Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog…

And other things that hide in the dark.

Every year, people I follow excitedly show pictures of their children leaving for school (it is, for parents, a very exciting time), and then another section of the internet will complain about people that take doorstep photos of their kids. ‘So cliche’, they say, ‘no one cares’. This isnt true. If I’m following someone I will happily celebrate even the tiniest win they have found in this god forsaken senseless human world we’ve created for ourselves; please show me it.

It’s worse if you consider social media part of your job, because you are not just trying to please humans, you’re also trying to please algorithms, meaningless robots, which makes the whole of social media much less fun. Without realising it, you start censoring yourself; for instance, I wanted to tell people about the bats leaving, but I stopped myself. Do people like bats? If I talk about bats instead of nicer, fluffier daytime things, will people unsubscribe? Aren’t they here for the art? if I draw a picture of a bat to illustrate the point can I post about them?

I still don’t have a picture of bats and let’s be honest, even a doodle on a post it note would delay publication by two weeks so here’s a drawing of some Manx shearwater you can pretend are bats. I probably haven’t told you about the Manx shearwater, you should remind me to though, they were ace.

I didn’t have time to draw bats, so I didn’t say how the bats left because the tawny owls decided to nest at the lake, or the conflict because I love the owls and I love the bats,  but realised  owls and bats are incompatible.

I didn’t tell anyone really, although I was bereft, because I didn’t know if the bats had been eaten, or just changed roost, and if they’d come back once the owls fledged. Then, when the bats returned, I have no one to rejoice with.

I don’t have a picture of the tawny owls despite knowing exactly where the nest was because they were very noisy. Please accept instead this little owl I stalked last year. I’m thinking of putting him on my Lock Screen so his disapproving stare encourages me to do some work for once.

At that point I decided  I wasn’t being paid enough for such a joyless life, that I wanted to share all of my loves, and damn the repercussions. Besides, I discovered recently that though people generally dislike pictures of snakes they quite like dragons. I made this:

A purple dragon living under Oxford. A perfectly normal subject that normal people draw all the time.

Close up of a dragon contemplating eating the dreaming spires. I drew the spires from boars hill but edited out all the cranes which really annoyed my son. There are loads of cranes in Oxford

They’ve been selling, probably because I didn’t make very many. It’s my first reduction print ( a technique where you carve away at the same block for each layer) and the chances of going wrong seemed too high to invest a lot of paper into the project. There’s still a few left if you want to buy one.

Secondly, it’s the time of the year we (mostly my husband) scythe the lawns. I favour the scythe because I can’t bear any of the the little things- voles, insects, frogs- that live in there getting sucked up into a lawn mower, and it paid off because LOOK

A tiny toad. Imagine a bucket with about 10 of these guys in. Don’t pick up toads unless you are a certified toad witch.

Enjoying a wash after moving into a lovely designer toad habitat.

Our lawn* is full of small toads, which my husband brought to me in a bucket to rehome in my designated toad area**  because I LOVE toads. That’s why the pocket pals of the internet are important, because you tell people in real life you have a bucket full of toads, they say things like ‘um, ok?’, instead of appropriate things like ‘Yes! Mighty toad witch! I see your power is increasing!’

The garden has several big toads, but I’ve never seen a baby before- nor do I know where they came from, the pond is new and small and contained no spawn this year.

Remember, I am an artist. Writers can lock themselves away for years writing novels, but I need constant encouragement to write anything so don’t forget to leave a heart or a message and force your friends to join my toad worshipping tribe. See you next week x

Compost bag toad comes into the house if you leave the doors open and needs escorting out.

*it’s a small field basically

**none of the adult toads live in this luxury accommodation. One lives in the compost heap, one under a pot in the vegetable garden and another in a discarded compost bag by the patio door that I can no longer move despite it being very unsightly