What is next? I don't know.....YET.
We have passed the dark moon of January, Imbolc and Chinese New Year. Here, where I live in Scotland, the earth is saturated - flooded - water pours down, boils up through the cracks. Heron, ducks and geese are making use of the flood lochans in the fields below our cottage. The snowdrops in my sodden garden are blooming. There is light in the sky still, sometimes after five o'clock.
I prescribe myself: a walk each day, a 'clean' diet, sleep, more music and dancing, time to read. Maybe I shall fold a thousand cranes, maybe I shall paint.
During January I also took part in an Artist's Swap Box Project, arranged by Creative Communities - where artists were paired and asked to send each other - a shoe box of goodies - I was very luck to be paired with another painter - Sara Yasmin Khan - who sent me the most thoughtful handmade gifts. This was a great project to take part in and I thoroughly enjoyed deciding what to send to Sara.
PAINTING STATUS: Going larger :) watch this space. My February art trade is with Angela Collier - a photographer who displays her work in the most gorgeous way - who has requested - a not green piece with muted colours.
READING STATUS: 'Until I Find You' by John Irving - enjoying this great long tale - and, do you know what a Rose of Jericho is?
WRITING STATUS: The January Small Stones challenge is complete, and has left me wanting to write longer pieces now. Did I really say I would facilitate the next meeting of my local writing group - the Deeside Writers??
COFFEE STATUS: After a rather lukewarm, weak coffee, in a café with plastic furniture and televisions on the walls, I reflect that sometimes it is the company, rather than the coffee that makes a 'coffee' an occasion to remember.
F. E. Clark, 2nd February, 2014.