Hirsel 1

“The Moon is made of groundsel

The Sun is made of grass

And in the cornflower summer sky

There is a looking glass

Back and back and back and back

The further and further on

Look in the weed-dark herring pond

For the place where you come from”

For some reason, when copying out this rhyme from Old Merlaine, I kept writing the last line as “for the place where you belong”. Which has quite a different resonance. I just used to write off the top of my head, so have no idea why the sun might be made of grass, though reflected in water it might appear this. But perhaps it is just nonsense. However, the image above, a photograph taken whilst walking in the Hirsel and looking down into the small river that runs through it, the Leet, made me think of this long-ago, badly remembered rhyme. I rarely reread my own work. It is like something written by another person whom I know to be myself, as I can remember that person, but someone whose mind now works in a different way.

Reflections in the Shed Window

There it is, in the background, my studio, aka The Tardis, and the poles for the runner beans; but what is not reflected is that washing line, high up above the garden, where the clothes are pulled up by ropes, and whip out in the wind. This is, apparently, a form of line constructed from those who have been in the navy. Tony was working in the merchant navy when he was 15, the boat had to be fettled and they were in Venice for a fortnight……

Portsmouth is apparently full of these washing lines..

Mirrors, Water and Reflections 2

When my small studio was built up in the vegetable garden, my husband bought a door. I was imagining a door with much glass, whereas this door just had a decorative strip of cut glass down the middle. Somewhere, a more conventional conservatory-type door existed in the garden, so he held that up to the door space, and then held up this more “door” door, and I could see that it had a better feeling. The design of my octagonal studio was based on a hat box which was on the floor of the room where we eat. Half-way through the build he thought there was not enough room for storage, so he cut into the three back panels half way up, made some cupboards, roofed them. Two ships portholes in the back walls, then two side windows and this door. I sat down in the place when it was finished, hoping it would be a place to work, and within seconds I knew that it was perfect. My son said: “The last place you worked in was hell (an old cow shed) but this is heaven.”

Tony had a catalogue of floor types. We both liked the same one but agreed it was too expensive (he built the studio, with help from a friend, and I paid for the materials, with the proceeds from an illustration job); and then when the floor arrived, he had ordered the one we both agreed was unaffordable. I have never reimbursed him, as we both know. I wanted this piece of floor in the doorway, with “Orient Fruit” printed on it.

Mirrors, Water and Reflections 1

For February, I am posting imagery of water, reflections, and mirror images, as a change from winter sunlight in The Scottish Borders. This is not a winter image, as the swans at the moment are inhabiting the Lees, the big field in which different crops are planted, and which has a path running alongside the Tweed where I used to walk, when I wandered further afield than I do now. Somehow the last two years have contained the self within a small radius. Though the mind still goes wandering.

But the year turns towards the light. We are still here. Some of us are still here. And Miss Ruche, the damaged blackbird, is back in the garden, where she has her own spot in the shadow of the Tardis, my studio, where she gets her own share of mealworms; and the swans are back on the Lees.

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.