PATIENCE, AND WHAT TO DO WITH MY OLD SHIRTS.

 

Patience is a virtue, our earliest memories will confirm that I’m sure, but there are times when I don’t feel particularly virtuous.

It was Kate, or was it Melany who told me that Kathleen was on her way. I’d unsuspectingly gate crashed Kate’s birthday coffee morning and for an instant I’d wondered who this Kathleen was and should I know her. Oh, the storm Kathleen, funny how the longer the name the slower it takes to blow through. Difficult to say just when Kathleen ended as the gusting winds and April showers are still with us. In these hypersensitive, alphabetically ordered times of hypocritical correctness, we pondered over what male storm-name we might expect to follow. I plumbed for Laurence, a long drawn out hot summer Arabian night’s breeze from the south. The evenings walk with Donald left me wincing and we became silent, bent forward into the blistering force that seemed to be determined we would not return home from our walk. I dared not stop to rest as it would have only served to interrupt the internal mantra I’d set up. Lift your right leg, move it forward, put it down, the left will follow. The right hip hasn’t been good since a fall last summer and despite nothing showing up on X-rays, the leg no longer seems part of me, some sort of replacement at best. I now walk with a stick, my third stabilising leg and feel no shame in doing so. On the contrary, my father’s shepherds crook lends a note of authenticity, and even the sheep look at me differently, a hint of respect that up to now I hadn’t noticed. I managed to sleep through most of that first stormy night, awoken only by the occasionally more forceful rattle of the bedroom sash window. I threw open the curtains to see all growth flapping wildly and inclined to the east. The past couple of weeks we’d had a bitter easterly that set the dead grass atop the wall with a quiff that would have delighted any 50’s Teddy boy. Now it was set in a severe westerly Scargill comb over. Kathleen was not leaving just yet, and I would be spending the day in the relative calm of the studio. As usual these days I seem to have way too many projects on the go. Wool, paper, shells, wood offcuts and fabric litter the floor, while glue pot, scissors, needles, pencils and paintbrushes are scattered on the table beside me as I paste and stitch another batch of miniature books and cover tiny boxes for precious things. A second 17^th century needlework reconstruction awaits my attention, and then I wonder if I might just empty the room out and stencil the walls. Plastic covered seed trays sit before the window and there are signs of broad beans, leeks and brassicas pushing through the warm compost. Some of the seed is on its final year so I wait patiently and hope that indoors the miracle that is germination will happen. The soil is still too cold to sow outside and gardening this far north does require patience. Likewise customers are slow to materialise. I put my sign up for the first time last week but didn’t really expect to see anyone for at least a month, and assumed I was going to clear the big Easter holiday break with a clean sheet. However on Thursday a group of six turned up and I wondered if they might have been pony trekking. I apologised for the lack of price labels, but I don’t think it would have changed anything. The only comment I can remember was, “do you remember mum used to stick shells on things” as if the creative pastime was some sort of mental health issue. The young daughter was singularly unimpressed and as they left I felt like I might as well close if I’m just going to get shitty with people. I get so very few callers, and at this time of year it will rarely be more than one a week or maybe as little as one a month. There seems little point in even bothering to put the open sign up, but on a fine day, when I’m just pottering about in the garden or workshop, I tell myself I might as well. There will be plenty who pass by, heading down to the beach, or a quick about turn in the car park, but few are interested or inquisitive enough to stop at my door. So while the storm raged outside, I tried to remain patient during this period of peace, and enjoy the uninterrupted silent of my studio, making stuff for my cabinet of curiosities. I must at least get some price labels when next in town.

 I eventually found the bin liner full of torn rags at the back of the 18^th century dresser base that servers as one of my many store cupboards. I had two very different ladder back chairs to cover, and thought a splash of colour would make a change from the traditional rush seats. Like so many of the things I’ve had kicking about for ages, I can’t remember where the ash chair came from, but I do remember picking up the green painted ladder-back in pieces on a tip in the south of Spain. I spent six weeks roaming, sketching, visiting friends and returning back to Brittany only when there was no longer room to sleep in the back of the car. It must be nearly a decade since I cleared out the old shirts and sarongs and shredded them thinking they would surely come in useful at some point. I willingly admit to being a hoarder of anything that might be of use in the creative line. I used a simple twist and tie technic for the English chair and platted for the Spanish and they sit well alongside the old Irish chair with its traditional sting seat. I will never be able to compete with the wonderful amassed objects of Sea in Design on the west coast, but with each passing year the studio is definitely taking on the carefully curated feel more reminiscent of my own home. That might have been judged a winner, but I don’t think that counts for much in the public eye, where new, bright and shiny rules the day. I tell myself I’m in danger of becoming a cynical old fart, while friends would say you’ve been that way for years.