22.8.20

The last drops of summer



Summer is quietly slipping into autumn and there is a hint of exquisite melancholy to these last golden days.  We remember things; things that we said we would do in the early, hopeful days of Spring. Things we still might do, if we are allowed a few more precious days of benevolent weather. And underlying it all, a lurking fear of winters approaching with cold, dark creeping fingers.


And while the gold and the green will all too soon be replaced with turgid grey skies and bleak, bare naked earth, we will embrace this final little ‘inbetween’ season and tell ourselves, like children repeating a protective rhyme, that it is not too late. 


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16.8.20

The storms


The strangest summer many of us have lived through is coming to an end. In Shropshire, we have had a couple of long, stormy nights after days of humid heat. The world - including our little secluded one - seems an uncertain place and I have found it hard to find words to place here, certainly nothing of note. I take refuge in my work, inconsequential as it is, finding small comforts in colours and textures. So have many women coped, during difficult times - the distraction of handiwork providing fleeting respite from troubles throughout the centuries. Despite everything, there is always this. 




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20.6.20

All the lane awash


After the spring drought, we have had several days of regular rain, and not just regular - one shower so torrential that it was almost a 'white out' and a bout of storms, which was very welcome. There is nothing like like a good storm. A few days ago, we watched from my studio window as the thunder cracked overhead (leading to a brief power cut) and the lane outside swiftly became covered in a few inches of rapidly moving silty water.


Dramatic as it looks, once the clouds had passed, the lane was almost back to normal, thanks to the cottage being on a hill and good drainage. After a rather exciting evening, we had just sat down to dinner, when there was a scuffling in the wood burner flue and a muffled thump. We knew what it was at once. Despite a top cover, a starling had managed to get into the chimney. It flew straight to the window and seconds after I took this, was fluffing itself up on the fence, before flying off over the fields.