Forgetting, shopping and sunset

1. I forgot to blog yesterday - very annoyed that I broke my promise to myself so soon. I think the key might be setting a specific time. ie last thing at night.

2. Why did I forget? well, a busy day, relatively. Went shopping with a neighbour so all buoyed up with the stimulation of the outdoor world, plus ongoing frustration about sorting out the car and the tv.

3. Today sorted car - snow tyres! Bought a lovely christmas tree from a man who carves mushrooms (and thought I was married to a handsome man with a large 4x4 - if only). Amazing orangey red sky at sunset - tried to take photos from my garden, no time to get up swine stye hill. A lovely surprise after so much white and black. If I tried to paint it, no one would believe it.

Blizzard, Sun and Diary

1. Woke up early to get myself ready to go shopping but because of the blizzard, Anne cancelled the trip. Frustrating but understandable. When the sun came out I took the dog the usual walk, with a detour into a field. Even a small variation raises the spirits. The views all along the valley were stunning, the light shining off the frozen snow, and everything very crisp and clear. The sun raised my spirits too.

2. Met a neighbour on the way home and chatted about snow and the necessary snow preparations (which I omitted to make as I didn't know about them). She showed me her summer house, and it inspired me to make sure I get mine sorted in the spring. I even sat on the bench at the top of my garden in the sun when I got home and revelled in the thought of my very own beautiful, insulated painting hut. Then I won't keep regretting that my house is so dark.

3. Later went round to another neighbour who also has a yellow labrador, though hers is a retired guide dog and very well behaved - the type of dog I thought mine would be but he hasn't quite got there yet. I bet her Arthur doesn't go round all the gardens eating bird food, fallen fat balls, toast, muck on the roads, frozen rabbit ... She showed me a copy of a diary written by a woman who lived here in the 50s - simple notes for each day, recording housework, illnesses, the garden, jam making, snow fall, the first and last cuckoo and so on. It reminded me to keep this blog going, and so I have, for today.

What to look for when you thought winter was over but it isn't!

1. I am really disappointed today. I was hoping I could get my car to the garage to get snow tyres fitted, but I couldn't. I feel frustrated in every sense. I've spoken to colleagues and friends all day so I am not cut off, but I want to join in with normal life again, and feel independent. And get ready for Christmas. Oh and the sky was dull all day too. No brilliant sunshine like yesterday to thrill me.

2. Linked to the above - feeling homesick for the past. For old certainties and familiarities, inevitable round Christmas time I expect. So instead of looking for creative things I stopped living in the present and fell into a black hole. Now pulling myself out by trying to put feelings in words.

3. Before the snow came I had so many apples in the house that I picked up the windfalls from my tiny tree and laid them out on the garden table in a spiral, meaning to collect them later. Then the snow came, all two foot or so of it, and I forgot them until I saw poor starving blackbirds pecking at the apples still on the tree. Yesterday, I dug out three frozen apples and laid them on top of the snow. Today three blackbirds have been eating them and squabbling, black and red against the white. Frozen apples - now that's the metaphor for today.

What to look for in winter

1. I've just ordered a book with this title, a memoir by Candia McWilliam, and I am so envious. I used to love those little books, where life was under control provided you followed the rules and paid attention. It has led me to try to write a poem with the same title, which ended with the line 'but I can't see you.' I don't know who this applies to - could be children, ex spouse, friends far away or even myself. I am not lonely here - lovely neighbours, family close by (roads willing), friends in touch, but I think I am (as the song says) in a state of 'longing' for someone or something.

'All is calm and cold/bright frost curtains the branches/over everything there is longing/over all is white'

2. You have to ask for what you want. It sounds simple, but it is not easy to do. I started today by asking a neighbour for a lift to the shops. Next time I'll ask if I could have a soak in their hot tub too!

3. Articulating to yourself what you want and need is hard enough. I am going to use this blog to help me find my way.

Why can't I keep this blog?

1. Everything I know tells me that journal keeping - of any kind - is good for you, as well as being essential for creative people. I know this. So why don't I manage to keep one? I can't be that busy - I think to be honest it's more about lack of confidence on the page. I see my words and cringe. I think about writing and cringe. I think about myself and cringe. No wonder I have problems finishing my novels, plays, poems... So, I have decided that I will keep this blog every day. I will stick to the three creative thoughts/ideas formula that was working for me before - and I will think of a suitable punishment for myself if I don't keep it. Probably to do with cleaning. That should do the trick.

2. That's my first creative thing for today: a promise to myself. And behind that is an ambition to get my work finished and out there. And behind that is a need to keep myself afloat in every way. I have been thrown on my own resources for the last ten days or so in this ongoing cold 'snap' that has blocked my car. I am living in a beautiful frozen world, a time of purification, of cutting back to the essentials, of keeping going, on my own, and not letting myself slip into a deep drift of dangerous darkness. I know January is my dark time - this year I am going to resist it.

3. I've sent off 10,000 words of my novel to a competition. I am preparing my poems for printing. I am going to finish my play. These are all practical, possible projects. I will start 2011 open to new ideas. This blog will help me find out what they are.

Lilies, lemon curd and lighting fires

1. My mother shows me the frame she has had made for my painting of lilies. It looks like someone else's painting now.

2. I make a slice of toast and spread it with sunny lemon curd bought at the Rosedale Show. One day I will make my own.

3. The sun leaves the garden so I take to dog up the road until the sun dips below Blakey. Then I come inside and light a fire, and watch the colours spread.

Enjoying other people's creative efforts

1. I go to the Farndale Show and look at the variety of objects on show: cakes, biscuits, elderberry wine, knitted cardigans, patchwork quilts, decorated wellies, photographs with captions, enormous parsnips, ears of corn, bales of hay... not to mention small children dressed as pirates, cowboys and flowers.

2. The fields in the valley are striped by harvesters and edged by dry stone walls, each stone placed with care.

3. The hedgerows are full of ripening berries - I think about making jams and cordials, sloe gin and damson vodka. When I get home I make toast and spread it with the organic damson jam my sister gave me.