i adore snow

I am so happy about these huge drifts of snow that are upon us. You see I so much prefer cold to hot and wet to dry, and white to grey. I love the way snow has the power to make everyone 'slow down'. I love that snow is tea and toast weather. I love pulling my daughter on a sledge instead of pushing her in a pram. It all just feels so right somehow. Snow simplifies everything, snow is quiet, snow is me... I adore snow.

hidden places

This week , a busy week... of discovering hidden places... and I am so reassured by how little J coped... the book festival (while J enjoyed rhymetime, sticking and colouring and people watching, I discovered gorgeous new fairytales by Carol Ann Duffy), train travel (our favourite way to travel), castles (and a whole room dedicated to weaving tapestries for me to enjoy), lakes, trees, colours, faces and turkish delight ice cream. She took it all in her stride.

house of sticks

A tree born in 1518 and still alive. It was a priviledge to gaze at it. . .

I have a real love of trees. Their branches reach up to the skies like wooden lungs. I am a perpetual collector of sticks and cones when I am out walking... and now my daughter does it too. We bring the sticks and cones indoors and keep them about the place. I need to have these things around me, I call it having a pagan heart. I like to bring the outdoors indoors.

My Dad recognises this in me, and so on his recent walking trip to Spain he brought back two huge pine cones from the tree above which was growing at 8000 ft. They are perfect on my mantlepiece.

And here is my childhood sweet chestnut again, this time the wilderness in summer, and J now old enough to be held in its branches like I was as a child.

This weekend I came upon some wooden buttons from Toft Alpaca Shop. The type of tree from which the button is made is etched on to the back of each... and the wood is salvaged, so no sad tree souls.

Woods destroyed to build 'new build' housing estates break my heart. The only solace is the coppice left between...

I must leave you now in order to bring in some pots of ivy from the garden. I plan to somehow grow ivy up the walls of my bedroom just like Colin's mother's abandoned room in the film of The Secret Garden. More outdoors indoors..

a scrapbook of my absence...

...but now the desire to write has returned.

my wilderness

Spending the morning here was bliss. I wanted to take J to see this particular tree. I used to climb it as a child... see that long long branch stretching out to the side... its like a big arm with which the tree scoops you up and lets you sit in its branches.
I would build a small house here if I could, just to live in this wilderness where I used to hide and where my other half proposed and where I know my daughter will also love to play surrounded by trees and rabbit holes.

lichen-inspired

Everything I am making right now is inspired by lichen and moss. I see it everywhere. I have done so much walking this week. my feet ache. so time for an afternoon in. to sew cuffs and crochet fairy moss crowns...

rabbit tracks & roses

Yesterday we found wild rabbit tracks in the snow. you could see where he had hopped across the grass, where he had stopped alert...

We enjoyed the 'wilderness'. It sets you free.

I am not sure if this snow will ever melt... its a good thing its pretty.

diary, letters

This is the illustration on the front of my day to day diary for this year. Its kind of perfect. I think I might have to make myself a hairband like that. Today my wishes are for letters from a friend to arrive soon...I miss words like unravelled yarn, tumbling...