Keeping busy

It’s been mad hot here – and I mean mad – I don’t ‘do’heat – I am a coolio character who is sent into a tailspin when knocked off a very narrow spectrum of temperature tolerance.  I have a sneaky irritating condition which is exacerbated by fluctuations in weather, so I am trying desperately to stay cool.  My newest companion is a nine year old rescue dog – Reggie, who is frustrated too by the rising temperatures because it interferes with his walking schedule. Getting Reggie is the best thing I have achieved in a long time – less a rescue by us than a rescue of me by him.  I missed walking a dog since having lost Digger, missed the casual engagement with the local dog walkers, the daily interaction that brought the outside in. But we are back – and Reggie is settling in grand, a little heartbeat at my feet.

 

My other achievements in the past few months have been to include three new product ranges into my Etsy shop – to keep up interest!  I was considering how to use my card illustration to create another income stream, and have designed three different sized notebooks which incorporate my card design and inspiring quotation. I have taken life lessons from writers, musicians and philosophers for decades, and so share some of my favourites.  A further project is now available on Amazon too – a heftier volume featuring a selection of my card designs as a book to share on the coffee table – no note pages in this one! All the books are also available via the site at Blurb, but I have a few copies at Etsy which I can send out signed.  A further project in the pipeline should be with me soon –  a smaller production featuring design and quotation- more to follow!

Fully illustrated notebook Modestly bites

Link to purchase ‘Modestly bites’ on Etsy    etsy.me/2NeDTnb

Fully illustrated notebooks with full page illustration inside

…Oh and before I forget I was delighted that one my designs is now up and running at the Urban Outfitters splendid site—-sweet!

Circle of Life by anipani

 

Link to Urban page   bit.ly/2NbhKpU

Reggie

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A Dog’s Life

I am a private person, so I am inviting you in to my life today – just a portion of it, inviting you to meet Digger, my hound, companion, walkmate.  I don’t know whether he knows – I suspect he does – just how important he is to how well I live. By nature solitary and lazy, I am unlikely to don outerwear and walk around the local park twice a day, meeting on the way a host of canine friends and their owners, in turn funny, sad, friendly, caring and occasionally hostile. Digger has replaced the role of the playground, my erstwhile opportunity to converse and exchange with people who become more than acquaintance, make up a community. So in celebration of our canine friends everywhere I offer up my poem.  How very daring of me!!

A Dog’s Life

Although  dog is bored,

dog does not complain.

An occasional sigh, expulsion

of disgruntled breath.

I tell him I’m bored too,

but not enough to fetch his lead.

He settles for a rub and a tickle

or two. I like his composure.

‘Pleasure is the absence of pain’  I tell him,

and comma-like, his presence comforts me.

 

He has accepted me, after abandonment.

Has stories I will never hear, a life

lived without and before us. We are not

so dissimilar then. New lives constructed

when the disappointments and the blows

bring down the here and nows.

 

He shows how it is possible, to decide

to continue. To re-emerge, perhaps

never to see the world the same again.

The walks, though unfamiliar , unnerving

still contain smells too exciting to ignore.