Sonder and the Little Companions.

The sun reappeared last Thursday and after braving the madness of market day Keswick in the Easter holidays I came home and trudged up the valley to lie down on the footbridge for a think. Lying on my back, on the sun warmed wood and looking straight up at the sky, the fells seemed to lean over me in a dizzying way that confused my phone into auto rotating the photograph I took ( the one below). I was only slightly worried that the more serious, less horizontal walkers on the tops would assume I had collapsed; more concerned that vertigo would send me rolling off into the water. I basked in the sunshine feeling a little like I was looking down on the ravens who were flying aileron loops and barrel rolls, apparently just for the joy of it. Perhaps one of those walkers will will read this and be able to stop worrying; my last post was a lesson in never assuming total anonymity or invisibility just because I feel alone - one of those runners I described passing me as I wrote, turned out to be the lovely Hester Cox. We actually know each other a little and I love her work, but the unlikely setting/circumstances for a meeting had made us doubt our own eyesight! I like things like that, I like connections and co-incidences, random meetings and making links.

sonder

Anyway, I was happy to be outside with the sun in my face. After an endless winter I'd started to doubt my love of the fells and their ability to provide any kind of solace. I had a lot of thinking to do and it's easier to think near water don't you find? I was meant to be contemplating ten years of Witchmountain, ten years since getting my fabulous degree and this blog post was supposed to be all fanfares and party hats but, well of course this is real life. I ended up doing a trawl though 10 years of blog posts for entirely different reasons. Here she is, the Queen of the Mountains, the last of the Westwood Studio kittens (my parent's farm), the end of a long line of familiars, the "bloody cat", the muse for Rupert's silly songs, she of the impossibly untouchable, temptingly fluffy tummy and lethal claws, the last of my Snilesworth companions... now only the imaginary bear is left.The house is quiet today, I keep hearing the ghost of a bell but for the first time in my life I have no animal company. Hey ho Toast, happy hunting; I'm glad the sun shone on your last day.Goodness! Are you still with me? I'm pretty conflicted about tragic pet posts -there is so much love, so very much, but I couldn't help feeling how lucky she was to be able to leave peacefully, with dignity and without pain. As soon as we returned from the vets a bird landed on the windscreen and wouldn't leave, Pied Wagtail, Polly-Wash-Dish, silly bird. Without voicing it at the time we both had the same thought, a transmigration of souls perhaps.


So...It's April 2018! Two exciting things are going on at the moment, the first is this...The Folklore exhibition opened in Bristol on Friday evening and it looked like a great night, very well attended. The images are all fascinating with such a diverse selection of artists and folk tales from around the world. It was something of an honour to be included in this curated show. It continues until April 18th and I think someone should turn it into book because I'd love to read more about the stories and why the artists chose them, their working practises and so on. Any publishers out there?The second super exciting thing is that I got asked to provide images for two poetry pamphlets due for publication in May. Polly Atkin, from Grasmere, has been been so good to me since I first met her online around the time I moved the Lakes. Her poems have at times wrung deeply suppressed tears from me and on a more practical note she once leant me her swimming costume for an impromptu dip in Grasmere so I'm stupidly happy that one of my cyanotypes will be gracing the cover of her latest pamphlet. The two are published by New Walk Editions  and will be launched on 22 May at Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham. More of that strange connectedness of life as my dad is just about to launch the project he has been working on with poet Alice Oswald. The exhibition of their watercolour and poetry collaboration opens in London on April 26th .Now the day is slipping past and I forgot to eat lunch so I will save my ramblings about the past 10 years and the joys of trying to make this creative life pay its way until next time when there will also be news of a prize draw and other such sweeteners. Thank you so much for reading.Here's that cat again...an old embroidery sample from about 2009 that proves at least that my photography has improved slightly in the intervening years.Reading: I just finished a proof copy of "The Psychology of Time Travel" by Kate Mascarenhas, out in August.  Watching and thinking about ...[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoML0_FiV4&w=560&h=315]    SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Different Hills, Another Spring.

I'm sitting outside wrapped in assorted layers because today is the first day of British Summer Time, the sun has been shining bravely, the birds are singing love songs and it's (slightly) warmer outside than in. With my slippered feet on the table and coffee mug balanced carefully on the bench beside me I can look over towards Maiden Moor and Catbells where groups of stick figures are silhouetted on the summits; a pair fell runners just puffed past and as usual I feel slightly guilty for being still and apparently idol. With all this Spring going on it's hard to believe that just a week ago I was in Narnia, well Bristol. I travelled down by train and experienced the weird, dreamlike dislocation of hurtling through blizzards, the train tilting and banking like a fighter plane, through the occasionally looming Howgills, and eventually arriving in a city blanketed in white. City snow is not something I've experienced, not since a childhood winter in Providence, and it felt very surreal to be wandering deserted streets at 2am, following fox tracks and skittering about pretending to be a horse (this last means my phone is now smashed and held together with sellotape).The rare treasure of three days with BOTH my children was made even more special by the peculiar, cocooning weather. The highlight (apart from snack suppers by the fire, snuggled up watching Paddington films) was a hair-raising drive to Glastonbury on the eve of the Vernal Equinox, where we had hoped to fly Jake's drone for some exciting aerial photography. It was unbelievably cold though and so windy that flying was impossible so we just walked and talked and looked across the Vale of Avalon and wondered what it would be like to actually live there. A town so full of  crystal shops, vegan cafes and people wearing rainbow jumpers that it's almost a parody of itself. It's easy to be cynical and laugh at all the serious New Age types but I suddenly felt very much aware of a road not taken, or at least veered off in my 30s, and wondered if it wouldn't be a more forgiving place to face life, particularly older age as a "crone", than the Lakes with all it's obsessive running, cycling and extreme swimming. I'm still a hippy at heart and there is something comforting about knowing places like that exist,  that not not everyone over 50 has to wear beige Goretex, run 10k before breakfast and stop playing horses. As Louise Chatfield  commented, on Twitter, it seems at least like a place that is non judgemental or about putting people in boxes. I can't wait to return.Back in the North I discovered (on #WorldWaterDay of course)  the the water had gone wrong again- this time either overflowing like Aira Force on to the doorstep or gone completely and I'm not going to deny that I feel at rock bottom, sorely tempted by some of the more outlandish forms of self-help therapies spotted in the Glastonbury Oracle. Unicorn interactions perhaps or a spot of Puppet Therapy; failing that a new umbrella so that the door step is easier to navigate! I love you Lake District but my patience is being tried.Again I am pondering Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs particularly in relation to creativity - there are many exceptions of course and some would argue that strife feeds creativity but I do find it hard to justify drawing bears when I probably ought to be finding a more reliable way to help earn enough to meet the first level of the pyramid! Luckily I came home to a few welcome orders for wooden bears which ticks some issues in the "Esteem" box. I want to make more of these wooden pieces, perhaps a hare or a leaping fox... but so far this one has worked by far the best. I got some lovely new silk cords yesterday so he now comes with either a dark red or blue cord (or silver snake chain).When I was in Bristol we had a look in Hamilton House where the Folklore exhibition organised by Gordy Wright opens next month. It's a great place with loads of events, exhibitions and studios - what a dream it would have been to have something similar here in the old Cumberland Pencil Factory. Anyway, I've been working on a couple of illustrations and hopefully one will be getting printed and included in the exhibition... which one though ?I've drawn myself a little hut by a lake and maybe if there is still magic in the universe and all that positive visualisation thing works it will one day be possible to find the illusive "Home" a place to belong, to build a garden again.Meanwhile here is some proof of Spring, slowly unfurling .( this time last year the pink blossom was already in full bloom and the white almost over)Reading: A Line Made by Walking -  Sara Baume. Listening to : The Hazel Wood - Melissa Albert  and Spiro who make the perfect music for swooping along Lake District roads pretending you're in a film to.SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Wildlife, Water and Work in Progress

 A little over a fortnight since my last blog post and I'm sitting quietly by the stove trying to work out if it's even possible to coherently share some of the ridiculous things that have happened lately and where to start. This is where being a proper writer would help... or if only I'd taken pictures as proof. Well you'll just have to imagine if you can:-  the aftermath of the snowstorms, the heating oil arrived at last, the cupboards restocked with Marmite and bread flour and all is as it should be; except that as the snow melted and spring seemed to be arriving, the water went off. Much of the country had similar problems including Jackie Morris and the designer/shepherdess  Alison O'Neil who both endured similar lengths of time with no running water (and electricity in Alison's case). For 8 days, while waiting for the plumber, we wrestled with the ancient pump (the water comes up from a spring near the beck and it had frozen) and the horrible tanks in the attic; lugging buckets up from the beck for toilet flushing and wrecking my plastic free intentions by buying gallons of bottled water. It was horrible, one trip to the beck was enough for me, I ached all over and the romance of rural life was hard to see. It shouldn't have taken so long to fix but the house is old and crumbling and the whole experience was incredibly stressful, dredging up memories of the last days at Snilesworth and making me militant about the absolute priority that should be given to making sure people all over the world have proper access to clean drinking water and sanitation. We take water for granted, especially in the Lake District and hardly ever stop to think how amazingly lucky we are. Water Aid do great work in this area, as I've mentioned before,  so maybe I'll ask my landlords to make a big donation!As a side issue we discovered that there was a monster living in the attic. We'd heard him moving his furniture around in the night but whilst battling with water tanks and  float switches in the terrifying attic, Rupert found the "droppings" of something evidently much larger than a mouse. Thankfully not rats, my friends assured me, but more weirdly ... weasels or stoats. Really?! I haven't been able to eat from the stoat plate since all our chickens got murdered when we moved here and now it seem the culprits live upstairs!This house is connected to the old cottage next door, so we had a bit of sorting out to do in there too ( burst pipes, Aga issues etc) once the water was back on and I decided to put some of our washing up in their dishwasher since we don't have one. The cottage is dark and slightly haunted, having been empty for a while, but I'm never too worried, even when I realised that the front door was ajar when I went in to collect my pots in the evening- I probably didn't close it properly. In the back kitchen, loading my tray I heard a very strange noise and realised I wasn't alone. Shuffling , scratching, banging sounds that were obviously a brutal burglar nicking the collection of Beatrix Potter figurines, came from the front room and I prepared to meet my doom armed with some crockery. Creeping round the corner I came face to face with a tawny owl who was jumping up and down on the windowsill trying to get out. As I write I can hear the owls, they call constantly even in daylight and I love them but not upset ones in a confined space. As I edged forward to try and open the door the owl swooped silently into the other room and eyed me from the top of a wooden screen before hurling itself into the mirror over the mantlepiece, scattering trinkets and old photographs.We played this game for half an hour- I considered taking photos and wish I had now but I just wanted to set it free without getting it's talons stuck in me. Eventually the poor thing was so fed up of flying at the window that I managed to catch it (wearing an enormous pair of gauntlets that were lying  around- it's that kind of place) and set her down on the gatepost outside, part of me wanting desperately to keep her. Away she flew, without a sound or a backward glance leaving me to recover from the shock. How did she get in, walking through the half open door or falling out of the attic after the plumber left a hatch open? Summoned by too many owl drawings and not enough flowers?I feels though I've waffled on enough now, you probably had to be there, but anyway, it sets a scene. I live in a very odd place and I think if it weren't for my precious, occasional bookshop days, I would be going a little bit crazy by now. It's important to have a bit of human interaction and lately that has felt more important than ever.When not fetching water or wrangling owls I've been drawing swans, preparing to send an image or two down for an exhibition in Bristol next month and being inspired by a folk tale based in Grasmere called the Hunchback and the Swan by Taffy Thomas , a local storyteller. I've just found this wonderful animation by Dotty Kultys based on the story today  [vimeo 197521074 w=640 h=360]Isn't it great and the music too! Now I need to keep drawing because I have lots of ideas but they're not popping out how I want them too yet. Here is my swan, the Lady of the Lake.Until next time. xReading: "A Line Made by Walking" Sara Baum  Listening to : " TheBedlam Stacks" by Natasha Pulley ( audio book)SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave