Morning Mirage

Morning Mirage is the title of my new pastel painting and taaadaaaa here it is! 

Morning Mirage

30cm x 40cm 

Pastel 

When walking along the beach in Oman, where the desert met the sea, there was always a misty, flurry of desert sand, interestingly then buildings and mountains appeared and then disappeared and hence the title. 

Since I was wee, I've had a thing about beaches and beachcombing and was fortunate to plitter about the beaches of Crammond and North Berwick and then later on the beautiful west coast of Scotland. One of my dreams was to find a message in a bottle but no luck. It seems that I'm not alone, a couple of years ago a German called Joachim Römer displayed his collection of over 1000 bottles found beachcombing along the banks of the Rhine. Mr Römer wrote out all of the texts he found and displayed the messages along side the originals in their bottles. From humorous (someone saying the contents of the bottle were delicious but now empty, could someone send another one) to sad, a letter containing 2 wedding rings and a divorce announcement. If you were to post a message in a bottle, what would you want to tell the world? 

The oldest known message in a bottle was discovered in Australia in 2018, sent from a German ship ''the Paula'',  it was a voyage that lasted 132 years! The Paula was on route from Cardiff to Indonesia when it dropped the so -called ''Drift bottle'' into the sea on the 12 June 1886, about 6000 of these drift bottles were put into the sea between 1864-1933 to explore currents, drift, speed and weather influences. Only 663 were returned, one even from Barbados, so there are a lot more to be discovered! The ship ''The Paula'' came from Elsfleth which is about 40km from here. 

The idea of popping a note into a bottle and heaving it into the waves may go back to as early as 310BC when the philosopher Theophrastus used them to test his theory about the Mediterranean Sea and in Elizabethan times opening one may have cost you your head! Queen Elizabeth I created a position as ''The Uncorker of the Bottles'' (sounds just up my street!), fearing that spies were using bottles to pass information, she made the opening of bottles discovered in water punishable by death. That may have put a damper on my enthusiasm in those days.

Nowadays, with the pollution of our seas and oceans it probably isn’t a good idea (nor politically correct) to be casting your thoughts into the waves. I must admit I have a message in a bottle standing on my shelf in the kitchen, where it will remain. Pity, though I like the thought of someone finding it when I am long gone.