I'd like to have a backing track to this post but the one I'd choose is not very hip. I'll reveal it later, but have to first of all introduce you to definitely the coolest blogger I've ever come across, Melanie of Bag and a Beret (yes, you're right you probably did hear a drum roll, with cymbals too). Melanie is an extraordinary woman who is ridiculously beautiful, witty, cool (have I mentioned that already?), articulate, kind, generous and a very talented artist to boot. I'm one of the many women who will happily confess to having a bit of a girl crush on this fabulous, fearless creature. Melanie is the owner of the aforementioned Travelling Yellow skirt - the full story about this item can be read here. The skirt arrived with me last week. I opened the door to find a small brown cardboard box on the mat, with a customs label on the front, declaring the contents to be "Yellow Skirt". My heart did skip a beat. I've been waiting a while for it's arrival and finally it was here. The skirt, I must say, is not an it, but a she. She travels the world, sprinkling her magic wherever she goes. I marvelled at the colourful additions, the countries, names, dates and heart-warming messages of love embodied in the garment. How amazing that I was able to take part in this too.
And so to set the scene. It was Sunday afternoon and I had spent the morning at church, helping out with hymn books, collection and the like. The service had been accompanied by a violinist who was on holiday here and added greatly to the proceedings. His playing was a worthy substitute for our normal prerecorded music, in particular the rendition of "The Lord of the dance" which he played beautifully as the congregation assembled. It brought back happy memories of school days when we all sang it in assembly. After the service, I gathered together a picnic, blanket and all the necessary paraphenalia including the Yellow Skirt, and then Steve rowed us out to our little motor boat moored in the bay outside our house. The day was glorious, so much so that there had been a veritable exodus of small craft leaving their moorings all with the same idea as us; to find an uninhabited island as the perfect getaway on this scorching summer's day. The Eastern Isles had been my first choice when imagining the Yellow Skirt whooshing across virgin white sands on a deserted island. Not a chance, my husband had told me. Too many locals, too many visitors, all with the same idea, was his view on this. And he was right, as we motored around the North End of the island we could see the small boats all bobbing about on the horizon near the cluster of these tiny idyllic islands. So plan B it was then. Northwethel is a teeny, tiny island with not so much in the way of stretching white sands, but what I wanted was for us to be marooned, alone with the Yellow Skirt as our guest.
We dropped anchor, and made our way to the shore of our desert island. We ate a lazy lunch, some of us maybe had a beer or two, and we watched the boats buzzing about in the distance. As the sun cooled down, Steve was ready to don his photographers hat. The Yellow Skirt and I got our act together and so the magic of the Travelling Yellow Skirt began. On hitting the sand my soundtrack began. Yes, "Lord of the Dance" was still ringing in my ears and to that lively beat I sang, skipped and danced my way across the white sands of our uninhabited island paradise giving our guest an afternoon to remember. She whooshed, she swished, she tripped up and over rocks in the most joyful of manner.
And then we rested. The day was still hot, the tide beginning to ebb. Steve took the last few shots - my dear friend Sacramento's pink crochet flower below my knees and my own little offering by my feet. And then we set off for home.
It had been a pretty perfect day. We had captured something special, something of the magic of Scilly combined with the magic of this travelling token of friendship. I shall never forget singing, dancing and skipping across the sand with the Travelling Yellow Skirt.
But wait! I have a couple of postscripts. The first is about another friendship that was recently cemented and it too involved the Yellow Skirt. My blogging friend Kezzie (read her wonderful blog here) was on the island recently and we too had a joyful moment shared for you to see. In fact the entire day was pretty much a string of joyful moments which I'm still editing for you to read. Kezzie's mother, Ros, was promoted to the postion of blog photographer and rose to the challenge very well, don't you think?
I'll be featuring our day together in a future post, coming soon so please join me for that.
And finally, I longed to showcase the Yellow Skirt on a long sweep of deserted beach, so we headed off a few days later and captured these last few shots to round off what has been a very special event. As this skirt makes her travels across the globe, the hands of friendship are bonded through this mutual experience, like a magical, gossamer thread creating a cobweb of love and harmony wherever she goes. "Love can build a bridge" does indeed come to mind. I'm so privileged to have taken part. Thank you Melanie! x
I'll leave you with Melanie's words of advice:
Let's enjoy life!!
Let's enjoy dressing up!!
It's just frickin' fabric!! (a really good piece though)
We surrender to the positivity!
Let's dance, baby!!
Anna x
