Friday 5th June

I’ve had a couple of “creative days” this week. I did 6 more Scottish watercolours and 24 more cards for Annie at Jetty Gallery in Oban . She sold a couple of paintings and quite a few cards last month so while I have the time I’ve done some in reserve. 

I’ve continued to sort through the house for the rest of this week. We’ve been selling our unwanted items and clothes on Facebook marketplace and Ebay and doing OK with sales which is going in our New House Fund. 

I thought I’d relate a couple of “heartwarming“ events that have happened recently. 

On Bank Holiday Monday it was a beautiful day. We decided to do some stuff outside and so we decided to get some of our other for sale items out and put them outside our front gates to catch any passing tourists walking down to the beach. They included 3 kites, a large tent, a skim board and 3 body boards which I was selling for £20 for the 3. We had an “honesty tin” out there as we are trusting souls! Our trust was questioned when I went to check and found the 3 body boards had gone but no money was in the “honesty tin”. Although I was annoyed I thought if some arsehole wanted to pinch the boards then that was their problem and it was only £20. Dylan was furious and wanted to go down to the beach and find the thieves but I persuaded him not to. Later a man knocked on our door and presented us with the £20. Apparently, he had no money on him but he was going down to the beach with his 3 sons and liked the body boards. He said he had told neighbours what he was doing and why but obviously they hadn’t told us. Later he had got the money and dropped it off and said his boys had a great time with the boards. All was forgiven and understood.

Last Thursday I did our pub quiz. We were raising money for the local Craster Rowing Club. As usual we had the usual plethora of raffle prizes and as usual I had taken a small watercolour. One of the teams were in the dining room and had eaten at the pub. I recognised them from last year when they had also done the quiz. They had 2 young boys with them and they came to look at the raffle prizes. One of them picked up my watercolour and then ran to his parents and demanded they give him some money to buy some raffle tickets to try and win the picture. After the quiz we draw the raffle and indeed his number was drawn. He rushed in to claim his prize but unfortunately my painting had already been taken. The disappointment on his little face was so upsetting that later when I usually go round the teams to chat, I talked to him and told him that if he wrote his address on some paper I would send him a similar picture in the post. He wrote his name and address and said “my favourite colour is blue. Thank You.“

I found a very similar picture in blue and posted it to him on Monday.

Sometimes my faith in humanity is restored.