Today has been a brilliant day, I say that because the day has been full; this morning leading a watercolour painting workshop at St. Columba's, it went excedingly well. The workshop was about the uncertainty of our British weather and also how to handle watercoulour paints when you do not have a lot of time for a large painting to be completed. The session with about 14 people present went very well indeed. They all worked so hard that they were all given a "Wagon wheel" sweet, my favorite from my childhood.

At the workshop were a couple of people who had been to the Isle of Iona in the Hebrides, I painted there some years ago so I agree to put one of my Iona watercolour sketches onto my blog. The place is called "The strand of the monks", which lies just north of the abbey. Sadly it is the site of a mass killing of so many monks by the Vikings in about the C9AD; A sad story, which happened in a beautiful bay. So, a good enjoyable morning. In the afternoon Liz and myself had a quietish time watching a film on the tv before, when the evening came round, us going out for a fish supper is a restraunt; now that is what I call a rather splendid day.

I am now tired, satisfied and going to bed.

s 

Above is one of the high lights of my travel art life; it is of a tiny Nubian Village, right in the south of Egypt, not far from the Sudan border. With a small group we managed to reach to this very remote village; the rest of the group wandered of with our guide and had a lecture somewhere ot other: letting them wander of; I strolled to the village street, sat in the dust and started painting. Very quickly gathered round me were three men and a woman, the men squated by my side, the woman, who incidentally was carrying an earthernware water (almost straight out of the Bible) bottle stood close by. Verbal comunication was difficuly, as my Egyptian/arabic was very limited, whilst one of the guys had a little pidgin English. It was sufficient for us all to become good friends. We managed to agree thast we had all done very badly at school; as a result we laughed and laughed. A treasured meeting between cultures, I will never forget that majical hour I spent with those four.

Painting is the international launguage; the same open friendliness works when painting outside in this country. People are almost (I repeat the word "almost") never rude, it is a marvelous way of making friends. try it when on holiday this year.

Now the "almost" word, I must include a couple of exceptions to the nice and friendly side of people. I have been chased by a military type with a rifle, also threatened by a polieman with a pistol; but those are good yarns and to be honest you hav'nt lived, if you have never been a little on the scared side . I also met an Italian woman in Venice who was so fluent in foul anglo saxon swear words, that I had to laugh; she didnt think that my reaction was funny, but never mind, you win some, you loose some. But that is a part of travel and makes it more exciting and a much fuller experience.

I repeat that the unpleasant side of people is so rare, but the do make good conversation stories.