The results of the last, and expectations of the next, project...

A quiet moment has allowed for a bit of a play with my camera as I potter around for a Saturday morning. The weeks are passing so quickly, and work is as chaotic as ever, but it has been wonderful this week to have some bright mornings and cold but very sunny afternoons. A quiet weekend is proving to be the perfect remedy for all that rushing about.

I ended up steering clear of birds, but the results of the printing course were satisfying. The experience lead mum and I to feel that we needed to go back to the Letterpress asap, now that we have got the hang of it. It was with great regret that we realised my grandfather had been a printer, and yet we had not kept any of his wonderful machines... If only we had known the joy of it!

This quote is from a favourite of mine, Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space, which considers the vital role that architectural spaces have on our psyche; the lino cut, as ever, has such a naturally primitive look to it that I felt it suited the tone of the quote. I was going for a Farrow and Ball-like tone in the ink, I love their earthy tones, and the printer that we worked with was just so patient with us both, that he helped enormously to make the perfect hue.

Next, I will be working on this battered but beautiful glass-fronted cupboard which needs a proper sand, some edges fixed, three new shelves and lots of pretty things inside. It's got potential, but my big question is whether to sand and leave as stripped wood, or to paint a similarly earthy grey to give a sort of Swedish vibe... decisions, decisions...

Enjoy the spring sunshine.

xxx

Looking for inspiration

I am in a creative mood at the beginning of this February half term, and have been mooching around the blogosphere to find ideas for a printing course that I am going on with my ma tomorrow. I have been, as ever, distracted by the WONDERFUL interiors on sites such as Rabbit and the Duck and This is Glamorous ; so much so that I seem to have lost my focus!

I am aiming for birds and cowparsley - which seems to have been a little overdone in recent months, but which I love due to the stark simplicity of it's structure; you can imagine God just saying 'yeah, ummm - just grow a stalk and then just have some little stalks just stickin' out of it or something' - 'any colour to the flowers God?' - 'Nah. White's good'. It sure is.

Being an Auntie

Things have changed a bit again round here recently. There must be something in the wind or the water that makes the world spin in a strange and eventful way once in a while, as over the last three months there have been major changes, tiny changes, hoped-for changes, unexpected, tricky changes and the planned and excuted change of a pregnancy and birth.

My big sister is a natural mummy, and she has produced the most extraordinary little thing I have ever seen - who looks just like her! I am so excited about getting to know this little girl - the first of many grandchildren for Granny and Grandfather - roll on Christmas hols so I can sit and hold her and know her.

Life in Somerset

I am settling, slowly, in my new neck of the woods. Life around Bath is wet and windy, and work is very nearly all-consuming, but bit by bit I am gathering the necessities for a content life here. I moved at the beginning of September to Bath, where I waited for a month while before moving into my cottage. I have taken the leap of faith and moved into a small village, only 8 miles from the Georgian delights of Bath, but it feels miles from the hustle, the shops, the nightlife... in fact the only night life I have seen thus far involves a pint or two in the local ex-miners pub. It's enough for now.

The move allows a time to contemplate and be still. I am still. When I am not at work at least...I haven't yet decided how long my country life will continue. A year or so at least, but while I feel the pull of city lights once in a while, I know that my heart is here for now. Besides. I have Wilfred now. He is a little bundle of joy, who happened to arrive with me the same week as my niece arrived with my sister, and while I am sure the comparison wouldn't sit favourably with all... it feels as joyful!



There are some wonderful characters to meet round here... I am beginning to get to grips with the local life... no doubt many adventures are to be had.

Just about ready....

...to face the world again.

I have been stuck in a hole of post-PGCE exhaustion, and now two weeks have passed since the end of term, and over two MONTHS since my last post, I feel just about ready to remember my blog and have a proper think about the little creative things in life.

It is no coincidence that I happen to feel in the mood for creativity whilst I am up in the wilds of Northumberland. I am surrounded by the hills, as well as the cast-offs from my (now pregnant) sister's potter's wheel, which are as beautiful as anything that she sells, just by being pale, delicate and hand-crafted. My excuses have run out, and now, despite the packing that needs to be done (oh, yes! I finally have the house that I have been waiting for!) I am finding the time for creativity.

I have missed you, creative spirit, you, who has been slowly ebbing away over the last nine months, as I have been swamped with deadlines and lesson plans, and the paperwork that teaching demands. I have missed the frivolity of playing with paints, and the handiwork involved in stripping paint from furniture and painstakingly restoring neglected objects to a loved possession. I look forward to the move because it will give me a new, blank, optimistic canvas, but now, while I wait, I am warming up again. Finding inspiration wherever I can and looking up with expectation and hope.

May Day comes to Oxford

But I must gather knots of flowers,
And buds and garlands gay,
For I'm to be the Queen o' the May, mother,
I'm to be Queen o' the May

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Coming up for air

My oh my. oh my. What a month or so since I last had a moment to sit and contemplate...
Teaching is a monopolising occupation, which I knew in theory before I started, but I know in actuality now... I love it, I do, and I am so thrilled that I am on a path which, without a doubt, is creative, productive and meaningful. What I didn't stop to consider however is the utter exhaustion that I would feel most evenings and weekends, and how term time doesn't allow you to recover fully from anything that is thrown at you at school.

Now, however, I am slowly recovering. I have come up for air, and have begun to recuperate. But I have lost track of the projects which I had started, the dreams that I had set in motion and the light of all the creativity which I had discovered in my home life... thee are two weeks before I go back to school and I am determined to find it all again. I have just picked up my knitting needles to cast on with the wool that my love gave to me for valentines day (yes, he knows me well) and so hope that two weeks will allow me to find my way again. I then need to expand this little blog to my next project... Which will become clear in time, and finally to take stock, look forward to the Easter weekend and relaaaax....