An old bit of sketchbook "don't stay still for too long or we'll grow moss"

I've been hiding in the bedroom. I think I've mentioned before that this house feels a bit like a tree house or a goldfish bowl: it's a Cumbrian Bank Barn which means it's kind of upside-down - you come in downstairs but we live upstairs where the room is dominated by glass doors onto what was the "bank", originally the entrance to the threshing floor. From most windows at the front there is no visible sky, just tree branches and mountain side. Anyway, a man turned up today to clear the roof of moss and all day we've been stuck here watching clods of sodden mud raining down like cow pats from the sky and getting our knickers in a twist about insensitive timing and the almost hilarious speed at which long neglected things are being done now that we're being kicked out. Now the roof and gutters have been de-mossed it will make it all much nicer for the landlords but right now it just means our windows are splattered with mud and my "garden" of pots outside the big window is like the Somme. I'm moaning, I'm sorry, we're grateful, it needed doing. It's just that we felt trapped, especially when the landlord stood outside the window chatting with the roof guy as if we didn't exist, as if lockdown didn't exist and things were crappy enough but now it looks a mess too.

Autumn this year, before the mud.

Poo sticks! It's so boring to keep going on about it when I want to talk about art and trees and lovely things but I think its probably worth noting that both of us have been sailing really stormy seas this week and just as we feel briefly calm the enormity of the stuff we have to sort in the next few weeks (time that should be spent on other things) crashes down again and at times we've both admitted that we've doubted our own reality, were worried we were wrong, had been naive and had brought it on ourselves by "making a fuss". Today's "Hot Ear" conversation put my mind at rest a little; there may be nothing we can do or change, we will have to leave, but the situation is not of our making and didn't need to be like this. I'm so angry that this could easily be happening to other people in much tougher circumstances, in fact it is, all the time and people need to know that. I found some useful site's today that I hadn't been aware of but always hoped existed, one is Ask Tenants which attempts to redress the imbalance whereby checks are compulsory for prospective tenants but there are no similar checks on landlords or properties for rent.
Yes, I know, I should shut up in case it ruins our chances of finding a new place but I can't. We ARE good tenants. Injustice thrives on silence.
Here are some imaginary and illusionary houses...

The black and white tree house picture only surfaced recently while my brother was scanning some old negatives. I have no memory of the place, a family friend's garden, but I was immediately surprised at the similarity to my slightly surly tree house girl. Weren't the 70's funny, I have no idea how I got up a tree in a lace mini dress, am I happy or stuck?
I haven't drawn anything new today but I have been packing some orders, lining up my ducks and feeling very emotional about the lovely comments people have been writing. Thank you so much.
Want to see something beautiful now? For several years David Wilson, a stained glass designer and art college friend of my parents, has been sending me occasional funny and encouraging messages (he grew up in Osmotherley where I used to live, went to Middlesbrough Art College and eventually moved to New York) Today I looked at his updated website and am now fantasising about building a swimming pool with stained glass walls, a light filled room with angels and abstract panels and warm blue water...ok, I know but it's good to dream isn't it. Aren't they something?!

Images ©DavidWilsonDesign

I paid the annual fee for my blog this week so thought I'd better start using the damn thing. Every day, in my head, I write several award winning, earth shatteringly insightful posts and draw achingly gorgeous scenes, before failing entirely to commit them to the page. Stories have gone untold and sketchbooks have remained pristine. The things I want to make or tell you, whilst lying awake at night or during my daily stumble up the valley, evaporate with the morning light or as soon as I sit at my table.
Yesterday on my icy walk I suddenly thought that part of what stops me writing or drawing is the pressure I put on myself for it to be "good enough" to share, when really this blog could just be a kind of wordy sketchbook; it's not as if I'm writing an article for the Guardian is it. I think these past months have made me think of all the people whose stories are lost, all the words unsaid and moments unshared because of the pandemic. What are we if we don't tell our stories, however ordinary they seem?
Having failed at all other "lockdown" tasks my aim for the next few weeks is to share an image and a few lines everyday instead of waiting for perfection. Hopefully this might reawaken the fat, lazy muse who has clearly been asleep, clutching an empty bottle of Sherry for most of 2020 (who can be blamed for that though).

... That first paragraph took several hours of yesterday and this morning, full of good intention, I was going to fix my heat press, restock the virtual shop shelves, wish my parents good luck for their vaccinations tomorrow and then tell you all the about the Long Tailed Tits in the Hawthorne tree on the edge of the fell (such joy and fluttering), the creaking crunch of the ice and oh, all sorts of other stuff you might have liked.
Anyway, I'd just got the heat press soldered without setting fire to my hair and everything was going ok but then I got an e-mail.
It's happening all over again, we're being evicted, they're drawing up the papers. Perhaps because they don't want to spend money fixing the leaking windows and providing us with drinkable water, perhaps because they want somewhere to stay while they fix up their neglected cottage next door, perhaps because the Lakes seems like a better place to live in a pandemic than a flat in Mayfair or an Arts and Crafts Mansion in Wales. Either way the timing and the wording of the e-mail is spectacularly bad; the failure to properly fulfil their obligations would be almost laughable if it hadn't left us desperately scouring Rightmove in the middle of a national disaster.

I don't want to be the voice of gloom, I want to write about the patterns in the ice, look for the snowdrops under the fallen leaves, work, do something useful for other people, hunker down and try to stay sane but it knocks the breath from you and makes your arms tingle, too much Cortisol like coming up on a bad pill (apparently). Maybe all I can do is talk about it so that other people know that this happens, it keeps on happening; hopefully one day things will change for tenants so that landlords and estate agents properly understand the importance of "Home" - not "It has been very useful having an income from the barn" (around £50,000 over the years, to spend on doing up next door)
I saw it coming but the impact still hurts, it makes me want to give up art and volunteer for Shelter.

Enough. The fire is on, Nutmeg is sleeping at full stretch and I have a LUSH bath planned. Change is good right?
Stay safe x

I took these pictures from the car window on the way to work last week; a day when the sky had fallen in and I quite literally had my head in the clouds. Progress along these moorland roads can be slow when you are constantly stopped in your tracks by a perfect cloud or the way a heavy frost makes delicate sculpture of the dead grasses and seed heads. Hawnby Hill, is the perfect miniature mountain I can see from my garden, unlike its surroundings it has rocky outcrops and scree slopes like a bonsai Lake District fell.Two weekends ago we went on a house hunting trip to the Lakes and viewed freezing cottages in the woods with dead wasps on every windowsill and semi perfect places (if the yellowing lace curtains and orange pine were removed) in wildly unsuitable locations.I keep trying to picture myself in these places, miles from home, friends and family and thinking about one of those annoying motivational pictures people share on Facebook, it said " If you don't like where you are, Move, you're not a tree" ... but what if you do like where you are and you have deep roots and if you got transplanted you'd just feel like a felled tree anyway?My trip to the Lakes also took me back to Temporary Measure where Emma was about to leave the tearoom for the last time and decamp to a wonderful studio just up the road. I'd gone to get some advice on preparing for the British Craft Trade Fair and talk about getting some samples printed and it was lovely to catch up; I left feeling a lot more positive about doing the event despite all that is going on, after all it's paid for now so I may as well go, even if I just have a suitcase and a handstitched copy of the Big Issue to show! Rupert described Emma as "positive and uplifting" which is true; she is also very funny and makes lovely things if you didn't already know. I was feeling a bit odd and had accidentally referred to Rupert as Richard Ashcroft when talking to an estate agent... my mind then went blank and I forgot his real name which isn't so good after being with someone over 4 years! Being a grown up is such hard work and I'm pretty sure it doesn't make a good impression on future landlords to introduce your partner as the lead singer of the Verve while crying with hysterical laughter and leaving them with the conclusion that the " The Drugs Don't Work".And so, home on Witchmountain, the house is swaddled in fog, the stove is glowing and I must get on and draw something instead of staring out of the window at the chickens or scouring the internet for houses to rent. I found another company that might be able to supply mugs with my designs on via the lovely Charlotte Vallance ,who I first came across through the Sketchbook Project; so I'm just messing around with box and mug templates and kind of wishing I'd done ceramics instead of textiles because I'd love to be able to use bowls and cups I had made myself. Some gorgeous ceramics like the ones below, from Mary Johnson came in to the Saltbox Gallery last week and I loved the fact that each mug was unique and you could almost see the maker's finger prints.So, I have loads more to say but I'll leave you with this poppy, as it's Armistice Day tomorrow. With lots of love, until next time. x