Sometimes home is where you least expect it.

PRE-READING THOUGHTS

Expecting a reluctant farm girl, some chaotic sheep, maybe a secret or two, and lots of feelings under all the fleece. Hopefully comforting, hopefully muddy.

POST-READING

As I thought...

Delightfully sheepish in all the right ways. The Welsh setting is lush and alive, the village is full of character (and characters), and Alex is the ultimate city-escapee—witty, flawed, and surprisingly capable. Also: the dog. Iconic.

It surprised me by...

How heartfelt it was. There’s a quiet ache beneath the humor: of grief, of not knowing where you belong, of figuring out who you are when your old life crumbles. But instead of wallowing, the book plants seeds—of community, purpose, and new beginnings.

MUSIC PAIRING

🎵 Featured Song: “Homeward Bound” – Ball & Boe (or classic Simon & Garfunkel, take your pick)

🎶 Vibe Album: Fossora – Björk

🎧 Artist Recommendation: Kate Rusby

VIBE CHECK

🎨 Colour Palette: Slate grey, mossy green, sheep’s wool white

🎼 Soundtrack: Rain on rooftops, kettle whistles, sheep gossip

🌱 Season: Early spring

🌧️ Mood: Rooted resilience

🕯️ Scent: Tea, wet dog, and fresh hay

TAROT PULL:

The Chariot - Labyrinth Tarot

Not for speed, but for determination and direction. Alex doesn’t always know where she’s going, but she learns to steer.

FOR FANS OF:

📚 The Lido by Libby Page

15/05/2018

The times they are a'changin'.

On the 4th October my little shop closed for the last time. It was a huge surprise and we had to adjust to the reality of it with almost no notice, it was a business decision made by the company and we had a couple of trading days before we were packing up. It has truly been a great three years working there with Becky and I am sad that it is over. However I made my peace with the decision pretty quickly and now it's on to a new chapter!

Being as how I am terrible at starting anything myself, and as I have had vague thoughts of leaving for quite a while this has come at a great time really. Redundancy in this context is the best way it could have ended as now I have at least a couple of months to have a think.

Here is the final window that I made there.

Though I didn't know it at the time that this would be my final window, it does seem fitting somehow that not only is it the little pig (of which I am most fond)'s first appearance on the glass, but also she seems to be waving goodbye. It was a short stretch anyway to modify it for the closing message:

It has come to a point now where I feel able to take this kind of thing around and see if anyone else wants window displays (if that person is you, hit me up!). I have noticed that a lot of businesses use painted displays and often not very high quality ones, so I am confident there is a niche for more elaborate, illustrative work on glass. Time will tell, I'm trying to think of as many small revenue streams as I can in this time of change so even if it's just a supplement to other things it would be better than nothing.

The Chin Up festival I attended in the summer (see previous post) was truly one of the best festivals I have ever been to and it was a pleasure and a privilege to be involved in running it. One of my tasks I forgot to mention last time was to update the site map I had made for an earlier one. I am quite pleased with the result, though an interesting point is that I made this, and its predecessor, having never visited the site in real life! This has obviously now changed and I think the next map will be even better (and with much more accurate scale).

On the theme of things forgotten, now I have more time for sorting through my work I realise there are a few things from the past year that I haven't shown off enough. These are a selection of illustrations I did in the shop, you may recognise them from Instagram though these are better pictures.

These themes will return and evolve further I feel sure, they are the closest to my intended direction as I can determine from now.