The view from there to here

So yes, I have returned, we made it there, and I have come back infection free. A small miracle I think.
I have painted a lot, and I have read a lot, I have even become quite bored a lot, but that was my fault as I went as per usual woefully unprepared for the extreme dip in temperature and prolonged darkness once the sun dropped like stone from the sky.
It was 70% sunny and warm, but the other 30% was, I have to say, verging on Old Testament biblical in it's extremeness. The house sits high up on the converging points of three peaks, so the clouds scud at some considerable speed across the sky and the rain lashes down in torrents with enormous flashes of lightning. I don't know why, but Mediterranean thunder storms are quite hairy at night.
I managed to take some more photographs which I will post next week. Plus I survived a really crap head cold, which was pretty much obligatory considering how busy I was before the end of term.
But more importantly I painted, nearly every day. nothing special, but I have defiantly moved forward for my project, which somehow has morphed into a landscape project. But what landscapes. I did not have the emotional connection that I have with Scotland, but I have enjoyed the challenge so far and have come home with numerous ideas to explore. So this was the view nearly 3 weeks ago, balmy days picking flowers. My life was made very simple as Leyla went to school each day, so all I had to do was cook. The garden needed very little attention so despite lugging very heavy wellies, I did not go into the fields much.
The one down side is that because a wall is being built at Easter, the extra planting has to wait until next year, so despite assurances to the contrary we will be going back next winter...Joy!
Back home and the gales have followed, going home last night my scarf was woefully inadequate and so I dived into TKMaxx, and fell serendipitously on these Scottish lambswool gloves and the softest cashmere moss green eternity scarf.
Sometimes it is the small things that pep up my day, because I sure as hell did not want to be back at work.

I do have plenty to look forward to though as I keep on writing here, but I need to keep writing about it to convince myself that life is good.
So, I am attending lectures at the Tate Modern ..Good, but have to write 50000 words by May...Bad!
I have some great ideas for painting..Good, but teaching keeps getting in the way ...Bad!
But best of all I am going to Madrid in February, and guess what? There is a HUGE art fair on at the same time ..Good... so I have my carrot to survive, and I need it as there are 3 parents evenings in the next 5 weeks..Bad very bad...

And one more thing, I really, really miss writing. I wrote not a jot for 10 days, I thought my head would go *BANG!* with the muddled mess backing up. So in the end I wrote and wrote and wrote, all on scraps of old paper. I essentially annotated my paintings, but boy did it feel good, really good.
I should really just bite the bullet and get a computer to use, but in a way I do feel that absence from gazing at a screen forces me to evaluate and appreciate. I don't see reading blogs as wasteful at all, I have learnt so much you would not believe. But I do think I need a break occasionally, but thank you all, to any poor soul who wades through the meanderings of an increasingly old and addled brain. And especially to those who comment, into what seems like an empty vacuum. I do read them, I long to chase you up, but this effing job just keeps getting in the way. Yes, that same effing job that pays for those glorious holidays. me complain?