Pancakes

There seems to have been quite a bit of enthusiasm for the scaled down scone recipe so I'm back with a bit less scaled down pancake recipe. Pre lockdown I never really bothered with pancakes at breakfast, and when I did it was the thin sort around pancake day.

For some reason I assumed the thick sort would be a pain to make first thing, but they're not, and are now a weekend staple (not that the day makes much difference right now, there's adequate time every morning). What I did make from time were drop scones (also known as scotch pancakes, or griddle cakes and probably by a whole lot of other names too) but always as an afternoon thing. 

After a bit of research it seems that drop scones recipes almost all have sugar in them, pancake recipes are less likely to include it - but essentially they're more or less the same thing. That said there's a lot of variation between recipes both in quantities and ingredients so I might as well throw my favourite into the ring as well. 

The great thing about these is that they're endlessly versatile, and that left over batter keeps well in the fridge for the next day. The basic recipe which makes 8 or so palm size pancakes (more if there's a lot of fruit in them and you like them small) is 150g of self raising flour (add a teaspoon of baking powder to plain flour if that's what you have), 1 medium egg, a knob of melted butter (the thing with pancakes is that you don't really need to be very precise, around 20g in weight should be about right if specifics are important though) a pinch of salt, and 225ml of milk.

Mix the flour and salt, make a well in the centre, crack the egg into it, then stir with a fork whilst slowly adding milk. About half way through the milk add the melted butter, and don't be heavy handed with the milk because you might not need all of it. When the consistency is like thick cream it's about right - pourable but not runny. If you're adding fruit now is the time to stir it in.

The hob wants to be a medium heat - erring on the side of caution because burnt pancakes don't taste good, they're ready to flip when bubbles start to form on the topside and shouldn't need more than a couple of minutes on either side. I don't think sugar is necessary and the pancakes are better suited to savoury toppings without it, but a tablespoon full will turn the batter into a more traditional drop scone recipe. 

The one thing that most instructions have, which I was taught was absolutely wrong (by a proper scottish great grandmother who made the best drop scones and welsh cakes I'll ever eat), is oil or butter for the pan. They don't stick to my griddle, or non stick pans, and they're lighter and fluffier without. 

Eagle Country - Sean Lysaght

I've spent the last week reading this book, occasionally following the diversions it's sent me on for hours at a time before coming back to it, and sometimes just stopping to think about. It was a good choice to follow 'The Frayed Atlantic Edge' with, it's centered on Mayo so there's a little bit of geographic overlap, and the first book had made me brush up a little on my Irish geography. It was also long past time I read this, as I'd bought it almost exactly 2 years ago.

It is a beautiful book, both physically and for it's contents. I really love the Little Toller monographs. They're a handy pocket size, the print is nice to read, the covers enticing - they feel special in an unfussy but very well made way. Contents wise it's a series of walks and climbs around the west coast of Ireland in search of places that eagles have been and might be, along with some of the meditations that walking and meeting people bring.

White Tailed Sea Eagles are the specific focus, with some space for Golden Eagles too. I've a long standing desire to see a living Sea Eagle* (which I hoped to achieve on Mull, but didn't) which is what attracted me to this book in the first place. Reintroduction programmes are having some success in Ireland (and here, where Sea Eagles particularly seem to be popping up all over the place) so Lysaght isn't only searching out the places that they have been, but sees them too.

It turns out there are two things eagles need to thrive - food, and not to be shot or poisoned. There is understandable, if probably unfounded, anxiety amongst farmers that eagles will take lambs, and gamekeepers worry about their own birds. I find it's always a shock to read about these deliberate killings, and it would be easy to be outraged about them, but Lysaght keeps the tone mater of fact which is important.

Blame and outrage don't get the doubtful onside, and the other side of the equation - the state of overgrazed uplands - is an even bigger issue. Improve the state of the land and the rest will start to fall into place. It was also on this point that I really began to understand that a lot of the issues around agri and aquaculture in Ireland are not quite the same as in Britain.

Eagles might be the focus of this book, but they're not everything. There's history and culture, pouring over maps to find eagle related place names, and then the people met along these walks. Hints towards different poets and writers, some of the stories, myths, and legends of the places visited, and a whole lot more.

A lot of the more is Lysaght's charm and perception. He's somebody you want to go for a walk with, even if it's just on the page, and that's partly because the pace doesn't feel punishing. There's something of Nan Shepherd's philosophy about getting to know a mountain here, rather than conquering it, which makes you feel like you could keep up. There's a self awareness which is disarming too, and the pencilled marks now in the margins of my copy are a testament to how many gently presented things there are to think about. It's a wonderful book.

*There were stuffed ones in the house that I grew up in, part of a grim collection that apparently represented every bird that had lived on the island - presumably when my great uncle bought it in the 1880's - had he and his like been content with quality bird books there might have been eagles left for his descendants to see.

Scones for One

This wasn't the post I had planned for today, but I was so pleased with a scaled down scone recipe that I didn't want to wait to share it, although it may be just another step into what's beginning to feel like a transformation into Victorian life.

My day revolves around seeing to correspondence - even if it's mostly online, practicing various crafting accomplishments, considering the days menus, doing the flowers, and otherwise staying at home. The big questions facing me this evening are does the dining table want bees-waxing (and does it need a cloth on it), should I turn the rugs so at least they fade evenly, and should I get the watercolours out again? (Yes, maybe, no point at this stage, and no). I'm fairly sure I might be living in a modern dress adaptation of Cranford, and who's around to tell me differently?

In no way helping with the what century is this question, when I went to the market the other day I bought a lot of very cheap raspberries (£3 for what turned out to be a kilo and a half, or just over 3llbs as the market still deals in imperial measurements) which I turned into the raspberry fridge jam from the River Cottage book of preserves*.

Jam needs scones, but scones don't keep well and getting flour has been an issue (as I expect they spent a lot of time discussing in Barchester or Carlingford). Fortunately for times like this there's Delia Smith (I don't have a Mrs Beeton, and Eliza Acton is silent on the subject of scone, probably judging that it was something you should already know how to do. Catherine Brown refers to scones as fine soda bread in 'Scottish Cookery' and has plenty to say on the subject, and whilst I thought I had a copy of F. Marian McNeill's 'The Scots Kitchen', I was wrong). I like Delia's scone recipe anyway, its a proper no nonsense basic recipe that's easy to memorise and easy to make outside your own kitchen.

It also lends itself well to being scaled up or down, and I had managed to get a bag of Self Raising flour recently (the only sort going, and though not as fashionable with recipe writers now, really handy if you're going to get through it quite quickly - and I think I am). Scones for one are actually the ideal amount of scones for two, or one person quite prepared to eat 4 smallish scones in a day (which I am).

Take 4 ounces (110g) of self raising flour, a pinch of salt, 3/4 of an ounce (20g) of butter, a scant dessert spoon of sugar, and 2.5 fluid ounces of milk - alternatively just add it a tablespoon full at a time. Heat the oven to 200C (fan oven, a little higher in a conventional oven). The original recipe says spreadable/room temp butter, but it's such a small amount that it doesn't matter if it's straight out the fridge. Rub the butter into the flour/salt/sugar as quickly and lightly as possible, add the milk little by little mixing with a knife until the scone mix comes together. Don't let it get to wet. Lightly dust a work surface.

Because it's such a small amount, and as scones don't like handling much, the easiest thing to do is form the dough into a rough round about 2 cm high and then quarter it with a sharp knife. Stick in the oven and they should be done in 10 minutes - that's just time to wash up and whip some cream. Take them out the oven and put the kettle on. By the time the tea is ready to drink the scones should be just cool enough to eat. The smaller amounts make everything quicker, so it's not even half an hour between thinking a scone would be nice to eating a scone. Today is also the day that I found with fridge jam at least they're better cream before jam.



*1500g raspberries, 750g of jam sugar, mash half the raspberries in a pan and stir in the sugar, add the rest of the raspberries, heat gently until the sugar melts, then bring to the boil. Boil for 5 to 7 minutes, take off the heat, let it settle for a minute or so then  pot into sterile jars. Once cooled keep in the fridge and use within 6 months - it's a very soft set jam, really more of a raspberry sauce, great with all sorts of things and not to sweet.

Locked down in Leicester - Listening to the Birds

If you have to spend the lockdown in the middle of a city in a flat that has no garden, there are worse places to do it than precisely where I am. There are worse places in Leicester to be than precisely where I am at the moment. Which is something to hold onto whilst I miss the countryside and wish I was somewhere easier to get out for long walks, and where an hour could be harmlessly stretched in landscapes empty of people.

Despite not getting that much time outside I've been much more aware of the birds and butterflies in my local park because I've actually been spending time in there rather than using it as a short cut to other places. It's this park which is making lockdown bearable, it's got a river and a few bits of fairly unkempt green space adjacent to it (a graveyard and the old castle motte) as well as a couple of other more formal gardens (belonging to the university and Newarke houses museum).

Moving towards the city centre there's another churchyard, St Nicholas which backs onto the Jewry wall museum (Roman remains of the old city walls some of which are built into the church), Jubilee square which is mostly patches of fairly sterile grass, but takes you on to the cathedral gardens which has a few older trees amongst the new planting and is home to peregrines.

I've taken this corridor for wildlife through the middle of the city towards the river very much for granted until this year. It's not a lot of space in the scheme of things, but it is very nature friendly. The first indication of this was walking back from my local Tesco through the university's newest green space. It looks good - green grass, young trees, some other formal planting, but as soon as you're a few feet away from the river the bird song is gone. There are pigeons and crows but little else.

The bigger surprise was The New Walk, a tree lined route from the city to Victoria Park which is probably the biggest green space in the city. Victoria park is basically a mown field, very useful for playing football on, having concerts on, festivals, circuses, that kind of thing, but not a wildlife haven. The New Walk (over 200 years old) though has gardens all along it, and a couple of little park like spaces. I thought it to would be full of bird song today, but it was very muted. Which all underlines something discussed on Melissa Harrison's new podcast The Stubborn Light of Things about just how bad we've become at making space for nature.

It could be easy enough even in the middle of a city, the park on my doorstep shows it, but space needs to be made in the right places and planting has to be for wildlife, not people. Having these places in cities is a benefit for everyone and I sincerely hope that councils will think more about it on the back of this (although the reality is that they're going to be so pressed dealing with the social care fall out of Covid and lockdown that on current budgets it seems unlikely).

As it stands perhaps the best we can do is appreciate and protect what we've got. So far the space around where I live is being used reasonably responsibly and is open, although as the weeks go on, and if the weather stays as good as it has been who knows how long that'll last. What I do know is I certainly won't be taking it for granted again.

The Great Impersonation - E. Phillips Oppenheim - 1920 Club

My first intention for the 1920 book club was to read Catherine Carswell's 'Open The Door', but I lost track of the days a bit and was caught up in 'The Frayed Atlantic Edge'. when I got 'Open The Door' off the shelf it turned out to be 400 pages of tiny print that I knew I'd never finish in time. After that finding something specifically from 1920 that I already had, but hadn't read before was harder than I expected.

I could have gone back to F. Scott Fitzgerald, or E. F. Benson but wasn't in the mood for either, or for Agatha Christie. I need to get round to reading any Edith Wharton (beyond her excellent ghost stories) but now isn't the moment. What I wanted was something quick and a bit trashy that wouldn't derail me from some other reading plans I have for the next few days. Then I found E. Phillips Oppenheim's 'The Great Impersonation' from the British Library's short lived Spy Classics series.*

It was just what I was looking for. Oppenheim was hugely successful in his day. He wrote over a hundred books, and this one sold millions of copies (at least a million in 1920 alone), and whilst in some whilst in wine terms I'd describe him as having 'gone over' (some of the things he writes are no longer easily palatable) it's also easy to see why he was so popular in his day.

The action opens somewhere in German East Africa in 1913, so it was always a safe bet that there would be some offensive comments in it - there are, but as they feel more like a historical record of casual racism/racist attitudes they didn't bother as much as they might have in other contexts**.

Sir Everard Dominey, disgraced, alcohol sodden, broke, English Aristocrat comes crashing out of the bush and face to face with Baron Leopold Von Ragastein. The two men have an uncanny likeness (with the exception that the Baron is fit, disciplined, and looks 10 years younger). After noticing the likeness and a bit of a nap, Sir Everard finally remembers that the two men were at school and University together, rowing in the same boat (I think) and certainly friendly enough for Von Ragastein to have visited him at his country home.

Months later a fit, healthy, and newly wealthy Sir Everard Dominey returns to London where everybody wonders if it's really him because he seems so different - could he really be Von Ragastein in the role of sleeper agent? The situation is complicated by the passionate Hungarian Princess Eiderstrom who had been having an affair with Von Ragastein who then accidentally killed her husband in a duel which earnt him his banishment to Africa. The Princess, cousin of the German Ambassador, is convinced that Dominey is Ragastein and determined to resume the affair regardless of how inconvenient that might be for an undercover spy. She refuses to take no for an answer.

There is also the small matter of Lady Dominey who is apparently both insane and murderous, determined to kill her husband if he ever tries to spend a night under the same roof as her. This is because he turned up one night covered in blood, and with a broken arm, after another gentleman with questionable mental health who had been more or less stalking her had attacked Dominey. This breakdown has lasted for the full decade of Dominey's absence in Africa, whilst her only close companion has been the mother of her husbands assailant who she doesn't seem to like very much.

Oppenheim's approach to gaps in the plot seems to have been just to throw ever more unlikely elements into it until the reader is so overwhelmed they'll accept anything. For the most part it's fun and it works, but it's lady Dominey who is the serious problem with reading this book now.

The reason for her breakdown doesn't make a lot of sense, the possible Dominey's devotion to her under the circumstances make even less sense. She must be at least in her late 20s, possibly early 30s, given that the couple have been married for over a decade but she's constantly described as childlike in her speech and appearance, which all the men seem to find irresistible, but which seems quite unsavoury to me.

She is also convinced that the returned Sir Everard is not her husband, but is fine with it, she prefers the new version so much that she decides not to slit his throat as he sleeps, but instead asks him to hold her hand whilst she sleeps. There is nothing about this situation which suggests a long and happy marriage awaits, but it's fine because she's pretty, and unless wielding a stiletto in the middle of the night, totally fragile and helpless, so everybody adores her and considers Everard a coward for having cleared off to Africa in the first place.

I can quite see that by 1920 men who are trying to navigate the post war landscape would be comforted by the idea of women as fragile angels in need of 24 hour protection from a strong man. I can see that women might be quite happy to go along with the fantasy, but this particular mix is all red flags, and hard for the modern reader to take.

I think the final ending - which man will Sir Everard turn out to be, is fairly obvious given the age and popular nature of the book, but what's going to happen given everything thrown into the mix genuinely makes it a page turner. All things considered Sir Everard is a compelling hero figure through it all; there's genuine tension about who and what he is. Despite it's flaws and predictability I enjoyed this, I have a copy of 'The Spy Paramount' from the same series which I'll probably read quite soon, because both it's exuberance and certainties are comforting at the moment, even if it's prejudices are not

*I vividly remember buying this in the Nottingham branch of Waterstones in 2014, I'm really missing being able to browse around a good bookshop and being able to buy something on a whim - unemployment and Corona are quite the killjoys.

**Dorothy L. Sayers has a way of seeming pro eugenics, or casually denigrating Jewish characters which I find far more disturbing because they're incidents that seem deliberately inserted into her text.

The Frayed Atlantic Edge - David Gange

I bought this book more or less the instant it came out last July and have been circling round it ever since. It was always going to be the next book I read, or the book that I dipped into for quick previews, but as sometimes happens with hotly anticipated titles I was reluctant to actually sit down and read it. In this case if I'm honest, because I knew I'd have to really think about what I was reading, and I've been more interested in escapist reading which would stop me thinking.

Last week it finally seemed like the right time to start it, and it did make me think (there are more, and more, scribbled notes in the margins as the book goes on), and has left me with a whole lot of questions which are perhaps easy enough to answer to my own satisfaction, but would be better for debating with someone who has a different set of prejudices and views. Happily there is a blog that accompanies the book - The Frayed Atlantic Edge - that includes an extensive bibliography, a lot more photographs, and the promise that there's a more formal project in the works which sounds like it will expand on a lot of the areas I have those questions about.

'The Frayed Atlantic edge' is more or less exactly as the subtitle describes it - a historian's journey from Shetland to the Channel, an historian's travel journal is what you get. The journey itself takes in Shetland and Orkney, the west coast of Scotland with a little bit of the highlands as well as the inner and outer Hebrides, Northern Ireland, Eire, Wales, and a chunk of Cornwall all tackled by kayak over the course of a year.

The common thread is the Atlantic facing west coast which is significant to all the communities along this coastline, but doesn't necessarily tie them together. Shetland and Orkney have a distinctly different history, culture, and language (they are not part of the Gaelic or Celtic world) and look East as much as West. North Sea oil has given them a degree of prosperity since the 1970's that's only started to noticeably diminish (I'm thinking specifically of Shetland here, which I know best) in the last few years, leaving the community decades behind in facing some stark choices about sustainability.

Skye has it's own set of issues around tourism and trying to balance the needs of the local community with the influx of visitors who provide so much income - it's the cause of a tension that grows with each summer season. What tourism and second homes have done to Cornwall could well serve as a warning for places like Skye, but the problems facing less accessible bits of coastline are different. The way this is handled shows both the strength of a kayak level view of the coastline, and its limitations.

I've had mixed experiences of Orkney, but it's chapter is my favourite in the book for the way it really captures something of the allure of a place where the past constantly keeps you on your toes (in terms of archology Orkney really is spectacular) in a way that I think does suggest possibilities for future ways of living.

The chapters which cover Gaelic speaking Scotland and Ireland are the ones that raise the most questions. I may be wrong but I feel like Gange instinctively supports the idea of re-culturing the highlands and islands, but I lean more towards re-wilding. This seems set to be a particularly contentious issue in Scotland in the next few years, complicated because it's tied to the thorny issue of who owns the land (a very few people own a lot of it) and the still raw wounds caused by clearances and famine.

It's here that it starts to becomes clear how much the landscape changes over time. Sea levels rise and fall, land use changes, coastlines erode and are reshaped, different industries leave their mark, populations and cultures change too, nothing stays still or certain for long. The more I think about this the less I see abandoned communities as a tragedy. However deep the romantic attachment to a place is, these aren't always easy places to live. They're difficult elements to reconcile, and the forced removal of so many people only intensifies that.*

Gange also touches on deep mapping through some of the Irish chapters, which was a new concept to me, and another one which underlines how much things change, and also how much we centre our thinking about the natural world on our ability to name and describe it, and in the process try and domesticate it. Nineteenth century mapping projects anglicised place names across Ireland and Scotland, obscuring their history and purpose in the process, but for all the negative connotations around this (and they are legion) the realisation that it's part of a millennia's old process has shifted my perspective somewhat.

I could go on (and on) with all the questions 'The Frayed Atlantic Edge' has raised for me, it's a mark of how much I enjoyed the book. The central idea of changing the perspective that we look at our history and culture from (when you stop seeing the sea as a barrier a lot of ideas change) is something that I've been actively thinking and reading about for a few years now. This book has opened up a virtual library of things to explore as well as being a thoroughly engaging collection of travel notes, history, and observations to spend a difficult week with.  

*Malachy Tallack in both 60 Degrees North, and The Valley at the Centre of the World is really good on both the push and pull effect that Shetland has had on him.

A Knitting Post - Zena's Zig Zag scarf

As well as cooking a lot I've also been knitting a bit, although not as much as I'd like - I'm just not concentrating properly, and keep making stupid mistakes which then take an age to undo.

This Zig Zag scarf was no exception. I chose it for it's simplicity, and I suppose something a bit more complicated might have made me focus more, but I've also wanted to knit some version of this ever since I bought 'A Legacy of Shetland Lace' by the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers.

When I was at primary school in Shetland the girls were all taught to knit in class as a matter of course, and Zena Thomson was our teacher. She was patient, and excellent at making you feel like you could do a thing, endlessly picking up dropped stitches, monitoring progress, and making sure you had something fit to take home with proper pride. I remember her with deep affection, and am so glad that some of her patterns made it into the Legacy book.

It's also appropriate that it's next to another of Zena's patterns that there's a note about the phrase "Wha haes a guid or an ill fit", it seems "it was always noted if a visitor came in when a new garment was just starting. If a visitor was already believed to be an 'ill fit', the knitting was likely to be re-started. If knitting went wrong after it was underway, the knitter would remember who had visited when it was newly started."

As I've been diligently observing the lockdown I can say with certainty that I'm my own ill fit because I kept messing this up from the start, there's another Shetland word - haandless (meaning clumsy) which would also apply. Every time I had to go back and fix something I thought of Zena, who is still teaching me to be patient, and to produce something I can eventually be proud of.

Her zig zag scarf is knit in 1ply and would be a good starting point for anyone wanting to experiment with a delicate Shetland lace as it's both simple (also no grafting required) and effective, but I wanted something bigger and more robust that would feel actively comforting to wrap around yourself. With that in mind I used Jamieson's spindrift, which is a jumper weight. I like the fabric it produces, and even better Shetland wool has a 'sticky' quality that means dropped stitches tend not to run, but politely wait for you to pick them up. 

I also dropped the edging from the original pattern, which I didn't think would work so well on the larger scale, I also wanted to keep the wavy effect that the original edging straightens out. In the end I was pleased with the results, the finished scarf has been sent to a friend, and I have ideas about what else I can do with this motif. 

A Phone Box Update

I'm finding it much harder than my father to motivate myself into much action at the moment. I need a spell of bad weather (and an end in view to this lockdown) to get me moving with some purpose again. As it is every day is blurring into a spring sunshine bathed blur where the only real focus seems to be around the getting, preparing, eating, and thinking about food. I'm cooking a lot. There's not much else to form a routine around alone in my city centre flat*.

If things were normal I would have been anticipating a trip to Shetland in the middle of May, but they are not normal. One mark of that is that such a remote place has become a virus hotspot (the number of cases by head of population is a bit daunting) which is leading to lots of phone calls from me and my sister down here trying to tell dad to sit tight.

Sitting anywhere for very long has really never been dads strong suit. Luckily he has a lot of space around him so he can still go off down the coast to do a bit of beach cleaning with no risk of seeing anybody else, and he's been able to crack on with his phone box project, the phone box is also a good distance from anybody else.

For that, a big thank you to readers and friends who donated towards it. Dad managed to find a door locally for a lot less than quotes he'd from elsewhere. The hinges were on the wrong side but he's done something about that so it's okay. There was a bit of concern because the door he's got wouldn't close properly (he thinks it might be slightly warped) but apparently a latch has fixed it so it can't blow open in the wind. Shetland winds are fierce things, it's how the last door was lost.

Meanwhile the box has been painted inside and out, and a bench seat put in it. The next step is to gather as many stories and memories as possible about the box and the people who lived near it, and for it to find it's new purpose.

After, and before. It's good to see the box looking smart (and dad too), surprising to see Shetland still in it's winter coat when everything is so green here now.

*Not a complaint, I'm comfortable, well entertained, and have access to some decent outdoor space which seems to be being used responsibly enough. Living alone is at least peaceful, and taken day by day things are more or less okay.

Something To Look At: Anna Koska, Mick Manning, and Helen Hunt

It's a strange sort of Easter Sunday here, peaceful, and glorious weather - but solitary. I've not been watching much television, obviously not been going out, and there's nobody to swap eggs with so I haven't really registered Easter this year. In food/wine retail it's normally the second busiest time of year after Christmas and I'd be lucky to get the Sunday and Monday off. I'm missing my family, but enjoying the quiet of this year, and thinking for the first time that it's okay to let go of some traditions.

I also thought I'd finish up this week of art with an egg theme to honour the day and the season. First is Helen Hunt who is a recent discovery for me. Her Instagram (@bird_in_the_hand7) is full of lovely images of her own work and photography, and is good for pointing you in the direction of other interesting work to look at. There is a website here. Currently she's posting exquisite pebble studies, but if you go back a bit there are birds, eggs, hares and more. She is well worth a look.

Anna Koska is best known for her work as an illustrator, her Instagram is a great mix of her work, bee keeping, gardening, and country based life. She is @gremkoska on twitter too, and just as delightful there. Amongst other things she paints eggs, life size, in egg tempera. I asked her to do a Curlew egg for me a couple of years ago as a present for my father which I really wish I could have kept. It was exquisite. I think I'm right in saying she also did the oyster on the label of one of my favourite whiskies (Douglas Laing's Rock Oyster, a dram that's a perfect mix of sweet and coastal salty) which is as close as I currently am to owning a bit of her work for myself. One day I'll have something I can put on the wall.

I've been following Mick Manning on Instagram for a while. It's a great feed for bird images, dogs, and other artists represented by St Jude's Prints - another tempting place to poke around on a slow day, and brilliantly for an online gallery you can search by price.* Amongst other things Manning has a series of egg images, sometimes printed onto various bits of ephemera which I really like - but see for yourself.

*A lot of artists websites don't give prices, and whilst I understand some of the reasons for this it can also be deeply frustrating trying to work out if something is within my budget or not, worth saving for, or nice to look at but above my touch.

Someyhing To Look At: Deborah Vass

Deborah Vass is paints the most beautiful flower studies, and also produces fabulous linocuts, mostly of British birds. Her Instagram account is a pleasure to follow at any time, but I'm particularly enjoying it now whilst my time outside is so curtailed. I recommend her Twitter too if you're interested in wildlife at all.

Her website is best for looking at her paintings, but the Etsy shop is the place to go for the linocuts. I love these, at a very basic level because the strong graphic quality of bold black and white appeals to me anyway and I find these clean, uncluttered, prints really pleasing to look at. The subject matter also appeals to me. It's probably also worth mentioning that they're exceptionally good value, these are not major purchases.

The whole 'A picture paints a thousand words' thing might be a bit trite, but it's true, they can also evoke a whole host of memories from where to why you buy something. I gave a friend a raven print by Deborah because it had a Shakespeare quote ("the raven himself is hoarse" from Macbeth), we go to The RSC a lot together, and had been on holiday in Shetland where ravens are a sort of Up-Helly-Aa emblem. That symbolism, which brings up any number of happy memories, is entirely personal to us.

Sometime later she gave me another of Deborah's prints - this one a cormorant that lives on the Kitchen wall, I face it every time I sit at my kitchen table, and it too evokes happy holiday memories, and has also made me more observant of cormorants whenever I see them (as birds go I think only crows rival them for inky presence, and the ability to give great silhouettes).

Part of why I buy something is for the memories and associations it sparks in me, including artists who either see as I do, or teach me to look until I see as they do. When I look at Deborah's photographs she's teaching me to see details I might well have missed, which is why Instagram is such a brilliant thing sometimes.