Rannoch Moor
It’s now Monday and I should have had this written and posted by last Friday 15th March…..I’m not quite sure where all the time has gone this last week.
No great things to tell either. I seem to have been down the studio most of the time working on one of the large 80 x 80 cm paintings. Normally I would have taken a photograph of it to show you with this blog …..but ……I didn’t get around to photographing it. The painting is coming on though and I think it may be finished, so later today if the light is OK in studio I’ll get a few snaps to put up on my Face Book page.
I had a visit on Friday from a couple of chaps who are doing research at the University of Edinburgh. They’re looking into the way visually impaired people see paintings. There were many questions and we must have been talking for several hours ….and all the time the whole thing was been recorded and videoed. We were all a little shattered at the end and retired to the Harbour Arts Centre Bar for a pint.
Rannoch Moor
As anyone who follows my Face Book page will have seen, we went out walking on the Saturday before last. The plan was to walk a track east from the King’s House Hotel towards Rannoch station. Our friend Guy needed to check the route for a group of Cadets he works with ….they’re planning to go this way as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award expedition. Back last autumn Guy had caught the train to Rannoch station and walked west ……this time he wanted to get to the point he’d reached that day and we just fancied tagging along. As it turned out the weather was pretty foul, certainly for the whole of the morning. We started at about 8 o’clock in the morning from the King’s House Hotel and within a short distance it had started snowing wet flakes that were being driven into our faces by a very strong and cold east wind. After about an hour, Guy decided to head off at a faster pace and slowly he drew further ahead …lost to sight for me but every now and again Nita spotted him way ahead through the gloom and what had turned into sleet and rain. After just under four hours Nita and I decided we’d had enough and on finding a spot that was a little less windy, we stopped for lunch and an hilarious five minutes trying to get ourselves ensconced in our two person group shelter! When we were eventually inside it was remarkably warm …but I don’t think we quite had it worked out as the small clear plastic window was by my backside and the panel Nita was supposed to be sitting on, was by her head!! Oh well, needs some working on before the next time we use it …but it did give us a warm and relaxed lunch stop.
Rannoch Moor
We kept in touch with Guy by phone and he reached his previous outward point by about 13.00. It was certainly easier walking with the wind at our back as we returned and much more pleasant once the rain had stopped. The last hour was great as the cloud started to rise and we got some impressive views of the big mountains. Needless to say, we returned to the hotel a couple of hours before Guy and just had to make the best of it in the climbers bar!!! A tough job but …. When Guy arrived …he summed it up as ‘ten hours of tedium’!!! Not the greatest of days but we’d all stretched our legs, Guy had completed the route and we all had a good meal and a laugh ….you can’t always get perfect weather on a day out but you can still have a fun time …even if you moan a bit!
Rannoch Moor
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