Seasons greetings to everyone.

A newspaper report said that Monday 10 December, was 'officially' the most stressful day of the year. If so, that's over and we can all start to relax again.

I'm currently working on a number of new cards that will be released after Christmas. Some of these will be possible contenders for Valentine’s Day; but, as ever, the cards are intended to be okay for more than one occasion. In any case, if you love someone, why only send a card on one day of the year?

The Nepal Trust

Here's a little more information about the trust:

The Nepal Trust is a registered Scottish charity and Nepalese NGO which, since 1994, has been working in one of the most impoverished and remote areas of human habitation in the world, the upper Karnali river zone of North-West Nepal. 

The Nepal Trust is a grassroots, cost-effective organisation, dedicated to supporting the Nepalese people by working with them on sustainable community development projects.  Working with health, education, sanitation, renewable energy, eco-tourism and heritage preservation, the Trust emphasises local participation and recognises the local people as the ultimate custodians of their communities.   Find out more at www.nepaltrust.org

Latest card

Continuing the wintery theme, I've added another card - The Penguin's March. Hope you like it.

Website launches

After a year in development the website for Mayflye-cards is finally live. I'm launching the site from the highest spot (almost) in the Peak Distict with a message to the blog.

The site is starting with nineteen cards; the twentieth is in development and will be added soon.

Mayflye-cards

The site for Mayfle-cards is still under construction, but has been up for a new weeks now. There are only two (unfinished) cards on currently, by way of illustration, but more should follow soon.

Charity Link

Some excellent news. Once business starts, Mayflye-cards will donate 10% of its profits to the Nepal Trust. The Nepal trust is a registered charity based in Scotland and also a non-government organisation (ngo) in Nepal. It operates in the North West Himalaya region of Nepal and works to alleviate poverty by implementing much needed projects in Nepalese villages.

Spurn Point

Sunday, 1o June. The beach at Spurn was more or less deserted; the Humber estuary was far busier.

I spent the day taking photographs and making sound recordings of the sea breaking onto the beach. Some of this material has now been put into a new e-card which marks a departure from the style of earlier ones and may be the first of several.

Bleaklow

Sunday 6 May.
Made the easy ascent from the top of the Snake Pass.The weather was mild but a very strong westerly dragged the temperature down a few degrees.

A month with little rain had left the moor drier than I can remember seeing it. Billowing clouds of dust (sand and dry peat) blew around, getting into important places - eyes, hair, sandwiches.

I followed a brace of Mountain Hares up to the edge of Shelf Moor, where the remains of the USAF Superfortress that crashed in 1948 are still strewn around. The hares were mostly grey, having lost much of their winter coats. With less snow each year now the poor things things really stick out against the dark peat in winter. I think this is as far south as they breed in Britain and it makes you wonder how long they'll hold out if the winters keep getting milder.

I'm very fond of hares and have used them (Brown Hares, that is) in a couple of e-cards already. I've an idea to use a Mountain Hare, in full winter coat, but will get round to that later on.

Eclipse

I'm always on the look-out for fresh ideas for e-cards with Mayflye-cards launching later this year. Last night's lunar eclipse was quite spectacular and provided a little extra for a design I'd already started. Unusually for Britain, the sky was very clear and the views of the eclipse excellent.

This morning, I went into the nearby Peak District, to an Iron Age hill called fort 'Carl Wark'. It would have made a great place to view the eclipse from, or better still, to see the eclipse with the hill fort as the sky line. Today, the weather resumed normal service and constant rain and low cloud soon banished any views. Still, you can't have it all ways.