Eggs

Finally, I got round to doing a challenge from the Wet Canvas site.

 This month's Spotlight challenge was to look at shadows. I found the shadows more difficult to do than the eggs themselves which surprised me.

Gairloch, Wester Ross, Scotland

We have just had three days of heavy rain and gales. If you will visit Scotland in January, what else would you expect.
However, today dawned bright and crisp, so off to Inverewe Gardens we went.

We were sitting on the rocks near the jetty when this fellow hopped out of the sea near us. He did have a look at us but was not alarmed and kept us company for a while.

I loved his expression. Cormorants are comical.

Every time we go up to Poolewe, we look out for otters and are always unsuccessful. We have seen one in the distance but never had a "good" sighting. Until today, when we saw 2 large otters feeding in the seaweed at low tide. Didn't get any pictures so you will just have to take my word for it!

There is some art on the way as I have used the bad weather to get some painting done. More of that later.

D-I-Y Greetings

In a rebellion against the commercial feel of Christmas, I decided to paint my own cards this year. I hadn't done any painting for months and with only 4 weeks before the big day, I had to do a fairly simple subject.

Holly seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

I also found that you can buy ready cut and scored blank water colour paper cards with envelopes to fit. That made life a lot easier.

I bought a double quantity of the blanks so I have the basis for next year's cards ready and waiting. 

New Year !

I wonder how many people start blogs (or restart in my case!) in January.  I have been thinking for many months that my blog must be feeling very neglected.

There must be abandoned and neglected blogs lying all over the ether, without fear of being burned or torn to pieces and put in landfill. So it is preferable to be a blog page to than a diary page. My diary isn't treated any better than this blog, by the way.  I did manage to record things until July this year before it was reduced to a single line on each page at most.

I am not going to promise anything I may not be able fulfill but hopefully I can be a bit more dedicated to communicating with the world this year.

The Strand - Islay

In the meantime, above is a picture taken on a recent visit to Islay. For anyone with a love of wild places, wildlife and whisky, it is a wonderful place to spend a holiday.

Summer's almost gone

I thought I would introduce the world to our cat. We took her in after I found her raiding our rubbish bin two years ago. It was in our kitchen at the time. We always have our back door open and she was so hungry that she invited herself in.

She started sleeping in our greenhouse and we kept on feeding her. So we adopted each other by accident. The trouble was that, at the beginning, she would literally climb the walls if we closed the door and we still can't pick her up to this day. We did manage to get her to the vets to be spayed, but when they operated they found that she had already been "done". The vet thought that she was probably in a shelter as a kitten which could explain it. Then, some family probably took her in and then discovered that she was not a cuddly little lap cat, but a fiery, spitting demon unless she is outside.She was still very young when she arrived with us.

She still likes to be between us and the door, but we do sometimes manage to close it if she isn't looking. She is very sulky when we do it and rushes to get out as soon as it is opened. At least these days, she doesn't get so stressed about it.

She spends her days asleep in the sun and comes in regularly at meal time to ask for her dinner. When she is at ease she rolls over and loves having her head and back rubbed. It is always on her terms though, which is perhaps as it should be. One day, we hope that she will lose her fear and be totally confident that we bear her no ill-will. It may be a long time before we get to that stage though.

She is officially called Ally (as in alley-cat), but she also gets Kit-kat, Kitty, Kitten and Madam depending on what mood she and I are in.

Boats

 Fishing boat - Acrylic on canvas

About a mile from our house here is a wonderful harbour. The boats moored here these days are mostly pleasure boats of one sort or another. There are only a few working fishing boats left. It is those which are most fascinating. his was done last year from a photograph I took.

Unfortunately, a lot of the beautiful shellfish caught here is sent to the continent. How we can let that happen? I have had langoustines here which were caught out of the sea that afternoon and they were delicious.

Support your local fishermen..... eat British fish.

Pine Marten

We have had this wonderful house on the West Coast of Scotland for 6 years now. We were told that the pine marten who visited the garden regularly liked jam sandwiches and would appear at dusk usually. Amazingly we did catch a glimpse on the first night we stayed here.

As we are not here all the time we thought that it was asking a lot for us to keep the relationship going and we didn't actually see him for the next five years, although something ate jam sandwiches regularly so we guessed there was one still about.

For the past year , however, we and other visitors have had regular sightings. Yesterday afternoon, there he (or she) was, enjoying the remains of the sandwiches left by the birds. This is not the best photo ever taken of a pine marten. As it was taken through a rainy window in poor light, I think it will do.