I shouldn't have stayed up to 2am watching The Potato Lab (K-drama Netflix), but it is so good I couldn’t help myself. So, I left Edinburgh Waverley train station for Falkirk much later than originally anticipated! Managed to hit my head on the door jamb in my rush to pack my backpack and leave the house, ending up with a creative solution custom made chopped up band-aid on my forehead. Do not worry, it wasn't a hard enough hit to give me concussion. Anyway, I cheerily consoled myself with a vegan pasty from The Pasty Shop at Edinburgh Waverley and a Blood Orange San Pellegrino (any excuse to eat a pasty).

If you want to know (you may not), I kept watching episode after episode because I loved the theme of jerkness. Being a jerk, realising you have been a jerk and on the other side loving a jerk when you don't want to. There was a great scene where the heroine is sick and eating abalone porridge that the jerk (who is now reforming) made her and sneaked in secretly to her brother so she wouldn't know it was from him. Ofcourse, she figures it is from him as abalone is expensive and her brother buys the tuna option! Anyhow, she's sitting there enjoying this porridge while simultaneously punching this massive teddy bear in the head that the jerk had given her in a previous episode. How love and hate and extreme annoyance and frustration can go together simultaneously!

Well half an hour to eat my pasty before Falkirk High station. A work colleague told me I shouldn't pronounce it Faalkirk but Fallkirk as it's not the Scottish way! Aye, I promise to do my best!

Falkirk is home to the famous Kelpies, designed by artist Andy Scott. These massive equine sculptures are pretty impressive. I’ve been to see them twice. Once with friends, one of whom is a Blue Badge Tour guide, who kindly organised for us an enlightening tour inside these beautiful structures. That day was a particularly fine sunny day. He wrote on his Facebook page:

Arrived at The Kelpies this afternoon to find the site mobbed with people and long queues at the car park.

“Is there a special event on?” I asked the attendant.

“Scotland on a sunny day” he replied.

Well indeed Scotland on a sunny day IS a special event. Though I must say this summer has been delightful and there has been LOADS of sun.

*Kelpies Falkirk, Analogue/Digital Image 2019*

My family joined me on the second visit. That visit I did some sketching with a blue pen I had handy with me and a small sketchbook. I developed one of my sketches into the digital image above - something I have often done using Sketch or Adobe Photoshop Mix on my phone. I think I must have been into the ‘smudge’ technique at this time (about 5 or 6 years ago). Anyway, it’s a bit of a break from birds. I feel like I have been drawing and sketching birds a lot lately because they are more visible than little creatures who hide in a forest.

Well, that reminiscing took up the half an hour to the Falkirk High train station. Hope you enjoyed the flashback!

When I stepped onto the platform I had no idea where to go. There was a sign that pointed to Callendar House, but it seemed to point toward the canal where people were walking their dogs. After wandering lost for a bit (as is my fashion), I finally stumble onto Kemper Avenue where the misty rain brought out the delicious aroma of the pine trees of Callendar Wood as I passed by.

I continued walking and found the entrance to Callendar park - picturesque with its summer foliage - and kept going along the path, over the bridge and past families with young children enjoying the playgrounds and bouncy castles. I have to say, those bouncy castles brought back memories of going to agricultural shows with my parents as a young kid and lighting up on seeing a bouncy castle. ‘Lemme lemme’ always wanting to bounce away - complete and utter joy. Nothing else mattered in those moments as I threw myself from pillar to pillar, bouncing up and down, again and again, bumping into other children accidentally as part of the process, until then exhausted but totally satisfied and with slightly shaky legs no doubt, I jumped off back to find my folks.

Slightly envious of the kiddos enjoying the bouncy castles and ice creams, I kept walking onto Callendar House. The house had interesting architecture on the outside. I particularly liked the old school lamp posts. I think Callendar House has quite the history and from this Undiscovered Scotland website looks like it would be interesting to explore further. Looks like they also do an impressive afternoon tea. Given I only had a few hours to sketch, I decided not to go inside and ventured onto Callendar Loch to find myself a bench.

Wandering towards the Loch, I checked out what kind of birds there might be to sketch. A lot of seagulls, some rooks, a couple of swans, magpies and some cute little common moorhens (also known as Eurasian moorhens, scientific name Gallinula chloropus). There are also moorhens in Australia (known as the Dusky Moorhen, scientific name Gallinula tenebrosa). These are larger in size and have orange-red legs as compared to the yellow legs of the Eurasian type. There are quite a few in Victoria. Here’s a sketch of a Dusky Moorhen I did a couple of years ago when I explored Jawbone Marine Sanctuary near Williamstown, a suburb in Melbourne. Not sure if I have now binned this sketch (maybe not a bad thing, not sure how inspired it is?). I made the mistake of trying to cut it to size before framing it and the framer in Melbourne told me I shouldn’t cut pieces to size but let the mount do that work. Oh well lessons learned.

I digress (I nearly said transgress there but realised I hadn’t broken some kind of moral, legal or social law by going on a writing tangent!). Back to Callendar Loch, there were a couple of common moorhens hanging out together, quite close, but then there was a third that was pretty aggressive toward them and kept chasing them at full speed. I am not sure if it is due to it potentially being mating season (apparently that can be as late as September) or due to aggressive tendencies. Here’s my interpretation of that mating chase or aggression in 3 stages…

*Common Moorhen Sketch 1 (Before the Chase), Falkirk, Ink on Paper*

*Common Moorhen Sketch 2 (Ready Set Go - Chase Begins), Falkirk, Ink on Paper*

*Common Moorhen Sketch 3 (Chase in Full Speed), Falkirk, Ink on Paper*

While sitting on the bench sketching, a couple of older men cycled past on their bikes and then sat on a bench right at the edge of the Loch. A short time later, one walked up to me and said his friend wasn’t happy because I was sitting on their usual Saturday bench. Ha! I said, “Well it’s good to have a change” (with that darn ugly band-aid still on my head lol). He walked back to his friend and I heard him say, “I told that lassie that yer weren’t happy about her sitting on your bench”. I kept sketching. The friend got on his bike a short while later and cycled right in front of the birds I was sketching and with a cheeky grin said ‘Can yer fit me in?’, shortly followed by the one who had walked up to me who shouted as he cycled past, ‘Keep our seat warm for next week!’. Ha what a pair of characters. Next up another character, a wee cute black doggie Ollie, also known as ‘little cheeky chops’, ran over and sniffed my backpack (no doubt for treats) and then sweetly rambled about my bench. Here is a photo of him that I have already posted on my Instagram (but it can’t hurt to see his cutie face again can it?), together with the super quick moorhen sketches I’d been doing when the two guys cycled past. I had to write down their cheeky comments before I forgot!

Continuing on with my experimentation with artboard and mixed media, here is my piece of the two common moorhens who looked pretty cosy, done with watercolour and ink pen.

*Common Moorhens (Friends), Falkirk, Mixed Media on Watercolour Artboard*

I wandered around the park then for a bit, through the woodland. Spotted a little robin and some more rooks and a number of couples sitting on more secluded benches. Awkward! Hurried past those. Wandered into town for a bit, grabbed a bite to eat and then walked to Dollar Park to see what this was like - this is really just a dog and kid’s play park - and as I sat down to do a bit more sketching a labrador bounded over and gave me a big wet tongue kiss on my face! Just what a gal needs! Oh well it seemed a happy friendly dog. Guess it’s not a bad thing to end your day out with a kiss (even a big sloppy one!).

Falkirk, Scotland

Linlithgow, Scotland