I hope you see what I did there, all will be explained.
In amongst all the other books I am still reading Colour - Travels Through the Paintbox by Victoria Finlay, albeit at the speed of a snail, and you are probably all so fed up with me mentioning it that you'll be glad when I creep to the final page, but with the Red chapter pending I had an idea.
I have a very lovely friend who is doing a very lovely thing right now. Ellie and her partner Adrian have set off on their journey of a lifetime and this is really serious travelling, no messing, because Ellie has put all her books in storage.
Thus far they have driven across Europe, through Italy down to Sicily, across to Africa, back to Sicily, Italy again (they like Italy) and now Albania, Macedonia eventually heading east, and they have very kindly taken me along with them. I have been no bother at all, I have a little virtual seat in the back of the camper van thanks to their blog Wherever the Road Goes which I have been following with much pleasure and enthusiasm. They have promised to be ready for visitors and there's loads of room on the roof rack if anyone wants to tag along. Inbetween visiting every ruin between here and Albania (they research diligently and miss nothing) we have had one or two dodgy moments with the old camper van, but Adrian is Mr Spark Plug and seems able to right most wrongs, while Ellie goes out shopping for local food.
En route the photos have been tremendous as I knew they would be. Ellie has been to stay chez dovegrey and took some beautiful pictures while she was here, so I had this idea that perhaps Ellie and I could do a collaboration colourboration (new word) on the subject of Red. Ellie knew of Victoria Finlay's book, she owned a copy and in fact even knew of its approximate whereabouts in a blue box in a yellow warehouse in England, which I thought was impressive. But I also thought that whilst I scrabble around here seeing Red and thus far my imagination has only noticed the pillar box along the lane, Ellie could be doing likewise on her travels, and we would sort of bridge the geographical divide between us thanks to the internet (which they find on intermittent campsites) and with the inspiration of the paintbox and a collage each.
So Red will be our next challenge and I suspect Ellie's pictures will be a darn sight more exciting than mine if these are anything to go by.
Seen any nice patterns I asked...Cue a bridge in Porto, shadows and arches in Segovia, a gas shop in Tunisia, octopus pots in Tunisia, salt piles in Sicily, dried mud in Vulcanelli, salt pans in France, Porto again ...
Chillies in Sicily, a bread stall in Kairouane, pears in Palermo, vines on Etna ,sundried tomatoes in Sicily, a roof in Monreale...
We will be simultaneously posting our Seeing Red collages soon and I hear Macedonia has already been fruitful so I had better get my skates on.
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