Exciting news

I have had my share of exciting news this year. I have been very fortunate on several fronts to be presented with an array of opportunities, particularly those that further my art business.

But I must say that a little more never hurts! 😀

Today I found out that my painting, Stare, sold at the Goolwa Rotary Art and Photographic Exhibition. There is something about selling art that is exciting, as if something has been achieved. Really, it shouldn’t be that hard, but it is, so when a piece sells, it is exciting.

We were in Goolwa today to visit the art show and to collect any paintings that didn’t sell. I only had two in the exhibition, so I only had to pick up one (with a goofy grin on my face). However today heralded the coming of the April rains – the rains that declare summer over and kick all the plants out of their summer dormancy.

Goolwa is a small town eighty-odd kilometres south-east of Adelaide on the other side of the Mount Lofty Ranges, nestled on the shores of the last of the Murray River, and cornered by the Southern Ocean.

A good percentage of the time our weather comes in from the west, but on some occasions, it will roll in from the west but blow out a southerly that tears up the sky over the Southern Ocean and dumps it on us.

Today was one of those days…we were right next to the aforementioned blastingly cold ocean…and it was freezing!

Okay… well, not really… not on the scale of winter days. The temperature was supposed to be around 16C, and it probably was for a moment or two when the sun peeked through the clouds, but yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day in the mid-to-high twenties coming off a lovely warm summer. And after that, today was very cold!

But anyways, there is one thing that wintry weather does do well – create dramatic photographic weather.

Because I’m a magnet to the beach and despite the howling wind and very wet and cold rain, we paid a visit to the Southern Ocean.

It was in an aggravated mood.

Lots of greys and angry sloshing going on. I wouldn’t swim in this patch of water on the best of days (and trust me, it is stunning when the sun is shining), much less when it looks like it could swallow me whole never to be seen again, but yes, there were people swimming in it. Personally I think they need their sanity checked, but then so do I for other reasons, so what can I say?

However the guy who had his two-wheel drive car bogged on the beach, yeah, he wasn’t too bright. Particularly since to get your car onto the beach you have to pass a sign that says ‘4WDs only’. And considering the beach was sodden with rain and ticked off surf, all I can ask is why?

But I disgress.

We dawdled along the coast, stopped in a Middleton just for the fact we’d never seen that beach before, then sat on the foreshore (in the car) at Port Elliot and wave-gazed with the kids for a while. You know, when you watch rough surf hitting rocks and just have to see one more to see how high it can spray into the air? Yeah, that kind of wave watching. It can zombie out the best of us.

Shortly before we left, we drove up to the lookout at the top of the point at the head of Horseshoe Bay (the protected bay Port Elliot sits on), and after snapping a few shots in the rain, I managed to capture this.

My daughters in the back seat were totally thrilled to see a rainbow. And after that, the weather didn’t seem so challenging after all 😀

Best wishes,
Liz