. For context I snapped it on my way from Screwfix (one of my regular hangouts) after buying a packet of cable clips.

Today I Learned

Nesquik operating instructions: Despite a few years of gulping down milk shakes made of Nesquik I've never taken the time to read the instructions. Having read the them now I see that it says "create a paste". That was unexpected. I've yet to try to create a paste from the magical Nesquik powders before adding the rest of the milk. I've always been into free style. How will it work now? How will it change my enjoyment? I'm holding off on this piece of progress but will slide into using it eventually, then I can enjoy the whole experience as recommended by the manufacturers. Possibly.

Glen Esk Daily Photo

Getting away from it all in a signal free zone. Actually these photos were taken in Glen Mark just a few hundred yards from Glen Esk. Trees, water, hills and tumbledown properties mostly. The picture above shows a tree brought down in last year's storms that's still trapped in a weir on the River Mark. Below is a modified wheel barrow with added Barbie bike wheel.

Stornoway Stack

 

Thanks to our local butcher I've just been introduced to the Stornoway Stack. A curious mixture of pastry, peppercorn sauce, black pudding, bacon, haggis and chicken. It's a combination that works well. Scotland's foods can be a bit strange and often uninspiring at times but this is good. The mighty stack is a proper tasty treat. Highly recommended. I may have over cooked this one a little but still not bad for a first attempt.

Horses in Hospital

Horses on a hospital visit. Their unwell horsey friend was said to be in a stable condition apparently. @FifeJammer.

Today's look has been mostly windswept and ruffled. The house painters understandably required all the doors and windows to be open in order to paint them. Funny how surprised some people are when they realize that this will be required. A refreshing flow of fresh air purged the house for about eight hours, rearranging the smells of sweat, cat pee, paint and a particularly toxic filler into an exhilarating cocktail of lethally poisonous fumes. Rain fell and the wind blew and the cat stayed firmly fixed under a bed. I couldn't blame him. Watching paint dry is, if anything worse than watching paint being applied but there is that end of the day bonus when you step back and see the finished work in all it's sticky and gleaming magnificence.

Milestone

The long and winding road to Aberdeen allowed me to arrive at a mileage milestone the other day. The journey ended just as I rolled up one hundred thousand miles. A nice round figure. It's obviously a bit higher now as I'm back home. Phew.

Our Most Guarded Institutions

We the great unwashed and uneducated need to be kept under control, kept hungry, uninformed and quiet. No unnecessary noise please. No laughing or gesticulating, no expressions that are not approved of, unless they approve of them and they'll tell us if they do. Listen, preferably on headphones, lose yourself in the screen images, that's the best thing for you, stay entertained, don't move around. Keep yourself to yourself. That is unless you want to enter a TV talent show or perhaps gamble or visit a shop ... but no stealing items you can't afford. Things have been planned and set up so that we can't easily move around. Transport is too expensive and disruptive. Those are not our lands or buildings either. Nobody wants that, to own land and buildings, it's just for them. Nobody wants dirty feet on the carpets, roads and pavements. There's a king and a royal family and a few thousand hangers on, perhaps they're even out and about and you mustn't upset or disrespect them or stare at their funny clothes. No.

"I’m headed on out of here with my paperwork and pills,

An AI drone’s gonna bury me, has all the necessary skills,

It could do Elvis or Peter Pan but I never was that kind of man,

Grave entertainment’s here on hand, 

To find that gateway to the promised land,

Eat, sleep, delete, completely incomplete."

This Means?

Shapes or signs: On the floor of the Dr Who exhibition in Edinburgh, we trample them underfoot as we shuffle by the exhibits. There are many of them in this style. What might they even mean? Some strange, esoteric universal truth unmasked? Some SOS message from the mandarins and flaky script writers at the BBC hoping for rescue? Who really knows or cares. Sci-fi has been carrying a heavy load for a while now and I have sense of exhaustion about further stretches into the darkness of the all too real fictitious future.

It was interesting to see the objects, models and artwork and yes there's a lot of science sprinkled around like pixie dust to try to explain or justify something, to give the show a core of concept that might be important. In the end Dr Who is an "experience" that's been around for most of my life, there were good times and not so good times with it. At the moment I'm inclined to think it needs a rest, for a few earth based, human generations anyway. 

235 or 281?

House painting: What is the best colour? 235 or 281? Neither of these colours are the actual house colour, these are for the window surrounds. The house is a plain and simple white. I'm pretty much rambling right now, it's been a pleasant weekend though, I think. I can't recall a whole lot about it now. Next week may well be busy too, mostly in a quiet kind of way.

Reasonable Friday

Just stealing a clever and witty cartoon from the Guardian (credit to Ben Jennings). Family nepotism isn't something I've ever suffered from so it's difficult for me to understand the sheer pain of it all. It must be tough, all those billions and nothing to spend it on. Anyway another happy meaningless cash-cow season of eggs, bunnies and chocolate all running alongside some peculiar and unreliable religious memories. At least the weather looks to be reasonable. 

Self Locker

Seen on a Honda Civic window in a car park. I can imagine what self locker might mean but I'm not sure what it actually means here.

Missy

Missy, our beloved wee cat passed away yesterday. We think she was about 17 years old. Her health has been poor for a number of months and she'd been through a lot of treatments and medicines that had kept her going but we didn't want her to have to struggle on any longer. She was a lovely cat who lived a full and eventful life and we miss her very much.