My summer of hopping around the country continued over the last couple of weeks. Here follows a brief resume of where I have been. This has put an end to my making art and I guess I wont be able to do any new work until I am settled in a new place in Oxford in September.

14th – 18th Aug eca summer school

I undertook my summer school class at Edinburgh College of Art this week. I had revamped my class from last year in terms of how I approached ‘Narrative painting’ and I think it went down much better in terms of student learning and final outcomes. I had 7 students this year including two Japanese and they were extremely receptive and di some excellent work. During the week we visited two exhibitions which proved invaluable; ‘Girl Power and Boyhood’ at the “Talbot Rice Gallery”: and the Anne Redpath show at the City Art Centre. I stayed with Donald and Duncan for the first part of the week in Leith and then spent one night in Bonnyrigg with Jane and her family. I had one evening at Dave’s before spending the end of the week at my brother Chris’ house. At the end of the week, there is an exhibition of all the summer school work and I think my students’ work held up well with the other groups. I was a very intense and tiring week.

19th – 20th Aug – Glasgow

I trained it though to Glasgow to visit my friends John and Ciara and family who live in Bearsden. It has been too long since I visited them and Glasgow and it was terrific catching up with them. On the Sunday we all went off to the Kelvingrove Museum which had just been reopened after several years refurbishment. It has not changed much in essence but they have restored it to one of Britain’s finest museums.

21st Aug – Edinburgh

I went back to Edinburgh on Sunday afternoon as my Mum was visiting my brother in Edinburgh. I had a free day on Monday before I was due to return to Oxford, so I spent it doing a few galleries. I saw Barbara Rae at the Scottish Gallery which was very impressive, a mixed show at the Open Eye Gallery, Ron Muick at the Royal Scottish Academy and Moyna Flannagan at the Doggerfisher Gallery. It was a glorious day in Edinburgh and terrific to be wandering around. I particularly enjoyed the Ron Muick, who makes these extraordinary hyper real figures either larger than life or smaller.

22nd – 26th August – Oxford

I flew back late on Monday night and finally got into Oxford around 3.00am. I was house sitting for Claire and Richard in Headington while they were away on Holiday. (I am still homeless!). I was back at work at Brookes some of this week and also had to do a wee bit of clothes shopping for a wedding at the weekend. Richard and Claire’s house is a wonderful place to stay with an amazing garden. I finally got a chance to just chill out out a little this summer.

26th – 28th August – Dorset

Catharine and I went down to Dorset on Saturday to attend Emma’s (one of Catharine’s friends) wedding. This was taking place in the officer’s mess at Bovington Military Camp. Catharine was the chief bridesmaid, so she was very busy doing all that entails while I got acquainted with some of the other guests. I knew no one at the wedding so it was all a bit daunting at first but soon got into the swing of things. It was a fabulous traditional wedding, but I did have time to visit the Tank Museum on the camp. This is the biggest such museums in the world and while I would probably never had ordinarily gone there, I have to confess that the place was staggering; to see the design evolution of the design of these brutal machines was fascinating.

28th August

Catharine and myself had finally come to the end of our choices of places to stay while Catharine’s house was having builders work done. To give ourselves a bit more time until her house is ready we have decided to stay in a rented mobile home near Witney, about 10 miles from Oxford. So, here we are living like trailer trash on a lovely campsite for a few days. I am back at work for the rest of this week and I have to get paintings to Emsworth at the weekend for a show at the Queen’s Street Gallery. Hopefully the week after that I can move into a new flat and finally get painting again on new work.