Witness Statement
Yesterday I was sitting in my usual place, a favourite old Lloyd Loom, feet on the table, drawing ducks, when my chair suddenly "boinged" loudly like a cartoon jack-in-the-box and I realised the springs had given way dramatically, and quite musically. It's been a pretty dramatic week, as you'll know if you follow me in any of the usual following places. Last Friday I'd just arrived for my shift at the Craftsmen at the Priory exhibition in Lanercost, and run around the corner for the keys, when some people decided to smash my car window and make off with my lunch (my first priority, which probably explains the collapsing chair). Actually they took more than my lunch but when something like that happens it takes a while for your brain to catch up; so for a long while I just looked at the glass on the drivers seat and wondered why I'd left my coffee pot there.
One thing that happens when something goes badly wrong is that people are generally lovely and all the other artists in the exhibition were great, Christina Hargraves quietly went off and bought me a replacement lunch, returning later to fashion a temporary window for the drive home. They were all really shocked because Lanercost really is a very beautiful and fairly sleepy little place, at least since all that fuss in 1538, and goodness knows why villains were targeting 16 year old VW Golfs at quarter to nine on a Friday morning. Interestingly there is a section on the Wikipedia page entitled "Visitors and Raiders" which I might have to add to...It took me until the drive home to remember the full list of stolen things : a box of stock (handmade books, lanterns & mugs), my hare bag and lovely pencil case (with precious sentimental pens), sketchbook, keys, purse, pouch of migraine/stress cures (ha!) , my glasses and my bloody lunch. Weirdly they'd left my phone, the only "valuable" item that I'd stupidly left on view. The really annoying thing is that I SAW them ( the only other car in the car park) and yet my entire childhood spent reading Sherlock Holmes stories taught me nothing and I can't even remember if their car was silver or white!
Anyway, it's done now, I'm trying to look on the funny side (if I struggle to sell my artwork how will they? Were they disappointed that the risotto was vegetarian? Why did they take the coffee but not the pot?) and the gestures of kindness and generosity from friends and strangers makes me grateful that my life is enriched by good people and that's something those thieves must surely lack.
You wondered why I was drawing ducks when the chair gave way? Well thanks to a chance connection in Sam Read's Bookshop, I've been asked to illustrate a little book that is being written as a part of a series designed to help teach children English, mainly in Africa. I'm really enjoying drawing and inventing characters. It's actually nice working to someone else's brief, although the stolen sketchbook had lots of my initial drawings in it, which is annoying but it could have been worse. Last week the writer Tom Cox had his bag stolen in a pub in Bristol; it contained his notebook with a year's worth of notes for his new book. Lets hope all stolen things, especially Tom's book, are found and returned or at least end up with someone who appreciates that value isn't always measured in pound notes. If you're a robber and by chance you're reading this, please can I have my glasses back?I want to write more now that I've finally got started - but I'm hopeless at getting up in the morning, it's late and I'm back at Lanercost for 10 am ( the exhibition has some outstanding work in it by the way) so I must go to bed soon (also I need to work on a spell which will see flocks of malevolent crows pursuing the thieves for all eternity...) Meanwhile here's an event you might like to come to if you're near Grasmere in September...https://twitter.com/SReadBooks/status/1031138539839344641Reading : Everything Under by Daisy Johnson and "Floating" by Joe Minihane