Window 4

The November moon through a narrow window looking out on the back garden, the moonlight shining through the branches of the tenuous silver birch, its trunk is eroded at the base. I am alone in the house, for reasons beyond my control. This morning there was snow on the ground. I woke from an uneasy dream, all scraping skimpy carrots, in a place aligned with classical corridors as in a museum; then the disappearance of a way back to where I had been, all traces covered and possessions gone, and a strange smattering of tourists to whom I was invisible, come to traipse through the corridors. What happened to the carrots, and the overseeing cooks who criticised my efforts? Anyway, this is a moon that I came across quite by chance when drawing the curtains. And then in the morning a shawl of rainbow cloud in the cold sky.

Window3

Liddesdale: The Doorway

Light in Liddesdale

When I was a child in Sussex in the south of England, I used to look at Edinburgh, Newcastle, Carlisle on the map of Britain in my brightly coloured child’s atlas (and I still remember that big map tacked on the dame school wall, with all that pink) and want to go to these places. We ended up in Liddesdale, on the border between Scotland and England, the Border was half a mile down the road. This is the view from the garth, captured when I went for a visit some time ago. I was thinking that it is not just the feeling towards places that affects one, it is something about the places themselves that enter your psyche and change it somehow. Maybe just the one place. If one has the luck to find it. Even if one has to leave.

Shadow on a Swan 2

Shadow on a Swan

Wet Flower 1

Day after day of scorching sun, now day after day of rain. One of the flowers from the random packets of seeds I planted in the wild flower tubs.

Sky Over River Tweed

A photograph from long ago. But I have stashed my camera in my studio, and have been taking pictures of the wild flower pots. I like the randomness of putting in seeds, and then all sorts of stuff appears, from tiny white flower to tall sunflowers. The corn cockle seeds which I stored from last year in a drawer of my materials cabinet have begun to blossom. The year is turning, after long days of heat when the sun felt fiercer than it used to feel. Hundreds of insects, everywhere. I remember what Einstein said about bees.

The Hirsel 4

Trawling through photographs of the woodland round the Hirsel lake, and culling them for their dreariness, I came across this strange image, which is an accidental effect that created itself through my camera and the sunlight. Gradually, in spite of the long pain-filled shadows thrown by the pandemic, life is beginning to filter back. I spent time in the Tardis, my studio, today. Two projects to finish, hopefully by the end of the year. When I had to earn my living, a useless paintbrush was such a disaster I wrote to the makers, who to their credit did send me another; and we had an all-purpose table that the cat would walk across, leaving paw marks on my paintings of roses…. now I have cupboards of materials, there is a gorgeousness about them. The heat has been succeeded by thunderstorms, and torrential rain that bounces so hard off the plastic roof of the conservatory/junk room that it does not come through the leaks at all. One set of relatives is baking in Florence, and another set is revelling in the wide sandy beaches of Devon. We hunker down in the Scottish Borders, enjoying our surroundings, in spite of the building site next door, with their drills sounding like they are running a dentist practise for ogres.

The Hirsel 3

A Monet field, without the long-skirted ladies.

Venturing out today, beyond the tight boundaries that we seem to have imposed on ourselves. Liberating to talk to family a long time not seen. Some are enjoying themselves, many are suffering, these are strange times. There is a generosity about the Hirsel: no plethora of signs, a gaggle of very small children trying to work out whether they are up to venturing into the dark loos, very beautiful large blocks of variegated stone leant against walls, with no explanatory labels as to why.

Little by little, back into the world. Back into these small musings. When I have taken the photographs needed for a project, strictly informational, maybe I will start roaming again. I have started to notice small things. Corn cockles. A daddy longlegs crawling across a mirror. The cobweb on a small metal bell hung outside the shed.