16 Comments
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Sadhbh Devlin's avatar

I always look forward to your newsletter, Jane. So full of colour and joy. Happy May!

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Jane Porter's avatar

That’s so nice to hear, thankyou Sadhbh! Wishing you a happy May too 🥰

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Maggie Summers's avatar

Jane, the clean air project sounds like a wonderful endeavor. I love all the bits of collage and carbon images. That gets straight to the point. You must be so chuffed about creating a wrapper to be seen by all!

The frog and nursery sketches are delightful. The poem-you rocked it!

Your mum and I share the same name. That warms my heart as do the images of the children.

Getting up early is so worth it once you are accountable to someone else to meet up with. I use to walk several miles with a friend every morning at 5:15am. Rain or shine, sleet or snow. Many winter mornings our breath would freeze our face coverings. The sunrises were the best! Your video is wonderful. I love the sound of oars in the water. So peaceful.

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Jane Porter's avatar

Hello Maggie, thankyou so much for your enthusiasm. I'm really glad you liked the poem, that's something relatively new to me to be writing poems. And yes I am excited about the 'street art' foir Kilburn! How amazing that you did a long walk every morning at 05.15 - I bet you felt as if you had conquered the day by breakfast, and how magical to have frozen breath. The dawn chorus skiff was really worth it - even though I have just found out I got a speeding fine getting there! Thankyou for reading, XX

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Nanette Regan's avatar

I always love your newsletters Jane! So many great projects! Your mural looks great and the frog story is brilliant too. I do love “bucket-face” as a password!

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Jane Porter's avatar

Thankyou Nanette! Always handy to have a good password up your sleeve…

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Catriona Andrews- Inklinations's avatar

Love the mural and froggy poem, and what a beautiful serene start on the river 😍

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Jane Porter's avatar

Thankyou Catriona!

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Elayne Crain's avatar

Love your poem, Jane!! Also love how the mural turned out, and the interconnectedness of the sweet buildings you created for that! (Also speaking of buildings, those sweet kiddo-collage'd houses--aww!)

And I lol'd about the Photoshop layers' names; only yesterday, I had one called "blah blah" to denote a swath of copyright text.

I could almost smell those lilacs! :) Please count me in for a ticket for Turkey Circus, if it makes it to this side of the pond, and good luck on the Brand New Idea!

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Jane Porter's avatar

Thankyou Elayne, I have never shared a poem in public before so that's very nice to hear! I'm sure some agents are negotiating as we speak for a stateside tour of Turkey Circus after the rave reviews it will no doubt get, so keep your eyes peeled...

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Tor Freeman's avatar

So much to love here Jane! And your mural is wonderful!

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Jane Porter's avatar

Thankyou so much Tor! 🥰

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Momoko Abe's avatar

The mural is divine! And the pond poem is so touching! I might get the book and give the "one poem a week" thing. What a lovely month you had (as always). By the way, you'll find soon but I'm a lark (not that I wake up 4 in the morning).

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Jane Porter's avatar

Thankyou Momoko ❤️ Do give that poem book a try, I found it a really useful way to get started and I think writing poems and picture books has a lot in common. Maybe you can teach me to be a lark, I’d love to be an early riser! 😂

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Beth's avatar

I’d love to live in one of those houses the kids made (but without the smoke!) and your mural is so inspiring! (Maybe I could paint one in our hallway?) Thank you for sharing the birdsong and sounds of the river - do you listen to The Sleeping Forecast on the BBC? I think you would like it!

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Jane Porter's avatar

You should definitely do a mural Beth! The first one I ever did was Yellow Submarine themed in my daughter’s bedroom. It’s mostly painted over now but there’s still a Nowhere Man hiding behind the door. I haven’t heard The Sleeping Forecast but will look it up now…

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