goodbye 2020

I love how the sun and camera lens create red ovals within this image. One is inviting us to walk the path into it... or will Glinda The Good Witch step from the bubble? We could all use some glittering pink dress Glinda energy.

Usually at Winter Solstice I take great pleasure in making a walking ritual, where I think about all I'd like to shake off and leave behind and all I intent to nourish and invite in for the coming year. This Solstice if felt right not to ask for anything, to go with the flow into 2021 and embrace whatever comes along.

Last year I wrote down all that I wished to leave behind on small strips of paper, burning one by one and letting them go. I also wrote down all I wished to invite in and walked to a beloved sycamore tree, reading each word out loud before tightly folding each strip of paper and hiding them within a nook at the base of the sycamore. My intentions were for a stable home, a regular income and a rescue dog (who's name will be Mote). The global pandemic put a hold on these things, but they will come... I'm trying to count my many blessings at the close of a year that has been such a spiritual and mental test.

I'm hopeful for 2021 and send my best wishes to all 💖 

Lets keep looking out for each other 💖 

Glinda, are you there?

heart's ease tonic

Last week I made a 'heart's ease tonic' to share with friends. I've had great feedback so thought I'd share the recipe here.

This herbal helper won’t make sadness or grief disappear, but it may help support you with these feelings. Drink a shot glass measure when required.

3 cups water

Half cup elderberries (I’ve used frozen blackberries as too late in the season for elder)

Half cup hawthorn berries

Half cup rosehips

1 cinnamon stick

Orange peel - 1 quarter

Small bottle (250g) pure maple syrup

1.5oz brandy

❤️ Remove stalks and rinse hips and haws, discard any damaged berries

❤️ Add water, berries, cinnamon and peel to a pan and bring to boil

❤️ Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes

❤️ Remove from heat and use a wooden spoon to mash berries

❤️ Strain through muslin and squeeze (allow mixture to cool a little first)

❤️ Pour liquid back into pan, add maple syrup and brandy. Heat gently to combine ingredients

❤️ Pour into sterilised glass jar or bottle

❤️ Label, refrigerate, use within 1 month, recipe makes around 1.5lt

Hawthorn, rosehip, blackberry, orange peel and cinnamon 

Straining the liquid

Cooling pulp

The only bottles I could buy locally were double the size I needed...

skate

A small group of young people have taken over and engineered a derelict area next to the studio to suit their skateboarding practice.

I've seen them in the space from a distance, and kept meaning to explore when they weren't around... I got my chance last week, and relished walking around the structures they've created. Their building materials are basic, weathered, scattered and they have utilised rubble piles and concrete surface to great effect. The experience was no different to viewing sculpture in a carefully curated space and bought to mind artist friends who would have enjoyed this solo preview. 

This intervention is (of course) done without permission. Even so, I carried a sense of trespass in their space, and felt as if I was breaking a rule! 

October baby

This vine is a vibrant reminder that mum's birthday is drawing near. She would have been 85 next week ❤️

She was the last of seven children and her mum, Ada was 42 when Doreen Edna was born ❤️

finds - watercolour

I painted my July finds in the groups I'd discovered them, three different woodland pathway sites on a local walk.

signs of life - a decade on...

10 years ago today I posted my first musings on this blog. 10 years!

This last decade has seen me move from Sheffield, to London, to Derbyshire with 9 house moves - my much longed for settling evades still, but is getting closer, fingers crossed.

I've grieved much this decade, the realisation that I'd never be a mother and the loss of my own mother to liver cancer in 2017 and that I continue to walk a single path... and so be it.

I've lost and gained friends and done my best. I've relished the beauty I see and witness good intent and kindness everyday.

I'm a little floaty as I'm on day six of the seven day #rationchallenge, and have raised almost £500, you can sponsor me here if you wish. Today I met a friend in Hall Leys Park in Matlock, she told me I looked pale. She also said well-done!

It is a beautiful day.

  

shards

Visited New Mills two weeks ago and found these treasures by the river near Torr Vale Mill. I think the ceramic shards were brought into the site with building debris to shore up the river bank, they don't make sense in the location.

It reminded me of an allotment I had a decade ago near the Greyhound Stadium in Walthamstow - the earth was full of ceramic and glass. Someone told me the soil had been transported out of bomb damaged central London after the war.

Recently, I read the word 'sherd' for the first time and though it a typo. Sheard comes from 'potsherd', defined as a broken piece of ceramic material, especially one found found on an archaeological site. In general, sherd only refers to pieces or fragments of pottery whereas shard may refer to broken bits of glass, metal, rock, and ceramics. 

sycamore

I walked to this tree on the shortest day of the year last December, and found myself standing by its side on the longest day this June. I'd not planned to do this, but found I'd measured a half turn of the Earth by my pilgrimages on foot to this tree, a sycamore.

finds

Last month I went off for a walk after a succession of rainy days. Top soil had been swept from woodland pathways revealing rich pickings of the domestic pottery shards that delight me. I've found these many times before on a particular path near Scarthin Wood, but on this walk they shone from pathways I'd never gathered from before. I kept them in the collections I'd found them, placing the muddy finds in different sections of my backpack.

I'm drawn to these worthless shards, were they a preferred bowl, favourite cup of a father or son, were they handed down from a mother to a daughter, precious, part of a wedding gift? Was anyone heartbroken when they shattered? Can I sense an echo from who held them? Who raised cup to lips, clattered a spoon scrapping the last morsels of porridge from them? The past in the present, a ceramic trail, reminding me of Hansel and Gretel's attempt at retracing steps, staying safe in the wood.

I'll paint these in their families, recording their cracks, breaks, pattern and decoration in watercolour and pencil. Devoting my full attention while I fix their likeness to paper. 

3rd birthday

My beautiful wee godson will be 3 on the 20th June. THREE. He is a blessing and I'm so glad to know him and his parents. I made him some dragon wings and will be sending these next week along with The Lost Words book. Magic!

eleanor

In May 2019 a dear friend died of ovarian cancer. As the first anniversary approached I saw a call on Facebook to make an offering or gesture by water at 11am on the date of her death. 

I got to the river in good time and gathered a handful of wild garlic, cow parsley and jack by the hedge, twisting and weaving the stems into a circle. Hunkered down in my chosen spot I observed sunlight reflected from the waters surface flickering upon the pale undersides of overhanging leaves and dippers dart from bank to bank, weaving invisible threads of flight. At 11am I placed my offering into the river and watching it float away, felt connected to others making their gestures in still and following waters and seas. A small thing but one that bought Eleanore and her loved ones into my thoughts these past few weeks.         

common & midland

I'm currently reading Walking With Trees by Glennie Kindred and turned first to the chapter on hawthorn, my favourite tree. I learned there are two species native to Britain, the Common and Midland. Venturing to my local park I found beautiful specimens of both and studied their leaves to identify them. The Common variety having deeply lobed leaves, the Midland, shallower lobed.  

Hawthorn leaves were known as 'bread & cheese' to country people and travellers throughout the ages, nibbling on them is said to stave off hunger. When walking I often eat the leaves to take in the magic of these beautiful beings, thanking the trees always.    

 Common Hawthorn - note the deeply lobed leaves

 Midland Hawthorn - branches too high to get a leaf close up 

Midland Hawthorn & Common Hawthorn

significant hedgerow

The first photograph was taken on Christmas Day 2019, the second today. I wonder who is placing these artificial flowers here and why...

daily walk for exercise

Most days I get out for my allotted 'walk for exercise' during the Covid-19 lockdown. I feel very fortunate to live in Derbyshire, with its footpaths, fields, woods and hills on the doorstep. Before setting out I consider where the widest paths are with the best chance of remaining 2 meters away from other walkers. 

It's good to get out and breathe fresh air, most people nod, smile or say hello. We need to be responsive and aware of each others bodies, how to negotiate a crossing space, a narrowing of the path. I've become focused on edges as I walk upon fresh growth at the paths fuzzy boundary.

Watching spring bloom I spend much of my walk with eyes pointed at the ground. Spotting plants that sprout from pavement and wall, plants stunted and flattened amongst the grass in the park or growing verdant along pathways. Millefleur is brought to mind as it's still possible to study the variety of young plants, within weeks the hedgerow will be high and plants entwined. 

I'm always delighted by plants that grow in unpromising locations, from pavement crack and stone wall, as well as in the hedgerows - little warriors working with what's available and thriving. This week I photographed, then painted in watercolour Dandelion, Cleavers, Wild garlic, Nettle and Plantain - edible wild plants with medicinal qualities. 

 Dandelion

 Cleavers

 Cleavers

 Wild garlic

 Nettle

Nettle

 Plantain

Dandelion

nettle & potato soup

A couple of weeks ago I made the Friday Soup at Haarlem Artspace where I have a studio. We take turns providing a nourishing lunch for one another in our communal kitchen. I've long held the ambition to cook with the seasons, or at least understand what food the hedgerow can provide throughout the year. So in early March, with the nettles beginning to show their faces I made this soup.

Today, I gathered nettles in an altogether different world. I walked past a couple wearing face masks and felt wary, a heightened need for distance and also to smile, to reassure. It felt good to stride out above the town and quietly sing to the nettles, wild garlic and cleavers as I picked them. The wind cold, the sun warm, an abundance of young plants doing their thing, COVID-19 forgotten for a moment.

Nettle and Potato Soup

Two handfuls of nettle tops, rinsed

One large onion, chopped

Two medium potatoes, peeled and diced

One garlic clove, crushed. I also added wild garlic.

1.5 pints veg stock

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Fry onion and garlic in olive oil until soft. Add nettles, potato and stock, simmer until potatoes are cooked, blend and season.

Cleaver Tea

Pick a generous handful of cleavers, rinse, place in a teapot, pour over boiling water and allow to infuse for five minutes. A friend who drank this said it reminded her of childhood.

Cleavers

Wild garlic

Nettle tops

  Nettles, cleavers & wild garlic

middleport

Inspired by The Great Pottery Throw Down and Keith's tears my sister and I drove to Middleport Pottery for my birthday earlier this month.

The pottery was built in 1888 and is remarkable in being the first to use a production line system, with clay delivered by barge at one end of the factory and ceramics shipped out by barge at the other. 

Middleport pottery has been the Home of Burleigh since 1889, Burleigh is the only remaining UK pottery continuing to use traditional methods from the Victorian era. The factory tour was fascinating - viewing the whole production line, the specialist skills of the craftspeople and how each stage of the process fitted together - a very well oiled 'machine'. Got a birthday kiss from a kind woman who was cleaning up saucers! Have deep respect for the ingenuity that goes into creating the ceramics. 

 Ware boards

 Ready for first firing

Discarded clay