Well Day Four has been very unusual , It's had its comic moments, some moments of clarity and determination and also, I won't lie, some very dark moments indeed. Weirdly the second trip around wind swept car parks in Penrith in search of the Mobile MRI unit turned out to be quite a memorable highlight when set against another e-mail from our landlord accusing us (falsely I promise) of aggression and then returning home to find them actually here!
It turns out that having your head scanned is like a cross between a nasty pot holing incident and a panic attack at a techno night. Who knew all my misspent nights at Goodgreef would come in so handy? Trapped in a Smartie tube wearing a Darth Vader mask and ear plugs was almost unbearable until I realised that the drilling, hammering, beeps and jolts had a rhythm not unlike a banging dance tune (remember Tyres in Spaced dancing to the kettle and the beeps of the traffic crossing?) Never underestimate the power of dance music, I think it was the most relaxed I've been all week. I haven't drawn anything today though, not yet anyway.

In other news I went to church. This is the beautiful church down the lane; I'm not a Christian but I've always loved churches and church yards and this one is a very special place. I stopped my snivelling and wandered around the stones, carefully avoiding the snowdrops pushing up through the mossy grass. It was a lesson in belonging, being "hefted". The stones bare just a handful of names, all stating which house they were from; generations of the same families most of whom are still here, living in those same houses. I walked back slowly up the hill, all the time thinking about what it means to truly belong to a place, about diversity in rural communities and about how, even from the point of view of my own relatively privileged background, it's getting harder and harder to live in places like this unless you inherit or are unusually well off. I'm glad I didn't raise my children here, the housing issues in the Lakes are shocking, although things are much the same in the North Yorkshire village where they grew up. Not sure of the answer and obviously I'm biased; probably my new lockdown breaking neighbour has a different point of view...

I wanted to show you this just for fun, I hope I'm allowed as it is from the family archive. I absolutely love this picture and I've been thinking about it a lot because it's also about belonging. The photograph was taken by my dad in the early 70's just before my paternal grandparents retired from running Allan's Store on Linthorpe Road in Middlesbrough. They'd been there since about 1947. It's a staged picture, with my mum playing the part of a customer while Grandad and Grandma do the hard sell on a tin kettle but I also love the girl skipping along the pavement looking straight at the camera.
I was born and grew up in London, moving North to be near our Grandparents (both sets from Middlesbrough) when I was 13 - so I always had hangups about not belonging, being the outsider with the "posh" accent. I still do but this picture makes me happy, it's a root, a little bit of history and context (and those yellow clogs of my mum's were ankle wreckers!) x

I'm sitting outside wrapped in assorted layers because today is the first day of British Summer Time, the sun has been shining bravely, the birds are singing love songs and it's (slightly) warmer outside than in. With my slippered feet on the table and coffee mug balanced carefully on the bench beside me I can look over towards Maiden Moor and Catbells where groups of stick figures are silhouetted on the summits; a pair fell runners just puffed past and as usual I feel slightly guilty for being still and apparently idol. With all this Spring going on it's hard to believe that just a week ago I was in Narnia, well Bristol. I travelled down by train and experienced the weird, dreamlike dislocation of hurtling through blizzards, the train tilting and banking like a fighter plane, through the occasionally looming Howgills, and eventually arriving in a city blanketed in white. City snow is not something I've experienced, not since a childhood winter in Providence, and it felt very surreal to be wandering deserted streets at 2am, following fox tracks and skittering about pretending to be a horse (this last means my phone is now smashed and held together with sellotape).The rare treasure of three days with BOTH my children was made even more special by the peculiar, cocooning weather. The highlight (apart from snack suppers by the fire, snuggled up watching Paddington films) was a hair-raising drive to Glastonbury on the eve of the Vernal Equinox, where we had hoped to fly Jake's drone for some exciting aerial photography. It was unbelievably cold though and so windy that flying was impossible so we just walked and talked and looked across the Vale of Avalon and wondered what it would be like to actually live there. A town so full of  crystal shops, vegan cafes and people wearing rainbow jumpers that it's almost a parody of itself. It's easy to be cynical and laugh at all the serious New Age types but I suddenly felt very much aware of a road not taken, or at least veered off in my 30s, and wondered if it wouldn't be a more forgiving place to face life, particularly older age as a "crone", than the Lakes with all it's obsessive running, cycling and extreme swimming. I'm still a hippy at heart and there is something comforting about knowing places like that exist,  that not not everyone over 50 has to wear beige Goretex, run 10k before breakfast and stop playing horses. As Louise Chatfield  commented, on Twitter, it seems at least like a place that is non judgemental or about putting people in boxes. I can't wait to return.Back in the North I discovered (on #WorldWaterDay of course)  the the water had gone wrong again- this time either overflowing like Aira Force on to the doorstep or gone completely and I'm not going to deny that I feel at rock bottom, sorely tempted by some of the more outlandish forms of self-help therapies spotted in the Glastonbury Oracle. Unicorn interactions perhaps or a spot of Puppet Therapy; failing that a new umbrella so that the door step is easier to navigate! I love you Lake District but my patience is being tried.Again I am pondering Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs particularly in relation to creativity - there are many exceptions of course and some would argue that strife feeds creativity but I do find it hard to justify drawing bears when I probably ought to be finding a more reliable way to help earn enough to meet the first level of the pyramid! Luckily I came home to a few welcome orders for wooden bears which ticks some issues in the "Esteem" box. I want to make more of these wooden pieces, perhaps a hare or a leaping fox... but so far this one has worked by far the best. I got some lovely new silk cords yesterday so he now comes with either a dark red or blue cord (or silver snake chain).When I was in Bristol we had a look in Hamilton House where the Folklore exhibition organised by Gordy Wright opens next month. It's a great place with loads of events, exhibitions and studios - what a dream it would have been to have something similar here in the old Cumberland Pencil Factory. Anyway, I've been working on a couple of illustrations and hopefully one will be getting printed and included in the exhibition... which one though ?I've drawn myself a little hut by a lake and maybe if there is still magic in the universe and all that positive visualisation thing works it will one day be possible to find the illusive "Home" a place to belong, to build a garden again.Meanwhile here is some proof of Spring, slowly unfurling .( this time last year the pink blossom was already in full bloom and the white almost over)Reading: A Line Made by Walking -  Sara Baume. Listening to : The Hazel Wood - Melissa Albert  and Spiro who make the perfect music for swooping along Lake District roads pretending you're in a film to.SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave