I started writing this last Friday, the day before Storm Desmond showed up.....Have I told you that this house feels like a boat at the moment? Not that it's moving, just that it sits here at the head of the valley with it's stern to the prevailing wind and rain which slams into it as it rushes down from the fells and it sounds like crashing waves. In front the track becomes a river; cutting channels in the fallen leaves which never got dry enough to crunch through . The land rises steeply at the back where a tortured, pollarded Sycamore holds bird feeders that swing out almost horizontal in the wind and the woodpecker clings on like a trapeze artist; the only bright thing out there (recently I saw bullfinches who were pretty snazzy too but preferred nettle seeds behind the oil tank to swinging about for peanuts). It has rained for days and days and days *** Here I was going to insert a big rant about MPs voting to bomb Syria and Climate Change and biblical floods but I think I'll leave it to your imagination. It's frightening and frustrating and I despair ***So after I wrote that, things went crazy and after getting home on in gale force winds, clearing fallen trees from the lane, we battened the hatches and spent all of Saturday feeding the stove, catching drips in buckets and feeling helpless to help but guiltily cozy as the disaster unfolded just a mile down the road. Twitter was the only way to make sense of it... real time posts as the water levels rose in Keswick, inching up the glass storm defense and eventually tipping over to inundate the town for the second time in 6 years. Now everything I was going to write seems self indulgent and ridiculous. We walked up Latrigg yesterday, as the day was insultingly sunny and calm, and marveled at the scene below- Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite Lake joined in a continuous stretch of shimmery water - one lake to rule them all.It was beautiful and fascinating from a distance but back in the town I felt guilty and too ashamed to even take a picture of the river as people's homes and businesses were spilled out on to the pavements in muddy piles. It was horrible and reminded me of what I was going through this time last year; losing your home, no running water, mud. I wanted to help but it also made me painfully aware that I'm not yet a part of this community.Anyway, there is a fundraising page here and various collection centres for donations of food and clothing across Cumbria so hopefully by sharing this I will be doing what I can. I tried to drive to Braithwaite ( our closest village)  today, armed with a shovel and a yard brush to help the clear up but there was a digger clearing a landslide so I had to turn around. I'll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile my heart goes out to all those affected, I wish I could do more.Whenever I write a blog post I upload the photographs first with a vague idea of what I wanted to say but to be honest it's completely slipped my mind now! I think it was going to be a thing about how excited I was to have sold some work at the Great Print Exhibition, amongst such great company, followed by a mention that these cushions are now in my Etsy shop; I might even have been going to share the recipe for my wonderous cherry and almond cake...I wanted to write things about the fact that its a year ago exactly since I first saw this place and how that feels, and about how the cat now occasionally sits on me  which is cozy (until she bites) which makes me understand (almost) how easy it might be to turn in to a crazy cat lady if only to save on heating bills! The reason the cat sits on me could be that my daughter bought me a polar bear onesie as a surprise the other day and it makes hibernation even more tempting.But for now I think it's best to just be quiet, hope that the kettle boils soon and that the wind and rain settles down and gives us a break. Stay safe and warm where ever you are. x 

This past week or two I have been pondering the meaning of life and the secrets of success and happiness while traveling on slow trains, celebrating major life events in inspirational cities and continuing to explore the wonderful land of mountains, lakes and lush bracken jungle that I'm constantly surprised to be suddenly living in. Maybe I should have opted for Philosophy at university like my lovely brother (so I could say what I mean more clearly)... anyway it seemed to me, at low points, that success and happiness are almost always measured in monetary terms. I've been horrified this week by news stories about the Prime Minister's pay rise while doctors are being told they don't work hard enough, people work like hell to subsist on minimum wage, important benefits are cut and don't even start me on the proposed reforms to the hunting bill. It was the hypocrisy and lack of respect for anything other than Mammon that upset me most. It's easy to feel like a failure (professional, financial or personal) in a game someone else invented... and then to find out they're sitting on half the cards and the rule book. And so, yesterday I forced myself to look at what I had actually achieved in the day, a day in which I felt low and unmotivated, and it was this...1. I finished some stitching on a print I hope to show at Dalemain House in September as part of C-Art  2. A pan of gooseberries for a fool (!) and a plate of warm peanut butter biscuits. 3. I made a climbing chalk bag from a piece of cyanotype printed fabric and other things found in a hastily packed box of fabrics.So, take away the crushing sense of failure that means I am too poor to buy a flat with a nice kitchen for my daughter, a house with a studio for my parents or a car that works for my son... surely all we need is food, warmth and shelter and a bit of love...oh and creativity. Everyone should be able to afford this by virtue of their daily work and I never will understand the crazy economics of a world that sets such inequalities at its heart.Goodness, this wasn't meant to be a soap box tirade, sorry. Its just that I was in Bristol last week for my daughter's graduation. It was a lovely and emotional time and we had a lot of fun, saw some great exhibitions, ate delicious food and talked and talked about what to do after university, the search for meaningful work and a place to live. Walking around Clifton we chose our ideal homes in the leafy, flower scented avenues before returning to Stokes Croft and stepping over the collapsed homeless man in the street, wracked with guilt but powerless to help.It is a proud and melancholy feeling to realise that both my children are now grown up and have the hats to prove it. My nest is very empty and now begins my slide into eccentric old age; I may collect gnomes or teddy bears and take them on trips to the supermarket in Keswick...So, leaving Bristol was hard.; it felt full of all kinds of life, diverse and creative, inspiring and shocking, but as the empty train trundled North and the sun fell in to the sea  I felt excitement in the pit of my stomach to see the mountains silhouetted in the distance.And some bears are waiting, as well as a cupboard full of stuff to make a loaf of bread. The Fells are green and wet and really don't mind how slowly you climb them so long as when you get to the top you look back the way you came and feel overjoyed to be alive despite the struggle of the climb.Reading:- "Titus Alone" Mervyn Peake   Listening To:- Wind in the Sycamore trees 

Flaming June has arrived in Cumbria, complete with snow covered tents on Blencathra and me wearing three jumpers as I write. I'm looking out at the newly emerged greenery ... yellow Welsh poppies, soft, half spiraled ferns , nettles and bluebells leaning almost flat; as the wind races down the valley the end of the house is the first obstacle on its way down from the mountains. In a small shelter sits a mother hen and two tiny chicks... I've had to put them in isolation because there was some dispute about maternity rights with three dozy bantams sitting on the eggs until they hatched. Now it's fingers crossed that the stoat prefers eggs to chicks....I'm all alone again after a week of adventures; settling down to make a plan for next year's BCTF and working out if I can use any of the doodles and splodges I've been doing recently. If you follow me on Facebook you'll know that I had some silk printed and have been doing battle with a new rolled hemming foot to try and make silk scarves... much much more practice needed but what I'm hoping for is that eventually, 7 years after leaving college, I will be able to come up with a product that provides me with a methodical pattern to the day... something that is both financially worthwhile, creatively satisfying and stops me spending long parts of the day feeling directionless and self indulgent. Too much to ask?!I've been enjoying playing with watercolour, ink and a little digital magic and was so excited to receive a special parcel from my dad last week which contained a little tube of "Caput Mortuum Violet" watercolour... following our musings on the colour of the fells a few weeks ago... now I just have to learn how to use it. Every day here in the Lake District I'm bombarded with little moments of wonder... the perfect colour palette of moss, violet and rock next to a waterfall, the grey Herdwicks looking like swiss army blankets with their red dye markings. Who cares if it's a bit damp and chilly ( actually this waterfall picture was taken on a very sunny day last week and I'm still itching from the sunburn).Yesterday we walked around Rannerdale where we spotted many wild creatures amongst the bluebells  ( mostly photographers rolling around in the blue looking for the perfect "capture") The previous day I had re-enacted a scene from Rogue Herries where the old witch is drowned below Grange Bridge... Canoeing from Rosthwaite to Keswick I tipped our boat over while trying to avoid being smacked in the face by a branch just near the bridge. I've never fallen in a river before and I'm not the bravest of swimmers so I'm actually feeling quite surprised today that I'm still here ( I floated so what does that mean.... )Another adventure involved clambering ( my particular style of mountain activity... a cross between climbing, rambling and scrambling) up High Crag above Buttermere. Eating a sandwich perched high up in the rocks and emerging on to the summit like the first men on the moon. I'm throwing myself in to this new place while the daily battle against homesickness continues. In the end I didn't take part in Art In the Shed for the first time in 5 years because I couldn't face going back. Its easier to pretend this is an island and I'm not too great at water crossings!Now, I'm going to research mugs and cards and how to roll corners on silk with loads of thanks to Emma from Temporary Measure who is  a mine of information and helpfulness as usual. This bear and his friend appeared one day after watching the umbrellas in the street when I was at work in the gallery.Reading: I just finished " The Gracekeepers" by Kirsty Logan ... read it, its perfect. Currently indulging myself with my new copy of "Oh Comely" and the lovely box subscription which included the bottle of drizzle shown above"Listening to:  Elbow " Asleep in the Back" , Real World 25 and John Metcalf "Kites and Echoes" ( which has a William Tillyer etching on the cover)