You would be forgiven for thinking we’d gone to the Amazon rain forest on holiday, but this photo was actually taken at a latitude closer to the Arctic Circle than St Petersburg, believe it or not. (57.8 degrees north for those who need to know.)
Today has been a lovely sunny day. The wind has dropped and it’s actually quite warm in sheltered spots. We took a trip just 20 minutes down the road to Inverewe Gardens, an amazing place now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. We visited many years ago, back when film for the camera was expensive and you didn’t waste your precious shots. Today we have the luxury of a digital camera so I could be as snap-happy as I wanted.
Inverewe is famous for the Himalayan blue poppy and we were lucky to find about three in bloom.
There are more photos on Flickr if you want to take a look. Our favourites were these alien looking things – no idea what they are, but wouldn’t they make a fab stamp or even a stencil.
It’s still very unpredictable weather here in the Highlands – you can see the weather moving across the distant hills – columns of cloud sweep over the skyline obliterating sections of the islands while the sun is shining here. Then it flips around and the rain patters on the glass roof at the back of the house and you see the distant islands bathed in sunlight. We’ve seen quite a few rainbows – often doubles.
We really are taking it super easy and enjoying every minute.
We found a little market in Poolewe yesterday and I fell in love with some hand thrown pottery. I think we may invest in some to take home with us. She had a limited range with her, so we’re hoping to pop into her studio sometime next week. She told us it was in an out of the way little place called Logie near Ullapool and obviously didn’t expect us to have ever heard of it. When we both said, ah yes we know where that is, she was so suprised, we explained it was the place we stayed on our honeymoon 15 years ago!
We spent most of today in the house, apart from a short walk along the beach at Melon Udrigle which is the northern headland of Gruinard Bay. Although it was cold and slightly wet, it was lovely to just watch and listen to the surf gently pounding the rocks and the sand.
Back at the cottage, I got engrossed in some Zentangle doodling. It’s still a work in progress, but I thought I’d show you where I’m up to. This is an A4 sketchbook, so it’s quite big. In the background the circles you see are textured fabric on a footstool which is what inspired me to start doodling this morning.
I’ve added subtle coloured shading using some pencils I’ve had for a while, but not used very much – Derwent Graphitint. They are water soluble graphite pencils with a hint of colour, but because of the graphite, they are all very grey tones. They look particularly grey and pencil like before adding water, but the water brings out the colour. I’m still getting to know them, but liking the range so far. Then again, it’s a coloured pencil, what’s not to like?!
You might be amazed to hear that we still have half the pack of Tunnocks left – how good are we! Yes, well before I polish the halo, I’ll just go and hide the locally baked lemon drizzle cake that we found at the market yesterday … ahem!
I’ll leave you with a couple of photos from our beach walk today.
Click on any of the photos for a larger view. You can see more photos in my Flickr stream – just look for the Flickr photos in my side bar and click on any one to go look at the whole set.
This was the sight that welcomed us to our beautiful holiday home – a giant print of a Tunnocks teacake (by artist Fiona Watson). Even better – there was a pack of 10 real ones on the kitchen workbench with a welcome note! Greeted by chocolate – how did they know?!
This time last week I didn’t think we’d get here. I had a long chat with my GP about the cocktail of symptoms that have been making life rather unpleasant over the last six months and we even discussed the possibility of cancer being the root cause. When certain symptoms present together they have to consider that option, but after a slightly tense 24 hour wait, a fresh blood test put all our minds to rest that we didn’t need to go down that route. Just as well as they were on standby to admit me to hospital immediately last Thursday and I’d much rather not spend my precious holiday in the care of the NHS!
It’s the first proper holiday Adrian and I have had in about five years and it’s a real opportunity to recharge the batteries. We are in a remote, but stunningly beautiful part of the north west Highlands. The house is only a couple of years old, ultra modern, quiet, super insulated, warm and cosy with an ever changing view of the sea from huge patio windows. We haven’t switched on the TV since we got here, we’re just mesmerised by the sea.
Here’s a little watercolour I’ve called ‘First Impressions’
I’m out of practice, but I don’t care, the act of putting paint to paper has captured something of the view and it makes me smile to look at it. I’ve started another, slightly larger one using PanPastels – it needs some detail added, but it’s been fun to use them just like paints, mixing and blending colours and using the palette knife tools to draw with.
The hills are covered in the most pure and vivid yellow gorse bushes and when the sun shines, the sea is as turquoise as the carribean. I’d forgotten just how good for the soul natural beauty is and we are drinking in every little bit of it.
Oh and don’t worry, you can still get your chocolate fix thanks to Lesley and Val who are the wonderful engine behind Chocolate Baroque and doing a great job of keeping it all running super smoothly while we’re away – possibly even better without us getting under their feet!
Now where are those Tunnocks ….?
I managed to get a very quick bit of playtime with the new Spring Distress inkpads. I used all three colours and I do like the palette. I started by inking the top with squeezed lemonade and the bottom with shaded lilac, then I stamped a couple of different lace stamps top and bottom with peacock feathers and the bottom two corners with the corner stamps from Lace Fragments. I misted the top with quite a bit of water and let the colour bleed and run down the tag. I misted the bottom a bit too, but not as much. After drying with a heat tool, I flicked a little clean water over and blotted it off.
I then stamped the phrase from Artistic Affirmations about three or four times over the background using squeezed lemonade and added a little more shaded lilac at the bottom. The lilac stamped corners were a bit faded out by this point, so I added another lace border in shaded lilac. I then stamped the words and border swirls with Onyx Black Versafine and added a piece of decorated Stampbord.
I can see the lilac and lemonade combination would work really well with our Elegant Iris stamp set – definitely Spring like. I just wish the weather was!
PS – I’ve been tweaking a few bits and pieces around the blog – menus at the top, side bar content and a little slide show thingy at the top of the main page. You’ll now find a list of links in the side bar, and in the menu bar right at the very top, there are now links to Cards, Mixed Media and Video which show you blog posts from those categories – like little galleries. It’s a constant work in progress, but I feel like it’s a bit more organised now – hope you like it!
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