Last week I visited the National Gallery to see an exhibition about St Francis of Assisi, which I recommend. The image detail above is by Craigie Aitchison showing St Francis with two doves visiting the island of Arran. Inspired by his paintings of Holy Isle, off Arran, I once hired a bike to cycle there, but didn’t take the map of Arran’s contours into consideration so my cycling was a bit limited. Holy Isle was a magical one indeed, with a healing stream.
It’s now a Buddhist retreat, but was once home to the 7th century hermit St Molaise, who lived in a cave there. By chance I was accompanied on the tiny island ferry by an elderly man who had a bad knee. I helped him pour water from the shallow stream over it as he was hoping for a miracle. I’m not sure it worked, but our manoeuvres to submerge his knee cheered up the afternoon. By the way Craigie, some of whose work I admire, apparently kept canaries not doves in his studio, which nested in a (his?) mattress.
