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.

1. I am surprised to find that I mentioned Rosedale in a February post - not long before the long silence, and I am surprised to find that I am now living here. It is clearly dangerous to write things down - sometimes they come true.

2. I find a quote for my kitchen noticeboard in an old Guardian as I light the fire - 'Get excited and create something!' After an hour or so of smouldering the fire bursts into flames.

3. I have been creating a new home, and a new life for myself. The old paintings look great on the newly painted white walls. I wonder how long it will take for me to create new paintings.