Sunshine, flowers and…hackers

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Hannah

First of all I would like to apologise profusely for an expletive laden message that was posted to my blog yesterday afternoon. As you have probably already guessed, I was hacked. A big thank you to some dedicated blog readers for flagging the offending message up to me (Anne and Frances, gold stars for you).

About a month ago WordPress sent me a message advising me to update to the latest version. Was it real or was it some nasty phishing exercise by someone out to scam me? I conferred with my friend Rob (who helps me with the mechanics of this blog). We didn’t follow the link in the email but logged onto my blog and indeed, there was an update waiting to be installed. I said something along the lines of, whenever I update my phone it seems to break everything, but Rob is a super computer whizz so, with everything backed up, the update was installed.

Fast forward to yesterday morning. I wrote a little blog post entitled ‘Sunshine and Flowers’ and posted it. Any of you who viewed my blog between 10am and 2pm yesterday would have seen it. I talked about how much it rained last week and how we all had a tummy bug, and how I ordered some wood anemones (inspired by an article I read about Sibylle Kreutzberger of Sissinghurst fame) to cheer myself up, and how I went to a local nature reserve with Finch and Little Owl where we enjoyed the sunshine and jumping over bog pools and following rabbit roads between the heather, and how in the photo I took of the reserve (see above) you can see the waterlilies under the surface of the pond, and how they will cover the water in the summer with their big yellow flowers.

But at around 2pm my blog post was deleted and replaced with the hacker’s post. The message that the hacker posted had a particular political agenda. Whether it was really posted by the group it advertised is anyone’s guess.

I think I’m fairly politically engaged. I understand that there are all sorts of causes and ideologies being fought about all over the world. Some of these causes and ideologies I have quite strong feelings about, however, the exact point of this blog is not to talk about those things. Wars are raging and people are starving and it’s overwhelming. Even in this country, where things are pretty good, people still die of cancer and can’t afford to feed their children. And then you turn on the TV and, if it’s not the News at Ten full of more wars and starving people, it’s the latest cutting edge ‘challenging’ drama. Don’t get me wrong I think being challenged is very important. You can’t do better than a dose of the Today programme or PM on Radio 4, or Big Dreamer’s wonderful cousin’s articles for the Palestine Monitor. There are really important things we should be actively trying to change. We shouldn’t try to live in a cosy world where we turn our backs on the problems of the world, but the reality is that for most people just walking out of the door is challenging. Everyone has problems.

So here, in this blog, I wanted to create a little safe space to not be challenged. A small corner where people can not think about the fact that they have cancer, or they’ve just lost their job, or people are starving in the world. Instead they can have a little chuckle at the comments of a toddler, or smile at a story about sunshine and flowers, or enjoy tracing the movements of the seasons, or get pleasure from a pretty illustration. Here, moaning about my neighbours’ cats should be as political as it gets.

Lessons to take from this unpleasant episode are:

1) Don’t update things, ever. The hacker got in through the update.

2) Small wonders are what life is really all about. I have a bunch of daffodils in a jar on the kitchen table and Wren was mesmerised by them this morning. I realised that she has never seen a daffodil before. Never. In her whole life. What a very wonderful and precious thing to be seeing your first daffodil, and giving it all the appreciation and wonder the miracle of a spring flower really deserves.

3) Hackers, if you’re open to life lessons, please would you devote your obviously extensive creative and intellectual talents to something really serious…like climate change. Your political agenda won’t mean much when we’re all extinct. How about a solar-powered AK-47 to start things off?

4) Get a brilliant friend called Rob who is a secret super hero and can fix your blog when it is hacked and has probably already got climate change all wrapped up for us.

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Big Garden Birdwatch 2017

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Hannah

birdbox, gable end, birds, UK, wildlife, Victorian, end of terrace

At the weekend we completed the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We did it last year (read about it here) in our old house. I’d seen a goldfinch at our bird feeder in the week, and the blackbird and his wife regularly sit in the Japanese maple so we were hopeful for some good results. As with last year it was very revealing to sit and watch our garden for a whole hour. Little Owl trained her binoculars on every hedge and tree, pencil at the ready to mark any avian visitors down in her notepad. Five minutes passed, then ten, fifteen. A seagull flew far over our heads and landed on a distant chimney pot. That doesn’t count, they have to be in the garden.

Then Little Owl spotted something awful skulking around the back of the shed. A grey nose poked its way out warily, followed by a pair of whiskers and then the rest of one of our neighbour’s cats. Little Owl let out a yell of rage, roared across the wet grass in her socks and sent him packing. A fresh pair of socks later and she took up her post again. The blackbird flitted over to the Japanese maple then rose quickly up and away. Little Owl noted him down in her book with glee but the reason he’d flown away was slinking its way along the top of our back fence. The big ginger tom belonging to another of our neighbours was out on the prowl. Little Owl was incensed. Down she went. After a second pair of clean socks she was back on duty.

A couple of minutes passed, Little Owl’s Early Learning Centre binoculars scanning the garden, and her shoulders suddenly drooped. She’d caught sight of a pair of black pointy ears poking out from behind the top of our compost bin. And that is pretty much the theme of our Big Garden Birdwatch. Not so much a birdwatch as a cat watch. Every one of all the surrounding neighbours’ cats made a visit to our garden in that hour and there is about eight of them.

In a way I’m glad this happened. We’d known the cats were a problem when we moved in. Well, a problem if you want a garden that wildlife and children can enjoy, perhaps not if you’re a cat lover. The local cats had obviously got used to using our previously neglected garden as their own private litter tray. It was after one incident where Finch had gone out into the garden before I’d been able to check it, and come in covered in cat poo that we got serious about the cats. We bought a water-powered cat scarer and it worked an absolute treat. Connected to the garden hose it would shoot out a powerful jet of water whenever anything came across its motion sensor (it was also enormous fun for the kids to dance in front of on a hot summer’s days!). Unfortunately, over the winter we forgot to switch it off one icy night and it froze and cracked. Not long after I found the first signs of the litter-tray habit coming back. And now the results of our birdwatch…

Big Dreamer ordered a new cat scarer that evening and several metres of prickle-strip to tack to the tops of our fences. The cat scarer is probably not the most environmentally friendly option from a water usage point of view. We’ve toyed with the sonic cat scarer recommended by the RSPB but are worried it would affect the hedgehog. It’s such a shame to have to be like this. Of course, people have every right to own a cat if they want to, but to have this size of mammal at this density would never happen in the wild. And the difficulty with cats over dogs is that they don’t stay at home. Research has shown that the territorial range of an urban domestic female cat is 0.2 to 0.5 acres. The range of a domestic urban tom is ten times that. There’s not a lot we can do about our neighbours’ pet choices, other than extol the virtues of goldfish in their hearing, so prickle-strips it is.

A strange sound caught my ear out of the open window this morning, not dissimilar to our washing machine’s slow spin cycle. A flock of swans swept over the ridge tiles on their way to the river. They were majestic. Nature is a wonderful thing and worth doing our best to help and protect, even if we can only make a difference in our little patch of green. As a step in the right direction we’ve installed a bird box on our gable end. I don’t think it’s the accepted wisdom to put them on the ends of terraces but our neighbours at our old house had one in a similar spot that was actively being occupied. Apparently they can take a couple of years to start being used so, here’s to year 1 and counting!

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Smuggling

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Hannah
Groundsel by Margaret Erskine Wilson from Wild Flowers of Britain Month by Month.

Groundsel by Margaret Erskine Wilson from Wild Flowers of Britain Month by Month.

Last night must have been perfect for smuggling. It was pitch black when I went out on my bike first thing, only a thin slither of a moon to be seen. My bike light picked out the edges of the ice that crosshatched the canal. It reflected back at me too from the ghostly mist that hung over the river and crept over into the surrounding meadows and fields. The water in my bottle clipped to the frame had lumps of ice in it when I got home. I half expected a ghost of an 18th Century Customs and Excise Officer to apprehend me as I cycled past the old warehouses on the quay, wanting to know what I’d been up to!

On a different tack, I was given a lovely book for Christmas, which I thought I might post about here as each month of 2017 passes. It’s called Wild Flowers of Britain Month by Month by Margaret Erskine Wilson. Margaret was a schoolteacher living in the Lakes. In order to help a friend recognize the different species of wild flowers in the UK she made watercolour sketches and sent them to her. Obviously the bulk of the sketches cover the summer, when most of our British wild flowers are about but there are a few to be found in winter. Here is her sketch of groundsel, which I was weeding out of our garden wall at the weekend so is definitely around in January. If you have a mind to, others to look out for this month are, winter heliotrope, red dead nettle, dog mercury, snowdrops and aconites.

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Sun rise

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Hannah

Layman stagnates, Water snail, natural history, children, illustration, illustrator, Hannah Foley, educational, wildlife, green, brown, peach, invertebrateThe sun has been struggling up each morning this week around about 7.20am and each morning a bird has been singing outside our bedroom window at just about the same time. I did try to learn some of our British birdsongs (here, here, here, here, here and here) a few years ago but didn’t get on very well. I can still manage a great tit and a blackbird but not much else. As soon as I start comparing this bird’s song with recordings of the mostly likely candidates the memory of it is gone, clean out of my head. At this time of year it must surely be a robin, but I suspect a dunnock because it just doesn’t sound jolly enough to be a robin. Whoever it is, it’s lovely to hear.

In contrast to the rest of the week, the sun positively bounced up this morning, flanked by a sky of gold and orange. Little Owl closed her eyes and bathed her face in its light as she stepped out of the back door to head off to school. Bulbs are poking their heads up through the soil at a rate of knots and the churchyard is full of primrose flowers. Sitting down to work this morning the sky behind the chimney pots is a brilliant blue. Tonight’s job must surely be to put in my spring seed order.

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Picture Books 2016

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Hannah
Return by Aaron Becker (http://www.storybreathing.com/portfolio/books/)

Return by Aaron Becker (http://www.storybreathing.com/portfolio/books/)

Every year I get a lot pleasure out of buying picture books for Christmas for the kids. It’s a real joy to look at what has been published over the last twelve months and to take time to peruse the shelves of my local Waterstones considering which ones will especially tickle my children.

This year Finch got Steve Antony’s sequel to Please Mr Panda, called I’ll Wait Mr Panda. Finch loves Mr Panda and as his speech has developed he has created his own gruff little character voice for Mr Panda, making reading it aloud with him a lot of fun.

Being so little, Wren’s preference is mainly for books she can chew so I satisfied my own tastes and bought her Victoria Turnbull’s The Sea Tiger. Although the illustrations are beautifully executed in water colour there’s something a bit dark about the colour palette and the shapes of the underwater creatures so it won’t suit everyone. The story is a wonderful tale about the nature of friendship.

Above is a spread from Return by Aaron Becker, which we bought for Little Owl. This is the third in a trilogy of picture books for older kids (well, anyone really!). We bought Journey and Quest for her over previous Christmases. These books are beyond description and Little Owl spends hours pouring over them. They are wordless so Little Owl and Big Dreamer tend to ‘read’ them by making sound effects as they trace the story over the pages. The gist of the trilogy is that a little girl, bored one day with no one to play with, enters a magical world where her crayons allow her to draw all sorts of wonderful things. Through the story she finds friendship and adventure. Absolutely brilliant and an essential antidote for any imaginative child who finds all the ‘word’ books at school a bit overwhelming but loves a good story.

Aaron's Becker's trilogy - Journey, Quest, Return.

Aaron’s Becker’s trilogy – Journey, Quest, Return.

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Nerves

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Hannah

cricket. chorthippus parallelus, green, insect, mini beast, wildlife, illustration, Hannah Foley, children, kids, family, education, illustration, illustrator, greenI can’t even tell you how relieved I am that the Christmas tree is gone. I had it down on the 27th and wrestling it out of the back door was major catharsis. It wasn’t the tree’s fault. It was a beautiful tree and held onto its needles wonderfully. It was the combination of heavily laden tree with a two-year and a nine month old. It was more than my nerves could handle. Anyway, how was your Christmas and New Year? Mine was lovely, and after weeks of ear-rubbing, red cheeks and rivers of drool Wren has finally cut her first tooth. Starting a new year with a tooth, what could be finer!

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Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2016 by Hannah

new_year_2017

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Merry Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2016 by Hannah

Christmas, thanks, festive, season, illustration, Hannah FoleyMerry Christmas everyone! Thank you for reading this blog and an enormous thank you for supporting me in all my illustration-related pursuits over the last year. Have a wonderful festive season.

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Christmas cheer

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Hannah

Centre of the Cell, genes, health, educational, children, workshopsThe festive season is working up to its grand conclusion. Nativities (including real live donkey) have been attended, Christmas Fair stalls have been (wo)manned, carol concerts have been sung at, Christmas parties have been enjoyed, Christmas markets have been perused (sad lack of gingerbread or wooden toy stall in my opinion), and children’s Christmas crafts have been brought home and either swiftly deposited in the recycling or saved for posterity. Finch returned from nursery with a particularly special glass jar lantern he’d made and a fistful of sticky gems he’d picked off it.

In all the rush Little Owl and I still managed to spot a gang of Long-tailed Tits filling the branches of a birch tree in a neighbour’s back garden. It has inspired me and I fully intend to purchase a Swedish birch for our garden in the near future.

In other news, do you remember this project from all the way back in 2014? It was a children’s workshop commission I did for educational charity Centre of the Cell. Since then I’ve been able to work on all sorts of brilliant projects for these guys and have enjoyed each one immensely. This illustration is now on display in the reception area at the new East London Genes and Health Building. It looks great! I am very proud.

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Waymarkers

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Hannah

spider, orange, brown, wildlife, natural history, illustration, illustrator, hannah foley, children, educational, school,When do you think a regular activity becomes a tradition? This is our second year in Devon, Wren’s first Christmas, and Finch’s first Christmas that makes any sense to him. I think it’s a lovely phase in the life of a nuclear family, where you get to choose the seasonal activities that will become established customs for your little ones, customs they will hopefully remember and treasure for years to come.

We already have a few from our own families. In Big Dreamer’s family everyone makes a wish when my mother-in-law bakes her Christmas cake. Even if a family member is hundreds of miles away, they get a phone call to make a wish. I think that’s a lovely tradition so it’s great to keep it and build on it too. We had a go at making our own Christmas cake this year. Each one of the children made a wish as they stirred the mixture. But then we took it a step further and everyone wrote their Christmas wish on a star-shaped parcel label and put it in a special wish jar. We’re going to get them out after Christmas and see if they came true!

We’ve also got a few things already established from Little Owl. Getting out the nativity set we bought for her first Christmas is a major part of her Christmas rituals. Something that worked really well last year was heading up to Dartmoor to buy our Christmas tree from the Dartmoor Park Rangers (read about it here). It’s such an atmospheric place and we re-traced the outline of the day (which happened by lucky happenstance the first time) again on Saturday.

I’ve said this before, but the ebb and flow of the year with all its feast days and natural phenomena, have always been important touchstones for a sensitive soul like me. When my world seems to have got a bit topsy-turvy these things have lent me a sense of stability. I wish there was a proper word for it. Maybe there is and I don’t know it. It needs a word that is like ‘landmarks’ only for time. Perhaps waymarks might be the closest we can get. My children might not need it in the same way I do, but just in case, when their world gets a bit topsy-turvy I hope that they can climb up onto Dartmoor one Saturday before Christmas, eat bacon rolls in a twinkly barn, buy their Christmas tree from the Park Rangers and they will feel they have touched a marker to point them on their way again, just a little bit more centred and little more able to face the fray.

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