Primavera

I have not written on this blog for several days because we have had the most exquisite lovely weather lately.
Easter was glorious with warm sunny days and I spent them all outside although I was meant to be working to deadline on a film I am editing!
In this part of the world if it is a beautiful day you drop everything and just bask in it because you never know when the next one will come along!
So in between planting and drinking tea outdoors with the cats, they are marvellously helpful gardeners by the way and they do love digging!, I have been working on the film and for that I am glad.
A white peony went in below the rosa rugosa. Fruit trees all along the dyke where we found a huge stone lintel. More wild garlic which I am trying to establish near the ditch in the shady part under the shrubs.
Gardening has become for me a way to come to terms with living out here in the wilds.
I am trying to do un-invasive gardening where I encourage what grows here happily and introducing things that may very gently. I also do not prune hard and heavily I like to see how things will grow. I am encouraging what is native to here and grows in the wild. E.g. wild garlic, and cowslips.
Editing in between forays into the garden and sitting on the bench with a view and hot tea is a great way to work. I am grateful.
Yes and especially so because spring has finally arrived!

James Lee Byars's birthday

James Lee Byars would have been 87 today. Thinking of you with much love. Miss you JLB.

Li would have been 80 today

Li Yuan-Chia a Chinese artist who lived in Cumbria in the UK for many many years would have been 80 today were he still alive.
A remarkable man, artist and friend he is buried nearby at Lanercost Priory.
Things are moving along in a very positive direction for a new phase of his beloved LYC Museum.
Happy Birthday Li and happy Spring!

Leonora Carrington

Happy Birthday Leonora!
Today she is 92 and I wish her the very best of days and rest of the year.
If you do not know her work do look it up.
She is a painter, a sculptor, a writer...
An enormous inspiration to generations of artists and she makes fascinating work.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today my father is 77. A beautiful number. In Japan they celebrate double digits in the way we celebrate even birthdays.
My father is in Stockholm and I called him this morning. He said the sun was shining but they had no signs of spring yet.
In the afternoon he was going on an outing to a small celebration in his honour.
He loves seafood and Princess cake. I think they will spoil him with shrimps and lobster his favourite.
I was happy that he has something to look forward to especially after this excruciatingly LONG cold and dark winter.
I sent him a beautiful card of a painting by Paul Stangroom of the Northumberland landscape.
Princess cake is my favourite cake too and my brother's and Noah's and and and...
It is delicious.
I have not seen him in a while and I am thinking it is time.

Season transitioning

This past weekend was a case in point.
Saturday morning there was a heavy frost and ice in the birdbath. Icy cold wind and precipitation threatening most of the day.
It did fall during the night.
Sunday was a glorious sunny warm day! We drove to the coast through a gorgeous sunny landscape with such visibility that we saw the Cheviot on the way there covered in SNOW! And then saw the blue blue sea with the Cheviot at our backs. Very rare such extreme visibility.
The trip across country and the small towns like Rothbury and Alnwick was truly fun.I was singing most of the trip, my inane made-up on the spot songs...poor driver!
We got to Seahouses on the coast and could see Bamburgh castle over the golden dunes, Lindisfarne and the Farne islands as well. Quite amazing.
Just a couple of hours from our valley.
Snow and sun.
We took a lovely walk through the wee fishing village and onto the pier.
Then we visited friends who were having a house warming on the most perfect of days.
Met a crime writer, a poet and some other literary folk!
The feast was impressive and our hosts are lovely people. My favourite couple in the area in fact.
Drove home via Scotland and Yeavering Bell of the famous cup and ring marks.
Coming home I felt sure that SPRING had indeed arrived.
Planted white geraniums in cobalt blue pots to celebrate.

Maps

I have always been fascinated by maps.
When I was a young child I would pour over the atlas at home and the globe at school.
I spent hours traveling over the maps.
I read maps quite well and was especially good at orienteering in school. I loved it!
My hallway in Cambridge was plastered with maps from all over the world. Places I had been, places where friends lived and places I wanted to visit!
I would look at them frequently going into reverie. I had a pew in the hall and I could sit there for hours. Daydreaming is one of my pleasures. "My one weakness!" as Dorcas would say.
The underground maps below interest me particularly because they have become so schematic as representations. They are challenging especially for any traveler who does not know the lay of the land as it were.
In fact they are usually totally incorrect from an overground point of view.
Still they are so beautiful to look at. I find I prefer the red train and I like to travel on that one. When I lived in London it was my train, the Central Line, and in Boston the Red Line.
Newcastle does not have one, they have a minimal two colour system.
And New York, well what can I say?!