July

Hot cities, cool hilly trees, settling and ponds and boats

There has been a flurry of new subscribers this past couple of weeks. I am not sure where you came from but I am really delighted to have you along. I realised I’d not posted anything for a while and thought I’d told you about London but then realised I had done it for my email list and not here! So apologies to those who subscribe to both if this a bit of a repeat of things I’ve already talked about.

I went to London for the London Children’s Literature Festival. It was so lovely to meet enthusiastic kids and inspired parents and we made little Old Shrew books of small joys together. But it was hot. So very hot! My b&b room was like a furnace and I sought shelter in an air con cafe. The trains were being cancelled due to the heat and tubes not running, but I made it there and had a wonderful time. I met some lovely authors and entertainers in the green room and had some interesting chats. It was such a lovely festival and I got to sneakily watch Michael Rosen perform in the blistering heat which was an honour. What a national treasure he is.

London Children's literature festival

The Waterstones bookshop sold out of my books before my second event, so she turned up with 5 books for signing at the end. That really shocked and surprised me when their shop was so full of fabulous well know authors. It isn’t often as an author that you see someone in a shop reading your book to their child and taking it to the till. Such a heat singing moment. Also the bookseller read The Wish Gatherers while I was doing my session and then slipped it under the table cloth to buy for herself at the end. I saw tears in her eyes reading it. She was from Ukraine and her mum is in the military and she looks at the stars each night as a link to home.

Moments like that are why I write and why I continue to write. Publishing is a hard business and not one to make money from unless you are a celebrity, but honestly, touching someone’s heart like that and seeing a little gift come running up to get her copy from home signed, well that is priceless.

I loved these mouldings on the houses in London

It was a wonderful experience but my goodness my heart was glad to be back on that train to the cooler Welsh hills again. My son and tiny grandkid waiting on the platform to give us a lift home. What an utter joy to have them nearby.

There is still so much to do here to settle in, painting rooms, laying a lawn instead of acres of gravel in the garden for the pets and grandkids. I spend half my days looking for things, tools I don’t know where they are, but we are slowly settling in.

Lots of small annoyances happening, things breaking and getting lost as they often do when you move and forget to take time to talk to the place and let it settle with you in the busyness of moving. I’ve been taking time to sit with the beings here.

part of my new garden

I am getting to know the trees in the garden too, they’ve always been friends to talk to since childhood and there is so much hawthorn which is a delight especially as we live on Hawthorn Road! The place is settling to us being there and I’ve been doing my bit to tell it about us and that we will care for it.

One of the neighbours said oh it is looking good, and when I replied oh we’ve not really done much yet, she said ‘I’ll rephrase that, it is feeling loved”

How wonderful to have neighbours who notice the feelings of places. Our other neighbour dashed out right in the middle of rugby match he was watching to help with our pond pump that was jammed and I couldn’t do up the clips again. Without hesitation. We fell on our feet here I think.

I have finally been settling to work. I need to create and my fingers were getting itchy and I also on a more pragmatic level need to earn some money! It is a new phase of working since moving and stopping having accessories from Kathy and that huge freedom to do whatever I want became almost daunting of where to start, but a hint of an idea of a boat came and then slowly the collection started to take shape.

I do a weekly video chat for my membership tribe and I was trying to explain to them my inspiration and it made me laugh when I realised how random it was to anyone else so I thought I’d tell you here too.

It is hard to sometimes explain as an artist where your ideas come from as they often don’t quite make sense to anyone else but here’s a hint for you all and I know it won’t make sense, but I hope despite that, you’ll feel it in your heart when you look at the pieces.

There are ponds near here, (I’d call them small lakes) We have a pond in our new garden. I have been loving looking at the water and the movement and also thinking of Sweden and travelling to see my family next month. My thoughts turned to lakes and sea and travels and that longing to set sail somewhere new, even if just in our minds. Also that dreamy summer feel of lying in a boat, or on a hammock, the trees dappling the light through them on you as you sway and dream away.

This then combined with John Masefield’s poem Cargoes which is an ear worm since school. (If you have read Paper boat for panda, there is a nod to it in there with a salt caked goose feather mast)

The northland Smalls when they arrived at winter, I imagined them sailing down from the North on boats laden with treasure like the Quinquerime of Ninevah and the Spanish Galleon. Natural treasures, golden poppy seed heads, copper stars, silver feathers… and they sail in magical star boats, quietly and mysteriously.

When I was thinking about their boats and how they sail, the only way I could think to describe it is like the feeling of the old German Christmas carol There comes a Galley Laden.

I know it is a song about the birth of Christ, but the tune is so beautiful and the lines

She saileth on in silence,
Her freight of value vast

somehow makes me think of how they might sail. Serene and quiet and stately and magically.

Anyway, all of that and also my love of old sea charts and maps and reminiscing with older family members and that feeling of getting older and remembering back with fondness all the adventures you had. Also links to Old Shrew in the Gift Gatherers too.

I think many of us have that sense of longing that I feel when I see panda in his boat, like the Welsh word hiraeth but for that mix of quietness and setting off somewhere new. Hard to put into words but I think many of you might feel it.

So anyway, all of that is combined in some little creatures with their accessories!!

I hope you feel a little of it when you see them!

So I have set a date for the 25th July for a collection of creatures and it won’t be huge because time is running away with me and every day something happens that needs doing, such as today a lightbulb exploded!

I must talk with the house too!

I have managed to set up my bench and sort the shed in the garden a bit so I can work in there. It isn’t suitable for year round working like my old one, but a good space for things like copper and plant dyeing and messy things. So I have been making some copper boats again after putting the copper on sabbatical for a while. It has been a joy to work with it again and I hope you like seeing it again too.

Substack is telling me this is too long for emails now, so you’ll have to click through to read to the end. Sorry about that. I am hoping to write less more often rather than writing a ton all at once! As we settle here I am hoping to write more about thoughts and inspiration too and not just an update of what I’ve been up to.

Welcome to those who are new here and thanks for being patient to those who have been here a while, it really took me so much longer to settle than I imagined and I am still not there yet, but every day I do little something to make it our home and not ‘their house we moved into’

I think the new collection is a sign it has begun.

Here’s hoping the heat wave finally subsides soon and I can post the last of the membership packs out without the choklit melting, and have a good night’s sleep in our furnace of attic bedrooms.

Sending cooling breezes to you and a wish your dreams sail on smooth seas.

The new moon has sent you a boat to sail on, step on board and tell me where it might take you?

With love from the new-shed-in-the-house and the shed in the garden too ha! Just call me two sheds Celestine

Karin x