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!

EQUINOX!

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the weather should turn equinoctial, given that the autumn equinox takes place tomorrow. It has been blowing a gale during the latter half of this week, and I have been watching fishing boats, many of them Norwegian, scurrying for the shelter which Lerwick harbour affords. As the meteorological conditions become unsettled, I have been feeling strangely ill at ease this week, and I am at a loss as to adequately explain why.

I have had yet another effusive email of thanks from a grateful customer (to add to the many), and progress has been maintained on the other works, apart from the big picture, which I feel has been doomed from its delayed start due to damaged canvases being delivered to me. I now feel thoroughly discouraged with the project, and dread entering the side-studio where it sits broodingly on its easel. I feel like taking a four-inch brush, loading it with the most fluorescently inappropriate hue I can find among my paint-tubes, and vigorously obliterating the image before me on the canvas. What cathartic fun that would be! Never mind that I've spent four months creating that image and, a month ago, I was very happy with it. My client is dissatisfied, and I am not far away from returning his deposit to him, along with a letter telling him where he can put his patronage. As things stand, I am dabbing away at the painting, making little alterations here and there, for no good reason, and I know not, and care less, where the project is going.

I have started another two "stock" works (subject-matter yet to be decided) and continued work on my commissioned Cornish river-mouth scene. I have got all my greeting cards bagged up into "assorted" fours, single-themed fives, and a few singles. I have discovered that my new display units fit neatly into my two large holdalls, which is good news for when I'm carting all the stuff from and to the stall at the Toll Clock Centre (these will be starting again in November).

It has been a week for strange email messages about Taits (most of them polite!) from around the globe. One was from a woman of Tait ancestry who runs a beautiful guesthouse in the countryside of the Burgundy region in France. She complimented me on my work, and expressed her desire to trace her Shetland roots. She got in touch with me, as I am a Shetland Tait with a website and seemed a good contact to start with. Her grandmother, Grace Tait, was from Brae, so I forwarded the message to Dr Ian Tait, of Shetland Museum and Archives, who is also from that part of the islands. I also replied to her in helpful and appreciative terms.

Apparently there is, or was, a prolific landscape/seascape artist knocking about America somewhere, who signed his paintings "TAIT". This week I received an email from a lady in Austin, Texas, who is the second American to contact me with regard to this artist. I have had to tell her that I haven't the foggiest who this dauber is. "It wisna me", has been the main thrust of my replies to such enquiries, along with apologies for my inability to help. Anyone out there in the blogosphere know anything about him/her?

September is a big month for birthdays among the members of my family, with that of my brother, two of my sisters and my late father's all falling within that month. My sister Mary (not one of the September lot!) invited me to go with her, after she had finished work, down to Sandwick churchyard to lay a bunch of flowers on our father's grave, on what would have been his 99th birthday, on Friday. The wind was practically blowing us off balance as we performed this little task, after which I took some photographs of the scene. I emailed these to Mary afterwards, so that she could print them off to show mother next time she visited her. She (mother) goes in to the respite care centre for a much-needed holiday on Monday. She gives us a few anxious moments, but looked positively robust when I visited her earlier on Friday. She never ceases to amaze and perplex us!

And now the wind has dropped, the sun is shining, and it's a beautiful, if rather chilly, afternoon here in Lerwick. I've promised myself to do a bit of cleaning after I've posted this, but don't hold your breath! Have a nice week.

BLOWING IN THE WIND

This morning having dawned bright and breezy, I hung a batch of shirts on the line, and they came in dry and un-seagull-decorated at lunchtime. It's been a good week really, both in terms of weather and work, with the oft-times-promised-and-never-delivered website e-commerce upgrade finally up and running, and with good progress to report on two of my artwork commissions. It also appears to have been a good week for using hyphens!

Monday, which dawned fine but clouded over with drizzle later, was one of work on the charity painting (of winter over Baltasound), during the morning, and the commission of the "St. Clair" (IV) off Girdleness lighthouse in the afternoon. In between, I concocted myself a leftover pork and rice creation (which was palatable) for lunch, and took a walk down to the shop for essential supplies. In the evening (they're beginning to draw in!) I attended to the burgeoning contents of my Outlook Express inbox, and did a few other minor tasks on the computer.

Tuesday, which was rather cloudy but calm (brilliant for midges!) was spent on the same two artworks, with the welcome interruption of a visit by my sister Thelma, with whom I had elevenses and a natter. I made myself some kedgeree for lunch, and remembered to put my bin-bag out for collection by the "essie-kert" squad. In the evening I phoned my brother, and came to the realisation that my plan for a trip to the mainland over the first weekend in October is now not going to happen. Certain things have to fall in place for this to be successful. Firstly, I must have an outside cabin on the ferry to myself. This is a selfish indulgence, I know, but I spend two of my three nights away on that boat, and I want it to be a pleasant experience. Secondly, my brother has to be available, so that we can spend the Saturday cruising the roads of the north-east of Scotland in his car, with me busy taking loads of photographs of the picturesque scenes we come across for my reference library. Thirdly, there has to be decent accommodation available for the Saturday night in Aberdeen. On this occasion, the boat is fully booked and my brother is otherwise engaged. The trip is being postponed until late March next year, just before the period covered by my Northlink Ferries discount vouchers runs out.

Wednesday's weather was mostly fine, with light winds. It was also a big day, the one set aside for getting the final work done on the website upgrade. Igor Mournly, my web designer, arrived, as arranged, at 10am, and we set about putting the greeting cards on the product database, and getting the other elements together for a fully e-commercialised online sales system, complete with the appropriate basket and checkout functions. We hit some technical snags, of course, and, at midday, Igor set off back to his own office to get these ironed out, leaving me to make a light lunch and spend another afternoon on the two commissioned paintings. Later still, I took the painting of Johnshaven harbour to the post office for onward shipment to its new owner in Cornwall. This cost me £38.95 to send, which hurt a bit, so, to numb the pain, I had a couple of pints of the yellow stuff in the Lounge. On my return home, I discovered that Igor had been doing some good work on the website, and had made a test order of £0.01, using my online payment system in conjunction with Paypal. The thing was clearly working. I phoned him my thanks for the generosity of his payment, which will no doubt be added to the amount of his invoice later!

Thursday was bright and clear, although a little low cloud occasionally threatened during the day. I'd arranged to make a soupy lunch for my sister Mary and myself, and it now looked as if I would have a third guest in the shape of Igor, who was coming along to do the final preliminaries to going "live" with the website upgrade. All in all, it was the most chatty lunch that has taken place at the Tait Gallery for some time, with the food being also acceptable, and the website mission being accomplished too. Then my two apparently satisfied guests left, leaving me to clear up the clutter, a task which took me over half-an-hour, and do a little more artwork. I spent the evening chilling out a bit.

http://www.tait-gallery.co.uk/

Friday dawned and remained bright and mostly sunny, with light south-easterly winds. I took my usual trip out to mother's, collecting her pension and pre-ordered shopping along the way. I did the usual Friday things, such as watering the greenhouse, frying mother's favourite fish lunch of whiting in batter for lunch, clearing up afterwards, making tea and coffee, and generally helping her out with things. She is keeping quite well, if you disregard her severe mobility problems (which it's difficult for her to do!). She is now into her 95th year, and just getting through a day is a bit of a struggle for her, but she has decided that she'll stick it out at her home at Brugarth, Whiteness, for another winter, provided that my sister Mary carries out her promise to stay with her if the weather gets snowy and the access road becomes problematic for the home helps. Everyone got a fright over the severity of last winter, and no-one wants another like it - ever again.
Back at my flat in the evening, I made the mistake of trying to assemble a self-assembly cardboard display unit for my greeting cards. All my efforts at self-assembly tend to self-dissemble within a very short space of time, and this project never really got off the ground. The bits just didn't seem to fit. After an hour I realised that I was unequal to this struggle, threw the parts, which were now looking decidedly grubby and furry, into the bin, and ordered a couple of ready-assembled plastic units from a display units shop on the internet. Hang the expense!

Yesterday was also bright and sunny, with a moderate south-easterly breeze. I spent the morning on the "St. Clair" painting, and the afternoon on the cloud reflections in the water of the Baltasound picture, quite a tricky operation which I nearly finished before the end of the afternoon. I didn't do a lot in the evening, except watch what was watchable on the box. For some reason I hadn't yet seen the third film in the Bourne trilogy, which turned out to be even more frenetic, violent, scowling and frankly daft than the previous two, but it was fun to watch - a bit like Young Guns meets the Wacky Races, with a touch of Rocky thrown in.

And so to today, and I am determined to get this posted. I failed last Sunday, due to the fact that I spent the morning wrapping a painting and then went for a run out west with my sister Thelma in the afternoon. (I did the same run this afternoon, but I had most of this written beforehand.) Must do better, as they say! Have a nice week.

DEAR DIARY

Since BBC4 has been doing a series of programmes about diaries, I thought I would show you a week's entries from mine. It doesn't have the intrigue and general naughtiness of Allan Clark's, or the historical event coverage (and further naughtiness, rather surprisingly) of Samuel Pepys's, but it has a bit of je ne sais quoi nevertheless. Here goes:

MONDAY weather bright with showers and moderate winds. Working on the Fraserburgh fishing boat commission, getting some of her wheelhouse and deck details done. Fried whiting in batter for my lunch, after which I took a walk to post a letter and get groceries fron the nearest thing I've got to a corner shop. In the evening, I sorted out some text and photographic material to send to a graphics firm in the north of England, to form part of a brochure for a charity auction I am supporting. Emailed this to said graphics firm.

TUESDAY My web designer and I spent most of the day on getting me familiarised with some of the new functions on my website. I have an awful lot of work to do before the new version becomes a cyber-reality, and the potential for error-making by an e-novice like me, on these rather complicated procedures, is enormous and scary. I made kedgeree for our lunch, which seemed to go down well. The weather began bright with light winds, but it gradually clouded over during the day, and the wind increased.

WEDNESDAY Worked on the Fraserburgh fishing boat commission during the morning, this time on her hull markings. My nephew Kenneth breezed in as I was clearing up after my lunch, and gave me a lift to the Lerwick Doctor's practice for my swine flu jag appointment, after which I visited the bank and other places, including the stationer's, where I bought a couple of rolls of bubble wrap for some painting protection from pathological postmen, very necessary for what I have to do later. A couple of women called on the Tait Gallery in the evening to discuss options for a forthcoming wedding anniversary present. They are going to get back to me later on those. The weather was mostly dull, with strong south-east winds. My upper left arm, which had taken the flu jag, was really hurting by bed-time.

THURSDAY My oldest sister Thelma popped by in the morning for a chat and a cuppa. I then put in the fenders on the Fraserburgh fishing boat, and started on the ripple effect on the quiet waters of the harbour in which the boat is manoeuvring. My middle sister Mary came for her pre-arranged soup at lunch-time, and Kenneth joined us again. We arranged to meet up for a day's home decorating at Sandwick on Saturday. I completed, bar snagging, the Fraserburgh boat commission in the afternoon. An evening of domestic tasks ensued - ironing of shirts, putting a load through the tumbledryer, washing of crockery and cutlery. I also fired off my weekly news email to my youngest sister Angela in Saudi Arabia, and replied to yet another request for information regarding the Sigvardsson Gallery in Denmark. I'm going to start charging for all these glowing reports I'm giving him! The weather has been dull, dry with a strong SSE wind.

FRIDAY Weather horrendous - gale force winds, heavy rain. Lerwick harbour full of sheltering fishing boats, one of which had run aground on the Holm of Cruester during the night, but had been towed off apparently undamaged. There has also been a similar grounding at Scalloway, near the Fisheries college. This boat, the "Vela", was also towed off successfully. From the news, it appears that a navigation buoy had been unlit, and this could have contributed to the grounding. There may be trouble ahead!
Thelma and I have decided to jointly give one of my A3 prints to the auction her church is organising for the Haiti earthquake appeal. Meanwhile, I was off to Whiteness to spend most of today with my mother, as I usually do on Fridays. I did all the usual things - collected her pension and groceries from the shop, took a look at the greenhouse, made lunch, washed up afterwards, made tea and coffee and helped with various other little tasks. But the most important thing I did was just to be there. On my return to Lerwick in the late afternoon, I did a few administrative tasks, but not a lot else. The wind fell away a bit in the evening, and I watched, from my window, the bright stern lights of some of the fishing boats heading off to sea again in the still-heavy swell.

SATURDAY Bought 2 sheets of polystyrene sheeting from my local builders' merchants' for wrapping purposes, and hired a large taxi to get these home. My downstairs neighbour gave me a hand up the stairwell with these awkward 8 x 4 foot sheets, for which I was very grateful to her. Then it was off down to Sandwick with Mary in her Volvo to do some titivation on Victoria House, my nephew's home. My niece and her two children turned up for a visit too, so it turned into a party for a time. I did some scraping and painting, and also resurrected some paintbrushes which had been left for dead after previous decoration duties. Why do I always end up doing brushwork? On being dropped off home at about tea-time, I did a few computer-connected things in the evening, and watched some television, for which, of course, I felt guilty. All that website stuff waiting to be done, and here am I goggling the box.....
Weather mostly dull and showery with occasional bright spells. Wind much lighter.

SUNDAY Here is where the wrapping products, in which I invested earlier in the week, come into their own. I spent a couple of hours using the bubblewrap and polystyrene sheeting to protect the painting I am sending to the charity auction, by Royal Mail Special Delivery, tomorrow. I put one layer of bubblewrap around the picture, then cut two pieces of polystyrene sheet to fit (using my gas ring to heat an old breadknife to cut it) and secure these on either side. I then put another layer of bubblewrap round that. It then fits quite neatly into a black refuse sack, round the ends and sides of which I put copious quantities of parcel tape. I put another strip of this up the middle both ways, and the thing is then ready to receive the self-adhesive address envelope. That, and this post, have been my main tasks for today. Oh, and the weather? Mostly dull and dry with fresh south-easterly winds.

And so to bed. Have a nice week!