After a lovely run of good weather we are having alternate sunny and wet days, so outdoor days/indoor days.

this thoughtful article with you.

It puts my petty worries in perspective!  I am much more relaxed about the decorators (husband and wife team) being here now that they have started, and chilled about the wrong colour of paint for the woodwork. In normal times I would have got sample pots to check I got exactly what I wanted, but its just another minor corona compromise....and in the great scheme of things doesn't matter at all.

While they worked patiently and methodically and without fuss (I do admire people who work like that) I got a lot of paperwork dealt with. Putting my house in order..

Have you made a lot of corona compromises? Minor or major?

And are you putting your house in order?

..while the decorator paints my rooms.

My comfort zone -aka my home - is turned upside down.

It will be fine.

I am sure.

Although right now I wish I'd never started it!

:-)

Love them!

The rest of the online shopping?

Not so good....

..that the garden was over, it gifted me with these..

And even...a few, a very few, sweet peas!

We are having a run of beautiful sunny days and starry starry nights.

Wonderful.

Am going to make apple and bramble sponge. I plan to put a couple of whole quince in and remove them before serving in the hope that the pudding will be infused with the flavour....do you think this will work?

Mindful Escapes: Breathe, Release, Restore is a new programme on BBC 4 with truly wonderful nature photography. The very best thing about it is not being told that all the fabulous plants and animals are  facing imminent extinction and that it's all our fault!!

There is very little commentary - we are allowed to gaze in wonder and amazement....

Here is a short sample from YouTube..just three minutes but the programme is 30 minutes long and late in the evening. Perfect before bed.

Now tell me that didn't slow you down!

..to take down the summer bunting

and find some yellow violas to keep the front door, and me, cheerful.

What small thing might keep you cheerful?

Even when the decorator phones late on Sunday, after you have stripped three rooms, to say he can't come this Monday, will next Monday do!!!

Aarrgh!

Advice, guidelines, rules or laws - it's not clear what's what!  Stay at home and don't mingle, or Eat Out To Help Out and support all the people trying to earn an honest living and get the economy going again? I am going to feel pangs of guilt whatever I do. Have there ever been such mixed messages?

Trying to be positive in the midst of this pandemic is proving to be challenging, isn' it?

I can only manage it by setting my own house in order. I do have some control here and opinions I can trust (mine!). Having made a good stab at Kondoing the whole house (nearly completed though I ran out of steam with the miscellaneous category) I am now having downstairs decorated.

I am shocked at how bad it is when I take down all the paintings and curtains and remove all the decorative things from the kitchen. sitting room and hall and stairs.

While it is all being painted I will be socially distanced upstairs or in the studio or garden finishing off the Kondo process I hope.

Expensive work requring scaffolding will be done on the chimney, and the hedges will be trimmed and the grass given its last cut before winter.

Such an upheaval!  But I am focussing on how it will feel in a few weeks time - fresh and tidy, water and windproof, and I'll be ready to snuggle down for the duration if need be.

Are you managing to find a positive? Do share - we all need all the positivity we can get!

It helps me so much to share my thoughts here.

I hope it helps you too.

HUGS?

This one was the only one I saw at the bus station in Glasgow last week.

I am doing my best to focus on what I can do, within the rules and restrictions, and consider myself very lucky indeed to have taken a short holiday when I did, as from today, we in Scotland are being asked not to travel unless necessary!

Areas dependent on tourism are between a rock and a hard place as they say, and  areas such as the Black Isle are doing their very best to function in a safe way. Many holiday cottages are letting only alternate weeks to be safer, all the shops are well organised with hand sanitisers  and restricted numbers etc.

We stayed in Kelpies Cottage (owned by a primary school friend of mine!). It is really beautiful and filled with lovely things. Helen has a great eye for design and a wonderful antique shop in the town. Enjoy a leisurely browse in this Aladdin's cave here.

Have you managed  a holiday or an outing?

How did it make you feel?

I really liked the look of these structures in the Cromarty Firth, and I liked them even more when I learned that they are for wind turbines in the North Sea. They are being welded onto the deck of the ship which will tow them out to position. The centre of the ship can be submerged and the turbines floated off and anchored to the sea bed with concrete (produced in uk, instead of steel made in China). Only the yellow part will be above water.

Scotland is doing well with renewable energy production.  See here.

If I had been staying longer I would photograph them in different weather conditions and times of day..

Like a giant art installation!

I was last in Cromarty in 2014 and took lots of photographs of windows (see here) but this time it was colour which struck me most in the lovely town with it's fishermen's cottages and fine merchant houses, and rosy local stone.

I wasn't at all surprised to find that Farrow and Ball have a paint colour called Cromarty.
A muted grey green.
Lovely

..has a holiday done me so much good.

Company and four different walls to look at! Hurrah!  And time in beautiful nature.

Rosemarkie beach in The Black Isle (not really an island) was glorious.

Waiting patiently for dolphins..

They didn't come when I was there though my friends saw them twice.

While clearing I began to move things around a little.

(I do it with paintings all the time.)

See if it sparks joy to select a favourite decorative item and put iit  in a new place. And add a branch of something...



Am giddy with excitement as I am off on a holiday!

Outdoor hygge.

Even on cooler days the hammock is a treat, with an extra throw..

Or two.

So cosy after a few hours hard gardening.

Do you do outdoor hygge?

I will just blog every few days for a while, and hope you will enjoy my photographs of simple things!

If the stove is not lit I like to burn an incense stick or light a candle.

Simple pleasure

.