Annual leave begins tomorrow and I go away on Friday to spend a long weekend in Yorkshire before a week walking in/on Orkney.  There won't be any blogging in that time, but I will return with new tales to tell.

Thought I'd leave a photo of me in my office for no better reason than it's quite a cheerful one - and I've just had my pre-holiday 'pruning' (and you all know how much I love hairdressers!)!!

Late on Saturday evening came the news that my Aunt's husband (so my uncle by marriage) had died.  Stewart was a graduate of Glasgow School of Art, gifted and talented, yet, like all of us, a fallible and flawed human, who never quite identified his niche or acheived his full potential, yet produced some really interesting work (I have previously shared his religious paintings on this blog).  This little pencil drawing belonged to my prandparents, was passed on to my Mum, and now is in my possession.  I can see hints of the MacKintosh influence (and Stewart certainly did a lot of stuff in that style) and even though the colours are dark and image quite sombre, I think it carries a sense of life and hope, being a flower (I think!)

Hunting for poems and quotes to pass on to my aunt, as we work on the funeral service I will conduct for him, I happeend upon this one, which I quite like...

When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew