Spring is still an uncertain quantity as May begins. May 6th saw the elections to Holyrood – and the now familiar hail and gales were in evidence everywhere, with several inches of snow in the Highlands. Despite months of mud-slinging by opposition parties, and the late disruption of Alex Salmond creating a new party, the SNP led by Nicola Sturgeon emerged triumphant for a 4th term. There were huge sighs of relief, and not just here!!
As the weather remains so variable we have remained indoors a whole lot more than usual. And I have started a series of shoots of my assorted crystal balls, larger orbs and marbles. From the tiniest crystal or marble to tennis ball size and even larger, they all have their magic to weave! The page header is a small crystal orb on a silk scarf, giving a vibrant pattern of lines and colours, reflected and refracted in the clear glass.
Catching the early morning sunshine
And here the same crystal was set in the window to catch the low early morning sun. With all the refracted light and inverted image of the window, the garden beyond and the sky – it is both simple and complex … and quite magical!
A decoration from Christmas – and one of my favourite photo props!
This time it was plastic, not glass or crystal – a favourite decoration that never gets put away with the rest of the Christmas things! It is one of my photo props that always delivers!
And May has a special significance for me, as May 12th is the birthday of Florence Nightingale. No – not for the current pandemic and all the magnificent efforts being made by nurses worldwide – but because we now think that in later life she suffered from what we now call M.E. or Post Viral Syndrome (PVS).
Blue hydrangeas for ME/PVS day on May 12th.
PVS is what changed my life back in the 1980s. It is full of resonance now, as Long Covid is just the latest version of Post Viral Syndrome! It is undoubtedly a truly vicious virus, but there are so many similarities to previous viral attacks and their aftermath – I do hope that the medical people trying to deal with Long Covid will realise the link and draw on our experiences to help their search for ways to handle post viral events both past and present! I’ve written about ME and Me on Inedita.
And talking of Inedita itself – it has been 3 years since we began to build this site! Time does fly!! And I decided it was time to design us a new site image.
Our first site graphic for Inedita!
Our first one expressed how new we were to WordPress as our means of building (well re-building) The Liddells website. Previously I had used Dreamweaver and Microsoft FrontPage 2003. But times changed, and I needed a new platform. We’d both been writing many articles, and hosting them on a friend’s website but we wanted to collect the material together, as well as writing more personal sections, such as this Journal! So I set about finding a new image that would combine Mike’s literary strands with my photographic ones ……
And our new site graphic for Inedita
So I took the theme of Seigfried Sassoon, who’s poetry Mike has written about extensively in Sassoon Agonistes and combined a WW1 image with a photograph of my own, taken with the Lensbaby an optical system I’ve written about on Inedita too. Merging and blending images is something I enjoy, using photographs, and sometimes blending a photo with a watercolour image. There’s an album of some of the blends I’ve done on Flickr here.
And so May ends with my collage of shots and images I posted to Flickr this month.
My Flickr collage of all the shots I uploaded in May 2021
The Japanese plum tree is usually a mass of pink by now – but winter is still with us!
April is the cruellest month! How right T S Eliot was! Winter continues unabated – sub zero nights and cold days have dominated April 2021. The plum blossom is almost completely killed on the Japanese flowering plum tree by the gate. Usually the tree turns into a pink delight in April, but this year there are just a few random pink dabs among the bare branches! The new green buds on the hydrangeas and azaleas are blackened and blighted too. It is indeed cruel! There is more hail than snow, and the high winds sweeping down from the Arctic are driving the hail off the large field behind the house, and into our garden, building up against the house, and into our faces when we open the back door!
The garden is full of the snow and hailstones blown off the field behind the house!
By the middle of the month the snow has been replaced by overnight frosts and bright sunny days. Better than the constant snow and hail, but the weather pattern is still so very cold, even at midday. The blue skies are very welcome, and the sun is hot through the window glass – but it is deceptive! And there is now no rainfall at all – so the land that has been soaked all autumn and frozen solid all winter is now too dry for the Spring planting to germinate properly.
It looks more like midwinter than April!
On the personal front we have managed to continue to do some of our own grocery shopping. The lockdown together with the vaccine roll-out has seen a welcome and reassuring fall in infection rates, hospitalisations and deaths. There is now a Covid Dashboard provided by PH Scotland that shows cases by Local Government areas, and within each area too. So we can check to see how safe the places we wish to visit are. It is a strange world when the freedom to enter a shop and choose my own fruit and vegetables is a real treat! What used to be a regular chore has become a mark of returning normality, and real delight to look forward to!
April 14th – and another milestone. We both get our second vaccination jag! That is only 8 weeks since the first, and we were expecting to wait another month. So now we only need to wait another 3 weeks to ensure the antibodies have built up fully. Early May will be so good! No ill effects from the 2nd AZ shot – a mild ‘flu’ feeling for a day, but not even a sore arm!
April 26th – and there is a lot of easing of restrictions, both for travel, meeting others, and for opening up of shops, cafes and pubs. The emphasis is on outdoor meetings and venues as these first tentative steps test how effective the lock-down and vaccine roll-out have been.
But most of these changes are not affecting us two, as cold winter weather continues to make indoors most appealing! So I have been enjoying shooting anything and everything that I can find lying around in my studio! Catching the fleeting moments of sunshine, and celebrating the feeling that the year of constant stress might be loosening its grip…
Feather and hydrangea, one of my many ‘odds and sods’ shots.
I call this slightly frivolous excursion into random still-life shots my Flickr Odds and Sods album, and am happily adding to it as often as I can!
Some of my tiny antique medicine bottles – as a monochromeFeather and stone, one of my many ‘odds and sods’ shots.
And before April ended we managed another trip to Fyvie Castle and grounds, to see if the new green of Spring had finally managed to emerge. This time I took a Sony NEX-7 with the magical Zeiss Makro E 50mm F2.8 lens. Usually used for close macro photography, I have discovered it is a wonderful landscape lens too!
Spring is finally showing the first signs of new fresh green!
To round off April with the photography I’ve posted on Flickr, here is the collage of my online month.
The collage of shots taken and uploaded for April 2021
April ends the way it began, with driving hail and freezing temperatures.
March began with the first vaccination accomplished, and a wait for the second dose that may reach into May. It developed into a month of unholy wrangling with the EU over vaccine supply. Over half of the UK adult population have received a first dose, and the impact has been striking. Numbers in hospital with COVID, in the ICU, and dying from COVID have all fallen dramatically since December when the vaccination began. Studies are showing that the gamble of maximizing the range of the first jab and delaying the second jab has paid off.
The EU has been slow to give medical approval for the vaccines, and also slow to place orders for them. They have an average of 10% of their populations vaccinated, and are facing a third wave, with lock-downs. The immediate outlook is bleak for people in Europe, as the variant becoming dominant is the B117 (Kent variant) that has plagued the UK too. It has proved to be more tranmissible, and more deadly than the original virus here. Sadly the EU Commission response has been to try to block vaccines produced on the continent from being exported to the UK. They have spent two months trashing the reputation of the AstraZenenca vaccine, and are now trying to ‘sell’ it to their populations! Currently there are significant numbers who are refusing the AZ vaccine, despite growing research evidence of its efficacy and safety. What a mess!!
Here we both had the AZ vaccine, and after a couple of days feeling like a mild dose of ‘flu we have had no adverse effects. The Shingles vaccine was much worse!! So now we feel more confident going out and about. Still in lock-down in Scotland in March, so exercising at Fyvie Castle and essential shopping in Inverurie are the extent of our ‘out and about’. But there is a slight feeling of returning normality, as we are no longer totally dependent on deliveries for our weekly grocery needs!
Winter still rules! Infrared at Fyvie loch
The weather has been against us, as sub-zero temperatures (especially overnight) have made for bleak, cold and windy outings for exercise. The trees have been battered by the severe winter and are not at all photogenic , and only snowdrops are adorning the pathways at Fyvie
Snowdrops make for a magical white carpet at Fyvive Castle.
With a little Helios lens magic the snowdrops appear to swirl, and add a little magic! Indeed magic is needed to see the beauty hidden in the wintry corners of the castle grounds….
Last years leaves and this years snowdrops caught with the Lensbaby.
This time it is the Lensbaby optic adding some colour and sparkle to the cold day!
So much of my time has been spent indoors – too cold to think about tackling the garden and all the dead-heading and clear-up after the winter! Decision time! I am still determined to fit my watercolour adventure into the already cramped timetable for the day/week/month! It does take my energy reserves right to the edge, and it does mean the housework is being neglected! The more I dig into my first watercolour venture (some 20+ years ago), the more I understand when artists say watercolour is the most difficult and challenging medium of all! I have a whole lot to learn or re-learn, and yet I know where I want to go ….. so balancing the need to learn important things with wishing to avoid a “watercolours by numbers” approach is making for slow progress! I don’t want to lose my own vision …. The first thing that I need to get a grasp on is the colours that I have got.
My watercolour transparency chart
I want to use as many transparent colours as possible, as they can let the paper glow through – but there are so many qualities to each paint. Transparent, semi-transparent and opaque is only one quality to weigh! There are staining/non-staining colours, and then reflective colours, and sedimentary colours … and then how about warm and cool colours, colour dominance? …. and I am nowhere near the paper choices, or the brush choices!
I have decided to simply throw myself in the deep end, and sink or swim. The problem is that I am not good at failing … especially not repeatedly! I tend to beat myself up, and get discouraged…. so I am trying to fit a small watercolour ‘corner’ into each day … failing, but gradually getting closer to every other day! So I have ‘built’ my first palette.
My first palette selection, with transparency in mind.
I’ve already been experimenting with mixing my painting with my photographs ….
Daily sketch eggshells and blend with photoBlending art and photography
See more on the August 2020 page, and on Flickr I have an album of all kinds of blending and merging of media. I want to use some of the landscape images I’ve captured over the years, and express them in watercolour too … like this winter sunrise as we drove along ..
Ice and fog, a dangerous but magical mixture.
So, as March draws to a close, and the sunny days begin to outnumber the wintry ones, my ToDo lists are packed with ideas for photography and painting, and my online Flickr presence will vie with the demands of house and garden! Hopefully there will be the chance to travel to the coast, as lock-down restrctions ease. It may be May before we see a second vaccination jab … so extreme caution is still the 2021 ‘normal’. Here are the images that I posted on Flickr during March ….
The collage of shots taken and uploaded for March 2021
February began with snow. The deep freeze that ended January moved into the heaviest and most prolonged snow that we’ve seen for several years. I’ve got photos from when we moved here in the 1990s, and we regularly had a foot of snow, or more, each winter. Now we lament that all we get is a small snowfall that melts overnight! So far this winter we have experienced prolonged freezes, gales, hailstorms and finally by mid February most of Aberdeenshire was snowed in and paralysed for several days! It made for a mainly indoor month, with outside photography limited to the garden!
The beauty of a frosty winter morning
The frost and snow added a sparkle to everything in the garden. Even these hydrangea flower heads I haven’t cut can glow in the winter! And the bad weather did bring us some unexpected visitors – blew them into our garden!
A rare visitor to our garden – a fieldfare.
Fieldfares took refuge in our garden. We rarely see fieldfares, but a small group visited our garden and enjoyed the cotoneaster berries from our hedge. They must have resumed their flight south to warmer places to overwinter, as they are gone now! We hope that they will make a regular stop-over here. Towards the middle of the month the weather got seriously bad, and the village, indeed most of the entire county, was snowed in by Storm Darcy. We have thousands of miles of roads in Aberdeenshire, many of them small rural roads, and single track. So many local farmers have snow clearing equipment that they can attach to tractors, and help to clear the roads. For us there was an additional anxiety, as the storm hit just as we were due to go for our first Covid vaccination!
The COVID vaccine roll-out in Scotland
The vaccine roll-out in Scotland has picked up speed during February. By the end of the month about 30% of our population have received their first jag. And our turn came as the snow fell! We had to cancel, and try again when the snow began to melt, and the traffic began to move again!
The treacherous road to the vaccination centre.
Even after the worst of the snow had been cleared, it made for a treacherous journey! The round trip of over 30 miles was quite daunting. Initially we went to check out the location of the centre, and the availability of parking. Once there, we enquired, and were so relieved to discover that they could vaccinate us then – they had the information about our snowed-in cancellation. We were only a few days late! So we only needed to drive through the slush and meltwater once.
The snow was so deep it buried some of our garden… including this azalea bush.
The garden was slow to release its snowy grip – areas of the garden were buried deep as the high winds had blown the powdery snow into drifts. Here an azalea bush was almost completely covered. And as I had a folder full of snow images, and nowhere to go – I played in Photoshop making snow abstracts!
So much snow I was making abstracts of the images I shot!
So – as the white month draws to a close, it is time once again to look back over the photographic images I posted on Flickr, before moving on to the new month of March.
My collage of all the shots I uploaded to Flickr in February 2021
A collection of images posted on Flickr during December 2020
December is month 10 of the new way of living in 2020 – living with COVID as an integral part of our lives. It is also the last month when we are, in any way, members of the EU. The long 4 year process of leaving the European UniIon is finally set to end on December 31st.
Brexit happens as 2020 ends
Here in Scotland we feel SO cheated. In 2014 we were threatened with being ejected from the EU if we voted for Scottish independence. A lot of people were convinced that the only way to stay part of Europe was to remain a part of the UK. Then in 2016 the UK (or more correctly England) voted by narrow margin to leave the EU, and Scotland voted over 60% to remain. And now we are being dragged – against our wishes – out of Europe. To say we feel cheated and abused is very mild description of how we feel! All we can do is stand on the sidelines as the English government drags us, protesting, like a dog on a leash!
The outlook seemed better when I turn to the pandemic. The first vaccines against COVID-19 are being produced, and the first vaccinations are taking place.
The first vaccines against COVID 19 are close to approval
It is – or rather was, the first ray of COVID sunshine since the virus began to spread across the world, and changed all our lives! In personal terms nothing has changed – yet. It will take many months, well into 2021, before we are offered a vaccine. But the speed of the research and development of a vaccine, any vaccine, has been amazing! And there are at least three very promising contenders starting production.
The caveat that has been added as December progressed is that there is a new variant of the COVID virus here in the UK that is much more ‘successful’ in that it can transmit from person to person more effectively. As I write this on Boxing Day, it is estimated that transmissibilty has ‘improved’ by about 70%. So Boxing Day sees the whole of mainland Scotland under Level 4 protection rules. The virus is spreading once again at a frightening pace south of the border, and we to the north are not far behind! The result of the discovery and initial reserach into this variant (provisionally called B.1.1.7 or the Kent variant) suggest that it is replacing existing strains, and could mean an explosion in cases across the UK and far beyond. It appears to have started in London and S. E. England, and is spreading north quickly. So far it seems to have travelled to Glasgow and surrounding areas, so we are hoping that today’s Level 4 rules will slow its progress!
My Christmas card for all my Flickr firends and contacts
Christmas is the time when we try to catch up with everyone, especially those who we’ve only been intermittently and occasionally ‘touching base’ with. This year it had to be an entirely virtual experience, sending ‘cards’ I made myself, and catch-up emails. Over the years our dedicated Post Offices have been reduced to one small cubby-hole crammed into a small convenience store. No way to celebrate Christmas by risking contact in such a confined space. Phone calls and emails is the COVID way! We have brought out the Christmas tree, and added a few festive strings to lights – but it is hard to feel festive when the battle between the mutating virus and the vaccination roll-out looks set to define our lives as the new year begins!
Looking forward to 2021 what will it bring?
Hogmanay is a bigger Scottish event than Christmas, with mass celebrations and firework displays in all the major cities. Not this year! The fear is that any relaxation of the Level rules will risk a big explosion of new cases in the weeks after. So Level 4 restrictions are coming into place as Christmas Day ends. A dark and bleak end to a difficult year, though a fascinating one too!
The images I uploaded to Flickr during October 2020
October and month 8 of living with the pandemic.
October started with more signs that the ‘normal’ things of daily life were re-emerging – appointments for a dental check-up, a call for the annual ‘flu jab, and the one most on my mind – the annual service and MOT for my car!
Reflections in the window of my car!
This had been the moving force behind the long, slow return to driving that had dominated several months of lock-down. And all the hard work paid off handsomely, as I drove alone through mid-morning traffic to deliver and then collect the car. A great feeling to be back as a competent and safe driver! The month was so full of practical needs that I took a break from my usual Flickr routine (16 photos to my more usual 24). October means autumn this far north, and the garden needed readying for winter. This year had seen an explosion of growth – everything from weeds to trees seemed to flourish and grow alarmingly! The autumn colours were glorious, but short-lived as storms and gales stripped the leaves.
The hedge of azalea luteum has grown massively this year!
So there was much to do, and many visits to the local recycling point! And like so many everyday things the pandemic means we have to plan for every visit – book online for a 15 minute slot, take the print-out of our slot, and then make sure you arrive roughly on time! It’s a routine we are now used to, appreciate and are happy to keep even after the pandemic …. but it does mean we need to plan in advance!
Then there was the boiler emergency. We found the boiler controlling our central heating and hot water couldn’t be turned off! And worse still, the hot water was always on too, overheating! So we needed urgent help as we poured boling water down the drain! The worst problem was sorted quickly, so we could turn off the entire boiler. But getting the central heating and hot water un-coupled took longer. Another chunk of time and energy!
We did manage one short trip out to Fyvie Castle grounds. Locally, the signs that the harvest was over for the year were apparent. I love the fields when the barley is cut – the lines are wonderful (computer controlled machinery, of course in our 21st century world)
Barley fields in autumn, after the harvest.
Walking round the loch made for a refreshing sunny morning away from the demands of house and garden…
Walking round Fyvie loch as the autumn leaves begin to turn.
…. and the autumn tints were beginning to show, despite the extremely wet and windy month. Even the raindrops made for some lovely photo opportunities!
Raindrops caught on the rowan berries
At home I began to work again on my Canon 70D project, to master the skill of in-camera multiple exposures. It’s amazing how quickly you forget the details of how a camera works, and the techniques of getting what you want from the shots you take!
Shelves – creating multiple exposures in Photoshop
so I started again by shooting around the house and blending the shots in Photoshop.
And, as we couldn’t get out as much as wanted, we strolled down the village to the Kirk.
Auchterless Kirk, around which the Kirkton (village) is collected
I’m ashamed to admit that I rarely visit the Kirk and surrounding kirkyard, though it is on our doorstep. I guess a lot of times we overlook the closest things, and go in pursuit of the more ‘interesting’.
The remains of the old Auchterless Kirk, which has been restored and cleaned
Some years ago there was extensive ‘rescue’ work done to save the facade of the old Kirk that is in the Kirkyard, and was being overgrown by ivy. So I wanted to catch the sun on the newly revealed facade. The day was cold, and the sunshine was soon overtaken by the rain clouds – but I managed a few good shots. And I am determined to return and shoot the Kirk through the seasons!
And finally – how was the pandemic playing out?
Since the re-opening of primary and secondary schools the infection rate started to rise noticeably. The next step was to start the academic year for colleges and universities. It doesn’t take a genius to guess what happened next! We knew it would lead to growing infection rates, and as October played out the numbers catching and passing on the coronavirus grew exponentially. The figures for any area were expressed as numbers of positive cases per 100,000 people. And here is a snapshot of Scotland on October 20th.
A snapshot of infection rates across Scotland as of October 20th
In Aberdeenshire we are relatively low down the administrative areas – though we are affected by the ripple effect of Aberdeen city. Plenty of people live in the shire and work in Aberdeen. So as the month closed Scotland was divided into 5 levels, each with differing levels of restrictions. We were in Level 2, along with Aberdeen city. It meant:
Scotland wide rules: Shops have been asked to reintroduce two metre physical distancing rules and reintroduce some measures which had been taken earlier in the pandemic, such as one-way systems in supermarkets. The use of face coverings is now mandatory in indoor communal settings, such as staff canteens and corridors in workplaces. Face coverings are also compulsory in shops and on buses, trains, trams, planes and taxis. People are also being advised not to share a vehicle with another household. Where you have no other option, the advice is to keep windows open, wear a face covering and sit as far apart as possible. People have been banned from visiting other households indoors since 25 September, when restrictions in the west of Scotland were extended to the rest of the country.
Some of the new rules are similar across levels one, two and three: Places of worship can open with restricted numbers (50 people), and there is a 20-person limit for weddings and civil partnerships, and for funerals, wakes and receptions. Schools will remain open, but senior secondary school pupils in level three areas must now wear face coverings in class, not just in communal areas. Colleges and universities must use blended learning, and driving lessons can also take place.
In level two: pubs and restaurants can only serve alcohol with a main meal. They must close indoors at 20:00 and outdoors at 22:30. Cinemas, bingo halls and amusement arcades are allowed to remain open. While stadia will be closed to spectators, drive-in events are permitted. All sport is allowed, except indoor contact sport for over-18s. In addition people in Levels 1 and 2 are asked not to travel into Level 3 areas unless essential – and Level 3 people are not to travel to Levels 1 and 2.
That is quite a lot to absorb. As far as we are concerned, as long as we can travel to the coast and places for exercise and fresh air we are content. Shopping is all online with delivery service. So as October ends we are in Level 2 and hoping that the Level system will help to contain and then reduce the infection rate. But we are not feeling optimistic! Personally I think that until senior school pupils and college students are working from home by remote learning we will not see any improvement. The numbers of people in hospital, in intensive care, and dying are the true indicators that are inescapable facts. And all three are alarmingly high! And like the first wave, this second wave is hitting the older age groups. So there is a sombre feeling here as we approach the winter months.
A collection of images posted on Flickr this July 2020
And so we moved into July, with summer, and all that usually implies. But it is month 5 of lock-down, and we were still rewriting what we mean by ‘normal life’.
I had been driving regularly since May, re-learning (or remembering) the skills, and gradually building up the muscles and the stamina that I need to drive. From a few miles from the the village I built up the distance I could comfortably drive. So, on July 1st I made my first trip to Inverurie and back, to take glass to the recycling point at Morrison’s supermarket. That’s a round trip of over 30 miles – so I was well pleased! Throughout July I drove through rain, low cloud, poor visibility and a growing level of general traffic. It took a toll on my energy (which is always limited by PVS/ME) and that meant there was little left on many days. I drove early in the morning, to minimise the heavy traffic and farm vehicles on the roads, and often needed a cat-nap mid morning.
The key to more than my car!
But it was (and still is) essential that I can drive again. Other options such as taxis and lifts from neighbours are no longer possible in Covid times, and public transport has always been virtually non-existent in rural Aberdeenshire. So, with the increased vulnerablity to life-threatening infection that we both face, I can’t afford not to be practiced, skilled, confident and proficient once more! Although my little Fiesta is 12 years old now, it is the key to my freedom, and ability to function in times of need.
First shots with the Helios lens on the Canon 70D – pink rhododendron
At home the summer was blooming with the the garden full of flowers. I always shoot the rhododendrons as they bloom in sequence, the white first, then the red, and finally the one small bush of pink. My attention was still focussed on the Canon 70D and the problems of shooting in Manual Mode with only an Optical Viewfinder. I decided to concentrate on the garden and immediate surroundings, as I could keep going indoors to read the LCD screen and try to find the right balance of settings to stop over-exposing or under-exposing my shots. It made for slow and frustrating sessions with a large failure rate! I knew I had to master the Manual Mode for the in-camera multiple exposures I wanted to achieve, so I continued to use the old Russian Helios 44-2 lens. After all it was one the lenses I wanted to use (along with the Lensbaby) so I might as well stay with it! The shot above was taken close to the house, using the Helios lens, and I think it was the 4th attempt at getting the exposure right!
The most wonderful aspect of July was that finally National Trust Scotland opened up their gardens again! After months struggling to find anywhere to walk, we could return to Fyvie Castle grounds! A real breath of fresh air, bringing a sense of optimism and freedom.
Fyvie Castle grounds, and freedom to enjoying the summer sunshine!
Here, shot with my iPhone, a boy lying contentedly on the lawn in the sunshine! It seemed to sum up our feelings of relief and delight! The grounds were sadly neglected, and it will take years to repair the damage the lock-down inflicted. But these lawns close to the castle had been mowed, and it was a joy to see them and walk our familiar routes round the small loch! Later in the month we drove up the coast to Cullen.
Cullen beach on a bright but cold morning. Freedom from lock-down at last!
And climbed up the cliffs above Cullen bay to see way across towards the Moray Firth. Just visible in the distance is a blue shape on the horizon – the far hills across the Firth!
On the cliffs above Cullen Bay – such a sense of freedom!
It was this we had been pining for! We never meet many people on our rambles with our cameras. So with open air and so few possibilities for encountering the virus, we felt that it had been misguided to deprive us of exercise and a sense of well-being! The months of absence and deprivation had impressed on us how essential these outings are to us. We were both quite exhausted after each visit. How quickly our muscles weakened even when we had had our own garden to walk in. What must it have been like for those trapped in small flats in tenements or high rise blocks! July gave us back some joy and delight, and through the joy came some hope.
And a final look back on July must include the onward progress towards my watercolour painting goals! I had started by copying Cezanne watercolours. I found about his customary palette of just 6 colours, and the few brushes he used. I was making progress! But now I wanted to expand the colours I used, to paint trees closer to Scotland’s palette rather than southern France! So I took out all the paints (tubes and pans) that I had acquired years ago. And I found I needed to re-learn everything … the names on the pans had faded. And I couldn’t remember the properties of the colours – were they translucent? opaque? staining?
Beginning to organise my watercolours!
So I had to spend time online researching, and I discovered that the range of watercolour tints and types had changed and developed massively! So I began to familiarise myself with the colours I had, and added a few more too. It was a re-learning experience in itself …. and there was more to come in August too ….
I’ve kept Journals in many forms over the years, mainly on paper. But over the last 8 years it’s been photography that captures and follows the events of my life. So I have decided to use this web space to move my Journal online. I don’t shoot every day, but most days there is something happening. I post to Flickr, have done since 2012, so there’s over 2,500 photos there too, and I add constantly. But this space is more personal, more varied, and includes photos that are less ‘polished’ than my Flickr photostream!
So let’s start the adventure with: January – the year started full of hope and promise! February – news of coronavirus begins to filter into our media March – the world changed, and 2020 feels more like Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year” April – month 2 and complete lock-down. Struggling to adjust. May – month 3 of lock-down. New activity brings new energy; driving and painting. June – month 4 of lock-down. We need places to walk, especially in summer! July – month 5 of living with the virus, and a lifting of some restrictions! August – month 6 September – month 7 and determined to take cameras to our favourite haunts. October – month 8 and autumn arrives, along with the 2nd wave of COVID November – month 9 and the first snow, and living with the ever more essential smartphone. December – month 10 and Christmas celebrations are muted by both Brexit and a new variant of the virus. Can a vaccine light the way out of pandemic?
