The colour is just seeping back in to the day, as the morning snow gives way to more seasonal rain and I've settled by the stove to write. Slowly, outside the big window, the delicate prettiness of pink blossom and ice has returned to over saturated green and yellow ( is it a crime to live in the Lake District and not like daffodils? shhh, don't tell ). It's been a day of little tasks, printing order forms and making price labels, sorting out boxes of exhibition "stuff"; the kind of things that make it seem as though I've been busy all day but haven't achieved very much. It was exciting to wake up to snow this morning and the cat was beside herself with joy, skittering about like a kitten, staring wide eyed through the window and asking to go out ( and immediately back in again) at least 20 times. Cat has always loved snow but there seems to be much less of it these days and certainly less than some of the winters in our old home. I miss it and the strange excitement and magic it brings. But it's unseasonal now, and mostly I suppose, unwelcome after all the celebrations of the first day of Spring. Yesterday was so cold I gave in and put the heating on early. I'd spent the morning sharing a chair and a hot water bottle with that cat- neither of us normally so affectionate- until the Archers came on the radio and the sound of hounds sent her clawing herself free to hide under the table.
Some really lovely things have been happening lately. I'm now recognised in Keswick Post Office, or at least the red bear stamp on most of my parcels is, which must mean that sales are getting a bit more regular. This week for the first time since leaving the Herdy shop I earned the same as I would have done had I stayed - a combined income from my own sales and the almost unbelievable treat of a day's work at Sam Read's Bookshop in Grasmere. I think you could begin to understand the strangeness of finding myself looking OUT of the bookshop from behind the desk, rather than IN through the postcardy door, if you looked back at previous posts or searched "Grasmere" in the side bar. The happy/sad of being here in the Lakes instead of "home", the feeling of unreality and uprootedness that comes from building a new life where there are no familiar touchstones, the lack of confidence after various "work" events - sometimes something nice happens out of the blue and you find yourself looking over your shoulder to check for Fairy Godmothers. Anyway, it was a fun day and I'm very grateful to Will for thinking I might be able to help out... especially as we only really know each other through Twitter and there was that time I was in the shop and mentioned the possibility of assassinating him so I could steal his job (social anxiety can make you say the dumbest things).
Well, I'm sure all work can become mundane (and I've always resisted applying for jobs in places I really love in case familiarity breeds contempt) but it was so nice to have interesting conversations and learn new things and it seemed auspicious that as I drove over Dunmail Raise, before the signal gave out, someone was reading Wordsworth's "Daffodils" on the radio.
Back on Witchmountain with less than two weeks until Harrogate I'm busily doing last minute preparations for the show as well as trying to learn how to use my new camera... an early birthday present to myself because I'm suppose to try and take proper product photographs. The wooden jewellery has been really popular and I can't wait to get some more designs made. The special "design sample" price ends this weekend but I'm sure will still want them at the real RRP. which properly reflects the costs. How I wish I was a hardened business woman with no qualms about pricing, instead of a bit of a hippy idealist with a basic mistrust of Capitalism! Yesterday I listened to a radio programme that talked about spending and "peak stuff" and found that I agreed so much with the philosophy that we all have too much "stuff" and that we buy too much, waste too much. How can I reconcile this with trying to sell my own stuff?! I wanted to call the programme and say that maybe if people chose to buy more from smaller independent businesses, to choose for love rather than being on the "upgrade" treadmill - could that work? Perhaps I need to look for a good book on economics and philosophy...
The hungry stove is asking for another log, the radio's brought unwelcome news from London and Rupert has just got back from a chilly day at work in the mines across the valley (as an outdoor educator not a miner) so it's time for tea. Apparently the sun will reappear later this week and the brief brake on Spring will be released.
Reading:- "Basic Nest Architecture" Polly Atkin ( from Grasmere - poems that have kept me awake at night searching the internet for Moon pianos and memories of home) and "Swell, A Waterbiography" Jenny Landreth ( to be published on May 4th )
I'm writing this by the stove wearing mittens and several jumpers, facing the big sliding glass doors that replace what would once have been the barn doors to the top floor of a traditional Cumbrian bank barn. The ground rises steeply so that, while the other side of the house looks out on to the tops of trees and it's like being in a tree house, this view puts me at mole's-eye-level, watching the birds hopping about in the fallen leaves above my head. A wren like a fat mouse, two woodpeckers, whose scarlet feathers look pretty flashy for a Northern bird, nuthatches, tree creepers and all the usual bird feeder suspects just busy "being". Meanwhile, inside, the cat has been precariously and unusually (she's not cuddly) balanced on my leg, perfecting the art of looking casually relaxed in the most uncomfortable situations whilst I sit and wrestle with the meaning of life, a thousand forms of self inflicted angst and the awful guilt of needing to move my leg.Winter came a couple of days after I wrote the previous post and I think I'm missing the calming effects of swimming because I decided to hand my notice in at work yesterday after reasoning that life is too short for battles over dusters and it wasn't fair on either of us. Yet again I have cast myself adrift on a sea of ideology and land looks a long way off!
Perhaps Rupert has made the link between swimming and my emotions because last night he was reading up on 
Here in this corner of the Cumbrian mountains the snow came like a gift to a million Instagrammers. Experienced mountain types dashed out to enjoy the alpine conditions from the tops while at lake level the rest of us had trouble getting anything done because there was too much lovliness everywhere you looked...dazzling snow with firey autumn leaves, azure skies, frosted rose hips and pink alpenglow evenings.
If you have been reading this blog for more than one winter you will know that snow and winter are a special time for me - despite the constant moaning about cold fingers and trying to feed a ravenous stove. I'm hoping that inspiration will strike as it often does in the long winter nights; time to reflect and reassess is part of the creative process but it often feels self indulgent and it's easy to feel guilty when you're not as busy as those birds outside the window.Last week I had a huge last minute treat which was a place on a "
Now it's getting dark outside and the trees are just silhouettes against an elephant grey sky. Time to close the curtains, stoke up the fire and get busy in the real world instead of this virtual one. Thank you for reading x
Snuggled by the stove with the last of the Christmas cake, a slab of Stilton and a pot of strong 
Last week I mentioned the fact that I was missing my snowed-in time and how important it is to me for some reason. My brother read the whole of "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder when he was here at Christmas and I'm sure it's books like that as well as a kind of Northern race memory (?) that makes winter such a special and potentially creative time; perhaps its just the enforced stillness. Anyway, I was freezing last week, trying to save firewood, so I finally got around to making a little work space in the small room. It's like a cell or an old fashioned school room... no distracting view through the window when I'm at my desk. I drew things and listened to Howard's End on the radio and got excited by cyanotype again. "Only connect"
I am easily distracted and who can blame me with a head full of bears and icing sugar mountains outside the window?
So this week I am trying to be more organised and practical... my tax return is done, velvet has been ordered from Glasgow, ceramic printing experiments continue and I've paid the final installment for my stand at BCTF this April. Now I can't sleep with worry and excitement and ideas and panic but as Rupert said this weekend, whatever happens 
Now I think it's time for some music while I wait for the henna to do it's herbal alchemy. Recurring in my head at the moment ..."