I dreaded today. I dreaded a familiar feeling of disappointment and let-down, the longing for a new season to start so that with luck some of the grime of failure could be wiped away by a good season for my team. I dreaded a day trying to avoid belligerence and bitterness about what should clearly... Continue Reading →
Haturdays – final hat
I have been quiet on the Haturday front as I have been busy editing my book Salt Lick (I’m pleased to say it is now ready for publication on 16th September.) But I still have one more hat to make. It is to honour and remember the women killed in the time of lockdown and... Continue Reading →
On a Scale of One to Dead
I see the smiling face of a young woman, whose name will lodge uneasily in my memory, perhaps long after I remember that it is there because she was murdered. I wish I could do something, save her, hold her hand. There is no way to react that seems appropriate, there is no correct response. ... Continue Reading →
What is vandalism?
"I can’t think of anything more thuggish, more of an obtuse or deliberate act of vandalism that refusing to take down a statue to the glory of a slaver."
Fury – it’s making me sick.
One of the great bonuses of being an optimist is that I am often able to push difficulties aside, or wait them out, or do something to challenge them. When no solution is available, I think of the old favourite children’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, and the explanation that the woods, or... Continue Reading →
Flash Sale
We are having a clear-out and I have decided to not hang on to everything, so I am selling some work at knock-down prices and will put any money raised towards funding Salt Lick. There is a mix of Seventy Seven Seas products (my Etsy shop, where I sell recycled hand made art and objects)... Continue Reading →
Cows for pledgers
I have been experimenting with watercolour mono/lino prints. I cut the lino block a while ago and have been trying different ways of using it. I am very happy with these and will be sending one to anyone who pledges for Salt Lick, or anyone who upgrades or adds a donation to their pledge. Unbound... Continue Reading →
The Bonds That Separate
Patriot: Late 16th century: from French patriote, from late Latin patriota ‘fellow countryman’, from Greek patriōtēs, from patrios ‘of one's fathers’, from patris ‘fatherland’. Recently I read a thoughtful article by John Mitchinson on the subject of Englishness, the same morning as I was interrogating my reasons for setting my book Salt Lick in England,... Continue Reading →
Other Unbounders, #1 – Tom Ward
“What I love most is the idea that leaving London to go into the countryside seems like stepping beyond the barriers, into this quasi-dangerous world.” - Tom Ward. Tom Ward is the author of The Lion and the Unicorn, one of the Unbound projects I was delighted to support with a pledge. Tom noticed that... Continue Reading →
#OnceUponAPage
Three days ago I had the idea to write a story in a nearly empty sketch book, (left over from an idea that drifted away.) I thought I would draw and write a story a page a day, with no particular aim. Let the story define itself by finding what ends up on the page.... Continue Reading →