Clare Gaylard Glass 

The builders are in woking on a window in this very old house. Panic as we seem to hit asbestos....... followed by relief and head-scratching when it turns out to be horsehair.

This reads like a conversation between me and my youngest regarding my beads.:

'Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?

Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?

Give them me.

No.

Give them me. Give them me.

No.

Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
lie in the mud and howl for them.

Goblin, why do you love them so?

They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man’s fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.

Hush, I stole them out of the moon.

Give me your beads, I want them.

No.

I will howl in a deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.

No.'

HAROLD MONRO

Three books for my birthday today, gifts that keep giving.

At Easter we visited The Ashmolean in Oxford and found an exhibition of Kenneth Coates art. He is a bit of a Renaissance Man on a fine scale, Jewellery, precious stones and metals, fine drawing, sculpture and the inspiration behind each piece gathered into one complete object. Top right.

Artist Marina Bychkova expresses herself through the unusual medium of iconic porcelain dolls, each one an idea or story given shape through her incredible skills with a dizzying range of media. I'm waiting but happily for this one as it's a signed copy! 

Les Tres Riche Heures de Duc du Berry: my parents had the wonderful cloth-bound facsimilie, each page gilded. The fine detail and scope.. God casting the rebel angels down to Hell.... utterly fascinated me as a child. Another sibling has the family copy, now I have my own.

Whitby Museum is a quirky and magnificent cabinet of curiosities, but we think this one takes the prize, it is Dr George Merryweather's Tempest Prognosticator. The ordinary medicinal leech reacted strongly to changes in the atmosphere before storms.So one was popped in each bottle and gave alerts of incoming tempest through movements and rattlings of chains and whalebones....

Jayne Stansfeld of 'Magpie and Me' in Framlingam is working towards a garden and forest theme and one of her themes is: 'Everything in the Garden is Beautiful', and it is, an explosion of verdant greenery and flowers due to a very damp spring.

There is a great little second-hand book shop in Helmsley near Rievaulx Abbey. I beat my daughters to this beautiful little 1945 Penguin hardback edition. I have always been drawn to miniatures and fine detail, I didnt realise that the word for this work: 'limning' derived from 'Illuminating' as in the illumination of manuscripts.

We went to see the magnificent set of Tudor portraits at the National Portrait Gallery before seeing Mantel's 'Bring up the Bodies' by the RSC. So genuine Holbeins and magnificent power statements by the main protaganists of the play, followed by watching the characters duking it out on stage. That's the way to do it. This night visitor was caught on security camera recently.

Wasn't all about art glass then was he? Diamond antenna.

Went to see the RSC staging of Wolf Hall and are off to see Bring Up the Bodies next. I was intrigued to see how such a richly descriptive and complex novel could be compacted into a play. In fact one of the most striking aspects of the production was the intense choreography and clever staging of every scene and interaction, not a wasted inch of stage or moment and a constant sense of movement.

Ravenscar to Robin Hood's Bay at Easter. Cliff walks, fossils in the shale and astonishing, dropaway roads that yield moments of rollercoaster fear and exhilaration.

It has been a long, slow and very wet spring, lots of grey days then a sudden extreme leap into a profusion that might be claustrophobic if it wasn't so welcome, fertile and beautiful. The motorways from here to London have bloomed along the middle strips and sides with golden rapeseed and wildflowers. Blackthorn blossom, lilac and bluebells everywhere.

The lovely 18thC folly on the terrace above Rievaulx Abbey.

I was asked for some frogs eyes for fabric frogs, having played with amphibian textures and colours on glass buttons and beads I rounded things off with a slightly unsettling ring. It is of course a dragon's eye now and not that of a mere toad.

Valentino's Spring 2014, I'd almost sell my soul to be twenty again and have the chance to wear a thing like that. 

Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, hidden in a deep, wide valley and on a perfect, spring day in Easter Week. National Trust and English Heritage have got a Judgement of Solomon thing going on....one owning the abbey and grounds and the other, magnificent views from a hilltop terrace. A very peaceful place.

We visited Inchmahome Priory on an island in Scotland this summer and were struck by the conversational quality of this couple and their heraldic pets. Here's to the next nineteen years!

From a local fund-raiser, those colours.

One of my daughters wanted to go to school on World Book Day as Death from Terry Pratchett's 'Reaper Man'. My other daughter not only made her an amazing skull mask, but on request, a pocket sized Death of Rats. If I do nothing else useful I will have helped to bring this glorious thing into the world..

I have always enjoyed visiting studios and workshops. I like a bit of creative disorder, the smell of woodshavings, industrial soap and oiled machinery. The low hum of an exhaust fan or a kiln clicking away. I suppose the next best thing for me is a similarly purposeful and well equipped kitchen my fingers itch and I'm immediately curious. The brochures for Open Studios will be out in about two weeks.

Creatures from El fill me with delight, each character deserves its own story or mythology and Ellen is an artist whose studio I would dearly like to visit.