Warning! These images may upset you.

Next week we have our two youngest daughters visiting.  So our two 'spare' rooms upstairs are being prepared.  Beds changed, floors vacuumed, dusting, clean towels out etc.  One of the spare rooms is the Dawn Patrollers Dressing Room and overspill of his photographic studio, so his responsibility to sort.  This is what he found under the bed.

A mummified bat.

Being a photographer - yes, well, we have images.  Before it went onto the compost heap.

Now, apart from questioning our housekeeping, where the heck did it come from?  Cats are not allowed in bedrooms, other than ours.  We did have some work done upstairs last year which necessitated the door into the under the roof space being open.  Could we have a bat colony up there?  Well it just so happens that one of the gadgets the DP has is a bat detector.  So, we will just leave him to it.

I will let you know, meanwhile I am downstairs, with the doors shut.

Blezzards and Airt.

Wednesday Art Group.  We meet every Wednesday at Dalrymple Hall in Fraserburgh.

Amazing architecture.  Inside, well, it is a privilege to be in this wonderful building, but one does wonder about when the ceiling is about to fall in.

But, this morning we painted on.  Ignored the creaks and groans of an old building.  Normally we finish at 12.  So we did, but this morning we adjourned to the Lighthouse Museum for lunch.  Followed by us all putting up our first exhibition as a group.  

Now we havent quite got to grips with the lighting. Within the exhibition space are some lighthouse lights, what ! in a Lighthouse Museum!  which do create some magical effects, but not necessarily that good for displaying paintings!  Bear with me, I aim to sort it. We did indeed have a lot of advice and help from some lovely people.

Some paintings are well lit, while others are a wee bit gloomy.

There are also some spaces to fill.

But, for a first exhibition, with few of us knowing what we were doing, its nae bad.  And with a bit more tweaking will be just amazing.

I hope you hit on the pictures and get a better view as for a bunch of total amateurs I think our work is pretty awesome.

Back to talking about the weather.  Well thats what we all do isnt it.

Here in the North East of Scotland you would think we would be used to the "SNA", thats snow, ok?

And its nothing like they get in Canada, or parts of the USA, or Siberia, or wherever, and even though I am in my sixth decade we still "Oooo and Aaaaa" about it.  

"Ded ye see thit Blezzard the morn?"

Birds in the North East of Scotland.

Every evening this happens.  As darkness slowly gathers the Starlings begin to line up on the wires.

The wires bow down almost to breaking point as thousands of starlings gather in preparation for roosting.  

Then the magic begins.

The dance before bedtime.

Painting the sky.

This morning we woke to this.

And these two, also dancing.

Big Daddy and Little Daddy.  Sadly we did not snap them as they rose into the air with claws and wattles rattling, but they did, and then pretended nothing had happened.

And sloped off.

Later, I braved blizzards and visited the Loch of Strathbeg for the Wild Art Weekend, where our group were portraying birds to the best of our ability.  Sadly the weather had put off everyone else, so no-one was there to see our display.....

No, not this one, 

Or this one, it was supposed to be about birds wasn't it?

Ah, there we are.

My day off.

Okay?

Yesterday I was doing my stint on the front desk at the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses.

Great excitement as the newly transformed cafe was re-opened.  

The fancy pieces, cakes, sitting on the counter are to be in a table top glass fridge.  Which was delivered yesterday, and we all had great fun unpacking it  and taking it upstairs to the cafe, only to find it sounded like a plane coming into land. So may have to be replaced.....Teething problems.

The kitchen is behind the wall and is much more spacious and crammed with fridges, cookers, grills, griddles.  

The art work on the walls is from Keith Allardyce, photographer.  

And the biscuits are from 'Aunty Moira' who provides the cafe with the most mouthwatering cakes, (fly pieces) and biscuits.

And at last we have a Cappuccino maker.  Yum.

Enjoying life.

I was chatting to a bloke today and he said, "Its not all about how much money you make, its about enjoying what you do."  

Well its nice if you can do that, in fact its wonderful if you can do that, but when you have children, or other dependents then there isn't the choice is there.  

Four kids, and I am still beating myself up, I breast fed the lot of them,they had home cooked food, but it was MINCE, was all we could afford, so far no one has showed any signs of BSE. (Although two are vegetarian now.)  (Bloody annoying when they come to visit.)

I am extremely fortunate that I am now retired, with a state pension, (ho ho) and a small works pension and partner ditto.  No mortgage due to downsizing.  Financially I have never been so well off in that bills are budgeted for, therefore paid, and apart from keeping a careful eye on the expenditure I can pretty well do what I want.

But it hasnt always been like that.

Since leaving school I have worked as local government clerical officer, barmaid in a Cornish Hotel, 

Proof reader local newspaper, main error, " We sat and saw her stinking", instead of "We sat and saw her sinking.",

Trainee Consumer Protection Officer, Trading Standards, qualified as Consumer Protection Officer,  (Diploma in Consumer Affairs = DCA, after my name, )  Senior Consumer Protection Officer, made redundant when the Tories took over, best case, "So,when you described this car as being in 'Mint Condition', you knew it had a hole through the middle?"  I won the case, although gathering the evidence I had a pitchfork thrown at me.

Was redeployed rather than redundancy so became a  Finance Clerical Officer, got pregnant, became Registered Childminder, got pregnant, set up and ran Playgroup, got pregnant, ran toddler group and playgroup, got pregnant, became a Market Researcher as well as toddler group and playgroup. I am getting tired just reading this again.

 College,age 40, became fully qualified Nursery Nurse, NNEB after name, now DCA, NNEB.  Along with legal qualification and child development qualification  became Inspector of Childrens Day Care for Social Services, role now taken over by OFSTED.  

I could not find any images of female inspectors, so ....what does that tell you on Womens Day.

Had 'burnout' one down from nervous breakdown, another story, retired on ill health, but stilll had to bring the pennies in, so -checkout operator at Morrisons, 

and special needs teaching assistant with responsibility for three behaviourally challenged primary school age boys, one of which dragged me up a corridor by the hair; funding cut and despite my making vast improvements on all three, including the one who dragged me up the corridor, enough is enough - we moved to Scotland and we then set up and ran a bed and breakfast.  Phew. 

Then had to deal with people from all over the World, chilli with scrambled eggs (?) Mumbai,  the USA's "Waal I have a wheat intolerance, " "How do you cut all that graaaass?" (USA,) Well actually its a field of Barley....

Now retired.  And can now really enjoy what I do.  Well, it never is that plain sailing is it.

But thats another story.  A current one, and looking back on all that, well most of the time, I did enjoy it.  

My goodness, how did I do all that, and why?  

But I did.  Enjoy life.  Now what about you?

And now I will bore you with some culture.

My paintings came down at the Cafe Connect yesterday.  The Dawn Patroller's photographs went up.

All very dramatic from the Modo Circus event last year when hundreds of young people learned new skills and paraded through the town.

Theatre Modo is a Glasgow based theatre company driven by a desire to attract, involve and engage new audiences and participants, We are dedicated to creating vibrant, exciting and uplifting performances, events and opportunities that are artistically ambitious and socially challenging.

Developing and directing participatory youth and community projects in Glasgow and across Scotland, Theatre Modo expands access to and involvement in live performance giving participants opportunities to take part in exciting inclusive and accessible activities that stimulate, entertain and educate.

Our main body of work is participatory; ranging from one-off circus skills workshops to large scale community extravaganzas involving hundreds of participants. Alongside this we have developed our own brand of social circus, CircoModo, and we continue to produce professional touring theatre.

Today our Wednesday Morning Art group met and had good fun practising Loose Painting.  This is where you wet the paper, slosh on the paint, tip the paper, throw salt at it and wrap it in cling film.  Great fun.

Following which we too had a photo call and revealed all our bird pictures.

Nae bad!