Just sitting

The weather has been glorious for the last week. Chill mornings and evenings but well up to 18c/19c during the middle of the day. A far cry from the December chill back home. The house faces North and sometimes feels cool compared to outside. So in order to catch the warm sun and sit out of the wind I like to spend as much time sitting down on the quay as I can. People watching has always been one of my fave pastimes., the fishermen come and go, 'tourists' (said like I am now some kinda native) lunch in the many waterside bars, always something to watch. Often I have a book but sometimes I like to paint, sometimes I like to just sit. I'm not too keen on people watching me paint a 'proper' picture. I invariably make a mess while someone is standing over my shoulder. 

So I have re hashed my gratitude stone idea. Pebbles of varying sizes are plentiful on the beach and all I need is some while acrylic paint, a tiny 0 brush and a small water carrier in the shape of half a plastic bottle and away I go.

It still gives people an excuse to come over and see what I am doing and more importantly (it seems to them) chat. How people like to chat ! A few have asked if I sell them, but for obvious reasons I can't do that, so I have been giving them away. A thank you for stopping to tell me their news or life story ! (Yesterday an elderly Australian/Gozitan gentleman stopped to chat and it turns out he was born in the house I am now living in.) I tell them how gratitude stones are a reminder to be thankful and they seem to go away pleased with their pebbles. More than that, I find painting them are a kind of mandala, a meditation. I'm not doing something with an end goal insight, other than just doing it because I like to do it. It doesn't matter if they all end up back in the sea.

Lovely orange floats.

Another Indira's net of flotsam.

Just like the colours here.

No need to say anything about this.