At Last The Stick Sprouts

After about three months in the ground the apple stick has decided to turn into an early version of an apple tree. Much to my relief it's clearly alive and dare I say thriving. I can't really take any credit for this small miracle. Nature is full of seasonal surprises as forgotten or ignored plants and shrubs start to reclaim their spaces in the garden by simply growing back up and alive after the cold dead winter. Not that the last winter was all that bad really, but it's late spring and his might well be my favourite time of year.

Randomness Abounds

Lightweight guitar porn.

Zippy the "fun" cat sports a green skid mark on his head after getting stuck in our garden hedge. Apart from that he's doing fine, we're still a bit nervous though. Cats will be cats.

Artist's impression of the South Queensferry String Quartet tuning up prior to an imaginary performance. We're a very cultured little town you know, but like to keep things low key. 

South Queenferry Daily Photo

George the cat climbs somewhat awkwardly around in a tree in our garden in a desperate attempt to catch a sparrow that's about twenty feet above his head on a telephone wire. He made it back down unscathed as is normal even for daft cats.

A curious feature seen in the High Street. A closed portal, a redundant fireplace, a little nook for plants? We'll never know the truth. We popped by the new cafe and bakery, Dune, around about 12:30. They were closed, they'd sold out of everything. Wow! This seems to happen in certain small businesses, I've noticed that Tantrum Donuts are often sold out. Perhaps a sign of the economic hard times were nobody wants to over stock so they play safe. Can hardly blame them. After 14 years of austerity people just have to keep putting the brakes on. I hate what this poxy government has done to the hopes and aspirations of British people. 

The Cellardyke Cannons

The old bathing pool in Cellardyke, Fife (my actual home town of sorts) contains some hidden treasure, also of sorts. 19th century ships' cannons that didn't really come from any local shipwrecks but are historically significant nonetheless, being old. They were dumped in the old pool about twenty years ago having been salvaged from Aberdeen harbour and Burntisland's shoreline. They remain in the salt water in order to avoid deteriorating in the, toxic to them, Fife atmosphere. If exposed to the air they'd be gone very quickly, so I'm told. 

They remain in the not so murky depths (pretty shallow) of the tidal pool as part of a long term study / project being undertaken by St Andrews University boffins. I don't think they could be casually removed should any petty criminal be after easy scrap metal money or a fast buck garden ornamentation sale. Those wild and crazy East Fife Dippers take a certain pride in these historic cannons lurking in one of the spots they regularly swim in, which is fine. Photos from the Cellardyke Tidal Pool group.

Obscured by Pub Rock

This isn't any kind of rate my rig post so don't be tempted. We played at a splendid wedding venue at the weekend and this was my equipment featuring No.1 (Gibson Les Dawson) and No.2 (Washburn 335). Also there for posterity are a Roland Cube, Carlsbro 100w head and my clunky, sometimes noisy, DIY pedal board. The whole band is streamed through a Bose 1000w PA. I have no clear idea what it all sounds like when we are playing but I do know people liked dancing to it and seemed to have a lot of wholesome wedding party fun. Overall set up plus uncut wedding cake featured below.  

Final lighting display all done up by John W.

Photo above courtesy of CBQ. 

Cat of the Day

When you live with three cats all of whom are just about to turn one year old choosing the cat of the day isn't easy. Generally each one has numerous cute or crazy moments in every 24 hours. Anyway, after no real struggle at all I'm calling this cat, Zippy, as cat of the day. I'm not really sure what day I took this photo but it was fairly recent. End of message.

Tiny Donuts etc.

 

Large photo of a tiny donut.

There once was some kind of overblown, meandering, largely meaningless political rant here but I deleted it. Seems pointless and I think I made a previous commitment (to myself) to avoid doing that kind of thing here. The supreme donut, in all his sugary wisdom, encouraged me to share this small piece of insightful insignificant insight.

Anyhow I've now moved onto a double baked (?) pistachio croissant. 

Afloat on a Sewage Sea

For some reason problems with household sewage systems have followed us from house to house regardless of the location. Remote homes we've had  would often have septic tanks and soak-aways and require regular maintenance. Often things would go wrong with unpleasant and unhealthy but sometimes humerous results. So despite moving back into a more urban area we are still prone to foul water problems it seems. The thrill is of course very much in the hunt. Trying to solve the problem by running taps, forcing unblocker chemicals into the drains, using a plunger and fiddling with rodding points and pipes. Then the downwards bump as you understand the futility of such ham-fisted efforts.

Now the desperate realisation dawns that professional help is needed and the search for that becomes far more important than just tinkering in the margins of the problem. The primarily male based illusion that complex problems can be fixed with some homemade tweak is attractive but it seldom works. You need somebody who "knows what they are doing and has the correct equipment".  Any delay in getting them involved is usually costly. So now we are adrift and frustrated. Facilities are diminished somewhat compared to normal. We await rescue, drifting slowly over the horizon on our makeshift vessel, afloat (only just) on this stagnant syrupy sea of effluent. Ho hum.

Last Logs

Last leg for the logs: Not the last logs ever, we've still a stack laid out in the weather like sleeping Chinese warriors. This is probably the last log fire of the season (not that seasons are very distinctive around here) until the next semi-pseudo ice age dawns, heralded with the distant splintering of some gleaming, silver blue icicles on the frozen timbers of the fossilized true cross buried in perma snow close to Glenrothes. In the distance wolves howl and the moon slowly sinks in a pale sky. All very badly imagined of course.

The reality is sooty dust and black fingernails as I clean out the slowly cooling iron beast and then arrange the summer fairy lights into it's metal belly for the purpose of it's ritual humiliation. I understand that logs are a problem for various wild and accurate reasons; health, safety and the end of the world etc. but here in the remote north west arse end of Edinburghshire we claim the use of any economical warmth we can summon up including cheap alcohol and oven chips. That sacred right is protected somewhere within the small print of the Declaration of Arbroath I do believe. However I could be completely wrong.

Curry Police II

I'm unsure how it is* that on a daily basis my phone and various accounts inform me of the whereabouts of Police Scotland vehicles in and around Fife. I don't even live there. Stranger than that is that I find it interesting and think; "well if I ever need to go via blah blah I'll be on the lookout for the police hanging about at location X, a regular parking spot for them". The other thing is that I'm not really guilty of any road traffic crime. I just bimble along like any old bloke in a reasonably modern car might do. Anyhow, the other day this polis BMW was in the alley by the Rosyth Co-op gearing up no doubt for a curry lunch run. We are all watching but we are all still being watched (George Orwell didn't say this either).

*I'm following these fecking accounts by choice - that's why.

Temu Trousers

It turns out that choosing to wear a pair of Temu trousers and using a Temu high pressure garden hose nozzle at the same time may not be a good combination of choices. Temu is of course a complete nuisance and a conscience botherer, however I've still made a few low risk/low price purchases that have been surprisingly OK. To be fair the hose nozzle actually works well enough, the fault was in the joining connector (not a Temu product) that came apart during the high pressure wash process. A big splash followed on. My Temu sourced joggers (of questionable quality) were soaked and so the car and patio cleaning task came to an abrupt halt. For some reason I put the two products together as if they were creating some form of flimsy universal retribution, as you might well expect. Then it started to rain. 

Curry Police

From the inner kingdom of Rosyth via Fife Jammer's photo service and spyware. Two police bikes at the end of the alley by the Co-op. Don't even breathe if you're a baddie. They may be on a stake out or waiting for some abnormal load to escort along the highway. Perhaps they're hoping to catch some red blooded, loco speedsters heading for the motorway. They might just be on their lunch break and discussing what have from the menu of the nearby Indian restaurant and who's turn it is to pay. Do the police actually pay for things like that these days? At one time everything was "on the house". Incidentally restaurant is one of those words that I can never spell correctly first time ... there are a few others. Oops, another is incidentally. This is bit of a rabbit hole. I'm going to stop typing now. Too risky.

Sticky

What's brown and sticky? Yes it's a stick. Here's one I planted earlier. Well quite a few weeks ago and so far it remains a stick and not the apple tree I was hoping for. I check it every day and any progress is slow enough to look pretty much invisible. Maybe I should talk to it and offer encouragement. I've fed it and watered it and so on. It may be dead. The autumn apple crumble I was expecting to enjoy looks unlikely at the moment.

South Queensferry Daily Photo

The April sky.

The lost traffic cone.

New piece of garden furniture. Turned out to be a difficult build for numerous reasons. Still not complete or in situ.

Human added for scale: Checking out the venue for next weekend's Capital Models gig. It's a wedding celebration in a big, long room.

 

Even My Small Guitar Looks Big On Me

This fake guitar has nine and a half fake machine heads but I didn't bother to count them. Too many knobs and so on. How come AI doesn't know what a guitar looks like? There's quite few out there on the internet. I'm in the huff with AI. It's just not intelligent enough. That's because it was built by humans and not our alien overlords. Fallible, weak, complicated humans. Alternatively I should perhaps stop using what we in Scotland call "Cooncil AI". As George Harrison might have almost sung "Even my small  guitar looks big on me, as it gently weeps, there in the naughty corner, doing nothing in particular."

Nothing is Really Real

More of those ceaseless philosophical points to consider. The unbridled power of the influencers grows on unchecked (and if you're fortunate - unnoticed).

Things to do, some of which might be already done: Empty the dishwasher. Empty the tumble drier. Sort out the cold chicken. Mind your head. Switch off the lights. Put out the solitary milk bottle. Look for things that may be lost. Recycle. Paint garden furniture and then assemble it. Await a dry day. Visit Bo'ness for various reasons. Check the guitar strings stockpile. Tidy up. Tidy down. Tidy sideways. Double check things. Worry about earth's three body problem. Procrastinate. Stop making pointless lists.

Sleeping with Plato

Zippy the cat occasionally sleeps with Plato the finger puppet philosopher. Other philosophers are available but Plato seems to be quite popular at the moment. That is all you really need to know.

If you, a friend or a member of your family have been affected by this post ...

Magical Shoes

Once upon a time there was a boy who bought a pair of Dunlop welly-shoes from Amazon*. At first they seemed like ordinary waterproof shoes and nothing more. However after a short while he realised that when wearing these shoes he could sense what might be in the ground right below his feet. Through the shoes he could detect tree roots, large stones or bricks, running water in pipes or streams and occasionally buried metal objects, even treasure maybe. Yes there was always buried or hidden treasure to be found. It made going out and about very interesting.

If he stepped on something that triggered the feeling of treasure he would stop and if it was possible try to dig up the object with a trowel or small spade from his backpack. Never make a scene or fuss, act casual. Now, having dug up loads of lost gold, silver and other treasures he's a millionaire but he can never tell anyone as he'll likely get done for tax evasion or some such other crime. He still wears the shoes but not so often these days, they do look a bit naff don't they?

How do these shoes work anyway? Ordinary shoes don't find buried items and telepathically inform the wearer. Well I just don't know their secret, that's all I can say but if you ever get a fully working pair from Amazon then good for you.

*Terms and conditions may apply.

M&S Box of Delights

George seeks solace and tranquility from within a repurposed cardboard box. Here, for him, the outside world no longer exists; no pesky cat siblings, annoying humans, leaves puffed along by the wind, erratic bees, noisy pedestrians in the street or the rude spitting of the rain can get to him. In the background some random YouTube cat channel whistles and burps serenely and all is peaceful, almost, in his precious cardboard sanctuary.

In the Blink of an Eye

Anyone know the name of the famous Scottish punk rocker with an out grown but distinct Mohican hair style? Can only be Hawkeye the Noo.