Winter Sun 2

The landscape changes so fast at this time of year, the sun is so brilliant that I cannot see anything walking towards its flare unless I shade my eyes and look down at the pavement. Being in the car on sunlit days is a continual movement of pulling down the window shades, looking for my man’s dark glasses, squinting and blinking. I have all my life been so comatose in the morning that nowhere in any portfolio is there an image of dawn. My son says when I was at college I got up early, many moons and many suns ago. Sometimes I have worked all night, the night hoodoos me still horizontal, but working at night, there is something calming. It is like being in wild places. One can step off the machine, somehow. I wasn’t going to write anything this evening, I’m tired, I am getting back to doing things instead of moithering, but in the evening I’d quite like someone to lift me up to a high branch and leave me there until morning, slowly twirling in the wind. Not in a knotted noose. No. In a hammock, maybe, a twirling hammock. far up above the earth.

Winter Sun 1

Silvery Tweed

Again, an image of the Tweed as it crosses the weir, just down from the fishing hut, past which amblers, by request, no longer walk, but take a side route, down a bank, along a faint path through some shrubs and then out the other side, to continue a walk along the river. Everything intertwines round here, small paths branch off into other small paths. The Right to Roam in Scotland is such a gift, the occasional notices directing one away from various paths are acceptable. People need their privacy, even those with large lands. If you cross the space in front of the big house, a dog starts barking furiously. Best not to draw too much attention. Certain routes were closed during the pandemic. Since then, my walking has been so constrained, just up and down and round Coldstream, scarcely venturing out into the countryside, I do not know if these routes are still closed. But the New Year has brought some small changes in behaviour, to try and mitigate the large changes brought about by the last couple of years. I am back painting in my studio. I am putting the occasional image on WordPress, and writing a few words as the fancy takes me. And I am trying to turn off the computer at a certain time each night, and read some of the books that entice me. I was reading two books at the same time the other day, and when I picked up one I thought I was reading the other, and became confused, briefly. Now it is time to do other things. Good night. Keep warm. Sleep well.

Winter Sun, River Tweed

A dark winter image, sombre. I am painting a winter hare, out in the Tardis. At the moment, just the outline, in charcoal, on a small board. How liberating are acrylics, after watercolour. You see hares here, in the fields above Coldstream, and also in the fields in Liddesdale. I have seen hares just by the house there. And a nightjar I have heard and seen, a strange whiskery, metallic sound, a bird that looks like a large dark cuckoo, hunched on the ground just under the window, in the dusk. Swifts would get in through the roof and become stuck as they could not lift themselves up, so you would have to open the window, pick them up, and throw them into the air. Now it is bats, some of them rare, inhabiting the house. Nature takes over, when humans are not so much to be seen. Creatures edge nearer, rarer plants flourish – hawk moths, blue butterflies. Orchid. Merlin. Agrimony.

January Moon

This is the moon over the field beside the small wooded path on the other side of the Tweed. I notice thorns and brambles in monochrome where in summer there is profusion of leaves and flowers. This has been my week of the moon. Next week will be the winter sun. It is all a bit dreich still in the Borders, but the beautiful hellebores, the delight of winter, are coming into bloom. I was returning from feeding the birds at the top of the garden, and as I came past the shed and back down into the path beside the lawn (soon to be a miniature orchard) , I heard the most alarming buzzing which I thought came from amongst the winter trees, a sound much too loud for insects, and too frenzied for an electric saw. Then the buzzing grew softer and higher and I saw a drone climbing up towards the clouds. A strange and sinister thing.

The Little Hill and the Moon

This image makes me feel a tad wistful, as somehow my longer walks along the high wooded path above the other side of Tweed River seem wanderings of the past. But it is early in the year, and I am gradually trying to sort out the workings of my mind and the workings of my cupboards. Maybe these things are connected. The cupboards, then the mind, maybe. The little hill has a crown of trees, which I have not explored. This side of the river is England, where there is not the right to roam. One notices the notices. Standing in the little path and looking back across the river is Lennel House, where Beatrix Potter used to stay. The pandemic has done something strange to us all, I think; but I shall be back, Little Hill, in the light of day.

The Moon and the River

Beyond the Coldstream Bridge, the water curls up over the weir. It is dark outside this morning, our postman told me that head office had turned off the heating where they work, and it was freezing. The post is apparently running at a loss, but the shareholders are being paid handsomely. This has nothing to do with the picture, but everything to do with this country. This benighted, beknighted country….how can a few conscienceless high-living people create such chaos. I need to get out walking again, it has become a habit not an exploration. But getting back to Facebook is a start, I feel as if I am communicating with the outside world.

Moon over Tweed River

The turning of the year – I looked through January images and this was one that combined a sombreness with some streaks of light reflected from the moon, and lights on Coldstream Bridge, which is the bridge between Scotland and England. The breach between Scotland and England seems further away than at the beginning of last year. Soon I will be out and about again, I hope; and back to some kind of crazy scribbling.. May I wish every friend, and also foe if there are any out there, a Happy New Year. One can hope.

Daughters of Thyme

Much to my pleasure, I was asked by a friend, Jane Keenan to produce a cover for this book written by herself and two other poets. They met whilst on an Open University Course, and made this lovely book of poems, with subjects that branch out from the personal to ramifications in the wider world. For anyone wanting to see more about the book, the Daughters of Time site is at https://dotipress.com.

I hand-painted the lettering, as until I do Musical Bears, which will probably be later in the year, I am too mean to get the Adobe programme for laying lettering over text, to present to printers. However, I think with this book the hand-painted lettering does fit the feeling of the book, so I may do the same thing with the cover for Musical Bears. The imagery on the lilac strip is actually taken from a sprig of thyme taken from a pot just outside the Tardis, my octagonal, dark blue studio at the end of the garden.

Merlins Crags, Liddesdale

Happy New Year to everyone. So long since I posted, the last year has been strange; but among my wishes for 2023 is to create a post, however brief or nutcase, at least a few times each week, to get me back into my environment of making imagery, posting, communicating . Where I used to live, with my son, in the Liddel Valley, where part of me still exists, there was this hill which was called Merlins Crags, and I used to think it was part of the King Arthur legend, as there were rumours of him haunting these parts on the Border between England and Scotland. But then when I went back there and walked for miles, alone, all day, I saw merlins up there, the smallest of the hawks in this country, in that exact place, and the only place I have ever seen them; so maybe that is why the name is as it is. I shall have to look up how the word Merlin come to mean these apparently two different things.

Nearly 10 years ago I wrote two or three lines about these crags. But this painting was created since then.