Tuesday 16 August 2016

Burntisland Wildlife & Nature - great exhibition, ends 27 Aug

Photo copyright Joyce Murdoch. Lots more of her beautiful photos in the exhibition.



Please encourage your friends and family to visit Burntisland Heritage Trust's 2016 exhibition celebrating the wealth of nature and wildlife that we have in and around our town. Packed with beautiful photos by local people, full of fascinating facts, drawings & collages & writings by our school's two primary 7 classes. Loads and loads of work went into it and it looks great!

The exhib is due to end on August 27th. It's at no.4 Kirkgate, Burntisland, just around the corner from the Burgh Chambers and the Library. It's open Wednesdays 1-4pm and Thursday, Friday & Saturday 11am-4pm. Admission is free.

Read more at: http://www.fifetoday.co.uk/what-s-on/leisure-time/getting-back-to-nature-in-burntisland-1-4156316

Please share!


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Other things to do in and around Burntisland:

Circular walk up the Binn hill

- Museum of Communication
- Potter About cafe
- Food for Thought cafe
- Macauley's Fruit & Veg Merchant
- Hanselled Books

- walk the coast to Aberdour Castle and McTaggarts cafe
- walk the coast to Kinghorn and Carousel Cafe
- walk to Kinghorn Loch, The Ecology Centre, Earthship Fife, The Barn at the Loch (cafe!)

And loads more.


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How to get here by train

Burntisland is 35 minutes by train from Edinburgh Waverley, trains twice hourly during the day.
Timetables on ScotRail website or download their excellent free app.



Sunday 7 August 2016

Scotland by Rail - Fife to Perth train trip



Journey, Burntisland to Perth

Beautiful day, beautiful rail route. Burntisland to Perth and back, delivering paintings to Frames Gallery.

Sun shining, grasses glowing, fields waving in the breeze. Gulls, woodpigeons, swallows and martins. Lomond Hills the backdrop:






grand Perth station, one of the best

Just about make out that red '39' in front of the middle window? That's the pedestal of a bust of Perth-born John Buchan, author of The 39 Steps, Greenmantle, lots of others. Closer pics of the bust here


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Frames Gallery 

Frames Gallery summer exhibition runs until 3rd September. A lot of the works are online here.

I'm showing my west-coast-Canada series. Ten double-mounted watercolours from a sixteen hour ferry journey I took in 2010 from Port Hardy at the northerly tip of Vancouver Island to Prince Rupert, a small fishing town just a little short of the southern tip of Alaska.

On the journey I saw humpbacks fluking, solitary cottages and shacks and disintegrating piers. Lonely lighthouses, eagles soaring, passing boats, passing tankers. Everywhere was forested. Mountains reached far above us, trees climbing high towards ice-covered pinnacle peaks. One little island was like Snufkin's hat. Weather was perfect and I sketched non-stop. Darkness had fallen as we arrived in Prince Rupert.

See more from the Prince Rupert trip in my book Sketches from Canada.

These are the five works in Frames Gallery just now:

Port Hardy to Prince Rupert - a light, red boat passing
pen & watercolour, 7.5x10cm & 6.5x10cm


Port Hardy to Prince Rupert - from a blue window, darkened islands
pen & watercolour, 6x10cm & 7.5x10cm


Port Hardy to Prince Rupert - green reflections, glassy water
pen & watercolour, 8x10cm & 7x10cm


Port Hardy to Prince Rupert - journey to the islands
pen & watercolour, 5.5x10cm & 7.5x10cm


Port Hardy to Prince Rupert - through the porthole windowpen & watercolour, 4.5x10cm & 7x10cm


Frames Gallery is open Mon-Fri 9-5.30, Sat 9.30-5

10 Victoria Street, Perth, Scotland, PH2 8LW

Phone - 01738 631 085


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How to get there

From Edinburgh, Perth is on the line to Inverness. From Burntisland you need to change at Kirkcaldy. 

Edinburgh & Glasgow - Inverness is the timetable to look at - www.scotrail.co.uk , or download the very useful free ScotRail app.

Many thanks to ScotRail for supporting my Scotland by Rail work.