This morning I sat on the floor in a square of flickering, leaf filtered, sunlight and felt the strangeness of an empty house for the first time in 7 months. The heat rushes in when I open the doors and everything feels steamy after the storm yesterday.Since I last wrote I've emerged like a nervous rabbit, into " The Easing", to work for three days a week in the bookshop; experiencing the complete reversal of the normal state of things because I was briefly the only person in the house going out to work, coming back grumpy and demanding my slippers, pipe and dinner (during lockdown I never left the valley and still haven't visited a supermarket so it's been quite stressful at times). Wearing the plastic face shield all day,  combined with my varifocals,  means that hours after getting home I still feel like I have a hat on and trippy vision that might necessitate  a trip to Barnard Castle...Today however, Rupert has gone back to work at Outward Bound and Sara is having her first day alone as a bookseller (since she moved north again we have been sharing jobs occasionally while she continues to search for her own path). Tomorrow will be a holiday cottage cleaning day for one of my neighbours so this is my time to catch up on my "real" job, the creative me, the one who gets lost in the gaps between days.August is fading Meadowseet, Heather and Bilberries, horrible Horseflies, late hay and the first signs of the bracken turning. Walking back down the valley last week I noticed the tinge of russet and felt quite overwhelmed by the relentless march of the natural world and its cycles, while for a lot of us mere humans it feels as though our lives have been put on pause. It seemed like only a few weeks ago that we'd talked about watching for Catbells turning green in the spring. I've tried not to think about it too much, but of course that means I think about it all the time - the way almost a year has passed and so much has changed. More than ever the feeling of having lost precious time but also of having gained so much and needing to process it somehow.I thought I'd done quite a lot of new work in the bright sunshine of Spring but when I looked at them again recently, because the special circular mounts had arrived, I found that I only liked one or two and then of course I started with the "honestly Kim you had all that time and all that sunshine, why didn't you create mountains of work?". At least, of the ones I have completed , I am unusually pleased with how they turned out. I like the stitching on this hare and her joyful leap over the Yarrow. Now, how to go about selling work without the shop window of art fairs and exhibitions? This blog no longer has the reach it once did and social media is a tightrope walk - if I mention things are for sale my posts are much less popular than the ones featuring rainbows or wild swimming or loaves of bread. Luckily there are bright sparks on the horizon with a possible nerve wracking secret project and an invitation to be part of a winter exhibition at Harding House in Lincoln again.One day recently members of Cumbria Printmakers had planned a socially distanced drawing trip to Holehird Gardens  but of course it rained and rained and even in Cumbria it was too much,  so instead we all agreed to draw at home and share our day via WhatsApp. I hadn't done any observational drawing for ages but I managed a page of ink and gesso and pencil,  looking out at my soggy plant pots. The thing I enjoyed most about this was taking small sections of it later and  enlarging them to use as backgrounds for other things.I'm not a painter but sometimes I think it would be fun to make big textural  canvasses like this...Instead I made a digital collage using other sketchbook images and came up with this ...I entered the Wraptious competition and a few people actually bought the design as a cushion so I think I might get some giclee prints made of it to add to my website shop. I entered 4 other designs too and voting has ended so fingers crossed, you never know.Believe it or not I spend more time thinking about writing than thinking about drawing or making things so it is worrying that I do very little of either! How on earth do people write books and have jobs or other people living with them?! In my head are some characters and some rambling stories and also some thoughts which won't quite arrange themselves into a Thing and instead there is bread to make or someone else words to read or more recently masks to make. I'm counting it as a small victory that this blog post has been completed during daylight and that I can now put the kettle on and tick this off my To Do list.Thank you so much for lending me your precious time and reading this. xReading : The Short Knife  by Elen Caldecott

This week has been a particularly odd one ( in good ways)  and I blame Jackie Morris. If you've been reading this blog for long enough you'll know that almost exactly 7 Novembers ago I spoke about discovering Jackie's work, whilst contemplating the universal imagery of  "the bear and the girl". My own "bear thing" was caused by a mix up in which I had my heart broken by a young bear-man who went to Canada, just after I'd based my entire final collection at University on bear related myths and legends. It was a weird time, including the worst winter for years, being snowbound in my beautiful cottage and subsisting on a diet of whisky, cigarettes and fruit cake. By the time I wrote that blog post I was starting to emerge from the forest and had begun to visit the Lake District with Rupert ( at which point I quickly realised it was unpleasant to climb hills with a hangover and downing neat rum before heading up Haystacks isn't advised)So, fast forward and somehow I'm living by these lakes and mountains, still dreaming of bears, still feeling a little lost in my new world, wondering who to be now that I'm grown-up, uprooted, finding myself, as if by magic, an occasional bookseller in the tiny treasure of a bookshop and then... who's coming in to sign books but Ms Morris (that's her pretending to be a snow leopard in the squeaky bookselling chair)Ok, to be fair its not all Jackie's fault. When I knew she was coming to Sam Read's and that I'd be working that day I had tried to work out when I'd first mentioned her work on this blog and of course that meant I trawled through the past and my net came up full of  pictures of "home" so my memory was jabbed  and I lay awake all night listening to the owls conversing on the window ledge and lived most of the lines from that Talking Heads song ..."this is not my beautiful life...how did I get here?" Anyway, Jackie and Robin arrived in the bookshop and we talked and drank coffee from Lucia's and ate the peculiar bear shaped biscuits that I'd made and I'm pretty sure I was completely uncool, like an overenthusiastic puppy (I am excited about so many things and it's a shame that shyness makes that feel awkward, I wish it was considered un-cool to be cool and that people could really feel free to express their joy without worrying that they appeared foolish and agonising about it afterwards). It was lovely to talk about art and nature, printing blocks, sketchbook paper, conkers, and the book "The Lost Words" ( a subject Rupert has often talked about as he returns from work sometimes with stories about children not knowing the names of trees, or animals, calling the lake a river or a pheasant a "ginger squirrel"!).We also talked about some pictures she'd posted on Twitter of a painted stone hidden in a tree and so today I set off on a quest because I was pretty sure I knew where it was.Even though I know being outside will lift my spirits and that walking is the best way to work through ideas and emotions, it is often the hardest thing for me to do. Actually motivating myself to leave the house can feel like wading through bread dough and yet, and yet...it never fails to work subtle magic, mood lifts and thoughts start to race. Today, because I wanted so much to find and photograph the stone I was not only inspired to get out but observing everything around me even more carefully. I had a mission, like arty geocashing, no wonder Masquerade caused such a stir.  The first sight of the lake made me gasp out loud, it was one of those perfect, oily mirror days that send you off balance and made me wish more than anything that I'd brought my swimming stuff. Viscous water, that's what it is; you can almost see the surface tension and imagine that it would hold you. I used all my Landscape Detective skills, learned in geography lessons where  we were given a photograph and an OS map and asked to pinpoint the view. I got it wrong and set off from the wrong side of the lake.I nearly gave up but then I worked it out and there, nestling in the crook of a branch was the golden treasure! Well hidden, not at all obvious if you weren't looking. I invented a quick spell, toasted with a flask of coffee, which will hopefully channel some of Jackie's skill and success into my own work via my "I am an artist" ring.  Well, you never know. Of course I replaced the stone, making sure no-one but the raven saw me, because I'd had such a lovely time searching that I hoped other people would too. Returning, I passed another tree that had had flowers and a plastic notice tied to it with red ribbon last time I'd walked this path. It was a memorial to a lost loved one and moving in it's own way but it made me think how many of us feel the need to leave these offerings and memorials and how fine the line is between honouring a place and damaging it. The red ribbon was all that remained on the tree, jarring in the soft winter light and what happened to the plastic? Jackie's stone was as natural as the tree it rested in and will weather and fade, if allowed to, but people who find it will feel a little joy at their discovery.On the way back to the car I lost my bearings and found a tiny creature on a wooden bench, another little treasure, on a path I would never otherwise have discovered. That sounds a little bit like life, so, now, by the stove (which needs another log) I'm trying to find the words to express this magical walk without straying into the sickly realm of motivational quotes and New Age, pseudo pagan bullshit but actually I'm not sure I can (talk about Lost Words eh) To me it feels as though it reinforced the fact that everything is connected , that getting lost can help you find what you really need and that the treasure you find, however tiny, is the reward for all the bad stuff.Look, this bear found treasure too...The kettle is about to boil and I have a parcel to carefully wrap as these two lamps are heading to new homes in the far North this week. I've added a custom order section to the website so it's now possible to easily commission your own bespoke lamp to light up your winter. I'm also entering the Wraptious competition which was a spur of the moment thing so I'm not all that worried, but you'll be able to vote and for a short time buy the designs on their website. It's worth looking because there are some beautiful designs by loads of different artists (I've voted for lots already). Until next time xReading : " The Keeper of Lost Things" Ruth Hogan    Listening to: " The Amber Spyglass" Phillip Pullman ( Audio Book) oh and this... "Tracking Treasure Down" Gabriel and Dresden ....my heart missed a beat, more memories and some kind of residual ecstatic rush.

Dark nights and solitude- apart from a sleeping cat and a humming wood stove- are just the right conditions for writing introspective blogs and getting lost in wandering tunnels of thought. I've had quite a few magical , seasonal experiences lately but it's funny how, sitting here wondering where to begin, things suddenly surface that I hadn't consciously dug up. It can take me ages to write a few lines because I keep half remembering things and looking back at old posts to see what I was thinking about in other Novembers, other nights by stoves; times when writing about my day seemed so trivial in the face of world events or the guilt/ frustration at being ok, but feeling not ok, made writing a personal blog seem self-indulgent (well so it is) and even embarrassing. This week there have been more shootings in Texas, half the world is discussing climate change in Bonn and the rest are chucking plastic into the oceans, forgetting that there is no such thing as "away". It's easy to be overwhelmed , stunned into silence and I'm feeling uncomfortable because what I wanted to write about was the water and the stars and and maybe even try to sell you some cards. I'm going to hold on to the naive idea that sharing some beautiful, joyful things somehow leaves a tiny bit less space for the evil, negative ones, I hope that's ok? Just for now while we keep looking for answers to the bigger things?My fuzzy picture and this superb one by James Kirby were taken on the last weekend in October when I dragged myself out of my nest, with a tin of warm-from- the- oven banana bread, to take part in a Halloween swim in Derwent Water organised by Suzanna Cruikshank . I didn't know anyone taking part, I only knew Suzanna in the virtual world, it was cold and I'm shy but it was more than worth the effort. The jetty at Ashness was all decorated with fairy lights and tow floats with torches inside so it glowed beautifully as the light faded and we shivered in to our wetsuits . When it was really dark and everyone was ready we tiptoed in to the black water with our illuminated floats and glow sticks and swam out into smooth icy water. In the photographs there seems to be a woman with my colour hair and many, many chins, looking like an overstuffed inner tube but I have no idea who she was, I was too busy drifting in the dark being a polar bear or maybe a water spirit.  The Great Bear in the sky above us and the half moon in the trees towards Watendlath were the perfect finishing touches. I thought I'd be scared, too cold to use my hands or unable to keep up but the whole experience was quite gentle and atmospheric- much easier to forget about the DEEP and possible (probable) monsters, when you're in the dark, quietly chatting to someone in full halloween makeup and a miniature top hat. I had such a good time and though I will never recognise the people I shared that experience with again ( face paint/pitch dark/ brain freeze)  I don't think any of us will forget it. I suppose in its own way it was a kind of virtual reality chat room and joking aside there is something almost spiritual about being in those elements, in the dark - celebrating the change of seasons, and the beginning of winter.Yesterday after 4 days of migraine ( not connected to the swim) and wondering if I might die in the night and be eaten by the cat, I stumbled up the lane to stand in the beck hoping the cold would do something to shift the headache- I think it did a bit but it might have been all the pills. Migraines really are peculiar things ( I've had cravings for cinnamon lately as well as Brinjal pickle sandwiches- symptom or cause?)  and the moment when you realise it's leaving is such a relief that there is an almost manic burst of energy. I walked around the valley, being shouted at by a territorial wren who followed me for ages, hopping along the drystone wall beside the path. My camera ran out of batteries so I just stood and looked at all the fields striped and cross hatched with long diagonal shadows, the low sun painting the fells orange and sending all the craggy bits into high contrast, like an over edited Instagram filter. How to capture that in words or paint or pixels? I certainly don't have the skills. Anyway, it felt amazing to be alive again so I made cards, lined cupboards doors with recipes from the Guardian, sawed some wood, wrote letters and listened to Northern Lights and the Book of Dust until late in to the night.I'm pleased with the cards, they come in little boxes of 10 and are wintery rather than christmassy so hopefully much more versatile - I like cards that make you want to keep them, use them as bookmarks or tie them up in with ribbon in a box of secrets, not the sort chosen in haste and sent out of duty, just to be recycled in January. You can find these in the card section of my website.I've been to post orders today ( including this handsome owl)  and changed my third wheel in just over a week. I think my car is testing my self reliance by waiting until Rupert is in Nepal before getting a puncture in 3 out of 4 tyres. It's made me realise how important it is to know how to do these things and my blue curses and fury today were tempered by a little smug self confidence in my own abilities. Anyway, the novelty of my new skill has worn off now so unless F1 want give me a pit stop job I'll be very happy never to have to change a wheel again thank you.It's been a rambling, mash up of a blog post and I don't blame you if you left to put the kettle on hours ago. I think I have in mind the fact that 10years is a long time to be sending these musings out in to the world and the way I feel about it has changed, does change... ten Novembers, it's not surprising really.Enjoy November, its brittle days and long nights- time to read and listen and dream.Reading : Hag -Seed - Margaret Atwood   Listening to : The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman