Tamsin and I have both been working on Wild Folk. For my part I have been writing, and it has been a beautiful challenge. 

I really wanted one of the stories in the book to be a tale of the sea, and all of my adult life have been drawn to the myth of the selkie. But how to tell it in a new way? 

I find that life and art are intertwined. I have rediscovered the peace of knitting and the meditation to be found in this simple making. And I was given the most beautiful wool by a friend, Audrey. So, I have been winding up skeins of wool, sitting on a rock on the beach at sunset, taking my knitting and my writing up the hill, to try and find the threads, and weaving the words.

This begins in a notebook, with a pen, and often there are whole hours just crossed out as a wrong turn is taken, a story forced and not allowed to flow. But it is all a part of the whole.

I have been struggling to read of late. This became more intense when the date for my knee operation was approaching. I had thought that I would take a book into hospital, moved across many choices, then settled on this one:

I get sent so many 'nature writing' books in proof form. Some are utterly wonderful. But I needed to have glorious escapism, and the sheer joy of reading, nothing relating to work at all. It is a testament to this book that in the past few months it is the first that I have continued to pick up. I took it into hospital, along with my knitting, but reading was, as my daughter suggested, not possible. Curiously though I still found myself writing the story, despite the rather wonderful painkillers I wasgiven. Below is a photo of me on the first morning after the operation. Peaceful inside my head in a world of myth and sea, blissed out and still following the current in the water, not in pain if I didn't move, just relieved to be moving towards healing and walking further. 

Back home I continued to work on it, first at Robin's house, then home on a small desk set up downstairs, reading some and sending sound files to Tamsin. 5513 word on, and I think I have it. I have recorded a short film of the beginning, to share. John still has to edit the piece. 

And now I have just realised that all of this is on the wrong site. It should be on the Wild Folk site....... but do you know, Iam just going to leave it here. And start again on the right platform......I can't even blame the painkillers as I stopped taking them yesterday. But it is less than 2 weeks since the operation. I am tired, and obviously still quite addled of brain!

If you want to see more of what I am up to, have a look at this posting on my journal.