A thunderous noise on the stairs

Can't remember when I last painted my study and when I look around, the walls are scuffed where people (and that includes the dog!) brush against the walls on their way in and out. Right now I have one wall cleared in expectation of Painting. Everything is pushed into the middle of the room and  one bookcase has been emptied into another bedroom. But the wall behind me is clear and ready for work.

Oh! The dust! You wouldn't believe the dust. And a toy car from when the grandkids were here, a white leather bookmark from Jorvik Viking museum... the finds were surprising.

What it means and why I'm documenting it here is that until this room is back to rights, I won't be doing much on my computer. 

To add to the day being memorable, we had a visitor in the shape of black cat. The first I knew of it was the thunderous noise of Nala racing downstairs , back up and down again. At first I thought she'd fallen, and ran out to see  - she was pursuing a black cat upstairs, past me into the bedrooms. Cat dived under the bed, ran for the windows, scrabbled to try and reach the curtain rail - which we don't have as we have blinds - and ran out. We all three of us ran into every bedroom and out again. I got each door shut and she  (I think it was a she) ran down stairs and shot through the hall, the kitchen and out into the garden still with Nala in hot pursuit. I just hope she didn't pee on Bill's pillow as she ran across it, or under any of the other beds! 

Artistic Crinan

I took this pic from the hotel window. Our bedroom window (third floor, front) looked out over the loch but this view from the gallery shows the lock that joins the canal to the sea. It's buzzing in the summer, when all the yachts are skipping about the west coast and putting in for a good meal at the Seafood Restaurant. The dogs and kids all wear life jackets and everybody looks healthy! some of the ships are beautiful, too.

Two days isn't long enough to do any spectacular, but it was a lovely break. We drove back through a rain storm which only abated as we drove south to England - ha ha, any moral to be gleaned from that, I wonder?

One of the advertising cards calls the hotel a Gallery with rooms....and there are pictures everywhere. The proprietor is an artist by the name of Frances MacDonald  and she and her husband Nick Ryan have been resident for 35 years. They hold artists' events, and dh is keen to return when one of them is happening. He has decided to take up painting again on the strength of what he saw in the hotel.

Everybody needs a hobby, so I'm glad he is taking it up again. Mine used to be painting, until I took up writing seriously, and then the painting gradually slid away and got tucked in a drawer. Along with writing came all those other things authors have to do these days - be social on Twitter and Facebook, keep records, keep sending out submissions, keep an eye on the market......

Sting and that painting...

Muker, Swaledale.

Originally a Norse settlement, derived from the Norse word "Mjor-aker" meaning "the narrow acre". People have lived where the Swale meets the Straw Beck since the Bronze Age and the promise of good mixed farming in the valley bottom is probably why the Vikings chose to settle here. It seems a long way from the sea...

Went into town yesterday to view a painting. Not something I do often., but this was on the recommendation of a friend.

Stephen Hannock, an American from Massachusetts, has painted an 8 feet by 12 feet (2.4 metres by 3.6 metres) view of the city of Newcastle on Tyne. The most distinctive feature is the river that divides Newcastle from Gateshead. The Millennium Bridge, The Sage and the Baltic are represented far more clearly than that other icon - the castle built in the eleventh century. I struggled to find that in the murk beneath the Tyne Bridge. The city is rendered as if looking down on a map spotted and blotched with bluish lights of differing sizes which represent coal mines. The painting combines what is there on the ground with what was once there in a way that reminds me of an advent calendar. A hazy outline of a gigantic miner lies along the south side of the Tyne, hewing coal for ever. Personal memories that must mean something to the man who commissioned the thing are scribbled at numerous points across the painting, but your nose needs to be four inches from the painting to read them.

The painting is called 'Northern City Renaissance, Newcastle, England'. The man who commissioned it? Sting. Here's one view

It is an interesting concept. I admire Sting for doing it, and putting it on view before he whips it away into one of his many mansions. I'm glad I saw it. But I won't rush to see it again.