On the way to the Coral Beaches,  Isle of Skye.

Camus Malag and Blaven beyond.

Found Items from the Bay #1

It's not that unusual for items to make their way across the Atlantic to the shores of the west coast of Scotland.  I just haven't found any,  till now.  This is a "plant pot" - i.e. a receptacle in which one grows "plants", or "green-style things".  I was terribly excited when I spotted it on the shore at Camus Malag,  Isle of Skye (photo to follow).  That looks Mexican!  I shrieked, swiftly nipping my fag and breaking into a trot.
It isn't Mexican, but it does have "Made in the Dominican Republic" printed on the base.  Has it floated all the way from there, to the shores of Scotland?  I hope so.  On the other hand, it COULD be a souvenir that Kylie McGumphy brought back for her nan from her honeymoon, circa 1985, that got flung out when they were clearing her house after she went into the care home.......
I'll never know.  Either way,  I'm going to plant a heather in it,  and raise a glass to Kylie's nan, the late Mrs Effie McGumphy.  Yes, she died after going into the care home.....

On the way to Suisnish, Isle of Skye

Top quality vid.,  as usual.  Taken on my recent trip to Skye.  Lovely views over the sea to Rum and Eigg (in the distance) and then the Cuillins and Bla Bheinn.   Scorching hot day - walked about eight miles, no shade, thought I might die of heatstroke, but didn't, obviously.
Walking boots now stink so horribly they will have to be binned.
More photos on way - some glorious ones of the Coral Beaches.
Skye was the inspiration for the original blog;  characters,  terrain, and so forth.  I had a good think when I was there this week, and have come back refreshed and with some pretty good ideas,  which I hope will emerge fully or at least partially-formed, in due course.

Bande à part - Run Through The Louvre

I think the Talbot Rice gallery in Edinburgh are doing a version of this during the festival.  Sadly won't be able to attend.

New Author Page on Amazon

I now have an author page on Amazon.  Here is the link. https://www.amazon.com/author/katesmart Feel free to check it out and have a look at the e-books.  Prices stated are in dollars but if you "proceed to check-out" - which I hope you do! - they will be converted into the currency of your home country.  You can also borrow them for free, via the Kindle library.

Projects underway include another blog-based e-book (taking me AGES due to transcribing from handwritten notebooks), a short self-help book on agoraphobia (still very early stages),  a novel (eek), a few stories, a joint project with BW Nicol, and a couple of other things.  Multi-tasking, in fact.  I have a very active brain (considering my age), I hate to be bored, and I'll complete them all in time.

Harpo Marx Brothers

Ivor Cutler - In My Room There Sits A Box (John Peel Session 1969)

The Solstice Burning

Geoffrey and I have hit on a plan.  We're going to have a burning pyre to celebrate the solstice next week.
Usually we celebrate by sending people we don't like "Over the Top" (see e-books for examples of how this works).  But this year we want to do something different.
We're going to get a shot of Apsley and Cherry's "printer" (now powered by a massive fifty foot "windmill-style erection", rather than their former rat-powered cables - again, see e-books for how this works and how Geoffrey and I managed to rip the cable out of its socket and nearly electrocute everyone) and we're going to "print out" every horrible email or other upsetting "virtual message" that we've ever received, the rip them up and stamp on them in a bucket of watery glue-style stuff, and then fashion the resulting papier mache into a humanoid-style-man-type figger - let it dry out completely - then set the bastard alight!
As we haven't actually received that many really horrible communications, it will be a fairly small figger-style-humanoid-style-man-style thing.  But the proof will be in the burning, and the intensity thereof, as the T-G commented when we asked if we could use a barren patch of his land for the occasion (see photo).  He reckons it will blaze up like mad, and that the colours of the flames will correspond to the emotions in the emails.  Red for anger, green for envy, yellow for jealousy and spite, black for despair.  And so on and so forth.
We can't wait.

Meanwhile, we're going to get ourselves kitted out in some brand new gear so we look smart for the occasion, courtesy of the T-G's account at his favourite kitting out shop.  See photo.

Yes - Yours Is No Disgrace

OK so Yes imploded and vanished up their own backsides eventually - but they made THIS.  Superb first album and I think it's their best by a mile.  What a cracking track.  Was listening to Starship Trooper earlier, and would've posted it too - but it's already on the blog.  Of course.  PROG!!!!

"Gull against the wind, in the windy straits
Of Belle Isle,  or running on the Horn,
White feathers in the snow,  the Gulf claims,
And an old man driven by the Trades
To a sleepy corner.
Tenants of the house,
Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season."

From TS Eliot's Gerontion

"A strong smell of tobacco and tar rose from the interior,  but nothing was to be seen on the top except a suit of very good clothes, carefully brushed and folded.  They had never been worn, my mother said.  Under that, the miscellany began - a quadrant,  a tin canikin, several sticks of tobacco, two brace of very handsome pistols, a piece of bar silver, an old Spanish watch and some other trinkets of little value and mostly of foreign make, a pair of compasses mounted with brass, and five or six curious West Indian shells."
R.L. Stevenson, Treasure Island

Shortbread Stories have now got a Wordpress blog, and my short piece on Inspiration is featured.    Here's the link.