shapeshifting

Our very nice, conservation-minded Landlord has it in his head that there are too many jackdaws around this year and they're killing the songbirds. They're not. Anyway, he wants to make a pre-emptive strike and shoot the jackdaws.

my work station

We have jackdaws living in our chimney stack or, as Evie calls it, our jimley. They are The Jimley Jackdaws (and if I ever change my name by deed poll again I'm going to be Jo Jimley-Jackdaw because we all know that would be awesome). I love our jackdaws and do not want their death or the deaths of their subsequently starving chicks literally hanging over our heads.

I quite like it.

(Young jackdaws have pale blue eyes.)

Well it's 11 months since I wrote this post and finally, with pounding heart and more adrenalin than can be healthy, I am ready to launch the Shapeshifting etsy store.

It's a small affair to start with but has huge significance in my life and I believe that with this first step taken, I'll be walking this path more often during the coming year.

* do ya see what I did there?

So when you get to 47, everything shows on your face. Every late night, every moment worrying over a poorly child, every stressful conversation...add in going to bed with soaking wet hair (hello gravity-defying barnet) and that's me today. So do I take to a darkened corner and apply multiple layers of Aldi's miracle £3.00 beauty serum? Hell do I. No! I take my camera and I go filming in the fields. And, because I ramble like a bunch of ramblers in national rambling week, I have to edit it with a blunt axe. I hope you'll get my drift.

Video #3 from Jo H. on Vimeo.

I should be outside and I will be outside but before I go, some things I want to spill onto the page:

• The thing I demonstrated in the vlog is for scattered energies. When you're overwhelmed and can't get a straight thought out of your head. Do it 2-3 times a day and feel everything click back into order. Seriously. I have another for you too. Which means..uh oh...another vlog on the horizon. I might brush my hair this time.
• I fought a migraine for three days and won. Sleep, sleep and more sleep.
• I dug out an old sketch pad and drew. And didn't judge the results.
• I took my camera out at 10pm with my dogs and took some beautiful photographs.
• I picked up my hoop last night for the first time in a very long week. I needed to feel good and it never fails me. I side-stepped (or rather didn't, heh, hooping joke) the walking spin and tried something else. I span the hoop on my hand above my head (Wild West) and then I dropped it down over my shoulders onto my waist and kept it going (Float Down). I KNOW! I did the same from an overhead spin on both hands at once and it felt amazing. I also learned how to spin the hoop on my neck. This morning I ache like f*** and have bruises all over my hands and can't wait to get started again. Except this time I'll try not to bash myself on the nose with a 44" hoop.
• At some point yesterday I was thinking about wildness and how when I was younger my wild side was in her element when she was leaping about to very loud music. Namely the music that she felt in her bones. Namely the guitar sound of The Edge. And then overnight the Universe did something amazing and Tor tweeted about it and I cried happy tears and it was awesome.
• And Tracie mentioned she'd been listening to Black Prairie and I loved them too. Perfect summer night listening (apart from Edge and Muse, natch).
• Also, I read this:

Wolves never look more funny than when they have lost the scent and scrabble to find it again: they hop in the air; they run in circles; they plow up the ground with their noses; they scratch the ground, then run ahead, then back, then stand stock-still. They look as if they have lost their wits. But what they are really doing is picking up all the clues they can find. They're biting them down out of the air, they're filling up their lungs with the smells at ground level and at shoulder level, they are tasting the air to see who has passed through it recently, their ears rotating like satellite dishes, picking up transmissions from afar. Once they have all these clues in one place, they know what to do next.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

This has been my weekend. I hope yours is/was as fulfilling.

Quick. Not much time. Bath running. Stuff waiting. Here we go...

Unchocolating: it was filmed as a TV show by film and sound production degree students. V amusing and distracting. The closest I'll ever get to being on Oprah. I sat on the sofa in front of a huge table of chocolate goodies while the thoughts of 50 teenagers yelled,"Sad old woman who can't resist fattening food. Poor cow." Whatever.

Tessa, she was the therapist, waved a lot of Galaxy chocolate under my nose, we chatted and then she hypnotised me. It worked. I don't know how long it'll last but I have no desire for chocolate. It's not a strong, nauseous anti-chocolate thing. I just don't want it. The weird thing...the strongest feeling is that I don't want to touch it. She asked me to hold a bar of Galaxy and I couldn't. I was going to buy some for Charlie today but couldn't bring myself to pick any up. I hope it lasts.

I've been experimenting with spray varnish on the stones I painted. It's not really working. I think I'll have to brush clear varnish on to them but I'm scared it'll smudge. I've used acrylic paint on the pebbles. What can you experienced arts and crafts types advise?

I also played with carving stamps to brand the little bags I have for the stone sets. Don't like it. So I'm going with Plan A on that.

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for Love Thursday

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Glove puppies. Oh yeah, they're back. I'm warming up my puppy muscles on a birthday present for Evie's best friend. She (the friend) is very fond of Jonesy, who goes to nursery with Evie three times a week, so hopefully it'll be a hit.

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The Threadgoodes are proving to be prolific layers.

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Paypal is not my friend.

Lisa is. Please support her if she can. She's wonderful, she's talented and she's doing this for all the right reasons.

Laters, taters.

Fear, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, inadequacy…you know the sort of thing I’m talking about. The feelings that stop you – me – from following our intuition and our ideas. These feelings, I’ve decided, with some advice and prompting from literary wise women, are the life blood of our inner critic and in order to fight back I have to give him a face and name. <o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>Knowledge is power and now that I know him I can whip out my wild woman superpowers and kick his arse.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>He looks like this only more weasley.

 

His name is <st1:city w:st="on">Norman</st1:city> (apologies to any cool <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Normans</st1:place></st1:city> out there but me and your name have some history and it really works for me).<o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>Frankly Norman, you’re a joke.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p></o:p>While I wasn’t changing the locks on old Normy this weekend I was busy thinking about how I could help myself, and maybe others, remember their wildness. These are what I came up with.<o:p></o:p>

<o:p>

</o:p>
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<o:p> </o:p>They’re prototypes, unvarnished and unpackaged as yet, but they will be available before long. They’re <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Norman</st1:place></st1:city>’s kryptonite (although I don’t recall him ever looking good in a leotard and tights).

Happy Monday

x
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Today I went to have a tattoo inked over with another one. I had a small paw print done on the inside of my wrist a year ago and although I've never regretted it, I have wished that it was bigger and better. Today was the day I got that wish.

I went back to the place that had done the last one. It's an old school tattoo studio. None of your 'body art' talk - although they do incredible work. This place has two middle-aged guys doing the ink and a young, completely tattooed, face-pierced dude who takes care of the desk and does some of the piercing. He is the sweetest, most polite guy you'll ever meet. 

Anyway, the eldest guy is the one who does most of the artwork. He's probably about my age, maybe a bit older. Overweight. Thinning hair. Not a tattoo on him. Dressed in black. Beard. Retired biker type. Almost entirely silent. Balances a very uncool pair of spectacles on the end of his nose to see his work nowadays.

Does a brilliant job.

At the end as he's spraying and wiping my forearm he nods towards the back room where the other, older guy is working. "Danny's dog's sick."

"Oh no," I say. "I'm sorry, that's awful. I have two older dogs and I'm always aware that the 13 year old is on borrowed time. I can't think about it."

"His is 13," he says. "I've been through it twice myself (shakes his head)...dreadful."

I nod.

"I've got an Alsatian x Dachshund now."

"Wow," I say. "I thought my Corgi x Lurcher was odd-looking! That's some mix!"

He walks to the desk and pulls out his phone. Clicks through some frames until he finds one that makes his eyes light up. Holds it out to me.

"Oh she's beautiful," I say because she is. A small, gorgeous German Shepherd with huge eyes.

He blushes. A sweet smile crosses his face as he stares at the phone's screen. "Yeah. Heh. She is. She's alright."

And with that he walks away and goes back into silence.

I love that dogs can make that connection between people even when they're not there in the room with us.

I love that they melt the toughest hearts.

And that's why I started wag, bark, love.

Clockwise from top left...

• I appear to be a bit taken with Bench Monday. Watch this space for my contributions.
• For the first time in my long life I'm feeling the urge to be girlie. Maybe it's the whole 'not cutting my hair until at least christmas' thing (which I am very much enjoying), maybe it's because it's boot weather (although I wear them all year round) and I don't love much more than a nice pair of boots, but I'm getting very excited about skirts. Trust me when I tell you this is most unusual. Nice knitwear with girlie bits? Yes. That's been a thing for a while. But suddenly I'm all about the skirts.
• I think my superstitious nature and my love of tattoos have both been well-documented here but lately they're taking me in an interesting direction. I'm playing with symbols and meaning and hope to bring something of it to the blog soon.
• I bought a bike. Once Evie had one it was only a matter of time. I bagged a bargain at a boot sale (from a bloody brilliant bike bloke) on Sunday and have been out a few times since. I'm instantly transported back to my childhood when my trusty Raleigh was in fact fantasy a horse and we'd fly like the wind round and round the garden for hours on end. This bike is, as yet, no beauty. It's not a vintage, Miss Marple-esque, basketed classic with a tinkly bell but...I'm blushing...I think I may have fallen a teensy bit in love with it.