Postcards From Perthshire
Long weekend in the Mackintosh Building, Comrie
Hello! I hope you are doing well, wherever you are in the world.
Robb and I got back from a lovely long weekend away on Monday. We were staying in a property owned by the Landmark Trust, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the beginning of the 20th Century. This was at a time when he was right at the peak of his career as an architect. His design consisted of a shop on the ground floor and a two bedroom flat above, built as a replacement for earlier premises which were destroyed by fire. The building is situated in the heart of Comrie, Perthshire - around 70 miles from home.
Although it’s an attractive building, it’s a lot more modest in scale than many of his other commissions such as the Hill House, Helensburgh, (where we visited last year.) It’s relatively small size also means it within our budget to rent for a weekend (in winter), and small as it is, it’s still much grander than our own home.
When the Landmark Trust took over ownership of the property, around 45 years ago, it had fallen into a bad state of repair, and many of the original features were missing or hidden behind decades of wallpaper and cladding, so it’s wonderful to see how sympathetically it’s been restored, furnished, and is maintained now.
There’s no TV or WiFi in the property, which was absolutely fine, and my mobile data was limited so I only checked my phone a couple of times a day. It made a nice break from being bombarded with news and adverts every waking minute and I felt more relaxed as a result.
We chose the worst weekend for weather. It was truly dismal! We made sure to visit all of Comrie’s galleries, cafes, and the charity shop, but spent most of our time either driving around looking at beautiful, if water-drenched scenery, or comfortably warm and dry indoors.
Robb tolerates bad weather better than me, so he went for a cycle on Sunday afternoon while the rain was tipping down. Meanwhile, I amused myself drawing the crockery in the flat. I think this email will probably be clipped because I added too many photos, but if you click through on any of the images, or the heading you should be able to see everything on Substack.
So I’m back home now and am very thankful to have had this time away, and thankful for the cat minder who put my mind at ease with daily reports from home.
In case you wondered, Robb’s roof repairs stood up to the storm, so no new drips at home.
Another piece of good news arrived by email on my return - Summer Dream, one of my 30 x 30 pieces in the SSA annual exhibition has sold. That’s my first sale of the year, so I’m really overjoyed and grateful to the unknown buyer! The exhibition runs until the 4th of February at the RSA in Edinburgh. Go on Monday and you’ll get in for free!
For the next few days I’m going to spend time on collages I was experimenting with before our trip, so with a bit of luck there will be new finished work to show you next time.
Bye for now!
Julia x
The drawings on graph paper are exquisite - I like the combination very much
What a fine place for a wee escape! Love the curtains (and your sweater btw) and the familiar tale of driving around in the rain. Also love that you were drawing on graph paper. All that and a sale too🤗