Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Crieff & Loch Earn (St Fillans)

Crieff Visitor Centre & Garden Centre

1. Welcome to Crief Visitor Centre, 2. Pixie, 3. Black Buddha, 4. Laughing

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.


I still have some more photos from our Scotland trip so I thought I'd better get on with them - or I might never get round to the ones from Jim's birthday trip to Bath last Thursday! And if you are wondering if I've done any other kind of art recently the answer is no.

Above are some photos from the Crieff Visitor Centre - in general I found these tourist trap places disappointing but I liked this cow and was amused too by the garden centre.

Crieff
1. Divine Pizza, 2. Superstitious?, 3. Saddlers, 4. Lolly Pop Man, 5. Marmite for Tea?, 6. Sweet Making, 7. Chocolate Hedgehogs, 8. Chocolate Dinosaurs, 9. Millions

We had lunch in Crieff one day and I had the best pizza ever - it really was gorgeous - from Delivino's.

Here are some more photos from St Fillans, the village we were staying in. These mostly feature Loch Earn.

Loch Earn

1. Boats on Loch Earn, 2. Gorse, 3. Wood, 4. Tree, 5. Mossy Stone Wall, 6. Ashes, 7. Boulder, 8. Loch Earn, 9. View from bridge, 10. Tree holding a Mirror, 11. Sunset, 12. Church of Scotland, 13. Petal Fall

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Staying at St. Fillans

St Fillians and near by
1. Sunlit wood, (centre) 2. Welcome to St Fillans, 3. Twisted tree, (photo by Jim) 4. Wine, 5. Oil lamp with no oil, 6. Rhubarb patch, 7. Plum Tree Cottage, 8. Celtic Design, (photo by Jim)9. Water, 10. Tissue box, 11. Strange faces appear..., (photo by Jim)12. Coffee?, 13. Sheep ornament

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

We were incredibly lucky with the holiday cottage that we stayed in for our week in Scotland. The main reason for choosing it was that it was near Jim's final munro and ran its weeks from Sunday - Sunday which meant that he could go up with all his friends on a Saturday. In fact it was such a good cottage that we might well return to it - not something we usually do. We booked this cottage via this website.

Here is an enlargement of the mosaic of the cottage that I embedded in the one above:

Plum Tree Cottage

The weather was very mixed but I was happy to be in the cottage when it rained!

I was constantly entertained by the birds that visited to feed.

Feeding the birds at Plum Tree Cottage

One day we visited a Glen nearby and played with pebbles.

Pebble StackJim's Pebbles Dry
I made the stack and Jim made the flower.

In Callender we saw Scottish Dancing and kilts for sale:

Scottish Country Dancing Suits you sir!

But the souvenir I bought was this - not very Scottish maybe but a crow with character!

Feed me!

Monday, May 21, 2007

Thankyou for bearing with me...

From top to bottom on the left: NW Bear and church, SW Bear, SE Bear, and the big picture is the NE Bear

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.


I'm back from a holiday with Jim and I'm also ready to be back blogging!
I've been missing you all.

I do still have energy work to do but I think it is now going to be less all-consuming. I don't talk about it much here because its not easy to explain in words.


The last week we have spent in Scotland.

On the way up we stopped for a night in the Lake District. The "bears" above are from Dacre's churchyard. There are four very old carved stones and the story told is that the main figure is that of a bear.

Going from NW, anti-clockwise, the bears are:
NW Bear
The first one is a sleeping bear.

It looks to me like some sort of creature clutching a post. It either has no head or is holding its head down behind the post.

It is the first of the "bears" visible as one enters the churchyard from the village which might explain why the story starts with it.

SW BearThe second one is said to be a bear which has been awakened by some sort of creature jumping on its back. So far I've read or heard that this creature is a cat or monkey.

The "bear" is still holding its post. Its head is up and to me it looks as though it is protecting its post jealously.

SE BearThe third bear is said to be attempting to shake off the creature from its back.

It certainly looks a bit miserable to me. But I couldn't see it shaking!

Still holding onto that post with grim determination.

Incidentally there is a great looking castle in the background of this one.

NE BearThe fourth and last "bear" is said to have eaten the creature and is very happy with itself.

Or it may simply have got it off its back.

The post is still held onto safely.

Some people say this one looks more like a lion with a mane and a pointy tail. It is definitely grinning.

The "bears" might be Viking or older. I've put up more pictures of Dacre's Bears and Churchyard on flickr.

We stayed in a B&B in the Lake District with wonderful grounds. I was up to catch the dawn light:


1. Misty Dawn Chorus, 2. Dawn on one of Land Ends' ponds, 3. Sunrise, 4. Lake District Dawn

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

I love the Lake District but this holiday's goal was to enable Jim to achieve his ambition of climbing all the mountains of 3000ft and above in Britain and Ireland before his 40th birthday (which is this Thursday, May 24th) and he'd already done the ones in the Lake District long ago. There are 313 of these mountains and its taken him nearly 20 years - on Saturday he completed the last one with various friends who have been up other Munros with him. (The Munros are the mountains in Scotland over 3000 feet). Despite foul weather they all made it to the top of Ben Chonzie (3048ft) and appeared to enjoy the day!

Jim is the one with his arms upraised in triumph!

This is Jim's photo from flickr taken with a remote control so all those who went to the top of this final Munro with him are in the picture. Later most of them joined us for a celebration meal at the Achray House Hotel which did a wonderful dinner for us.

I'm not in the picture as I have not been up any of the Munros. I prefer less steep walks. I enjoyed the holiday and took loads of photographs - some of which will appear here and even more of which will end up on flickr in the next few days.



Oh I am glad to be back blogging. It'll take me a while to catch up with you all but I look forward to it!

Monday, May 07, 2007

Gone fishing...

The Great Escape

"Goliath Heron" by Birds of Africa & "Fish on a Bicycle" by Daren Greenhow in a brilliant sculpture exhibition now on at Trull House near Tetbury, Gloucestershire. Open 11 am - 5 pm until Sunday 13th May 2007

We found the exhibition by following the signs from the A46 heading north from the M4. Entrance costs £3.50 each. It was well worth it - the gardens are glorious as well as the sculptures - and I'll go again if I have the chance!



Sorry about the lack of postings recently and the lack of visits to other blogs. I'm currently doing a lot of energy work and that seems to use up the same energy I use for making art and writing either here or for comments.

I'll be back.