Week Twenty Six
“In all of nature I see expression and soul” Vincent Van Gogh 
Under an azure blue sky with pure white clouds dramatically streaming in large blocks, I helped the McCracken’s get sheep from higher fells to lower fields. It was my first ‘gathering’. After walking for a couple of miles to get to the sheep, the task in hand seemed rather daunting; the expanse of landscape we had to cover seemed immense. The sheep were dotted all over this immensity and there were only five people and four dogs. It took along time to get the sheep to start moving down, we were so spread out at times I did not quite believe it was going to work out. 
From a distance I could see Maureen McCracken trying to save a lamb that had just been born, the lamb is swung if it is not breathing, unfortunately nothing worked to bring this one to life. There seems so many ways a lamb can die, one died because the ewe had licked it obsessively around the navel to clean it, so much so, that the lambs innards came out of the navel. There is so much hard work involved being a hill farmer and it was heart breaking to witness the frustration when fatalities were discovered. This trip encountered five dead lambs, three injured ewes, and one dead ewe. I discovered a dead lamb and there was no sign of the mother so I carried it for miles, I couldn’t get over how super soft and fluffy its legs were and how heavy it was to carry. Eventually the trail formed, and sheep being sheep, like to follow each other and began to trundle in lines towards the greener fields. It was an exhausting but exhilarating four hours. 
Its now ‘tick time’ here. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites that are found in the tall grasses where they will wait to attach to a passing host. A tick will attach itself to its host by inserting its chelicerae (cutting mandibles) and hypostome (feeding tube) into the skin, then they drink merrily away on blood until they are gorged. 
These pesky parasites are well….basically horrid. It’s a fundamental necessity to make sure no skin is exposed whilst walking across the fells. So the simple rule is to tuck everything in around the trouser leg department. A simple rule to follow I know, and one that I will now adhere to whole-heartedly. You see, I’ve had my first and hopefully my last tick. I hadn’t obviously quite grasped the simple tucking in rule, and thought, that a splendid pair of pink and purple knee length stripy socks would suffice at confusing the ticks, socks I thought, wouldn’t let them know I was a warm blooded animal, and therefore potentially dinner. 
Little did I know that these pesky parasites have the ability to rush up your trouser legs in search of accessible flesh to nibble? And nibbled I had been! Being a ‘city’ girl I had no idea how to remove it, so I spent and embarrassing five minutes at the local doctors having my pesky parasite removed. A brief lesson then commenced on what to look out for if I’m bitten again, how to remove them and essential signs to look out for in case antibiotics are needed. 
Only after I had returned form the doctors I remembered that the stripy sock decoy day, was also the same day I was…how does one say it…..’caught short’ on the fell. I am hoping….and praying, that at the precise moment I had to pee, that any nearby ticks were occupied somewhere else and didn’t notice the two rosy cheeks that were being exposed! I’ve also discovered that if you enter a shop and ask the purveyor kindly, do they sell tick removers, nine out of ten times they look at you and then take a step back! 
“Drawing is the route of everything” Vincent Van Gogh 
It has been a thoroughly busy and enjoyable week as my friend Rosie came to stay for a few days, and as the volcanic ash somewhat affected her return flight home, she was the first person to be ‘ashed in’ at Highgreen. Rosie is actually my ‘creative angel’ she encouraged me years ago to become an artist, so it was really special that she came to visit me during my artist residence. We have laughed so much our sides hurt, and worked so hard our bodies ache. 
Rosie has been brilliant; she did an amazing job at helping make a paper template for my skin project, so now I can follow a pattern to cut the skin to, rather than my ad hoc way of randomly cutting out shapes and then trying to make them fit! We also started an artwork that I have been musing over for a while now. I decided I wanted to physically draw a line on paper to an important marker that I often go to. So armed with lots of rolls of paper, each twenty meters long and a big chunky piece of graphite, we set off to draw a line from the gate at Highgreen to the McCracken’s farm. 
I don’t think either of us anticipated how much hard work drawing a line on a road could be. Or how much it would make us laugh doing so. We filmed the paper rolling down the hill and then both of us bending over, one drawing one rolling the paper back up. After a few hours and our gluteus maximus’s thoroughly stretched we realised how little we had done, how far it was to go, and how much we had miscalculated the required number of rolls of paper needed.
Amazingly after two days we have reached just about half way. That is twenty-three rolls so far. I have to now consider how to finish on my lonesome, at the moment I am considering sitting on a skateboard whilst multi tasking unrolling, drawing and rolling back up all at the same time! We know from experience it is easier with more people as on the second day, Laura who was travelling down from Scotland to Bristol also helped us out. It was also fantastic to see Laura and extremely good timing as it meant that Rosie could get a lift back to Bristol whilst the ash does it stuff. Consequently during this weekend many bottles of wine were consumed and much laughter was heard, and bad hangovers were experienced. I don’t go to the local pub very often, but it appears every time I do, the same band is playing, and playing the same cover versions of ‘Lay Down Sally’ etc as when I last heard them. All good for a giggle though! It has been a great week. Thanks to Rosie and Laura for all the help and laughter and being absolutely fabulous friends and to John for the most excellent cds. Week Twenty six…done!