Coffee and sketching in Shrewsbury

In a message to someone the other week, I wrote that I felt as if I was waking up from a twelve year long nightmare (or words to that effect). I am slowly coming back to some kind of version of who I was before losing Andy, not only allowing myself to do things I used to love, but also recovering the capacity to actually take pleasure in them again.  Listening to beloved music that has previously been too painful to listen to, looking at favourite art books again, taking time to draw just for myself and generally doing a lot of self-care that for many years I didn't think I deserved. Living with chronically bad mental health and depression - which I've had since I was a teenager - is an insidious condition; often you don't know how bad things are until you begin to come out of it. 

I made such huge strides when we lived back in the Cotswolds, in our dear, tiny rented cottage from where I wrote so many posts for this blog. I remember waking up some mornings and feeling strange (in a good way) and realising that it was because I felt truly happy and content for the first time in my life. Then Andy and I made the decision to move to Shropshire and that feeling was ripped from both of us almost from the first week of being here, with the awful knowledge that the situation was entirely self inflicted. I will never find that kind of happiness again, but I am finally finding my own peace and my work as an artist is beginning to flourish again after more than a decade's hiatus.

After my lovely time out at the Stiperstones the other week, I had another nice outing when a neighbour organised a sketching morning at the Bird's Nest Café in Shrewsbury, also driving me there and back as there is no regular bus service here. I knew nearly all of the other attending artists through Instagram and it was lovely to put faces to names and chat - mostly about art, which I've missed. I was very lazy and stayed at the table, drawing three different coloured coffee cups. Again (as with the Stiperstones lichens) I had fun just playing about with colours and mark making, without worrying too much about the result. Consequently the result is  rough and ready, but fairly pleasing.