Heading off into the blue

One of my favourite paintings is Winifred Nicholson's 'The Gate to the Isles' or 'The Blue Gate'. I will probably be infringing copyright to include an image of the painting here but it is easily found on a plethora of other blogs, this being one of them http://gauguinsloft.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/paintings-of-scotland-by-winifred.html
I love the gate which invites you to explore what lies beyond. In the distance you can see the paps of Jura in the Western Isles. It's just glorious!

I have a painting by Philip Archer, Principal of Leith School of Art, in Edinburgh, which also depicts a footpath running around a grassy hill and leading off into the blue. It is a very inviting image and I just want to be walking along that path to see what lies around the corner.

My favourite walk offers the same sense of anticipation. I love this point on the walk, heading up hill through the sea buckthorn, the fine bladed grass neatly cropped by all the rabbits who live amongst the sand dunes,

nearly there, with a little glimpse of telltale blue

and then stretching across in front of me is a truly wonderful beach. It's as good as any I visited in Australia and I just love it. It's appeal is enduring and it never fails to please. Actually, I think I may have mentioned it before, now I come to think of it!

And of course the waves are endlessly fascinating to me. I love the way they just keep on coming, running, and washing the beach clean again, all ready for tomorrow.

If it is blue and sunny tomorrow, as it is today, I think we might drag the troops away from their stashes of chocolate and go to the beach for a barbecue lunch and a spot of sandcastle building, before they go back to school next week.

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In a vase on Monday - colour

The intense colours in my vase this week come from nasturtiums, sweetpeas and a single glorious zinnia! Their beauty and love of life speak for themselves and need no further words from me! Enjoy!

Found items IAVOM

I am on holiday on the Inner Hebridean island of Colonsay. It is my happy place. Thoughts of Colonsay rattle around in my head each and every day I am not here! I haven't got a vase to share this week but some lovely things I have found over the past few days, which are just as beautiful as a vase of flowers! I hope you agree! Here are some leaves of giant rhododendrons, growing in the outer gardens of Colonsay House. Some skeleton leaves of magnolia. The dried stem of a kelp seaweed. A couple of conkers (can never resist those!), and a branch heavily populated by a number of lichens. The air on Colonsay is so clean that lichens flourish here!

Colonsay postcards - on arrival

The first thing I do, once we have unpacked our car, which has been groaning with all the stuff we need for a week's stay in the holiday cottage, is head for the outer gardens of Colonsay House. It is a place of wonder for me! I particularly love the leaves of the giant rhododendrons. There are many different varieties, all planted in the early 1930s. The outer gardens are generally overgrown, having had little tending over the decades. That makes them even more magical! The old woodmill falls apart a little more every year, but that's fine by me because I love corrugated iron and especially if it's rusted! And of course the bees. Colonsay's beekeeper, Andrew Abrahams, has one of his apiaries on the edge of the pine wood. So lovely - the hum of busy bees and the heady smell of the pines. We are here - finally! Delayed by four months by the wretched virus, but now I am on holiday! Hooray!

the running wave

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