Landscape Painter, Life Writer, occasional Nomad in perpetual pursuit of a dream
‘What did you do on Christmas Day?’ they might ask. ‘I sat and wrote about it!’ Sad? Not really. Well, perhaps, if that’s your standpoint. Another deep, dark December has nearly passed and here I am, several days after the solstice, at home in Lochinver (not necessarily by choice, but not too unhappy about it) …
What do you do when you’ve got a significant date coming up that you don’t want to acknowledge, never mind participate in? When well-meaning (but deaf) friends refuse to keep quiet about it and find your squirming discomfort a source of amusement? You disappear, of course. You do something just for you. I think of …
This month my head is filled with words…but not the ones I’m going to share with you here.As the evenings begin to draw in and autumn is well and truly upon us there is a distinct ‘back to school’ feeling in the air, and I have gone back to university. Three weeks ago I began …
The Highlands are suffering from overtourism and destructive behaviours and we have had enough.
Have you ever looked into the water on a cold winter’s morning and shivered at the thought of being a seal, an otter or a duck? Just looking at them amid the steel-grey waves is enough to send me running back inside for a steaming mug of cocoa, with an irrational feeling of guilt that …
I have just returned from a rare kind of trip. One which took place in the middle of the busy Scottish summer (usually a complete no-no for those of us self-employed and involved in tourism), and one without any kind of ulterior motive, other than to see as many close friends and family as I …
I escaped. A plan hatched in the depths of winter, over a new year ‘zoom’ call involving too much wine and much-missed old friends finally came to fruition last week as I flew – yes, flew! – further north than I’ve ever been to a land where the sun never sets. For one day of …
…and somehow it becomes May again. It’s unseasonally cool, grey and breezy from time to time but the primroses are out in force and I’ve had at least one gloriously warm, peaceful day sitting among the birches, trying to paint them. The result was a disaster, as you can read about on my Vistas blog …
The heralding of spring, some feel, is brought by snowdrops. Highland Stoneware has put them on a mug. No matter how pretty and hopeful they are undoubtedly are, however, snowdrops mean snow and, to my mind at least, ‘spring’ and ‘snow’ do not equate. With the exception, of course, of the yearly ‘lambing snows’, which …
Despite the somewhat incredible fact that I’ve now been working at Highland Stoneware for around 7 years (albeit on a self-employed basis), I’m still a relative newcomer. Many of the extremely talented staff have been involved for decades and I feel very privileged as well as grateful to be a part of this successful enterprise, …
When I first abandoned my established, comfortable life in a leap towards unpredicatable instability, few people had heard the word ‘blog’. Not everyone had an e-mail address, and a computer was a luxury rather than a necessity. As I left my old life behind I bought my first laptop, on offer in Tesco, for £299. …
Perhaps another ice age is on its way. The sea in the harbour is frozen over in large patches, breaking the otherwise perfect reflection of the village, the surface scarcely disturbed, even by the river as it exits below the stone bridge. There is not a breath of wind; the air itself seems to be …