Flower No. 3

I think this is only my third flower blip in two months of blipping. The first blipper to tell me what kind of flower this is will have tomorrow's photo blipped in their honour! They can even suggest a theme for tomorrow's blip if they want (Wow, don't all clamour at once). It is taken at Whitestrand Beach in common with several of my recent photos. The beach is gorgeous, sandy, and idyllic, and secluded, despite being only a 5 minute drive and a 5 minute walk from the nearest town of several thousand people. In the last few visits I have seen only a couple of dog walkers, bird twitchers, fishermen, a photgrapher and sunbather or two. Today I took my book (Mark Radcliffe's Thank You For The Days) for an hour of escapist amusement.

My morning was spent painting (decorating) again. All traces of the lovely purple of my study have now been completely obliterated with blandness, much to the dismay of several of you yesterday. As if it wasn't bad enough having to compromise my principles for the sake of a quick house sale, I had to suffer the condemnation of my fellow blippers for such an act of cruelty against my lovely house ;) We bought the house in 2003 and I spent 2 months decorating and managing elusive tradesmen who believe vehemently in "Traa dy Liooar", which means roughly "tomorrow will do". Note: whilst looking up how to spell this phrase in Manx I came across this BBC webpage, which not only explains the concept, but also includes an unattributed photo of mine of P50 cars!. This photo is all over t'internet and I gave up ages ago asking people to either take it off or put on my name or a link to my website dedicated to the cars (shameless plug!). I seem to have strayed off topic a bit. So, after two months doing the essentials to the house, we had the option of staying in our rented accommodation for another month, or move into our new house without a kitchen, or a living room, and with most of our furniture piled into a tiny room. On considering how well we could eat out for the price of one month's rent, we chose the latter. I can't say we didn't ever question whether that was the right choice, but we got through it. After a couple of years we moved back to the UK and it has been let to tenants ever since up until a couple of months ago. I am now reclaiming the house from them (oh the grime!) and selling it.

The offer on the house we refused yesterday was increased today to the full asking price! Yet I am not jumping for joy; a) I won't believe it will happen until it happens, b) I'm wondering if we priced it too low, and c) I'm really not sure I want to let it go! I am enjoying staying here, and a lot of my energy went into making it the way it is, and it really could be a very nice house. But it is only part way there and a lot more time and money is needed for it to reach the potential it has not achieved in a long time.

The location is ideal and has a lot going for it and this morning I wrote this on my running blog "A loop from home involving end of promenade to "kick the stone" and back along the length of the prom, across the harbour bridge, around the back of the castle, along the far side of the marina, and back up to home through the market place (where one of the shops has been repainted suggesting it is in Dublin, for some filming going on the last few days). All in glorious sunshine, and quite warm, though windy. Beat that for a sub-4k loop from home!".