Camellia

Lovely to see the first flowers on my camellia today. It's very frost and rain sensitive so sadly never stays looking good for long. It's always a case of quickly grabbing a shot.
The flowers with their delicate colour remind me a little of an Alison Watt painting. Her work is beautiful, there was an exhibition in the portrait gallery a few years ago based on the flowers of Alan Ramsey. Most of those on the link are roses, but they give you an idea if you don't know her work. Simply stunning.
https://artmag.co.uk/a-delicate-vision-of-fragrant-roses-and-femininity-alison-watt-at-the-scottish-national-portrait-gallery/
We had a quiet day today, we went to IKEA to buy a duvet for one of the girls but left empty handed as they seemed (to me) to be very expensive.....When I say we left empty handed, we did of course have meatballs for lunch lol.
We ended up in B&M bargains and came away with something perfectly adequate for occasional use by a granddaughter, for under £10.
I met more road closures on the way to IKEA, I always use the wee road across from the A702 at Hillend to the Straiton area but it was closed so had to do a diversion via Bilston.
Talking of IKEA and you'll likely spot the connection when I say I was pleased to see a Ukrainian flag on 'our' traffic island today. Two years. Those poor people. So many awful things happening in the world to innocent people, Ukraine, Gaza, now the Yemen conflict is hitting the headlines again too.

Thank you all for your thoughts and kind words over the last while. I slept very well in my own bed last night. Cleo stayed close too.