Millais research

I really can't write about Millais and hunting and peat bogs, and so on, without seeing where he painted.  That's my excuse for a couple of nights in Perthshire, anyway.  At the moment, I wish it was a whole week - it's stunningly beautiful, and no wonder he painted so much here in the late autumn.  It's instantly obvious to me that his paintings are a kind of love letter.  This is the Tay - the view from my hotel - where he fished - perhaps not at this precise spot, but about three miles downstream, where I'll head tomorrow.  Obviously it was getting dark when I arrived, and with a thin Scottish rain (think: rental car, driving on the left, tiny amounts of room for passing as I drive through Dunkeld).

So what brings you here, ask the people at Enterprise Rent a Car in Perth.  I explain about Millais, and ask if that's what everyone says.  They look at me as though I'm faintly crazy, and say nooooo, most people's cars have broken down if they come in here ... 

Even from the train coming into Perth, one can see Millais' colors and wetness.

And my argument about the underpinning of this environment by the demands and economics of game rearing/shooting is utterly borne out by all the pheasants on my hotel bed head (and on the curtains, too ...).