Happy 2020!  Here is the view from half way down the fell I struggled up on New Years Eve, fuelled by my gingerbread polar bears and coffee from a surprise coffee van - I'm getting slower but its always worth it for views like this.Well, It seems as though the only way to break the silence on this blog and make a fresh start as I enter my 12th year of occasional writing, is to admit that I was defeated when I started writing this post back in November. I ground to a halt, bogged down in a quagmire of half thought thoughts.This is what I wrote ... "...I'm writing this by the stove with a hot water bottle up my jumper and a pile of buttered toast with blueberry jam next to me (well, in me now if I'm honest). It's dark outside, frosty cold and moonlit and I can hear an owl calling - a good night for hunting.What happens if I don't write regularly is that things get jumbled up and all the internal monologs that made sense when I was walking up the valley or wide awake in the middle of the night are forgotten. You'll have to take my word for it that they were fascinating and really worth writing down and not at all like this paragraph of waffle. I do regret not making at least one post a month though, because more and more this blog has become my personal record of the past 11 years. At a recent art fair a customer commented (flatteringly) that one of my bear drawings looked similar to another very well known artist's bears and it was a relief to be able to trawl back through old blog posts to confirm, to myself, that it had been drawn before I'd seen her work, although inspired by some of the same sources.At another event a woman picked up a print which I told her was from a piece I'd done at college "Oh it's lovely, don't you wish you could do something that good now? " (people say the funniest and rudest things without meaning to) It's good to be able to look back and see that, with a few exceptions, the things I make now are 100% better than those I was making in November 2009, even if the person making them is a bit more rounded and worn around the edges.What's brought on all this looking back ? Well on Twitter last week I saw a post pointing out that there were only a few weeks left of this decade! That fact is fairly obvious and shouldn't make any difference to anything but it came as a bit of a shock to someone who can still remember the last days of the 70's quite clearly and somehow can't quite believe how quickly the past ten years, in particular, have been and gone. The question posed by the tweet I saw was, what have you achieved/learned in this decade and what are your hopes for the next? In some ways both these questions terrify me as I am prone to focusing on my fears and failures as well as feeling that, like John Cleese in Clockwise "I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand." Besides, many achievements also contain the bitter taste of Something Overcome and those things are hard to look back on, even when heavily sugared by success. But in a decade of big changes for me there are definitely some small achievements to celebrate and as for hopes... "And there I was, stuck, on what should have been the easiest question, what are your hopes and dreams? Well what are they? What are yours as you stride into the year?So, much of what silences me and makes me sometimes fear writing from the heart in this, "public" space is the pressure to be positive and upbeat at all times, or risk damaging my business, and the very British habit of reserve which means even my most candid posts are heavily censored to avoid being too much of a bleeding heart. What I spent hours mulling over, forgetting to write, turned out not to be my hopes ( I hope for a garden and a pony of course, doesn't everyone?) but my fears - for the planet, for the world my children will inherit, for our country under this government  and of course my own selfish fears (how many greetings cards = 1 weeks rent and should I be making more "stuff" in this world of stuff?).Anyway it's the New Year now, we're all full of optimism and shiny new intentions aren't we? I've  invested in a fancy new planner from the Makers Yearbook to organise and motivate myself, it's bound to lead to wild success and world domination - gardens and ponies for everyone! I have to set daily/monthly tasks and one of today's is "Finish that bloody blog post" (s'cuse me swearing).I've also been drawing something everyday (so far, don't hold me to it, it's only January 9th). Here is last night's effort, part of an unwritten story.My trip to Moniack Mhor continues to inspire me, I just need to knuckle down and put it all into practice even if no one reads the results except you and me. James Mayhew  and Sarah McIntyre are doing another picture books week at the centre and I can't recommend it highly enough. I'd love to go back but this year I must be sensible, and besides, the car has refused to contemplate the trip.It's nearly time to feed the stove, make a mug of tea and see what inky character emerges in this evening's session. But first, here is the cover of the poetry book I did for Gary Liggett in the Autumn. It's a signed limited edition book, handmade in Cumbria. I really enjoyed working with different media for this one (Lino cut and watercolour) and as usual it was a learning process. I'm so glad that he liked it, along with the three illustrations inside; you can see them all here along with some other illustration work.In other exciting news, I was invited to take part in The Great Print Exhibition at Rheged, in their new gallery space. Sara and I went to the opening night ( we nearly turned back because the poor old car went over a bump and its lights went dim) and I was so excited to see my work along side so many amazing printmakers from all over the country; there was even a red dot on one of mine! Being in an exhibition like that and better still, selling something, is a real confidence boost because I think when it comes down to it, the biggest creative battle I have is the dreaded Imposter Syndrome.If I don't write again very soon shout me and I'll get my act together. Also this post is dedicated to Kat Lakie, a friend of this blog, and everyone else in Australia, I'm thinking of you and hoping for cooling rain xReading : "Help the Witch" Tom Cox and "The Lost Future of Pepperharrow" Natasha Pulley (out in March )