Flaming June has arrived in Cumbria, complete with snow covered tents on Blencathra and me wearing three jumpers as I write. I'm looking out at the newly emerged greenery ... yellow Welsh poppies, soft, half spiraled ferns , nettles and bluebells leaning almost flat; as the wind races down the valley the end of the house is the first obstacle on its way down from the mountains. In a small shelter sits a mother hen and two tiny chicks... I've had to put them in isolation because there was some dispute about maternity rights with three dozy bantams sitting on the eggs until they hatched. Now it's fingers crossed that the stoat prefers eggs to chicks....I'm all alone again after a week of adventures; settling down to make a plan for next year's BCTF and working out if I can use any of the doodles and splodges I've been doing recently. If you follow me on Facebook you'll know that I had some silk printed and have been doing battle with a new rolled hemming foot to try and make silk scarves... much much more practice needed but what I'm hoping for is that eventually, 7 years after leaving college, I will be able to come up with a product that provides me with a methodical pattern to the day... something that is both financially worthwhile, creatively satisfying and stops me spending long parts of the day feeling directionless and self indulgent. Too much to ask?!I've been enjoying playing with watercolour, ink and a little digital magic and was so excited to receive a special parcel from my dad last week which contained a little tube of "Caput Mortuum Violet" watercolour... following our musings on the colour of the fells a few weeks ago... now I just have to learn how to use it. Every day here in the Lake District I'm bombarded with little moments of wonder... the perfect colour palette of moss, violet and rock next to a waterfall, the grey Herdwicks looking like swiss army blankets with their red dye markings. Who cares if it's a bit damp and chilly ( actually this waterfall picture was taken on a very sunny day last week and I'm still itching from the sunburn).Yesterday we walked around Rannerdale where we spotted many wild creatures amongst the bluebells  ( mostly photographers rolling around in the blue looking for the perfect "capture") The previous day I had re-enacted a scene from Rogue Herries where the old witch is drowned below Grange Bridge... Canoeing from Rosthwaite to Keswick I tipped our boat over while trying to avoid being smacked in the face by a branch just near the bridge. I've never fallen in a river before and I'm not the bravest of swimmers so I'm actually feeling quite surprised today that I'm still here ( I floated so what does that mean.... )Another adventure involved clambering ( my particular style of mountain activity... a cross between climbing, rambling and scrambling) up High Crag above Buttermere. Eating a sandwich perched high up in the rocks and emerging on to the summit like the first men on the moon. I'm throwing myself in to this new place while the daily battle against homesickness continues. In the end I didn't take part in Art In the Shed for the first time in 5 years because I couldn't face going back. Its easier to pretend this is an island and I'm not too great at water crossings!Now, I'm going to research mugs and cards and how to roll corners on silk with loads of thanks to Emma from Temporary Measure who is  a mine of information and helpfulness as usual. This bear and his friend appeared one day after watching the umbrellas in the street when I was at work in the gallery.Reading: I just finished " The Gracekeepers" by Kirsty Logan ... read it, its perfect. Currently indulging myself with my new copy of "Oh Comely" and the lovely box subscription which included the bottle of drizzle shown above"Listening to:  Elbow " Asleep in the Back" , Real World 25 and John Metcalf "Kites and Echoes" ( which has a William Tillyer etching on the cover)

Let me begin by apologising to all you lovely, loyal blog subscribers who got a wordless, randomly titled version last time ( I panicked and pressed the wrong button which is why I'm not in charge of anything important) . Anyway some recent events made me think wordless was the way forward ...but maybe more of that later.I uploaded the images for this post last Thursday just after I had been to vote in the most scenic polling station in the country; the sun was shining and it felt exciting and optimistic. The fact that it's rained ever since says it all really but I'm not going to rant on about politics because last week some lovely things happened too and they are things which make the world seem a kinder, more generous and caring place than the cold hearted, money orientated one we seem to be living in day to day.The first thing was a surprise parcel from my virtual friends in the Big Forest, Benjamin and Michael. I've never met them in the real world but I've loved their bears for a few years now and Benjamin has been so helpful with advice on Etsy selling, as well as being a great promoter of other people's work on his Facebook page. I had to drive in to Keswick to collect the mystery box which turned out to contain this little chap ( as well as a card and "woodsman " brooch which I have been wearing on my jumper) ...So after work and voting we skipped off up the hill to look at the view and chat to the sheep about EU farming policies and the joys of mountain landscapes. I'm not sure but I think the sheep was hoping for a different election result too.So the other good thing that happened was that the divine trinity of Facebook-Etsy-Twitter actually worked for me for the first time ever and a polar bear I'd been struggling to finish ( his feet just wouldn't behave) and eventually managed to list in my shop, sold before I could even close the page! I wish everything would work so smoothly as it would make the whole process of making so much more satisfying and meaningful...I mean, I love making things but when you have a cupboard full of unsold sheep and bears shouting to get out it can make you think it might be better and more useful to do the hoovering instead.Well its nearly time to go, I am preparing things for Art in The Shed again... Jane Thorniley-Walker's  annual fundraiser for Street Child Africa. It will be the first time back in North Yorkshire since the eviction and while I'm looking forward to the exhibition and seeing friends and family again I'm worried that it will be upsetting.I recently found out that my totally unfair eviction and my writing a blog post about it, had directly lead to a close family member being refused a tenancy by another landowner in the North York Moors ... because they didn't want "that type of person" living there. Excuse me? What type of person? A family who lived, worked and loved their home and did nothing wrong?At first I felt devastated by the news, delivered rather tactlessly, and questioned whether I should ever write from the heart again. I felt guilty and dismayed by the way my plight and my words about it had been misrepresented. After much soul searching my fury at fat cat landlords and bigotted cronyism amongst some very unpleasant people, won over and I will not be silenced like a guilty secret.I told this crowd and they totally agreed...never be afraid to speak out against meanness and unfairness wherever you find it.(These alpacas are part of Alpacaly ever after's "woolly army" and they are celebrating because they got their Kickstarter project funded, hurray! I was feeding them last week while their proper parents were away at a fair (selling stuff not going on the waltzers) and I want to thank them all for not savaging me and for helping me feel a bit more Cumbrian)Finally (because I haven't even got space to describe PrintFest, meeting more artists at the Northern Lights Gallery, battling with stoats or admiring bluebells)  if you're in London, my dad's exhibition continues until the end of the month at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery on Duke Street ( near Fortnums) Here is a Lake District watercolour from a few years back...Reading:- The Fortress by Hugh Walpole ( god its a long book!) Listening To:- London Grammar "Wasting My Young Years"

Goodness, I nearly sent this post off to you with no words. I pressed the publish button instead of preview because I've been on so many adventures since I last wrote that I was struggling to put them in order. Perhaps the pictures don't need words... maybe you can imagine how it feels to be on top of a mountain watching a snow shower sneak around the corner like a curtain being drawn across a sunlit window? It was my birthday last week and the weather was so hot we began to think about shorts and ice creams and passed people heading back from Buttermere wearing swimming costumes, but by Sunday it was back to winter again. Twenty minutes after the first photograph was taken I was standing on top of the world (Dale Head) at this cloud factory having walked through a shower of the most perfect star shaped snow flakes ( like the bits in Lucky Charms breakfast cereal).So I sit here writing with a head full of images and ideas and wishing I could be settle to something meaningful instead of making smiley sheep from the wool I find on fence posts!. Yesterday I visited the Castlegate Gallery in Cockermouth and found out more about an artist called Percy Kelly whose paintings of little white houses and Cumbrian scenes really inspired me. Kelly used to write letters full of illustrations and a book about him called " The Man Who Couldn't Stop Drawing" is next on my wish list. In another strange twist of fate I opened the book right on a page showing a painting of Newlands Valley looking up towards this house... there was a quote which was something about the colours in the landscape and how exhausting it is for an artist to be constantly looking and looking; I wish I could remember exactly what he said.I will never be a painter but I do look and notice and want so badly to be able to express it all somehow. I've spent plenty of time wondering exactly what colour those purple-grey- brown mountain tops are, so it was rather wonderful when my dad ( a real painter ) wondered the same thing as we walked up the valley in blazing sunshine, last week. Apparently Pip Seymour the paint maker would know.And so, with many adventures untold and being a whole year older ( nearly eligible for a whole new category of vitamin supplements ) I will leave you with this small white cottage ... a digitally manipulated drawing that I made last week. I'm going to try and do some more drawing and get some stuff together for this years Art in the Shed in Osmotherley on the second Bank Holiday in May. As usual Jane Thorniley-Walker is hosting this charity exhibition (and excuse to eat a lot of cake) in aid of Street Child Africa.Which do you prefer?