This  beautiful, wiggly wall over Lingmoor Fell is an allegory of the way my week - and emotional state - has been fluctuating since we walked that way on Monday. At one point on I was surrounded by botched printed vases, newly created landfill to prick my conscience, a mountain of useless greyscale printouts after my printer forgot how to do colour, no lights downstairs after all the fuses went (I looked in the fusebox but it seemed to be very windy and cold in there which is odd) and the DPD delivery driver stuck up to his axels in the mud outside. It has felt at times like I'm living in a kind of Krypton Factor game show for dummies, where every task has involved a massive hassle and steep learning curve; still, it's much more satisfying when something goes right at last if it has driven you to tears for hours beforehand. Walking in the brittle spring sunshine, arms pinkening and prickling with unaccustomed exposure to sunlight and tummy rumbling with too much coffee and not enough cake, we climbed to the summit of Lingmoor and learned some lessons from the survival bag we used as a picnic blanket. These lessons, and the continuing sunshine, probably helped prevent meltdown and/or murder later on- and besides, what reason do I have to complain? Imagine building that wall... it was immaculate, with each header stone at the same angle despite the terrain.I love the idea that you would ever be able to "relax and formulate a plan" should you ever find yourself actually needing to get inside an orange plastic bag for survival. Further down it suggested something to do with dried leaves, I can't remember exactly what. I think this winter there have been a few cases of people whose lives have been saved by these bags though so I shouldn't joke.So as Friday night turns into Saturday, I'm sitting by the stove, with the cat dangerously close to my feet, feeling a little bit of the same sense of achievement I get on reaching the top of a hill. I've rebuilt my evil website, after many tears and it even has a shop. It's a big improvement on the previous one so even though it's more expensive and drove me nuts, I'm actually really glad that Flavors.me closed down and forced me to do it. I'm playing shops and it seems so much more exciting than Etsy because it's my very own. The first two sales made me feel like a tycoon and I could never take for granted the magic of being able to do that without leaving my nest, from home, in the middle of nowhere.Most things seem to be slowly coming together in preparation for BCTF but it's frightening how much money you can spend on services and materials without even leaving the house; and how you think you've worked out the costs of things but then remember you need to factor in the sellotape, Paypal fees, tissue paper or sticky labels. Its fair to say I have felt huge ups and downs of mood and confidence this week and have been trying to be more careful about dealing with the downs. Sometimes it really is important just to relax and formulate a plan, to go for a walk or take time to read a book and not feel guilty; because the upside of being self employed, to balance out having no money, is that I have that freedom at the moment and I've noticed I work best in the evenings anyway. I'm like that annoying hamster you probably once had that slept all day, got vicious if you tried to wake it up and then suddenly started rushing about on it's treadmill at bedtime- making a sound like squeaking bedsprings (the rushing about is me, not the squeaking).And sometimes it's tempting to sew up the scraps and offcuts to make something new, because, at the risk of sounding like an infuriating meme, failure is often just a state of mind or a view from a certain angle, it just depends how you frame it. Well, it's time I let you go, thank you for reading and also for all the survey responses. I need to look at the results properly and apply my amazing analytical skills, before finalising my master plan, so for now it's back to relaxing and dreaming of more days like these. Dipping toes into achingly cold water till the blood fizzes like champagne, winter dimmed eyes blinking in the light and you can almost feel the vitamin D soaking through your skin.“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” John Muir 

Well on Tuesday I bought a beautiful fountain pen in Cockermouth and I've just spent ages uploading all these pictures for you but suddenly I'm lost for words again; I'm drinking tea and looking at that big sky. Im sorry to tell you this, now that it's the Easter holidays and it's raining again, but last week was probably the most perfect week ever in the Lake District. Sara and I wore our little legs even shorter with some wonderful adventures... it's much easier to walk further when you have a companion to share sandwiches with at the top. We discussed the amazing human ability to forget how it felt to be exhausted to pieces once faced with the view from the summit ... a bit like childbirth! We also talked about the contrast between Sara's city life in Bristol and our love of this special landscape; both feeling a little discontented ... what is it you miss out on in each place? Could you swap city life for a rural one or vice versa?I loved taking a week away from normal concerns and BCTF panic, to enjoy just being here in the Lake District, feeling lucky despite all the bad luck and upheaval. We climbed three Fells, Hindscarth, Maidenmoor and Low Fell, used my birthday voucher to have a swim and fantastic bone crunching massage at Armathwaite Hall (where we also spotted the Alpacaly alpacas  doing rolypoly's under the trees)  and cycled to Keswick on unsuitable bicycles to do the shopping (so much more stylish to cycle in the sunshine with a dress on and an aubergine in your basket than to charge around in lycra with serious intent).And now it's back to work with less than three weeks before Harrogate and the trade fair. Luckily the sun left as soon as Sara went back to Bristol and even more luckily I was able to find almost all of the hooks and bits and bobs that I need for my stand when I went to Cockermouth... I'd searched in the giant B&Q in Penrith and various other shops until eventually finding the perfect things in the wonderful JB Banks  .It may seem like an odd recommendation but if you're ever in the Lakes don't miss this shop; it's fabulous and has a museum at the back which I keep forgetting to look in.So Spring has sprung, the air smells good and all is well... ah, apart from the fact that I smashed one of my vases while trying to photograph it today, I have a sore thumb from folding and stapling catalogues, all the printing I did yesterday went wrong and the cat has taken to sleeping up a 7 foot holly tree, perched on a twig like the Cheshire cat (only with a resentful look instead of a grin). I think I'm making her nervous.The next three weeks are going to be hectic for me and very different as today is also Rupert's last day working at Carlton Outdoor Education Centre. For the past year he has driven to the North East at the crack of dawn every Monday and pretty much lived in the van all week; but he's got a new job here now, within cycling distance, so life should be easier for him and I'll have to become a little less feral and learn to live with people again! (I talk so little during the week that I almost forget how at the weekends and a whole day of talking gives me hiccups so Harrogate should be fun!). Fingers crossed for more days like last week's to share.Here I am heading up the valley on a small bicycle with the sun in my eyes. And here is a quote that I think is relevant to the whole BCTF preparation process, because whatever happens I have learnt a lot and after all, thats what we're here for isn't it, to learn and experience and breathe in the air? Have a very happy Easter.“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”― Ernest HemingwayReading:  Various terms and conditions and a Maigret mystery. Listening to: David Grey "Sell Sell Sell" Watching:- Rare that I watch TV but "The A Word" was filmed right here and it's pretty good so far.

Getting out of the house to deliver work was good today. It has become too easy to stay in my grey stone nest, looking out of the high windows at the storms and not venturing out until the weekends when I gasp my way up a fell, rewarded with paper wrapped sandwiches and a view to lift the spirits and feed me for another week. The wild weather lately meant that the weekend was postponed until Monday and the walk was an easy one, up Loughrigg Fell to gaze down on silvery flooded valleys and across to various Pikes and Stickles and knobbly hills whose names are becoming woven into my life like a poem muttered repeatedly, like a mantra, under my breath. We played at surviving by getting in the billowing "group shelter",  a large blue, bottomless tent that made me think of  John and Yoko's "Bagism" peace protests or getting trapped in the sheets while building dens in the bed as a child.The storms had loosened bright scarlet yew berries, a trail of poisoned beads and shaken the last of the leaves into a soggy carpet that smelled delicious. Walking through a wood in Autumn is like walking along a beach... impossible not to fill pockets with collected treasures, a jewel coloured leaf, a sprig of sticky pine, an acorn perhaps (although like beach treasure they never look quite as bright when  brought indoors and dry). It makes me feel like a child, sticking leaves in my hair and swishing a freshly fallen bamboo pole, pretending to be a pony... forgetting the horrible indignity of being, in reality, a nearly 50 year old in a second hand raincoat and borrowed hat who should probably be more dignified or risk frightening other walkers.I've really agonised over writing this blog today because its been such a rotten few weeks, my self confidence and faith in personal and professional relationships felt shattered and for various reasons I was feeling that perhaps writing was my undoing. Perhaps the internet is no place for openness and candid musings when we're always being warned to guard our identities and upgrade our privacy settings. I felt unsettled enough to read back, to double check to see if I had given away too much or spoken out of turn or been mean inadvertently. I thought about who I want to be and the kind of people I respect (I've been reading Richard Mabey's book "Nature Cure" and he absolutely isn't afraid to speak his mind on subjects close to his heart) and decided that I am not ashamed to bare my soul here so long as it's balanced with good stuff too and doesn't involve the entire laundry basket of dirty linen. Because sometimes it's important to admit that things go wrong, that its not all primrose paths and that you have to walk up some pretty spiky, slippery tracks to get the sandwiches.And ..."Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them."—Jodi PicoultIn other news, today's drive took me to the lovely Eden Valley home of Jenny "Boo and the Noodle" who is having an Open Studio this weekend to raise money for a new village play area. It looks like there's going to be everything you could ever want for the dreaded Christmas Shopping, and all handmade in Cumbria; including beautiful prints, exotic faux cacti pin cushions, textile artwork and some rather swishy Witchmountain mugs. And so getting out of the house proved to be the best thing I could have done. I left the mountain in a storm of pouring rain and despairing tears and drove east into a massive double rainbow over Penrith. Heading home there is a point on the A66 when Blencathra looms beside the road and all the now familiar mountains of this magical corner of Lakeland are suddenly revealed in moody layers and it actually sends a shiver down my spine.And so to bed. Thank you again for reading whoever and where ever you are, it means the world to this mountain hermit xReading:- that Richard Mabey book Listening to:- "Courting the Squall" - Guy Garvey