Respect.

Today has been a day of shadows and sun, birdsong, windsong, clatter and clang, car horn lorry reverse, raven call, wave turn and tumble. On the beach friends and dogs and rocks in the sand like sleeping dragons. Gannets, white birds following a river of silver fish, three swans slow flying out over blue water.

The bowl does seem alive. She likes the light better than the dark of the cave, the space better than the hard of the rock, the breeze and the sunshine. In these she comes quicker to sound. Or maybe it is me that likes the more.

I dip the bowl in the water of a circle rock pool, worn away by time and tide and play and the sound rises and swirls with a different texture.

I think about the people far away. When Gaia shrugs she shows us all how fragile, how futile we are. We need to learn respect for the earth and throw away the respect we have for all things moneyed. The 'City' still plays its games as the stock market falls in Tokyo and I feel a sick sadness inside. The game player will once more profit from the misery of others, but maybe the world will learn and listen.

Only a few hundred years ago the tower of St Davids Cathedral was split by an earth quake. An age ago for fragile humans, less than the blink of an eye for the earth.

Nowhere is safe for nuclear power stations to be built. The earth is a living, moving creature. 

Respect.

I am Cat

On the beach today, some peace of mind for a broken heart.

Yesterday I buried Maurice, my beloved cat. Today I worked on the first painting for my new book called 'I am Cat', which will be dedicated to all the cats who have walked through life with me and those yet to come.

On the beach today and in the studio

Pattern. In the sand. And beauty in unexpected places. 
Light. 
Sea birds and a sky so blue, newly emerged from rain.
At home, a small dragon hatched from a sky blue egg.  

Closer to the end

This morning, walking early on the beach, moonlight on the water. Between the land and the sea, between the night and the day. And on the beach a log. But then the log began to move and the dogs watched and we stood, amazed. In the moonlight, daylight,  dawning, a seal.

Small pieces of magic are always welcome, especialy when it is wild magic.

Gray goose and gander

Waft your wings together

And carry the good king's daughter

Over the one strand river.

You do need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows

Things that have to be  done by the end of the day:

1. Walk dogs to see what is on the beach today.

2. Make fire and light it. It is colder today. Perhaps the wind has swung around. When it gets light I will look at the flying bear to see.

3. Stack logs and chop some smaller and bring more in to the dry.

4. Phone Scott, the insurance man. I have cold feet about my breakdown cover so want to make it more expensive.

5. Try and grasp the idea of a quilt of the world and begin drawing and painting it, large. Something that would be beautiful to sleep beneath, to dream beneath, something that celebrates the nature of our world.

6. Find out how much car is worth and write notes to put up to try and sell it.

7. Take print into town for framing. 

8. Phone dentist.

On the beach today, shattered feathers stripped of their fronds by the sea. Sometimes I feel like that. Smooth stones and white foam. Waves reaching in and drawing on sand. Plastic, beads and bowls and bottles and shards, fragments. Thoughts, a trail of them falling beside footprints in sand.

Birds, beasts and beach.

Yesterday, Christmas shopping in St Davids in the tiny bookshop on The Pebbles. I came out of the shop with more books than I would ever leave a huge Waterstones with including the beautiful George Orwell which would make the most excellent Christmas present for Nick Clegg, and The White Ravens by Owen Sheers published by an independent publisher called Seren.  Painted into the dark hours while the wind called around the house carrying the cries of the lapwings.

On the beach this morning:

A small scrap of a seal pup, born too late, now just a feast for crows.

Strange light reflected from heavy clouds that promise snow.

In the garden, chaffinch, sparrow, bluetit and great tit, starling and robin, jackdaw, thrush, blackbird, magpie, rook and dunnock. There have been goldcrests too and wren and goldfinch and bullfinch. But still no greenfinch.

On the beach today, early.

The sweep of light across the sky from two light-houses. Rhythmic.

The morning star so bright its light burns through cloud.

Reflected starlight on the dark beach.

The curlew call and falling stars. One calls to praise the coming of the light, the other falls to praise the passing of the dark.

The curlews, single voiced at first then a chorus of lilting song, so close in the twilight of dawn.

Over the hills and far away

On the beach today, light. The moon in the blue morning sky. Scattered broken kelp from undersea forest stroms, like the tangle hair of mermaids. A balancing happy dog.
In my head, pigs, pipes and Little Bo Peep, blue cats, blue hens, blue eggs.

 

Perhaps, a selkie.

On the beach this morning sand. The sea, calm, wrinkled only slightly by the wind. Stone, carved by the sea, sand, wind. Light washing all and then with the rain came a rainbow, at first feint, then clearer in the darkening of the light. The bow seemed to hold back the curve of dark cloud.

Like so much magic the colours grew from sea to sky and echoed in the mirrored light reflecting from the sand, until the rainstorm passed and only a smur of light fell down and struck the north end of the beach, light kissing sand.

If you look with care you can see the rainbow touch the beach in the bottom right corner.

And on the beach this evening; again sand, sea, stone, but this time all stripped bare of colour by the moonlight. Stars reflected in the mirrored surface of the wet beach and we walked as if suspended between heaven and earth. Stars above, and infinite space and stars beneath and all the while the moon threw a shawl of silvered clouds to roof our heads.

Once, when I walked in the twilight morning, just as the world was coming to light I saw a shape beside the sea. 

A rock? 

It was dark. 

But no, a movement. Perhaps a trick of the half-light, but no, there again the darkness moved. I stood, alone in the morning world and watched. A seal?
It moved up the silvered beach and then raised itself, stood tall and straight beside the foam edge of waves, still dark. It stretched up tall and elegant with grace, looked around.

I held my breath. 

I watched. 

And it must have sensed the watching for it dropped, elegant, back to the sand and then moved swiflty back to the sea. A wild thing. Until now I have kept it secret. Perhaps a selkie?

On the beach this morning.

A curlew, lone and calling across the sea.
Sand patterns drawn by the water.
Sun splintered light, fractured by wind and wave.
A pied oystercatcher with a clown bright beak.
Mirror water showing the sky her beautiful face.

On the beach today, then home to work.

On the beach, a fall of flowers. The unwanted gift from a casual lover? A funeral tribute? A curious sea spray of carnations? 

Back home, working through time marked by a line of falling sand.

 

And meanwhile the house stands against the wind, dreaming of summer, while birds flit through the garden and rosehips wait for the coming of redwings.

Elemental

Earth, air and water.

The world is full of nursery rhymes.

The world is full of nursery rhymes. On the way back from London I drove past Banbury Cross, near Gloucester ( though it was not raining so no fear of large puddles), past a very crooked house where a crooked cat may have lived and there were most certainly mice, and last night, had I been wearing a hat, there were bats enough to fill it.

Last year I drove past here and the window was full of cats.( scroll down the page to find the pictures from Hay, around 25th May) The flower border shows how the house was once much loved.

 

Yesterday was a settling back into work day, a walking in sunshine day, a finding words that had been forgotten and remembering day, a painting day. On the way home from collecting Tom from rowing there were owls. The first slow flapped in a hush winged ghost flight across wind bent hedges. The second sat beside the road, owl eyed, bright white in a crown of black branched trees that had grown through the ruin of an old house. Curious, he watched us until the hunt called to his blood and he spread wings wide and sailed away.

Now the day begins in a misty moisty morning and the damp air is full of the whirl of grasshopper warblers, chiffchaff and blackbirds ( perhaps four and twenty, but not baked in a pie), and today is a painting lion and unicorn day.

 

On the beach today:
More of the tattered feathers of Icarus
A few pale tears from a mermaid's eye
Sea the colour of a herring gull's wings
Shifting drawings in the sand made by the sea's restless hand
Oystercatchers like dancers
Seaweed coloured like flames
A  child's glove
A close mist that stole the edge of the world. 

One, two, three, four, five

Once I caught a fish alive.

Sis, seven, eight, nine, ten

Then I let him go again. 

 

Thinking about work.

Counted the stars into the night sky beside a lazy sea. The crescent moon played with the sleepy waves and stars shone back into the sky reflected by the mirror beach. As I walked I wandered how many miles it was to Babylon and whether you could get there before it was time to light the candles, if your feet were nimble. Even the scent of the air was beautiful, the taste of a star filled night beside the seabecame the definition of exquisite.

Slow progress on a rain soaked day.

On the beach today I walk the line where the sea's hand wipes clean the rain stippled sand. The wind bites hard, cold. Tiny shrimp and the smallest fish jewel the border of land and sea and in the waves the silver darling shoal of herrings dart beneath the wrinkled ceiling of the water.

Back home, green tea, sleeping cats, wet dogs, work.

In the office today.

One reason I love writing is that sense of capturing a story with an alphabet net. Another is that I can write outside my studio, usualy in beautiful places. Today's 'office' was the beach at Porthcelau. Perfect wves, beautiful light, perfect peace. No phone, just pen, paper, lost in the islands of a Venetian lagoon. No better way to spend a morning. Then home to paint.

Delight

A day spent tidying raised the dust and now it is possible to see the floor in my bedroom. The cleaning was in honour of Anji Spangle who I had met a few years back in the briefest of meetings when she came to pick up her prints from me at an exhibition in Marlborough. We must have said no more than 29 words to each other, but enough to know that I had met someone I liked, and email and facebook meant that we exchanged more words. Still, just before she arrived I had a sudden fit of nervousnes. So when she arrived tired and late with the biggest and most boysturousiy of a dog in the biggest and widest world and cats scattered to the seven corners of heaven I wondered what on earth I had done! Maybe facebook sleepover not such a good idea!
However, after a bowl of food Anji soon settled down and a glass of wine was easily pressed into her hand! Poor dog was so excited by all the best things ever in life being in one small house, but on the wide wide beach she ran free and crazy with Rosie in dancing delight for being alive. First time on a beach and the sand underfoot was the best, then the cold sea, and she ran and tasted the sand and then just to be sure tried it again, again, again incase in different places it held a different salt taste. Sun came out on cloud softened day and dogs ran billy-o crazy and danced.

And though it was good to see them dance so free and happy, for me the best best thing was watching Tansy leap with crazy delight into rockpools sending water showing in diamond drops and stick her head underneath what was left and blow bubbles. 

Cats settled, dogs settled and we had a great day that included being shown around secret places in the cathedral, my favorite being the hidden paintings that I must incorporate into a painting again, and the Tudor graffitti from where the choir boys carved their name and small drawings of ships into the stone. I will try and get a photo of this wonderful piece of history, but so good to have such an intimate tour. I had never realised before that the mosaic that shines in gold was of Venetian glass and never before really seen the tiled floor as a whole, distracted by each tile. It makes a warm carpet of light in the sunshine.

This morning we will walk the dogs again on the beach, I will wrap paintings and then Anji will head off for a very long drive to Edinborough. I will then settle to paint, with a head full of ideas and a glad heart. Facebook sleepover was, after all, a good idea. 

Later

Anji is now on her way to the dark north lands, having left me with a cd by her partner, David Hughes, and I am overwhelmed and head spun with wonder and delight, not at her leaving, but the music. ( I think I have picked up on Tansy's joy of living) Fantastic, lyrics and music. Just fantastic. 
And I have just had news that in advance of Bologna Frances Lincoln have sold the rights for The Ice Bear to Gautier Languereau of France,  ING Edicions of Spain, and Klematis in Denmark aswell as a Taiwanese publisher who are taking The Snow Leopard, Tell me a Dragon and Lord of the Forest also.

I have a story in my head, a book to read, a song in my heart and I think that maybe Anji is a catalyst for good things.

Dogs, water, sand, sunshine.

 Today the air is thick with birdsong.

On Meg Rossof's blog, more on The Dog Man. Wonderul.