Fare thee well and haste ye back

 Today is the day we head back to Australia, all things being equal...

As we farewell the cottage once more, I have simply gathered here a bunch of my favourite 'landscape/outdoors' images from our time here. So many to choose from, no particular order, and apologies if I over did it!

Heading home...

Thursday Thoughts...

“I realise there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go.”  

Jeffrey McDaniel

The honesty of trees in winter.

A tree's bareness, is perhaps like baring your soul. No foliage to cover or disguise or protect. All that there is, is there to be seen, is on show.

Or perhaps it's that they have shed things that no longer serve them. The letting go of leaves which enables them to retreat a bit for the winter, to tough it out without needing to worry about looking after leaves. 

I must admit I love looking at trees in winter - their shapes so lean and pared back; their essence there, but also simply a platform for the next step, the emergence, the return...

And somehow still offering shelter, respite and resting places for others..

Art we have seen and some we have bought

There are a couple of lovely small galleries near us in Thurso, and one in the small locality of Skerray.

We were fortunate to see this vibrant, perspective-twisting exhibition by David Body.

I was really drawn to the angles, the simple shapes and forms and the excitingly wild and bold colours. Together they made familiar and almost monochromatic daily scenes, take on the power of a kaleidoscopic dream.

I particularly enjoyed the works where he included elements of text and collage. Love the idea of using cut out wording to describe what's in the painting - FIELD.

At first I though these birds were crosses!

And now to a beautiful piece we bought at Skerray. We were lucky that the artist Rhona Graham was attending the gallery (and the post office) on the day we visited.  The piece is called Night Swimming, inspired by the rusty ladder at Skerray Harbour.

I fell in love and have sunk deeply into it.

I love the misty moon, and the fragments of thoughts or dreams in the sky.

And I love the lower forms - rocks? a pier? a paddle?

And that beautiful rusty ladder...

It feels like a painting I will spend time with over the years. I gaze into it; I feel things; I understand parts of it - I continue to wonder about other parts...

A gorgeous new part of the cottage.

Serendipitous moments - art!

 When we arrived at the cottage and had sorted things inside the house out, we headed into the garden shed and began to sort out the yard. Going in and out of the shed reminded me of some small pieces of driftwood and salvaged timber we had left there - hoping that one day they might become 'something'.

As it was, it took until last week for me to re-focus on the timber bits. In part I regained my focus because I had found some excellent wire bits and a rusty nail along the way. Surely they might go together? 

I had just finished mulching some plants and it was getting on for 4 or 4.30pm and I saw the bits and picked them up and before I knew it, without glasses, and no phone to document, I simply began.

Barry has taught me heaps about how to attach things to timber, so I had a few thoughts about how I could sort out the first piece in my mind, and it came together pretty well.

The second one I had in mind I did OK with to a point, but Barry came in from what he was doing and gave me hand.

The third one proved the trickiest - I wanted the weird angle to hang over and dangle something. My design was so clear and focussed! Laugh. But we did it - me drilling and hammering under supervision. It was getting dark now and there is no power in the shed so no lights, but we managed to finish them just in time and headed in to make dinner.

I returned the next day to photograph the trio - in the messy garden shed where we work. I kind of like them in their original home.

The next day or maybe the next after that, the sun shone and I thought to bring them outside and photograph them in the bright light, with the cottage's stone wall as a back drop. I also like them out and about.

They are each around 10 - 15cm square in broad terms - clearly some a bit taller than others, and a delightful trio to have made without even meaning to.

Thursday Thoughts...

"Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them." 

David Hume

This is one of the truest of truths.  Beauty is not generally a notion that can be defined, reproduced and agreed upon.  I know that people and scholars and philosophers nad writers and others have tried, but it is such a personal experience. 

The things I gasp at; that take my breath away; that make me feel transported and uplifted and so glad to be alive, do not have the same effect on others.

They might walk past them, not notice them or be affronted by them.

So it is unlikely that things themselves can have beauty as an inherent and known quality. It is far more likely that we experience beauty as we look upon them - that they trigger whatever chemical release or synaptic connection that we associate with the idea of beauty.

I guess it's just another way of saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Altho as I tried to find if there was an originator of this phrase I should reference, I discovered this interesting article.

I find this drain cover quite beautiful. It is calming and restful to look at - the grid of dots, the patina on the metal and the concrete... Beautiful!

To Orkney, and Papa Westray

 We were fortunate enough to make a trip to Orkney mainland, and onwards and northwards to Papa Westray, a tiny island in the norther part of the Orkney Islands archipelago.

Papay is small - 4 miles long x 1 mile wide. Population now 81, after a baby was born a week or so ago!

The flight from Kirkwall on the main Island of Orkney to Westray, then onto Papa Westray is a small 8 seater plane.  The ferries and all boats had been cancelled due to the high seas; and the winds were gusty to say the least. We really hoped we could fly; at the same time as we wanted to be really safe.

The pilots are something else, and as we made the landing onto Papay we came down sideways, nursing the plane along against the gusty cross-winds. Quite the adventure!

Here are some of my favourite moments and reminders of what was the most magical of days.

The view as we flew was inspirational.

The small bothy museum on the island was stunning its elegance and simplicity. This humble building portrayed simple, and no doubt sometimes, tough lives in a beautiful honouring.

The real reason we had headed to Papay was to see the Snap of Howe. The oldest house (at least 5,500 years old) in Europe. The architectural design, the stone workmanship and the sophistication of the dwelling was astounding.

St Boniface's Kirk is on the site of a 12th century church and has been restored.  lovingly. The graveyard held viking stones and others through the ages. The lichen on the stones and the gravestones was probably the best I have ever seen.

Inside the Kirk, this quietly drifting out bouquet felt both pensive and poignant.

And on Holland Farm, every door on every building was painted this fabulous red!

I would be back to Papa Westray in a heartbeat.

On mainland Orkney, we visited the Ring of Brogan once again.

And discovered the Barnhouse village.

A seat outside St Magnus Cathedral, honoured the victims of war with these beautiful poppies.

Inside the cathedral, so many wonderful carved gravestone markers! 

And such quiet and reflective art (Ilana Halperin and Kiyoshi Yamato) at the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness.

We are fortunate that the ferry to Orkney is only a half hour drive away; and that the crossing is only 1 1/2 hours (I am no sailor). To have such history and beauty and art nearby is special.

The flight from Westray to Papa Westray is the shortest commercial flight in the world - ours took 90 seconds...

Introduction to Silversmithing

 All, what a treat of a day it was doing an Introduction to Silversmithing Workshop with Lindsey Gallacher in Thurso.

I had been pondering what I might make and came down on the side of a pendant. In my mind, it had two pieces, hung vertically and had contrasting textures or colours.

Close.

Lindsey gave us a great introduction and lots of options. We looked at the sorts of things people had done and achieved in previous workshops, and that visual stimulation created more thoughts, ideas and possibilities.

I selected these pieces out of the sample box - each of them had some element I responded to.

I struggled to work out which combination I might use - which two thoughts could combine well?

Nothing was saying yes! to me and I got a bit stuck. Barry said - just choose three. Simple.

Then I had to work out what size would look good; and of course, I ended up in the Goldilocks situation - this one too big (1.5cm square); this one too small (1cm square), so I went with the middle size (1.3cm square).

I knew I wanted to contrast shiny and matte; but I also wanted to try oxidising as well, so I fiddled and I faddled until something clicked.

The result absolutely thrilled me.

Barry had made a ring, which looks amazing, and he had a scrap or two left over so I was able to score a pair of stud earrings from the leftovers. Brilliant!

It was a perfect day of creativity and learning. I would highly recommend a workshop with Lindsey if you are ever up here on the North Coast of Scotland...