Scottish Colourists 1900-1930

30 March 2012 00:23

This is one of the books which I pick up and dip into every now and again, I suppose you’d call it a coffee table book. It has over a hundred illustrations of beautiful colourist paintings by F.C.B. Cadell
J.D. Fergusson
G.L. Hunter and
S.J. Peploe
who were the most famous artists of the Scottish colourist movement. You can see some images here of colourist paintings or art which has been influenced by them.

The paintings are gorgeous and I have the added excitement of recognising lots of the subjects in the paintings as most of the artists painted beaches and cottages in Fife and the east of Scotland, as well as rivers and hills in the west of Scotland.

They did get further afield though and there are plenty of paintings of places in France and various other places that attract artists.

If you ever get a chance to see an exhibition of their work you should jump at it as I don’t think you’d be disappointed. The museum in Kirkcaldy has a very good collection but sadly it’s closed at the moment whilst work is being done on the building.

The first time I went to a colourist exhibition as soon as I entered the gallery I saw a beach painting and I said that must be a beach in Scotland, because there were several people on the beach and they all had their coats on! A typical Scottish July probably. But we can’t complain this year because my closest beach has already had people sunbathing on it – in bikinis. In March – unheard of!

I might show you some photographic evidence of that soon – well maybe not the bikinis!

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More Wild Weather

3 January 2012 23:28

It has only been around a month since I blogged about a terrible hurricane/gale that we had which has since been nicknamed Hurricane Bawbag, and that was the worst one that I had experienced since we moved to this house 24 years ago. Well I didn’t have long to wait for the next one. Last night we ended up downstairs in an attempt to get away from the really terrifying noise of it all. That’s a first because although I’ve ended up downstairs before, Jack has always been happy to stay in bed upstairs.

It was quieter downstairs because we didn’t have the noise of the wind howling through the roofspace and rattling all the slates and it didn’t sound as if the windows were about to fall in. We didn’t get back to sleep so ended up watching the mayhem on News 24.

The wind reached a speed of 102 miles per hour near Edinburgh – guess who lives near Edinburgh! We’ve had a bit of a look around and found that a few slates have been ripped off, some guttering has fallen down and my greenhouse has four broken panes of glass and the skylight/vent had been torn off completely. It could have been a lot worse I suppose as a couple of people in England have lost their lives although the wind there wasn’t so bad. Last winter it was all snow and ice but so far this one has been mainly howling gales. Again all of the bridges were completely shut.

We were lucky and haven’t had any disruptions to our power so we just battened down the hatches as best we could and enjoyed watching Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, one from my Christmas boxed set. It’s a good laugh. And in the afternoon Casablanca was on the TV. How many times have I watched that film?! I still love it. So all in all, not a bad day,but a very lazy one!

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Categories: DVDs, Weather

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Howling Gale – again

9 December 2011 00:17

At last the wind has died down a bit but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it comes back again soon. A lot of schools in Scotland were closed today because it was so wild and that is the first time that they’ve ever been closed because of the wind, in my memory anyway and I’m over 50. Fife schools closed at lunch time.

When I saw the weather forecast last night I thought that for once the east coast of Scotland was going to avoid the worst of it but the Forth Bridge was closed to all vehicles by 11 o’clock in the morning and all of the other big bridges followed.

I didn’t go out of the house at all because there’s not much point in putting yourself in danger of being hit by flying slates if you don’t have to. I know that some slates have slipped and are in the guttering but I don’t think there’s too much damage done to the house. Fingers crossed anyway – in the past it has been the more modern houses which can’t withstand those massive gusts of wind at over 80 miles an hour which you get around here. Gusts of over 160 miles an hour have been recorded on higher ground, I think that means up a mountain.

The loft hatches lifted with the wind which just shows you how draughty the place was! I don’t suppose it’ll be the last gale/hurricane of the winter either.

It’s at times like this that I wish we had a basement like Dorothy in Kansas. The best I can do is go downstairs to try to get some sleep if it gets too scary. We still have electricity though so we’re much luckier than thousands of other people – maybe I shouldn’t have said that, it could be tempting fate!

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Seals and Swans in the Firth of Forth and River Leven.

13 August 2011 00:16

For the past few days it has been absolutely chucking it down over the whole of Scotland and Glasgow has had the most amount of rainfall there since records began – and if you know Glasgow at all you’ll realise how bad it has been! Lots of flooding all over the country but we’re fine here. I just wish someone up there would turn off the taps! To cheer myself up I’ve been having a look at some photos which I took a couple of weeks ago in the time of blue skies. This one is of the old bridge at Dumbarton on the River Leven and there is a swan with cygnets just going under the bridge. These swans went at quite a lick and I had to run to get this photo, not something I do often, I’m more a dignified walk sort of a person. The River Leven often has well over 100 swans floating around this area but most of them seemed to be elsewhere.

Swans in River Leven, Dumbarton

The Leven is just a wee river which flows into the River Clyde at Dumbarton Rock which you can see in this photo, but it’s still very dangerous and it seems that just about every summer some lads drown in it. They just want to have a lark but don’t realise how cold it is and it’s full of weeds which can fankle (entangle) you too.

Dumbarton Rock

I took this photo last week from the Fife coastal path at Kirkcaldy, just beyond Seafield Tower, walking towards Kinghorn. The rocks there are favourites with the seals and they were making themselves heard that day. Unearthly noises come from them at times, well they would be unearthly I suppose as they’re in the sea, but you know what I mean, positively eerie sounds.

Seals 3

I can quite see how the ancient sailors used to think that the seals were mermaids singing, especially when they hadn’t seen women for years!

Seals 1

I suppose it helped if they were in the water too rather than basking and looking enormously fat. It’s possible that some of these seals were about to give birth, maybe that’s what all the racket was about.

Seals 4

I can hardly believe that we had such lovely weather just last week. We seemed to be in a pattern of one lovely day followed by a wet one for a while but now it looks and feels like November and the schools are going back next week. That could be the cue for the sun to be splitting the pavements and a return of summer. Well maybe.

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Categories: Coast, Scenery, Weather

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Wimbledon and Weather Meanderings

30 June 2011 13:22

I’ve been glued to the Wimbledon coverage on TV when I haven’t been out in the garden taking advantage of the lovely blue sky and warm sunshiney weather which we’ve been having, cooling sea-breeze and all.

Maybe this is going to be Andy Murray’s year after all. As he says, he has beaten Nadal on quite a few occasions in the past – so fingers crossed. I was hoping that Mardy Fish would win against Nadal, it’s just nice to see new people in the mix but apart from that he has the most peculiar name.

I’ve been watching some of the women but I just can’t get enthused by it really. I find the high pitched shrieks very annoying, but apparently they’re necessary.

The high spot for me has been Jo Wilfried Tsonga because he has such a friendly and jocular personality and it’s good to see a real character coming through. There used to be so many characters but they’ve been thin on the ground for years now. I watched the match but I could still hardly believe that he had put Federer out.

I know that it’s just as well that we’re all different, but I can’t agree with Judy Murray when she describes Feliciano Lopez as deliciano. Strange really because I like men with beards and I was married to my husband for nearly 30 years before I saw him without his beard – and I can tell you it was a big shock!

Apart from the tennis I’ve been hard at it in the garden, getting things done while I can, just in case these last three days are our summer. Yes, we’ve had three sunny days in a row now – which has been unheard of for the last few years. The school holidays are just about to start in this part of Scotland and we’ll be footloose and fancy free for the next six weeks. Let’s hope the weather keeps up!

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Pardon My French

11 June 2011 23:42

Je suis bloody well fed up! For one thing it has been raining all day and it feels more like November than June, so we’ve been stuck in the house. I wonder which is worse, being stuck indoors because it’s cold and miserable or not being able to go out because it’s inhumanely hot? I’m not likely to find out anyway.

Apart from that the book that I started yesterday has turned out to be one of the very few that I’ve given up on. I usually struggle on with books and sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised at the end of them. Other times I just harrumph all the way through and at the end turn it around to look at the front cover, I think I probably have a sort of I’ll know you next time and you’ll never darken my door again look on my face.

Anyway, what with the weather and everything I can’t be doing with that sort of book so I’m ‘shelving’ Margaret Forster’s Diary of an Ordinary Woman at the moment. I’ll go back to it if someone can tell me that it’s worthwhile ploughing on with it. I bought it at the last library book sale.

When I read the introduction I really didn’t like the idea of it at all because it’s a fictional diary purporting to be a real one which was written by a woman who was born in 1901 and she is now 98 years old. Forster even has the fictional woman telling her that she told no lies in her diary – but it’s fiction.

I reached page 87 and so far the whole thing just seems implausible to me. Firstly the diary writer, Millicent is one of a family of seven children, she is the third one and we are supposed to believe that she was allowed to go to teacher training college after leaving school. Considering that the family is not a very wealthy one, the father has some sort of furniture making/selling business which isn’t doing all that well because of the Great War, I seriously doubt if any daughter would even have been allowed to stay on at school past the age of 14. She would have been expected to help with the family budget and would almost certainly have had to work in her father’s shop for pocket money only.

There is an even more unlikely happening involving the mother of the family later on and I can’t suspend my disbelief any more. I also think that it’s the sort of book which could be written by just about anybody who has read a few books and is interested in writing. They’d probably make a better job of it too.

Anyway, grump over.

I’m just starting Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude. I have high hopes.

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Weather Update

3 June 2011 23:55

The weather here has been terrible recently, it hasn’t been too wet but the wind has been scary and quite a few trees were blown down. I thought that my garden had managed to avoid any damage but my biggest Japanese Maple (Acer) withered at the top and on closer inspection I discovered that the top three feet of it had just snapped off but was still entangled in the rest of the tree. I wish I had noticed it earlier because I would have had a better chance of being able to use some of it for cuttings. I took cuttings anyway as it might still work.

Until today it has been cold, it’s difficult to believe that we’ve had May and we’re already in June. However today it was HOT! In fact it was 24oC which is 75oF – very bright and sunny and I planted my home grown tomato plants into the greenhouse border and I’m ever hopeful of a good crop.

What does the weather have in store for us tomorrow though? Can you believe that we are going to be dropping down to 14oC which is 57oF for the forecastable future? No wonder we all get ill with temperature fluctuations like that!

It’s typical holiday weather, we didn’t have last Monday off as everybody else seems to have had. This Monday is our holiday, but I’ve got a horrible feeling that today might just have been our summer. Looking on the bright side, at least I won’t be feeling too hot.

My garden is continuing to bloom and I hope to have some more photos on ‘Pining’ soon. The first rose opened today!

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Categories: Gardening, Weather

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R H S – It must be Summer

24 May 2011 23:20

I always think that summer arrives with the Royal Horticultural Show although it isn’t normally accompanied by severe gales for days , as we have had here. Mind you I’m not complaining when you consider what other people have had to put up with weather wise.

I’ve been enjoying watching all of the coverage on the TV and tonight I’ve been voting for my favourite gardens in the two categories of show garden and small garden. It was quite difficult because sonetimes I really like the planting of a garden but for me it’s spoiled by a horrendous monstrosity of a modern structure. Like the big white thing in Ishihara Kazuyuki Design Lab garden. I loved all of the plants and the design apart from that weird structure. I ended up voting for the Skyshades garden in the Show Garden category because it is really natural and would be great for wildlife. It only got a silver medal.

In the Small Garden category I opted for Hae-Woo-So (Emptying One’s Mind) from Korea. It got a gold which I think it deserved, lovely plants, water and a rustic structure which turned out to be an outside loo and a place to wash your hands. So it’s about emptying your body too! If you have time take a look at the gardens and let me know which are your favourites.

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Categories: BBC, Gardening, Weather

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Spring – today anyway

23 March 2011 23:48

It has been lovely the last few days with bright sunshine and a warmish wind. So I’ve been busy making the most of it, just in case we get snow again at Easter, it wouldn’t be the first time.

I’ve been hard at it in the garden and I’ve even managed to get around to painting the woodwork in Duncan’s old room which I’ve been putting off for ages. The paint tin boasts that it is one coat, quick dry gloss paint. Well, it isn’t and I’ve had to give it two coats, which took forever to dry out.

And you know what it’s like, as soon as you spruce up one part of a house it immediately makes everything else look shabby. The downside of the sun actually shining is that it makes the place seem – I have to admit it – manky!

So I’ve also been washing windows, inside and out. What an exciting life I lead. It should all help to keep me fit anyway. I did take some more garden photos though and I hope to have a garden blogpost tomorrow.

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Categories: Family, Weather

Hard Winters, the Tories and Narnia

10 January 2011 23:48

I bet you don’t think that the three things in the title have anything in common, but they do, well I think they do.

I caught the back end of one of the Narnia episodes which were on TV during the Christmas holidays, it was the wicked queen doing her stuff. We used to be steeped in Narnia here as Gordon my youngest son was obsessed with the books and videos at one point. It always reminded me of the winters of 1979/80/81 which were terribly cold, worse than anything that I had ever experienced before.

When we moved down to Essex the diesel in the removal lorry’s tank froze and the men had to light a fire underneath it to thaw it out, scary stuff. This all coincided with the Conservative party getting into power – in the shape of the dreaded and evil Maggie Thatcher. So you can see why she reminds me of the wicked witch – and vice versa. Evil was stalking the land and so freezing cold winters came along to torment us, just as in Narnia when evil had the upper-hand.

So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the same thing has happened again as we now have the self-confessed ‘sons of Margaret Thatcher’ at the helm. As before, the freezing winter came just before the Tories got into power, when evil was gaining strength. I predict that as we are in the middle of our second freezing winter on the trot, we’ll probably have another one next year too. I blame all those Old Etonian millionaires. But I’m also reminded of Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes. Prime Minister Cameron and all his Old Etonian pals in the Cabinet are just exactly like the dastardly Flashman and his chums, except that was set at Rugby. I suppose one English public school bunch is much the same as another.

When J.M. Barrie decided to make his Peter Pan character Captain Hook an evil Old Etonian he obviously knew exactly what he was doing. But I cheer myself up by remembering what was in store for Captain Hook!

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK

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