From last week

"Short stories are a modern invention and reflect something of the loneliness of the acts of writing and reading." (Lorna Sage in her introduction to The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield)

1| Escaping into books. Pocket-sized reading makes for a lighter handbag (my right shoulder has been hurting from being on the computer and knitting, and carrying a heavy handbag doesn't help). Katherine Mansfield is one of my favourite short fiction writers.

2| Painting with watercolours and trying to decide what to use this blackboard for

3| To the Lighthouse - a long walk on a sunny warm-ish day (last year on that day we had snow!)

4| Knitting and catching up with all the weekend papers that had accumulated


It was also the last week of teaching before January. I tend to crash when a phase of work is over and get a cold or something similarly trivial but slightly annoying, but it hasn't happened yet and maybe/hopefully won't. I still have other work for a few weeks, but I like having more time for my own art practice. I feel so inspired when I see my students' work, but invariably my own work suffers - teaching, as much as I love it, takes a lot of energy. I don't know how full-time teachers do it. On Friday I spent almost the entire day painting, only stopping to boil the kettle (and to eat), and the knot of tension I had felt in my stomach gradually disappeared (only to come back today. Work this morning has left me frazzled and feeling low, but that's another story, and some meditation tonight might help). It's so good to be in the Flow.