BLOGANUARY 2025 DAY 10
That’s it – it’s the weekend! I thought I was volunteering at Charleston but a quick check of the rota showed me that in fact, Wednesday was my only day this week. I prefer working Wednesdays for the people I work with and the visitors that come to the house, but Saturdays tend to be undersubscribed with volunteers and are a bit better for me.
Without meaning to sound cryptic, I’ve had a project I have been working on which I don’t want to mention as it might come to nothing, but it ha taken up a fair amount of time and bandwidth. As my logbooks are such a niche product, it’s a question of trying to judge how best to pitch them to prospective clients, and although it is relatively easy to do mock up visuals, it still takes a lot of tinkering and research to make sure I’m getting the right look and feel. And then they often disappear into the ether, never to generate any response at all. I have to adopt an approach of making enough work so that I get seen, but I don’t have a set market such as children’s books, or editorial, or plumbing manuals (?) or whatever, so I have to put myself in front of people with a suitably engaging email, and that takes time to write as I only have one chance. The old conundrum of making oneself be the solution to the problem someone didn’t realise they had…
I’ve got some of my own artwork to catch up on as I have fallen behind with that, and I still need to film my sketchbook tour. My daughter gave me some beautiful patterned [origami] papers for Christmas, and I want to have a play around with them and some collage bits. I also need to take my binoculars out on a walk, as the leaves are all off the trees so I can see the birds. There are lots of Long-tailed Tits and Goldcrests where I walk Ned.
I was dog-sitting at my friend’s house today and saw a Kingfisher zip across the field in front of me, which was rather lovely. The unmistakable blue plumage looked almost navy in the cool, overcast, afternoon light and it flew at head height, straight as an arrow with whirring wings: typical behaviour of our lone kingfisher species here in the UK. They are loosely migratory in the winter, moving around to find food, hence why they often end up in towns and cities. There is a pond in the neighbouring field so I presume it had flown from there.
Right, I must sleep. See y’all tomorrow.
Good luck with the origami and finding the birds. Yes, much easier without the leaves but I find the light is poorer so photos not so easy! Love the kingfisher.
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Thanks! And yes photos are more tricky but my bird photography attempts are always terrible anyway! 😀
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