More travelling stories...

I am back from my travels again. I have done a bit of fishing, and made quite a few studies in Co. Mayo. I think they may make a nice little series of paintings. I am considering working a little more abstract with them too.

I have done very little painting apart from these studies recently, and I need to organise a show for the end of June.
I have not heard back from the organisers of the Montenegran festival regarding availability of transfers from Dubrovnik airport so I will not go this year. It is too late to try to book flights now, the festival is due to start in two weeks. I hope to go next year instead, assuming that they may be a little more organised. I have plenty to be going on with at the moment anyway.

I will try to keep up to date with the Blog a little more too. I tends to be difficult when I am away so much though.

Mayfly time again...

I have been busy for the last week. I am just back from the North today, and now I need to get organised for my annual weeks Mayfly fishing. Everything is booked, but I need to ensure I have enough flies tied, the outboard enging is well serviced and I have enough two-stroke oil to do the week. We are going to Lough Mask this year for a change. Lough Corrib was quite poor the last couple of years.
Meanwhile, I have to do a few design drafts tomorrow, so I can finish a design commission for Friday. I am still waiting to hear back from Montenegro, I cannot get direct flights into Montenegro and need to know if I can be collected from Croatia. Until I hear I can't book flights, so I think I will miss the festival for this year. I refuse to pay almost 1,000 euro for flights into Montenegro, via London and Paris........ I could take a month in the Algarve or in Africa with Christine for that price.

A great start to May

We have had a couple of great days weather-wise. It is about time spring/summer arrived!
Consequently I have spent the holiday weekend getting the garden in order. I attacked it with gusto, and I have gone a bit too far...with all the major changes to the layout and heavy pruning on the shrubbery it is going to be a weeks work to finish.
I don't expect to be painting much this week, unless a commission that can't wait comes in. I need to get some more canvases before I start work again, so I can take a break during the weeks gardening and go into town. I'm off now, I've got a skip to fill with garden waste.........

Back from Our travels

We are back from Nice and the Cote D'azur in the french riviera. We also visited Montecarlo in Monaco which is just a short bus ride up the coast from Nice. The coastal landscape is interesting, and as we were flying into Nice I had an amazing view of the coastline west of the airport itself as we approached the airport parallel to the shoreline. The Public bus service in the area is very reasonable, at 4 euro you can get the bus from the airport and unlimited use of local busses and trams for the day. Obviously we did a lot of our touring and sightseeing by bus and tram, it sure beats paying through the nose on our own public transport at home.

The bus to Montecarlo was only 2 euro for a return ticket. It is a nice trip along the coast too. I preferred Nice to Montecarlo, even though Montecarlo had some great specimens of the giant white strelitzia plants. It was amazing to see these bird-of-paradise flowers towering over the banana trees beside them. I had to look twice to check which were trees and which were strelitzias. There were many standard strelitzias flowering all over Nice and Montecarlo. Also Montecarlo was in the process of preparing for next months Grandprix motor race so there were barriers and viewing platforms being erected all over the place, which made it quite scruffy.

Sadly we did not have the time to visit all the sites immortalised by the impressionists in the area, nor to any of the art galleries in the area which include galleries devoted to Renoir, Matisse and Chagall among others.