Sep 3rd, 2009

Fair Stottin’

mah windaes hinnae been this clean
for yae long
so ah suppose there’s
a guid side tae a’ thae drookit craturs
trudgin past wi’
faces that wad turn the milk
frae Bessie’s coo (more…)

Sep 3rd, 2009

The Age of Design

It’s all in the detail – I’ve always been fascinated by small design details, more so since I started taking photographs.  Marry that with my passion for typography and graphics and what could be more perfect than a visit to the gramophone shop to see (more…)

Aug 29th, 2009

Virgin Clematis

The virgin clematis, planted only a month or so ago, has begun to flower.  This variety, Dancing Queen, flowers bi-annually, first with blowsy doubles in June/July and then again with singles in August/September.  But I had zero expectation that it would give me any flowers in its first year. After all, it’s barely out of its training canes.  It can be pretty gusty up here on the second floor and I’ve tried to give it a little help with gardeners’ string.  The railings should make an ideal climbing frame. I’m talking tenderly to it and making sure it’s kept moist and cool at its roots – the rest is up to that amazing old broad, Mother Nature.

Aug 22nd, 2009

An old friend returns

I needed a home for my photographs and have recently been mucking around with various looks and domain names.  In the end, I replicated the look of curlsdiva to tie the two blogs together.  I did play for a while with a black background (so flattering onscreen for images) with green accent, but  found that it hurt my eyes, so I scrapped that idea and went back to pure fresh white.  Then I returned to the first domain name I ever purchased.  I’ve always been fond of it and although I don’t live in an attic anymore, I’m claiming (sentimental) artistic licence.

I’m slowly loading it up with photos, although I haven’t taken any for rather a long time.  Perhaps the creation of this blog will motivate (more…)

Jul 26th, 2009

The gee gees

Ahm gaun doon the street wi’ the dug
ah’ll git the breid

Hauds his breith

Aye a’ richt
bit they dinnae sell breid
in the bookies, mind

Aye aye
pittin oan the bunnet
an’ oot the door
afore that razor o’ a tongue
diz mair damage

(more…)

Jul 1st, 2009

Shooglin’ around the clock

“Ca’ that dancin’? That’s jist shoogling aroon’!”

“It’s no’ jist wummen whae hiv shoogly bits, if ye ken whit ah mean.”

“Mah man’s awfy shoogly oan his feet, bit ah cannae tell if it’s his bunions grievin’ him or ra booze.”

Give a well-made port jelly on a plate a judicious nudge and you’ll see shoogling in action.

Gently collide with a  person of ample proportions and watch how nature embraces the shoogle.

Eat your tea off that table your father inherited from Auntie Phemie and (more…)

Jun 29th, 2009

Bridal

A couple of years, I did a photoshoot for a bridal salon which was situated in my street. It wasn’t quite as grand as it sounds – I had pleaded to take photos inside this place for ages.  All I had dared do was take pictures of the windows by night. But the tented ceiling and gold and cream decor were irresistable.  A, the owner, was a lovely lady and encouraged me in my photographic ambitions.  Eventually, a date for a real photoshoot was set, with the seamstress, a most beautiful girl from Eastern Europe,  as model.

The light in there turned out to be awful and I didn’t have any photographic lighting.  No Annie Liebowitz set up for me!  I had my DSLR (more…)

Jun 18th, 2009

Configure the sponders & cleave fork ‘andles

If you bought a washing machine and it wouldn’t wash your clothes, would you be happy with a conversation like this with either the manufacturer or the repair shop?

Ah yeah, well this is a glitch, not common but usually confined to Model 13698 which came off the line Nuneaton section Friday 13.  But hey man, no sweat -  it’s Really Easy to fix. What you want to do is open up Section A where the grommets cleave to the sponders, make sure there’s adequate adherence to the blim, (more…)

Jun 14th, 2009

A gift of roses

My neighbour brought me these heavenly roses from her allotment.  The pale bloom has a wonderful scent.  Looking at them sitting on my bookshelves, I had to add my grandmother’s ruby glass jug.

Jun 12th, 2009

The marmoset

I’ve been changing over from wordpress.com to a hosted wordpress blog system.  The light version of wordpress is terrific – and free – but it had started to remind me of a slimming bread from the 1970s called Slimcea. That was light too – almost calorie free, the makers claimed – but ultimately you could eat the whole loaf at one sitting and still be craving hot doughnuts.  To move to the hosted Wordpress was a step towards those hot doughnuts. Yes okay, we all know doughnuts aren’t good for you, sugar packed nothingness, but the taste people – the taste!

While looking for other people’s experience on such a move, I did what comes naturally in this social media dominated world.  I twittered. If you don’t know what Twitter is, I’m not going to make a link for it – just Google (more…)