Summer Heat: Compare "Winterfilth" (below, November)

Artweeks is over! This blog's been neglected but now I can post my "day off after Artweeks" pics...
In November, I posted my rainy walk by the Canal. Here's a walk on Monday last to prove we get heatwaves (sometimes): these pictures were taken at 10.00am. The birds are young Coots. When adult, they'll have black feathers with a white patch on the head and red beak. Note the feet, long and not webbed, unlike a duck's foot.

a walk in the Park

"Blogger" insisted on placing the photos in the opposite order to the way I added them, so imagine the walk beginning with the carpet of bright yellow aconites and ending with the fir tree, and you'll have done the one we did!

A beautiful, but very cold, bright day - not yet Spring but promising.

And a Day Off from being a publisher!

(We came home & made marmalade!)

daily work

A selection of pictures of daily life since the Snow Went: at last the snowdrops and new hellibores are coming out (5 February). Art-wise I've been painting Fred Daw (my children's great-grandfather on the Daw side) as a schoolboyo about 11, from an old school photo. Fred had been sent to the Lake District to live with relatives after his mother (Susan, who I'm also painting) died to pneumonia in 1905. He was one of her 1o children: others were already inservice (2 sisters) in London, 3 brothers were sent to Canada, 1 very young sister went to live with a half-brother who was already married with a 5-yr-old daughter.

I've also done the St M's spring programme for families poster, and organised a clothing collection for the homeless, and tired to organise the Hodge office with some help from Spike. Looked out old photos of Uni days (Newcastle University quadrangle around 1971!) and brought baking back onto the menu (bakewell tart, yummy!)

The cats continue to relax and await warmer weather.

How to become a Best Seller

Folks, I have a really good read here between the covers (illustrated). Promise you will find it moving and funny! Make you think, hopefully. But not tell you what to think.

Problem is, I apparently need some character called a book promoter: "real" bookstores demand this so they "have someone we can have an account with".

Yes, all the books you see piled in windows are there because their publisher paid for the space ... (I knew that... - though the manager at Waterstones tried to look pityingly at me, "you're several moves behind in publishing" I looked him in the eye right back. After all, he's half my age, and trained to be hard-nosed. I am a little old lady, in his eyes, a Granny who should be home drinking tea.)

Anyhow, anyone got any contacts who'd do me a review for a magazine/newspaper/on their blog/anywhere else? (Twitter it?) It's all about getting heard of. If people want to read it & hate it, that is still publicity, as long as they don't hate AND slate.

Bookmark

Out this week!

Order your copy now! (But who is Mari Howard? And is this book worth the money?)

Answers lie between the covers...

Epiphany

Epiphany 2010 On Easter morning, Mary remembers…

Magi – wise men?

Odd, the gifts they brought. Gold we couldn’t make a use of,

A family like ours, artisans, respectable of course …

Sell it? Where’d we have obtained that sort of thing, they’d ask,

(inferring reception of goods no doubt

obtained in some less than honest way…)

Expensive spices?

No…I kept them, though,

Wrapped in a carpet rather too good to use on ordinary occasions,

Wedding present from my cousin, Elizabeth, and Zechariah,

Older parents - whose boy was, himself, rather odd…a visionary…

When we go up to the Feast – Passover, I mean –

We have to take them along with us, those gifts,

Can’t have someone see them in the house, or in the workshop,

What’d be said?

So… as I was saying, about to tell you… I came back that day,

Black it was, the sun veiled, the clouds tearing their clothes,

And took a look at them, the gifts for a king…

Saw it again, the spear in his side, shuddering, and remembered Simeon –

A sword will pierce your heart as well…

Yes…

And wrapped them up again, quick,

Except for the myrrh – which I gave to Mary Magdalene –

She’s a good girl, caring, unafraid, she’d take it to the tomb

Come the morning…

Well, back she came, Mary, laughing,

Crying, laughing … the golden sun illuminating her tears –

I saw him,

We talked,

In the garden…

Magi?

Wise men?

I suppose it’s possible…

Spike in the snow

I took these last week when the snow was exciting (at least for cats)