The Waters Company

@DropboxSupport please get in touch as I'm suddenly unable to access my entire business and life's work!

@DropboxSupport I am desperately seeking help I have a plus account and emailed you with the details of the payments you have been taking for yrs. But suddenly I can't log into my plus account only into my old personal Dropbox associated with a Gmail account. So I can't get the level of help I need urgently!

Sarah Bays,contemporary artist, printmaker, living in Norfolk, UK, producing prints inspired by local nature.... #WomensArt

'A Wiltsire Landscape,' (1928) casts up an early morning mood, a magic realm. By the time of this work, William Nicholson had married Edie Stuart-Wortley and moved to the Old Manor House in the village of Sutton Veny in Wiltshire.

Grateful to Times columnist Giles Coren for putting to the sword a local council pipsqueak for trying to put out of business a restaurant in the middle of nowhere where owner Ruth Hanson does all the kitchen prep herself, the washing up, the bookings, the till, payroll and then cooks it. The restaurant is called Hansom in Bedale, North Yorkshire. To give you an idea of its remoteness it’s 7 miles from Northallerton and 31 miles from York. So, on occasions, her husband Mark, who had a job of his own, gives up his evenings to chauffeur some guests to and from their homes. Coren points out when he reviewed the place last year ( he gave it a glowing recommendation) he had to hitchhike from Northallerton station. No Bedale train, no metro, no Uber hanging around at the corner. Enter Chris Doyle, licensing enforcement officer for N Yorkshire council, who has written to Ruth saying in his view Mark was operating a taxi service and that would require a raft of expensive and time consuming licences. Ruth responded that Mark was her husband, he was unpaid and there was no separate charge for the journey. Doyle said he didn’t care as there was deemed to be a commercial benefit and warned without a licence the council may take legal action. Coren has a great last paragraph; “ Yeah, you sue her, you absolute local heroes. “ You teach Ruth and Mark a lesson for being great at their jobs, for treasuring their customers, for trying to create a little joy and make ends meet in a collapsing world.” PS Thought you’d like to see what a Ruth menus looks like. This is called the Sunday Sharing Feast. Starters. Smoked Leek and Pickled Croque Monsieur Whitby Crab Crumpet Pickled cucumber, Garden herbs. Heritage beetroot, whipped goat’s Curd, Wild Garlic emulsion. Main Course Wensleydale chicken, Apricot and sage Wellington. Honey and mustard mash, buttered spring , cider sauce. Dessert Yorkshire rhubarb and ginger trifle. Cost; £55. With publicity thanks to Coren’s column and this tweet I suspect the queue will be out the door and Mark can have his evenings off again.

@JamesFalconer13 @SamiraAhmedUK This is the second time this arcane bit of blotting paper lore has occurred in this thread... It demands an investigation, who first dreamt it up? Did it ever work for anyone?

@SamiraAhmedUK & if you use it as "insoles for your plimsolls" you will faint in school & be run⛵ home "blotted" for a free day off!🤓😆

On Saturday I went into a Ryman's to buy blotting paper. The young assistant knew exactly where it was - "in a very odd place" - (next to the pens) and as I paid politely asked what it was for. So I told her. I feel so delightfully old and wise..

@SamiraAhmedUK Miraculous that they still stock it....and oddly reassuring.

Barbara Hepworth garden, St.Ives, Cornwall, UK #WomensArt

Easy to see we haven’t gone away @networkrail swifts are already arriving in the UK from their long, long journey from sub-Sahara. You really don’t have long left before it will simply be too late for the viaduct swifts. Please Act now!

@SamiraAhmedUK @BBCFrontRow I wonder if anyone at Front Row was aware of this series still available on @BBCRadio3 BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Explaining the Explicit, Julian Barnes share.google/y52bBLRbdeZxSW… Twelve years old but some subjects spring eternal.

On @BBCFrontRow: Simon Armitage & the band LYR perform live, the BAFTA Best game winner, Charlotte Regan on Mint and are straight male novelists really not writing sex scenes? We have a "heated" debate. 715pm R4 or link after bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…

A bricklayer in East Yorkshire has spent 35 years installing nest boxes for barn owls in his free time. No grant. No organization behind him. Just Robert Salter, quietly building and mounting over 350 boxes across fields and farms on weekends, before and after work, for three and a half decades. This year was the second-best barn owl breeding season in the region in decades. 304 owlets counted. Last year there were 95. Barn owls have struggled across the UK for generations due to habitat loss, rodenticide poisoning, starvation from agricultural changes that eliminated the field margins where voles live, and collisions with vehicles on roads that cut through their hunting territory. In many parts of England, populations collapsed while nobody was paying much attention. One man paying attention changed the outcome for an entire region. "This bird has lived alongside humans since they settled in this country," Salter told the BBC. "Because of that close relationship, I just feel like we owe it to barn owls to help and maintain their future populations." The conservation story we usually tell involves governments, legislation, and international agreements. Those matter, but so does one person who decided a species deserved better and just kept showing up.

Returning migrating birds face disaster in Derbyshire. @networkrail operatives have cemented nest entrances closed. Full details on the link. #UnblockOurNests #Swifts chapelbiodiversity.blogspot.com

@lucypgeridoc @networkrail @DeborahPitman @CarlBovisNature 2/3 The lack of formal obligation based on information means this situation occurs across the UK. However, network rail have continued not to rectify the situation. Only now thanks to huge public pressure are they considering doing a thing at all.

#NetworkRail have ignored dedicated swifties for 10 months but they can still help the birds by unblocking their homes. Tell the CEO this: jeremy.westlake@networkrail.co.uk Anger as swifts’ nesting holes in Derbyshire rail viaduct ‘blocked up’ theguardian.com/environment/20…

@MattPearceArt @Michiganography @USCGGreatLakes bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0… astonishing account of fundamental decency in an inhuman world. Perhaps you have already heard it? Available in 5 EPs for next 4 weeks.

@Michiganography @USCGGreatLakes They really are heroes, I take my hat off to anyone who works the lifeboats, in this country they are all volunteers.

Sketching out an idea for a linocut print while listening to the Radio 4 programme on the Penlee lifeboat disaster - one of the most affecting pieces of radio I’ve ever listened to! ✍️ #Welshart

Happy publication day to Dominic Gregory - Lifeboat at the End of the World is launched 🚤🍾⭐️🤩

@nmgarrard @oxfordlitfest @oldbarnbooks @VikingBooksUK @PenguinUKBooks bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

Me & the brilliant Benjamin Wood will be talking to Suzi Feay about our novels at the Oxford Literary Festival - 10am 24th March at the Bodleian library! @oxfordlitfest @oldbarnbooks @VikingBooksUK @PenguinUKBooks #workingclassheroes #ontheedge #seascraper

@mileswithshell bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

What a beautiful short story Seascraper by Benjamin Wood is. On the surface, a young man grafts hard out of duty to his mum. It’s also a tale of yearning, a glimpse of different possibilities. Very moving with a wonderful surprise at the end. I want to listen to the audio version

Here’s my 2026 short book reviews - please feel free to leave your own recommendations for me too. I’ll update it each time I finish a book 🙃 📚

@GreeneandHeaton @VikingBooksUK bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

We are so please to see that Benjamin Wood has won the 2026 Winston Graham Historical Prize for SEASCRAPER! @VikingBooksUK #SEASCRAPER #BenjaminWood