Typepad, the platform that hosts Myth & Moor, has had massive problems over the last few weeks as they've moved from one data centre to another. While many issues have been resolved, other problems remain and this blog isn't functioning 100% normally yet. You may find pages hard to load, art still missing on a number of pages, and I'm still having difficulties in publishing new posts like this one. But the hardworking engineers at Typepad are on the case (it's a platform-wide issue) and it should all settle down soon.

Thank you all for your patience with Myth & Moor has been on hiatus. As many of you know, it's been a rough summer and autumn for us; but a new season is ahead and I look forward to sharing it with all of you. I'll be back just as soon as I can be.

Pictures above: Celebrating May Day here in Chagford last spring, with storyteller & folklorist Lisa Schneidau (whose books I hope you all know), our village Jack-in-Green (Lisa's husband, naturalist Tony Whitehead), our 'Obby 'Oss (Howard) and the Oss Minder (me). Now we are heading into the dark of the year, also rich with folklore and magic.

I'm away from home for a couple days, and will be back in the studio on Tuesday. 

Fairy art by Arthur Rackham.

I'm afraid I'm dealing with health issues again, and have to preserve the limited energy I have for work that has pressing deadlines. I'll be back to Myth & Moor just as soon as I can. I hope that will be soon. Thanks for your patience.

Tilly, meanwhile, is doing well. We have to monitor and manage her health condition, but the meds are working, so we are daring to hope for the best.

I'm having a bit of Long Covid flare-up. No surprise, really. It happens less regularly now than a year ago, but still flares up if I get over-tired...and this last week has been a doozy, between Tilly's emergency vet visits and getting Howard packed up and off on pilgrimage. 

Now Howard's on the road, Tilly is doing better, and my body seems to be insisting that I take some time to take care of myself. I'll be back to Myth & Moor soon, with those final "water book" recommendations and more.

Leon Tolstoy once wrote: ''A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness.'' 

Mine too.

My apologies that there is no Myth & Moor post today. Tilly had an emergency vet visit this morning (don't worry, she's okay now), and the rest of the day was taken up by last-minute packing in order to get Howard off to London tomorrow.

In London, Howard joins his fellow pilgrims for The Pilgrimage for Nature, and they begin their eight-week walk to Glasgow, where they'll be presenting a performance (created during the walk, weaving in the voices and concerns of those met along the way) to the delegates at the UN Climate Change Conference in early November. He's just about ready to go now, but boy-oh-boy it's been a busy day, full of unforeseen challenges.

Photographs above: Tilly and me on the beach near Teignmouth on Wednesday. She loved it, and so did I. Oh, to be in the sea again! We've been too long away.