PEDICURE, PEDANTRY AND PROGRESS

As I reflect on a week in which the sun has shone often and long on my beloved islands (a pity it didn't do so earlier in the summer!), I do so with a degree of satisfaction for a number of reasons.  My mother received her long-awaited and much needed visit from the chiropodist before returning home from her fortnight's respite care at the Wastview Care Centre at Walls.  I was at Whiteness to greet her and help her settle in again, and if we can get another long-term issue, that of her footwear, resolved, then things might not be too bad for her.  Of course there are still problems with her ears, her eyes and what she believes to be an inoperable (due mainly to the fact that she's 95 with severe mobility problems) hernia, but, for now, we'll accept getting her feet comfortable at least.

Since my last posting, I lost another friend with the passing of John Gray at Lerwick.  His funeral took place in the driving rain (which also practically wiped out the Walls agricultural show!) of Saturday 13th August, and I was unable to attend because of a previous arrangement I'd made with my sister Thelma to do a little work at Brugarth, Whiteness, in preparation for our mother's homecoming.  John, who was a year or two older than me, pursued a career, as many Shetlanders did, "deep sea" as an able seaman in the merchant navy, until ill health forced him to come ashore in the 1980s.  He was a big man, with a forthright nature and manner, who detested bovine ordure in all its forms.  I always enjoyed his company whenever we met in the "Lower Lounge" at Lerwick, and I shared his pedantic take on the pitiful output of today's educationally-deprived and electronically-misinformed society.  Even though I rarely go to the pub these days, I, along with many others, will miss his larger-than-life presence around town.

I hope you like my painting of Stonehaven (above).  Two of the rooms in the Ship Inn (the white building on the right) will be occupied by my sister Mary and myself on the nights of 6th and 7th November, while we attend to the hanging of my exhibition at the Creel Inn, Catterline (a few miles south of there), which will be opening, if all goes well, on Tuesday 8th.

I've spent a lot of time these last two weeks organising and collating accurate quotations from various suppliers (of framing, ferry passages, posters and such essentials) in order to get a grant application, for some of the exhibition's costs, prepared.  This went off in the post on Thursday morning, and I was very glad to see the back of it!  The funding body is the Shetland Islands Council's Economic Development Unit, and I'm very grateful to them for their help with this project and several others in the past.  Unfortuantely the Unit does not help with mainland accommodation costs, but, when I think of the alternatives with regard to transporting an exhibition of paintings to an off-island venue, I do not consider a couple of nights' hotel residency an extravagance.

Now all I have to do is produce ten more paintings over the next two months (I've started work on four of them already) to make up the display numbers.  And no-one can help me with that!  Have a nice week!