Out, about & inside

I love this time of year - everything goes back to normal and my world can putter on, but with a whole shiny new year to get things done in. We don't really go in for Christmas - Andy has to work (even on Boxing Day this year) and I prefer to work - but we took a couple of days off at New Year and drove out and about in the comfort of The Wheels. Had a quiet lunch at the Farmer's Arms, a great family pub in Guiting Power.

It is a rare thing in the upmarket Cotswolds - a normal, nice pub with a comfy atmosphere. No posh gastro-anything, no minor celeb chef serving pickled pheasant with pineapple. We like it. And it serves great local Donnington beer - for me the passenger that is, the driver had a nice ginger beer. (A tip for tourists in the Cotswolds looking for a traditional pub - find a Donnington Brewery one, all the ones we have been to are excellent)

It's all a bit dull, blustery and rainy here at the moment, so I have been driven around and parked about, so that I could do some (very) rubbishy landscape sketching. Snowshill is a favourite area for big fields and lowering skies.

Despite the gloom, the landscape is still stunning, especially over the Wiltshire Pewsey Downs. Sweeping and mystically atmospheric in all weathers, even on a murky day.

My favourite clump of trees; I can see it from all angles on our summer circular walk.

Spot the Wiltshire White Horse winter sleeping on the hillside.

Silbury Hill manages to camouflage itself very snugly into the surrounding countryside. To get an idea of how big this amazing prehistoric man-made mound is, the tiny little light to the middle left is a car headlight, on the road which runs past it.

As is tradition, I had a big studio tidy, ready for the new year. I have another full order sheet and am ploughing my way through a big list which includes some very remorseful and late emails to friends around the world and explaining why I didn't do a Christmas card this year. I don't deserve you, I really don't.

Updating my website is proving to be several days worth of work in itself; I'd rather be needle felting, but I can't punt for new illustration work without a decent website. Oh dear me, it is a very dull job indeed. By the way, a little tip; if you are like me and have several piles of *stuff* taking up floor space, simply amalgamate them into taller piles! I am quietly proud of this flash of genius.

What isn't dull at all is organising my first needle felting workshop which is happening later this month - two days of private tuition down in Bath with nine people. I have never been to Bath before, so it will be a very big adventure.

I like to ride my Bicycle...

Our village green this morning

My x-rays are clear. I am disgustingly, bouncingly, 100% fit and healthy. If I were a cat, my nose would be wet. But still, I am compelled to lose some poundage. My weight gain has not been accumulated by gluttony or unwholesome foods; I am the annoying kind of person who can (and does) keep a Lindt chocolate bar in their desk drawer and eat a couple of squares a week. I enjoy oatcakes and unsweetened muesli and feel no temptation towards cakes or snacks. No, my pounds have built up from the unbelievable hardship of having my studio next door to the bedroom, which I enter first thing in the morning and (previously) did not leave except to do the odd walk or pop-to-the-shop. Thankfully, being 6ft tall, it doesn't really show, but the scales do not lie. So, for the first time since I was fifteen, I am taking daily exercise. I have lost half a stone and am feeling bizarrely fit - my skin is almost glowing and my cheek bones are cautiously emerging. Even Andy has noticed, and when your long term partner notices change, it must be change.

One of my favourite lanes

At eight am in the morning there are few places I would rather be than on one of my regular circulars; a seven mile round trip to buy the Saturday 'Times'. It's downhill and uphill and gets my cardio-vascular thing-a-me-jigs going nicely. The roads are fairly quiet, as most people are indulging in a weekend lie-in, so I cycle in blissful solitude.

We are enjoying a golden end to summer and the fields glow warmly with browns and golds. The occasional leaf drifts through the sunlight and through gaps in the hedgerow I glimpse church spires poking up from the landscape, the countryman's map markers.

I take a detour to one of the prettiest villages in our area, and visit the little shop. As well as my paper, I pick up burgers from Foxbury Farm, cottage rolls from a Gloucestershire bakery and cheese. The cheese - Crudges - is new to me and is one of the few to be produced in Oxfordshire from locally sourced Jersey milk. If you weren't tempted by it's provenance, then the blurb on the label would utterly win you over;


"Now made with raw milk for a fuller flavour, Haddon Gold is smooth and has a buttery taste derived from the rolling organic meadows of Hutton Grange Farm, Great Rollright. Meadow Fescue, Cocksfoot, Timothy, buttercups and dandelions, all gently swaying in the breeze, amidst the dappled shade of Horse Chestnut trees and the gentle sound of rumination from these beautiful Jersey cows."

Mr Crudge - for, unlike our favourite cake-baker, Mr Kipling, he really does exist - is a locally born farmer. For those of you who take an interest in such things, he rents his premises from ex-Blur member and newly-turned country boy Alex James. And if you are thinking that cheese is an odd thing for someone losing weight to be putting in their shopping basket - all things in moderation.

My aching knees have lost their stiffness and I almost whizz back along the narrow, straight lane and through the side of the woods, calling out a cheery hello to the drowsy herd of Dexter cattle. The sun is getting up and crickets are chirping in the dried grasses. People begin to emerge in their cars and it is time for me to be home.

There are, after worse ways to shed a few pounds.

Butterflies & Summer showers

My walks and cycling have been curtailed for some weeks, thanks to something I did to my ankle (not sure what but it stopped me going anywhere far) which took forever to get better and then getting a nasty little cold. But yesterday, after days of patchy rain, the sun shone and we went across the border to one of our favourite circuits. We had the usual quiet adventures which make us happy; ogling an empty (and gorgeous) old stone house and imagining what we would do with if it were ours...spotting fat brown trout in the crystal clear waters of a stream...finding a Victorian bottle bank on someone's land, naughtily trespassing to investigate and the ensuing disappointment of discovering it all broken.

However, these little joys were eclipsed by the proliferation of butterflies, enjoying the muggy heat. This estate leaves strips of 'scrub' for wildlife and they are havens for once common species, now sadly not-so-common. I haven't seen so many butterflies in one place for a long time, and set about 'catching' them - in the nicest possible way.

PAINTED LADY

RINGLET

SMALL TORTOISESHELL

PEACOCK

CLUMSY IMITATION

Today I was not so lucky with the weather. It was nice enough, when my trusty/rusty old bike, Hercules and I set off for a quick jaunt round the lanes.

We are so close to the county border that I can switch in and out of Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire within a few miles of cycling. By the time I was in Gloucestershire, the monstrous dark clouds which had been glooming behind me, finally caught up and the skies opened. Not much to do except keep pedalling. The clouds chased me all the way back into Oxfordshire.

Despite being soaked through, I still enjoyed the contrast of the brightly lit landscape against dark skies. By the time I was nearing the woods, there was a bit of thunder and lightning thrown in, for extra excitement.

Had to get off to walk round these puddles. The holey tree on the right is what we call the 'hornet tree' - where we once watched the goings on of busy hornets, and a couple of years later found the remnants of honeycomb which had dropped down the trunk.

Drenched as I was, I felt a pang of sympathy for the farmer trying to cut his hay; like me he must have started when the sun was out, and like me, he'd been caught out.




The wind decided to get up, and if anything, the rain came down even harder. I cycled the last couple of miles home soaked to the skin and water almost blinding my eyes.

Naturally, by the time I was back in the village, it had stopped.

Lowbrow but not witless

These young swallows were watching their parents hunt insects over the green barley fields. They seem quite grown up, sat demurely on the wire. But whenever the grownups passed by with a mouth full of food -




They started squawking and screaming, demanding to be fed - even though they are quite capable of catching their own. Seconds later they flew off, as a sweaty, panting runner thumped past without a word of apology. I dedicate this little insight into teenage behaviour to all my friends who are having problems with their own fledglings.

The book purge is done. Nothing valuable or beautiful was sent away, certainly not the nature books that people were worried about! Only piles of tatty paperbacks and unwanted reference books. I've been lugging many of these around since I was a teenager and I have either grown out of them (various fantasy, sci-fi and horror), got bored of, know I will never read because they are dull or unfathomable to me (Virgina Woolf, Edmund Crispin, William Blake, Stevie Smith) or already have at least one copy of (more than you'd think, I have so many books I do often forget what I've got). Some authors simply irritate the pants off me or I only like certain of their titles. So I kept the brilliant 'IT' by Stephen King and culled one of his less accomplished efforts. I read Uncle Tom's Cabin twice in my youth, and will never read it again, worthy though it is. There are titles here I have no idea why I picked them up...knowing that I am not the only book nerd, I have left these photos at large size. There are some of Andy's in there too (no, I have never had an interest in boxing).




I confess without a shred of shame to having a pretty pulpy taste in fiction. As a rule I don't like modern fiction unless it is crime or some kind of Da Vinci code genre. Except Jilly Cooper and Phil Rickman, my two favourite authors and both sneered at by the literary elite. Anything which vaguely taxes my brain or emotions is a no-no. I read for pure escapism, and nowadays I read very rarely, as I don't have the time. Just five minutes before I fall asleep. So, from the under-the-stair piles of not-very-worthy titles, these were kept; some fantasy and horror which still passes muster, most of my crime collection. Old Penguins, even if the titles are obscure and we will never read them. Because they are objects of beauty. (Which is another reason why I pick up some old books, simply for the cover). A few of the less smug Aga-sagas. The only Virginia Andrews ('My Sweet Audrina') I still like to read (see, I did say I had pretty low brow taste...) My childhood copies of James Herriot.

I've done all the Jane Austens, years ago and enjoyed them, but it wouldn't matter to me if I never read her again. Shakespeare eludes me, and yes, I've tried. I do like Kafka, H.E Bates, L.P Hartley, E.F. Benson and Dumas. I adore Henry Williamson and Elizabeth Goudge. Am very picky about poetry; Dylan Thomas, James Reeves, Edith Sitwell, poor John Clare, Ted Hughes - his nature poems - Gerard Manley Hopkins. But those poets I do like, I love without reserve. Thinking about the eclectic jumble of the thousands of books I have stashed away, I realise that am a literary magpie, and as indiscriminate in my tastes as one. I would probably pick the tin foil cap over the gold ring any day; after all, they are both sparkly.

It is quite remarkable how happy we are now that we have decided to stay here - and the realisation that if we had somehow managed to move, we would probably have regretted it forever. While the weather is glorious and the evenings so light, we have taken to dusky walks round the fields, marvelling anew at the tranquil beauty of our patch. Bats buzzed us, and as we returned past the church, we surprised old Mother Toad lumbering up the pavement.

The poor dear made a hasty, if undignified retreat - mind how you go, mother!

For most of my life - since I was twelve - I aimed to move back to Devon. But as Andy gently pointed out, Devon in 1978, when I lived there and my parents were alive, is not the same as Devon now. Nor will moving there bring them back. In truth, I was wondering how I could bear to leave this little Cotswold sanctuary which has become home. Now that we are staying I feel an immense sense of relief that we have found some kind of contentment and had the wit to realise what we have before we left it behind.

Can you see the sickle Moon?

Bottoms up!

Apologies for the scary picture. What you are witnessing is my time honoured tradition of getting down on my knees to sniff the first primroses of spring. For it is spring, at last; even more welcome after such a long old winter.





There is a faint green fuzz covering the Cotswolds, as dead-looking wood tentatively sends out the first shoots.




Lambs are gambolling as only lambs do - some of them so new, so fragile, that they get a bit wobbly and have to lie down for a little power nap. Or stop for a snack.




So far the woods are promising many things: fat bluebell spears thrusting through the old autumn leaves, like a thousand tiny armies and honeysuckle gauzily draped round the silver birches. But only the primroses have emerged to smile at us. At times, the air is almost, dare I say it, warm. Now there's something to stick your bottom in the air about!

A weekend off

This one's for me

I seem to have suddenly acquired a quantity of work, through private commissions and a rather large trade order. All of these have 'CONFIDENTIAL' stamped across them, in big red letters, but suffice to say that I have been stabbing away with my hot little felting needle every day for about 8 hours in the studio and then some more in front of the evening television (else Andy wouldn't see me at all...) In fact, I have been in danger of overdoing it, as Friday night found my wrist quite strained and painful, so I had a weekend of enforced rest. Which gave me a chance to make a list of things I haven't had time to do and must do before the world falls apart.

Updating accounts
E-mailing neglected friends and contacts
Tidying studio
Making marmalade
Putting together trade card order
Order more glass eyes
Ditto logo ribbons
Make lemon drizzzle cake for cake starved partner

I got some of these done. Studio is now tidy-ish, accounts and emails dealt with, big, buttery, lemony cake baked and nearly vanished. But by Sunday I needed to get out, so we took the bike across to our favourite part of round-here and I cobbled together a little film of it.

In anticipation;

1) This contains some footage shot from a moving bike, so if you get motion sickness or suchlike, best avoided.
2) I was very careful about taking the films, the motorbike (a Honda Varadero) is built like a tractor, we were going slowly, Andy is a brilliant and safe driver, the lane was deserted, and I've been riding pillion in all conditions for a decade.
3) There is some music with it.
4) If you can watch it in full screen at high quality, the landscape shots are rather pretty. You can't do this with the blogger film here, but you can with the Youtube version.

OTHER NEWS

I have a few animals for sale, ranging from 45 - 60 UK pounds (65 - 88 US dollars) and a little shipping. If you'd like advance details of these before I post them up here on the blog, let me know and I'll e-mail the info - I'm not putting them on Etsy to start with, as I've had so many enquiries from UK people who aren't comfortable with Etsy or its dollar system. This is the last batch I will have to offer for a while as I have so many orders to fulfill.


So here we are again at Monday, and another 6 days of wooliness. I'm not complaining at all, just thanking my little bunch of angels who work overtime for me. (There are seven of them and yes, I really do believe they are there).