Sandcastle at Red Point, Wester Ross

At the beginning of June I took a little birthday break up to the west coast of Scotland. It's a beautiful place even when it rains but we were lucky enough to have sunny skies and only a few hints of the dreaded midgees that descend in swarms and terrorise hapless visitors.

This time we took a couple of boat trips, both of which were truly memorable. The first was a whale watching trip that departed from Gairloch and took us out to the Northern tip of Skye - worth it just for the scenery let alone the promise of whales, dolphins and other assorted marine life. It was a breathtaking couple of hours and we saw minke whale, porpoise and puffins. Imagine my delight when I read on the BBC that the very same boat, a month later came upon a superpod of around 1,000 short-beaked common dolphin. I think that the boat owner, Nick Davies, must have the best job in the world, at the very least he must have felt like the luckiest man alive that day.



Video by Nick Davies, owner of the Hebridean boat cruise company, aboard Orca 1, surrounded by a superpod of dolphin

Our second boat trip was on the achingly beautiful and rather haunting Loch Maree. There are several isles on the loch upon which we alighted but one in particular, Isle Maree, was really quite spooky. I took some photos of the Victorian money tree but as we went further into the island I had an overwhelming sense that I couldn't take any more photos, especially inside the druid circle. Very odd.





In other news, it's been a busy month in the shop so I haven't had a chance to make or list many new styles but there are some new prints in the pipeline including original prints on silk, can't wait for these, they should be in the shop by mid July.