Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas time! There's snow on the mountains and it's cold and frosty outside.

It's nice to be indoors, warm and dry with a pretty Christmas tree. This is our little tree - well, it's not your usual Christmas tree, but our ficus tree agreed to have lights and tinsel put on his branches. And it makes for a lovely warm sight, with a bundle of prezzies underneath. Jazzy too likes to unwrap prezzies. Last night we all opened a present just to celebrate that Christmas is nearly here and start the festivities.

We have also sampled one or two Christmas season goodies to get into the fun of things: almond cakes, Italian panettone, Spanish turron, almond with honey, persimmons and all sorts of special things.

Wishing you a very lovely Christmas and that 2008 brings you many good things.

Egg Tempera Painting of Mirihi

The sun is shining for the first time in quite a while! I've been waiting to have enough light to photograph the egg tempera painting of Mirihi that I finished just over a week ago. Here it is, the painting is 20 x 15 inches:


Mirihi is an island in the Maldives, Asia. I have never been, but my husband loves it there. I used one of his beautiful photographs as a reference for this painting. Something about this scene caught my attention. What a lovely place to eat, in the fresh air, sharing a fantastic view with good company.

Seagulls At Lac Leman, Switzerland

Lac Leman, Switzerland, is home to a large variety of birds throughout the year. There are many seagulls, and on our last visit to Corsier, a tiny port on the lake, we saw an amusing gathering of them.




They were sitting in a row apparently just taking in the day.












As we got closer they stayed where they were.

It was quite funny to see them sitting lined up as though watching a movie...



...companionably sharing the view.






Occasionally a newcomer arrived and sometimes would displace a comfortably seated gull.


There seemed to be no shortage of seagulls looking out across the lake.



The view was spectacular as we were leaving at the end of the day.