What Lunar did next (and where to find her)

 

Hello, hello! It has been so very long since I wrote to you all here, although I have thought of you, and your love and encouragement, many times. This interweb place can be awfully cross and shouty, but please do not imagine that your quiet kindnesses go unfelt. They are a powerful medicine.

This post is really to redirect you to the places you can find me these days.

The main place for longish form writing on my daunted but continual attempts to live a joyful, creative life is on my Patreon. It's not free, but the blog-type posts are all accessible for £1 a month and it's probably the best place to have a conversation with me.

There's more if you want it: book reviews; shortish essays on the practices, books, podcasts, thoughts, whatever which truly help me live creatively; discounts off my art and writing tuition; writing dates; editorial help; plus more if you're wildly generous.

But this isn't a sales pitch. You can find me for zero pennies on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

I still have my Etsy shop for art, and I also now have a RedBubble shop too, which prints my artwork onto a world of giftable and practical things.

And for those good souls who held my virtual hand as I navigated my first years as a mother and then as a widow, I will quickly tell you that life continues to throw spanners in the works (mostly medical, and all for me - the girls are fine), but life is also very good.

We are still in beautiful Chagford, although much closer to the river now, and I am still writing and painting and hanging out with trees.

7yo is made of springs and giggles, with a surprising ferocity when crossed. She dangles off trees, loves her streetdance classes, plays endless board games, and writes stories in her special notebook.

13yo is in a lovely secondary school (after a false start in an unlovely one) where she can still do forest school. She is loving musical theatre and playing piano and draws with more skill than she will believe. I see Thomas in her sometimes, and that is a healing thing, but mostly she is her own gentle, wonderful self. Teenagehood hasn't gone beyond eyerolling and living in her bedroom yet, and only recently she came home covered in mud from rolling down hills with her friends, so I feel we're both getting off lightly.

 

Do please reach out and find me. I would be delighted to reconnect with you - or to meet you, if you are new here.

Thank you all,

Lunar

Storms are Forecast

Christmas was good! We sang carols in a big barn. We hosted friends at our house. We had a very good time with all my family and I enjoyed the sense of holiday I always get when I'm at my parents' house. We gave and received lots of presents and ate lots of good things. I even did a bit of studying in quiet moments, not that there were many of them.

Manna and my dad reading 'Press Here' for the tenth time:

Ember ice skating for the very first time (my dad on the left, about to crash into the barrier and my nephew and sister on the right helping not at all):

About halfway through present-opening, the girls hit a lull and got engrossed in one new thing. Ember drew an intricate tesselating design for a tree in her notebook ("It's like your art, Mama") and Manna made colour-sorted cog towers. I had a cup of tea :).

One of our loveliest gifts has been Manna's very own quilt, made my her great grandmother. It's toddler-bed-size, but so lovely I couldn't wait and she's using it in her cot already. Everyone in the family has one of these. They are all different and represent hundreds of hours of work. We are very lucky.

And we have been doing some 'normal' things too, things which we know make us very happy. We have been to our lovely mum-run forest school and marauded about with sticks.

Ember has done more rushwork with Linda Lemieux, who worked a lot with Thomas and taught him all he knew about weaving and basketry. It is special to both of us to see Ember showing such enthusiasm and aptitude for this. Here she is, happily engrossed in a basket, with splendidly muddy trousers :).

My mum showed me some 'lovely' photos of myself. I was appalled and cut my hair at once!
So instead of this:

I now look like this:

Well, actually right now I'm in my pyjamas, but I won't inflict that on you.

We have enjoyed the bracing Dartmoor weather (read: sideways rain) and taken advantage of milder days to scramble about outside and, of course, splash in all available water.

More storms are forecast; internally too. I have made it through the sixth anniversary of Thomas dying. Usually I hide in my house behind the biggest bag of crisps I can find, but this year I experimented with going out. A friend had organised a clothes swap (very hard to resist on any day), so I got a babysitter (another thing I 'don't do') and had a good evening seeing how I look in clothes I might never actually buy. Fatter than expected, is the first answer (those damn steroids!), but also pretty good. So I have a selection of the kind of clothes I love...and a bright yellow miniskirt which hasn't been out yet, but definitely will.

On Monday 29th, Manna will be exactly the age Ember was when Thomas died. I cannot hug either of them enough at the moment. I cannot look at them enough or say enough prayers of thanks that they are mine and they are here and that, thanks to my mum, I will be here for them for a very long time.

Storms are forecast, but if you're dressed right, you can cope with anything.

Happy Mummyversary!

Four days! What with Manna being a magic science IVF baby, you would think I could have planned things better, but that is the magic in the science: actually it is just as impossible to know when you might become pregnant via a petri dish as it is when making a baby in the traditional manner. So, I became a mum for the second time four calendar days (and six life years) after the first time. Having done the double birthday week once I can see pros and cons. All the stress, planning, expense, shopping, wrapping, inviting, cooking for both celebrations all in one week - but also all the fun and memories and opportunities to celebrate these gorgeous girls I get to live with. I felt a bit harrassed and very proud. I thought of my mum and wondered if my birthday is still a source of pride for her. Does she still take a moment to think, I made that person. Blimey, I must be awesome! I hope she does, because she is. 

To raise a child is the most ridiculous and magnificent adventure. The first moment you really feel like a parent - at the birth, as soon as you know you're pregnant, the day you bring your birth or adopted child home, whenever it is - that day needs celebrating. I have made a card full of forever flowers to honour the day a normal, muddling-along woman became a superhero. Hooray for us! We may still be muddling along, but now we are doing it with so much love for another person. We mums are truly heroic.

Click here to see this card in my Etsy shop.

Love in Various Forms

Well, we all need a bit of cheering up after my last post, don't we? So here is some love for you, in various forms.

When I am making art, or writing, or wrangling a riverdancing baby into a highchair, love is generally what I am musing on, at some level. It's an important subject and also more interesting than wondering what I'll make for tea. Plus, if you have emerged into 2017 for even five minutes, you will have noticed that, not only has it been nearly Easter since Boxing Day, it also has been almost Valentine's Day all year. So here are some works of love and ink:

Falling For You original inks on card

How Beautiful You Are original, unique greetings card

I'm Loving You postcard

These have gone all over the world :)

Bee Paradise original, unique greetings card

Saying it with flowers :)

Good. Wares duly flaunted; now for an update on the people who benefit from and inspire my work. Currently, they are going by the names of Trumpet and Plumpet.

They are really enjoying each other, which is mostly down to Trumpet being very tolerant of Plumpet's new ability to be a danger to herself and others all of the time:

I am very proud of them both:

Trumpet has been taking lots of Thomasesque photos of stones and shadows and herself:

Having bought Trumpet a marvellous witch's hat to go with her lovely dress, she announced, with less than an hour before her school Hallowe'en disco, that she wanted to dress as a spider. We agreed on a Spider Witch, hence the eight eyes:

(Do you see that little desk all covered in books and boxes and a tangle of wires? That's my 'studio'; that's where I hunch right now.)

She has had some spectacularly bonkers moments. One night I found her sleeping tied to a balloon:

She can't do that any more, because I did this:

The mornings are so much easier :).

Following on from our potato-balancing fun, we have all enjoyed Plumpet playing Where's My Wafer?:

Trumpet has been spreading the love too. She made some beautiful cards with endangered animal designs and sold them at our local cafe. She raised enough money to adopt a snow leopard for her class and a mountain gorilla for herself with the WWF. They send a toy version and now she wants to wear her dressing gown all the time:

So, all good here. Art is actually happening, depending on how long Plumpet sleeps for (this post has taken four days worth of nap!) and other things are afoot (apen?) which I will share with you soon.

Thank you for all the love after my last post. Spring is coming!

Still Reaching For The Light

It is done.

It was a very happy thing to create (see my last post for earlier stages), but already Christmas is making demands and the baby is also making itself known with much writhing and thrashing about. So preparations for both are underway. 

Keep Saturday 5th December clear if you can get to Chagford because our Artisan Fayre is back with another wonderful mix of talented artists of all ilks, not to mention the music and teas and cakes and those very nice mince pies and... but really it's all about the art and not at all an excuse to hang out with some really lovely people in a sort of all-day party/market way. Do come!

The first load of very tiny clothes have been washed. Pickle and I had an unashamedly squealy time hanging them up to dry and it was fun to see her amazememnt at how very teeny some of them are. I'm not sure she really believes me that she was once just a loveable lollable blob of blubber which fitted into these clothes.

And space is needed (as it always is in our house), so I have taken radical action and offerred one of our sofas to whoever could carry it down our twisty stone steps on their head. No Gappies were harmed in the making of this photo.

There is a sadness in this crisp autumn air. Two young women friends, both with particularly warm hearts and generous natures, have died within the last month and another is very ill indeed. Also, I have recently made it through another wedding anniversary - a day I hope to celebrate rather than suffer at some point. Death brings gratitude to the living, as well as sorrow, and I am making the most of this gift each time I step outside, following Pickle with her new dinosaur backpack, to meet a new day. We continue to find ways to reach for the light.

For Bea. For Ella.

Reaching For The Light Supersized and Iron in the Blood

The sun is shining, the hips and haws are out and there is iron in my blood.

I realise there should always be iron in one's blood, but it transpired the reason I was struggling to cope with even the basics of our lives was that I had too little. I don't yet feel like The Iron Woman, but the house is less of a midden, some paperwork has been achieved, my current commission is progressing (more of that later) and I am here, reporting my emergence to all you kind souls who were so lovely after my last post. There is still some way to go, as this morning there was a moment of Mama-fail when there were no clean 'Wednesday' socks. Pickle has such high standards!

The school wheel is turning again and this year Pickle is balancing beautifully in its centrifugal spin, skipping up a reading scheme (a relief for me too) and generally benefitting from the calmer, more focussed atmosphere. She was particular about having 'proper shirts' (no comfy airtek for this girl) 'with wrist buttons'. See what I mean about standards? I'm tempted to buy her cufflinks for Christmas - they will blow her mind!

You can't tell from that picture, but Pickle's beautiful ponytail...

has become a beautiful squirel tail.

She is very happy about this and brushing her hair is a much happier time for us both.

Having felt so grim all during the holiday and only taken Pickle on daytrips (which were brilliant) and a few days at my parents' (which were also good), I was sad we hadn't managed a real holiday while it's just the two of us. That's the only reason I can come up with for why I agreed to go camping whilst pregnant in September. I'm very glad I did. We went as part of a gang of families from Pickle's class and my lovely friends put up and took down our big bell tent (which I currently can't even lift) and we totally lucked out on the weather, so a delightful weekend was had by all.

My sand angel found innovative new ways to become filthy

while I admired the view of blue sky and other people in really cold water.

 The children were very proud of the crab they found

and at the end of each day Pickle and I snuggled up and did lots of this:

Chagford has been temporarily renamed Chaiford for the Bangra finale to Chagford's famous film festival. An Indian/Bangladeshi restaurant has serendipitously just opened and their stall scented the Square and made me miss India. Pickle and her best friend (and fiancee) had had a sleepover at ours the night before and been mostly awake since 4:00am, so we didn't drag them round stalls for too long. We took them to the park and then to the pub for chips where our young friend smashed his apple juice bottle so spectacularly that the waitress smashed a tray of hot chocolates. We haven't been back. Bellies finally full of chips and children placated with hot chocolates and relay wees (why can't they all go at once?), we staggered blindly into the sun for the Bhangra flashmob and amazing elephant, which lead the procession.

And during all of that, in half hour bursts while I was confident I wouldn't vomit and Pickle was alseep and I had enough concentration, I have been slowly Reaching Towards The Light again. Someone saw one of my greeting cards and wanted the original, but it has long sold. So she commissioned me to do the same (I gave her the speech about how it will never come out exactly the same), but bigger. It's still not finished, but the Light is in sight. I had planned to take a smooth series of photos, but you will see I have forgotten for patches of time.

More greenery needs to shoot up and those flowers are no good to the bees without nectared centres, but it will be done soon and brightening a new family home, which pleases me very much.

Meanwhile, my new family member is growing apace (as am I). Lots of reassuring kicks and an anomaly scan in only a couple of weeks. Pickle and I can't possibly wait to find out if she will have a brother or sister. The citizens of Chagford are making their guesses. Add yours here if you have a hunch. I do, but I'm not telling...

Bee Paradise

Well, I have been a busy bee. I have finished another original greetings card. This one took aaages (but happy ages) and you can see why:

It's called Bee Paradise (again, no prizes) and is listed in my Etsy shop here.

Meanwhile, I have sold Reaching For The Light (still available as greetings cards here) and received a commission for a much bigger version which I'm already looking forward to starting. I'll show you its progress as I go.

The People Have Spoken

A while ago I had the bright idea of selling all my postcards in bundles of five, instead of posting then out one at a time for little profit. I thought it was a great idea and actually many people were already buying several at once, enjoying combining their favourite designs, so what could go wrong?.

Well I'm still not sure what went wrong, but wrong it did go. Sales dwindled immediately and, despite me trying to make it clearer and easier, they stayed at a pitiful trickle. The people have spoken and the people must get what they want, so yesterday I spent hours changing all my postcard listings back to how they were a few months ago. See how good I am to you?

Now, and forevermore, if you want to buy just one postcard, please do. Having seen that the alternative is selling almost none to almost nobody, I will be delighted to package up your one favourite postcard and send it to your home. All profit is good profit!

Here are just a few of my favourite designs (there are 57 to choose from!):

Those Who Sing, Pray Twice:

Tendril Tree:

Oak, Reflected:

I Wish:

Tulip Field:

Cosmic Bard (my favourite self-portrait by Thomas):

Don't Give Up (the one I've needed most recently):