I just had to show you this!

My friend, Janet, has been doing a cartooning course.  And, since she's kinda dog crazy, she's been posting a 'Daily Dog' on her Facebook page.

When I found out, I suggested she drew Joss and....hey presto!....a few days later, there he was.  Isn't he fantastic?

Joss and his passion for plastic bottles immortalised forever.  :)

Two things I’ve always loved: art and the sea.  And yet it took a crazy amount of time to create a life that was full of both.

I lived in London for my first thirty years.  When I was growing up I honestly thought it was the centre of the universe; why would I ever consider living anywhere else?  (I find that hilarious now.)

I thought I had everything I wanted; there was my family, friends, the shopping, the restaurants and bars, the galleries and museums.  After dropping out of university I did a year long art foundation course which I adored.  With the Yin comes the Yang however, and there was a darkness in me that grew and manifested as periodic episodes of crippling depression.  Looking back on it now I tend to be reluctant to describe that time; depression (and its manifestations) lends itself too well to dramatic hyperbole.

So my two great loves lay dormant for a long time; I hadn't realised how important they were to me then.  Depression will kill off your creativity with the efficiency of a heavy blanket dousing out a fire.

At 27 I left my long-time work as a Montessori teacher to travel, something I've always loved.  Of course I've gathered many treasured experiences from my travels, but when I found myself in absolute despair in a tiny hut on the shores of the beautiful Lago de Atitlan in Guatemala, the loneliest I'd ever been, I realised I had to change something.  I came home, crawled into bed and didn't come out for the best part of a year.

I realised I could no longer live the way I had been; it was slowly killing me.  (There's that hyperbole again!  And yet it's true.)  I did consider becoming a hermit for a while, but in the end I settled on Brighton, which combined a need for connection to other humans with proximity to the sea, something I could no longer live without.

I could not have predicted the healing that move would cause, although now I think my heart must have known.  That my art, which had disappeared during the depression years, would return to me, and the connections and fulfilment I would find as a result.  The sheer joy of being able to visit the beach every day of the year!  The mentor I would find who would help me change my life beyond all recognition.  The experiences I would call in that would push me in the direction of the life I wanted to live.

These days you will find me on the beach in all weathers, picking up treasures and soaking up the negative ions like they're about to run out, or drawing, painting and generally making a mess in the studio.  Were it not for changing places, both inside and out, I might never have been reunited with my two long lost loves.

Tara is a mixed media artist and Reiki master who lives on the south coast of England.  She runs Creative Spark sessions from her attic studio and has just published her first book - a 'little art and life manual' that's also titled Creative Spark.

Changing Places is a guest post series about the power of place to change us.  You can find more stories in the series here.  If you'd like to share your own story, please contact me for submission details.

I'd been told there was a white deer in the valley.  And I've been watching for her for months now….straining my eyes across far away fields, presuming that - if I saw her at all - it would be at a distance.

Then this morning, there she was - right by the roadside.  I stopped the car and pulled out my iPhone.  Not daring to get out in case I startled her, I wound down the window.

A few moments later there was movement further back in the woods….and there was her fawn - a spotted brown beauty, born last year.

The creatures with whom I share this valley astound me.  Hooves and paws and feet treading the same grass and heather as I do, yet stealthily, secretively, so often unnoticed.  Parallel lives.

But today I saw the white fallow doe.  Now I just want to set eyes on that wild wallaby...

.

I woke this morning to find I hadn't wrinkled like a prune overnight

Nor had I turned dull and frumpy in my sleep

(Quick check)  Yes, I still think fun is….well, fun

I don't consider any shops off limits when it comes to buying clothes

And I'll swear I turned a head or two as I walked down the street today

I'm healthier than I've ever been

And happier, too

50 feels….liberating, empowering, exciting (I wasn't expecting that)

And like a massive sigh of relief

As if I can finally let go of all the striving and trying and inadequacy and hang-ups and wanting to please and worrying what others think.  What the hell, it's time to just ENJOY life.

Time to throw caution to the winds and simply be ME.  Because - it's now obvious - this life won't go on forever.  Time, then, to be bold.  To be real.  Time to stand in the authority of my experience - the accumulated wisdom of half a century on this earth.

50 feels like gaining a voice.  And permission to use it.

I grew up with Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School books.  I adored them.  I was convinced I would leave school and flit off to Austria for good and evermore.  Had my ten year old self known it would take me close on half a century to get there, I'd have been horrified.  But the years have come and gone and I never quite made it to Tirol.

Today, however, was THE day.  I finally stood - for all of about three seconds - with my feet in the icy water of the Aachensee (the Tiernsee of the books).  I perused the menu at the Post Hotel and walked along the lake path that leads to Seespitz.  I lingered on the boat landing and tried to identify the snowy peaks that ringed me round.

I absolutely couldn't have chosen a better day to be there - the first really hot day of the year, the sky so blue, the lake so clear and still.  I left with a pebble from the water and a cone from the pine woods.  And a soul at last satisfied.  The Tiernsee (Aachensee) was exactly as I'd imagined it.  And it was perfect.

I usually wash the floors on Friday.  But yesterday was slightly different.

It started with a swim in the spa of a top London hotel.  Continued with lunch at this little place in Paris (Hugo on Rue Papillon - the food was divine!).  And wound up with a train ride across Europe to Munich.

I'd say that was one up on the average Friday, wouldn't you?

Ten days from now I'll be celebrating a BIG birthday.  One that warrants a whole month of celebrations.  The first party was a couple of days ago when my sewing chums gathered at Dixon Hill for something rather special.

Dress A Girl Around The World is a charity that believes every little girl on the planet should have at least one pretty dress.   In order to make that a reality, they encourage folk to stitch up simple pillowcase dresses which are then taken to parts of the world where little girls have no dresses at all.

In a couple of hours on Thursday, we whipped up TEN dresses - the four you see above and six others which are almost finished.  We're planning to titivate them with patch pockets and appliquéd flowers etc.  I promise to show you the whole line-up when they're complete.

It delights me to think that ten small people might have smiles on their faces just because it was my birthday.  I honestly can't think of a better way to celebrate.

Sometimes it's the little things….

Like finally discovering how to persuade hyacinths to bloom short and stumpy and last for AGES.   Instead of bolting, leggy creatures that flop even when you stake them and are past their best way too soon.

The secret?  Keep 'em cool!  (Our downstairs loo is the perfect place!)