Looking back, looking ahead
I’m here again, after a bit of a break. It hasn’t been intentional really; just sometimes you have times when you’re feeling productive and inspired and motivated, and social media seems like a good idea. Other times everything’s a bit blah and you’re more concerned with keeping warm and fed, and you choose to look inwards rather than out.
Not that I’ve been doing a lot of deep and meaningful stuff of the introspective kind. It’s just this winter’s been a long one and there’s no sign of it ending any time soon. In the meteorological sense at least. Other than the very occasional still, dry day this stormy weather seems to have been going on for months. The wind and hail wake you at night, and the rain comes down horizontally all the time. The skies are dark and oppressive. It feels as though we’re living in half-light and it all gets very repetitive and gloomy.
So I trawled through the archives and found one of Jay’s folders with photos of me and Joe on a more temperate day last year. Looking at them makes me crave the warmth and light.
There isn’t much to report from here. I’m in Fort William next week, quite a trek through the mountains, then we’re back again a few days later for the first overnight stop of our journey to the airport. But then we’ll be New York bound and that’s exciting. The forecast is for snow there, which makes me even more excited. Snow is the acceptable face of winter weather.
I’ve been looking for work too. As in, being employed by someone else. Yes I’ll be continuing with workshops and printmaking, but when that’s your income, making things isn’t as much fun and inspiration is hard to come by. I want to enjoy art and printmaking for the process, not feel it’s a drag to go into the workroom and crank out prints to sell.
Finding part time employment isn’t that easy here if you’re a parent. No childcare options, lots of the work is seasonal and linked to tourism (which means working through the school summer holidays), 22 miles to the main town (where most jobs are based). But I’ll keep looking. Something will turn up.
And despite this weather, you really do need to count your blessings. Having seen all the floods in the UK lately (and I have friends who are affected by them, as well as my favourite place Hebden Bridge) I’m grateful that, for us, all this rain rushes straight down to the sea.
So: a case of the blahs. But we’ve just had half term and we baked pie and made rice pudding, visited friends and went to the castle… and I picked up a bargain cane armchair from a charity shop (yes, the cushions need new covers making but I’m up for a challenge). And very soon we’ll be going on holiday to somewhere hugely vibrant and busy and colourful… we can’t wait.
I’m even looking forward to my daytrip to Fort William. I think a change of scene, even when you live somewhere truly scenic, is just what’s needed right now.
