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.

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.

Willow Leaves

Fallen willow leaves, from beside the Leet, a few yards from where it flows into River Tweed.

Bear in a Boat in the Borders

Illustration for Bear in a Boat in the Borders. Serafina Press.

I met Jennifer Doherty in my old studio, an ex-animal shed, in Berwick upon Tweed, we sat opposite this large table I worked on for ages, and she told me she wanted to start up a local press, doing picture books with local themes. We were going to make up some myths for North Northumberland and Scotland. This was the start of a collaboration that was the most fun I’ve had working (though with larger publishers I have worked with some wonderful and creative editors – editors are good news, on the whole). The first book we did with Serafina was something I had, co-incidentally already done a rough of, The Berwick Bear & His Fiddle – many of my family are musicians, who marry other musicians, so the fiddling bear fitted in quite well. Two Bears in Chains are part of the Berwick’s crest. I like to free the Berwick Bear of his fetters.

Serafina Press has worked with several young illustrators, with Jennifer Doherty creating most of the local myths – unicorns, mermaids, lions, all sorts…. and also writing two story books with Gerald Goldin, The Mouse of Gold and The Fierce and Gentle Wolf, which have been published in dual language editions… Arabic and English…. these versions used for educational purposes in Arabic establishments in Israel.

Bear in a Boat in the Borders, for which the above is an illustration, was a story Jennifer Doherty and I wrote together. We took a journey right up to the source of The Tweed, a small stream in the middle of a field, and followed it down to the estuary in Berwick.

The Serafina Books sell well, several of them are well into their second editions, from an original print run, in the case of Bear in a Boat in the Borders, of 4000 copies. Luckily there is a brilliant book printer in Berwick, Martins, who run their business from large buildings round a courtyard up in Spittal, right on the edge of Berwick, on the other side of the River Tweed, up towards where the river turns into the North Sea.

Silver Water

A long time since I went out and stood on the edge of the Lees, and gazed at the river. The river that has been described, possibly by Burns, as “the silvery Tweed”. There is something about being under the strictures of this virus that has altered the way I inhabit the world around me. There is some curtailment of freedom that gets into one’s marrow. People being up near each other looks somehow strange. So however lucky we are in our own landscape, in our relative lack of stress compared to so many, all the same, something burrows into the mind. When I am out in my studio, there I don’t feel it. The birds come and go. The blackbird, who flew into our window at night several years ago, and looked so peaky last year I thought she was dying, with all her feathers fallen out where she had hit herself, and her bare back of skull this strange bent shape, almost like the head of a snake, and a miserable ambience about her – well, this autumn, she is back, with a new quite pretty ruff of grey feathers round the back of her neck, and is her usual, sprightly, somewhat forceful self. She is so tame, she never flies off when I open the studio door, but just stays where she is. She knows her name, she comes when I call: Miss Ruche, Miss Ruche.