A sketchbook from a few years ago
Festive Greetings and a happy Boxing Day! If you are in the UK you don’t need me to tell you all about Boxing Day. If you are outside of the UK you may know about it anyway and I won’t be giving here a complete history (phew) except to say it is an extra Christmas feast and family day for many of us (if we are fortunate not to be working). It can be a day of going for a bracing Boxing Day walk up a hill to get some ‘fresh air’. Only this weekend is so very murky and damp. I have no memory of a foggy Christmas before now, but that is what we have been having. It makes me feel like I am really inside a cocoon, with the outside world blotted out for now. When my daughter was a baby and we lived in a small village there was a Mummer play outside the local pub on Boxing Day. The players, all male, were dressed in folk attire of rags or morris dancing rolled up sleeves and hats. There was a lot of shouting and a dragon, and I got the basic gist of it: this was a play about Saint George and the dragon, and saving Olde England…..
I love making a scene - quietly with bits and bobs. Christmas is of course a great excuse for doing this but I make little ‘set ups’ all year round. The owl beeswax candle is a recent purchase, from a local maker at a Christmas fair.
Making displays: I am reminded of my favourite past employment - in the days when someone paid me a weekly wage (it was £68 a week take home, not bad for the late 80’s I guess). I worked in a ‘high class’ jewellers shop owned by two Jewish families. Everyone who worked there was very kind and knowledgeable, and it felt like being part of an extended family - indeed customers thought I was the daughter of one of the gentlemen-owners and would sometimes ask me to: ‘go and ask your Dad for a bit of discount for me’. I loved the old fashioned shop with its bowed windows and especially loved designing the window displays, making spider webs with gold chains and adding extra details where I could find the space. One Christmas Eve I sold the biggest diamond necklace. It had been given pride of place in the centre of the window - it was an ostentatious piece that I did not like. I had nicknamed it the elephant trunk, it being a wonky cascade of baguette diamonds. Anyway, I was fortunate to be at the counter that late afternoon when the purchaser stepped into the shop and asked to see the necklace. I got a week’s wages as a bonus. Happy Christmas time indeed….
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I hope you are enjoying a very happy Christmas weekend - if you are celebrating. I hope the weather is a little less damp where you may be. I hope that you stay well and enjoy some time for yourself, some time to reflect as the year comes to an end. 2021 has been yet a challenging year for the world. I hope the new year brings us less uncertainty but I am not so sure that will come about quickly. But if life is uncertain and fragile, we must cherish each small joyful moment as it comes to us. So here - I stand at my kitchen window washing up and see not two or three but a dozen wood pigeons sitting on a neighbour’s roof - all in a row, not static but fussing their wings and puffing themselves up against the rain. I have never seen so many in a row like that before. They are lined up, the same but different, like the months of this year have felt, maybe. A bit grey and sometimes a little lost in the fog, but also resilient and playful and full of life.
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I shall be having a special ARCHIVE SALE in my shop this coming Wednesday. Included in this sale will be a number of the original drawings that were featured in my recent ‘Snowdrops’ zine. There will be a mix of artworks all at modest prices - I do like to make a sale a chance for you to purchase something special. I will also be including a few new paintings. I am telling you here first and may limit how much I share on Instagram (I am currently taking a break from IG but will be back).
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Reading these stories each week makes me believe that no matter how off-kilter our circumstances may be right now there is always goodness in the world that shines through gentle and caring people. I always feel calmer and more reflective after reading what you write. You slow down enough to notice what is around you, something that feels very important right now. That is the energy I want to carry into 2022, not as a ‘resolution’ but as a way of being. Happy New Year, Cathy! ✨❤️
Enjoy your conversational stories as much as I appreciate your inspiring artwork! Happy Boxing Day and all the best for 2022.