Shipping forcast bores small children/excites adult

Some of my friends and family know that I have an unhealthy fascination with the Shipping Forecast. I know i'm not alone- it pops up in songs, books, and tea towels (I have the same tea towel as Kristen ). While I was in Scotland I was excited to discover that we were super close to Cromarty, a village that gives it's name to one of the shipping areas. So we took a drive (the 2 car ferry isn't running this summer) over the bridge and spent a day pottering around in Cromarty.

On the left is Nigg Hill, which is where my friend lives, and on the right is the headland where I was told a mermaid was kept in a specially built pool.

The Ice House

One of the things about being so much further north than where I live is that there were lots of blossoms still on plants that down here are already producing berries.

Lobster or crab pots on the harbour wall.

The Shipping Forecast

A couple of years ago I knitted 'The Shipping Forecast' as part of a sculpture project. I plotted out the areas of the forecast and then knitted segments that matched up with my highly unscientific calculations. In the end it was a bit of an unresolved piece of work as I couldn't work out how I wanted to display it- I played around with wrapping it on pieces of driftwood, as it looked like rubbish washed up on the beach, but that took away from it's original intention. This morning I dug it out from the knitting basket and took it into my studio space to hang, and hopefully inspire me as I work on my new drawing project ' A Sense of Place'.