I’m an artist and a writer who loves writing, loves words - but wriggles, writhes, sweats and rebels when it comes to writing my own bio(graphy).

And when you’re in the business of having to market yourself/your work on a very regular basis, bio-writing is a big part of this picture.

Still, I don’t think this bio-wriggling and writhing predicament is unique to me, in fact it’s probably a fairly universal affliction.

But what may be unique to me is the fact that I’m…

It was the gorse first - caught me off guard - just up from Cwmtydu, on the high path. 

Maybe it was the heady cocktail of pineapple and coconut swirling in my head, or the sharpness of yellow set against the greying crags of the cliff. Either way, the wilds whirled me into a dervish on that windy day in early May.

Someone asked me recently: ‘how do you manage to be so energetic and joyful ALL the time?! Your pace is bonkers!’

And it set me to pondering if this is a question many of you might have about me.

My answer: I don’t.

Wasn’t allowed a Barbie doll as a child. Unashamed loud, proud cheerleader & lover of pink as an adult 💕

Children, by their nature, are open, mystical little beings. Not yet conditioned out of or cognisant of the need to weigh up the validity of believing or not believing, but instead always open. Feet on the ground - rooting into the earth, arms in the air - reaching up to the sky.

It’s a bright March day and I’m casting back thoughts to the leaf-strewn Autumn of 2021 - remembering the weekend my son saw his Dad (a seafarer) for the first time in 4 months.

As it was a Friday and my first free evening in a while, I decided I should ‘do’ a Proper Friday Night. Except that I couldn’t quite remember how you ‘do’ a proper Friday night.

When I was a little girl, I developed a secret method – a game –  which helped me to ‘dismantle’ scary people. Towering above me, I needed to bring them down to my level.

With tyrannical teachers, I would zoom in on their faces and set their features free: eyebrows would animate into caterpillars and crawl off across foreheads, lips would inflate into dinghies, teeth flashed like ivory piano keys.

really, I just want to wear the same slippers forever and never have to re-pot plants or buy new pants because I can never decide whether to be comfortable or racy it would be a horrible death if I was discovered in comfortable pants

I'm waiting at the checkout. I’m not wearing any pants. It’s not that I’m trying to be erotic - I just need some eggs. I think people might be shocked to discover that in nearly forty years on this planet, I have never knowingly poached an egg.

Recipe:

3 suns, separated from sky

6 spoonfuls of fog

a glug of wet, a pinch of dry

a scattering of hail - sieved

10 flakes of snow, just for show

a dash of sleet - to taste

The temperature gauge on the car pings as the wintered engine splutter-chokes awake.

-3 degrees. Outside air temperature.

I’m dressed in more layers than a puff pastry pie and my insides still feel frozen.