Tilia Publishing Uk

The story behind the image
This is one of THE iconic places in the South Downs, the scarp next to Devil's Dyke just north of Brighton. The use of this place in the past 200 years has been multiple, with busy attractions filling the Dyke itself with much ironmongery, now thankfully well gone. Soldiers have trained here, camped here and prepared for long journeys. These days it is busy with 'tranquil' pursuits, although how tranquil they really are is an interesting question. T...he most popular is the hang glider or the paraglider. There is a pub, which has gone through different ownerships over the years. In the fog it is one of the most eerie places to be, in the sunshine it is one of the more beautiful.
On this particular day we had taken a friend to the pub for lunch and afterwards stood watching the hang gliders and walkers enjoying the grass. I've got several photos of the hang gliders. As we stood, a cyclist walked up the road, a bit tired after a long steep climb. He was then on his way to the South Downs Way and suddenly he flopped down to admire the view. It is a lovely view, but what makes this image work is that feeling of calm that his body language gives off. He knows where he is going next, but not just yet....
This is a very popular card. It is sent to people for different and personal reasons, or it is kept as a reminder of peace and calm in troubled times.
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Last weekend we had an extraordinary experience with an unbeatable range of weather over the days of the Garden Show at Loseley. It was lovely to see old customers and welcome new ones and hats off to those who braved the heat of Friday, the winds of Saturday and that rain all of Sunday! This year it was quite unexpected, but the cheer of utter joy that went up on the Friday afternoon when the rain started was a memory to treasure. Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments

One of the most special places in the world is Iceland. A land often described as being of ice and fire, which sounds like marketing speak. It is actually very true. Glaciers, ice caps, glacial meltwater, volcanoes, plate junctions and larval formations abound.
This photograph was taken of the meltwater river Skógá, the waters arising from the infamous glacier topping a volcano, Eyjafjallajökull. The waterfall is called Skógafoss and in the sunshine often has this rainbow.
This card has been sent by people as a good luck card on many occasions.

The story behind the image
Patterns in the landscape We were out in the east of the South Downs near the hidden village of Telscombe, looking for specimens of the very rare and very beautiful lichen Teloschistes chrysophthalmus (the Golden-eye lichen) as it had been turning up on hedgerows in the region. Stopping for a particularly promising hedge enabled a series of photos of the patterns made by the new growth in the wheat field beside the older bales.
... The blue light in the photo is a classic in the downland.
Sadly we didn't find the lichen that day, but this card sells well to visitors to the National Park and to people who love to remember times spent walking these hills, as well as to those who appreciate the serenity.
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Lovely and exciting news today. Through New Nature Magazine Calderstones School Year 8 have been reviewing Freckles and Friends as a project. The results are starting to appear and they are full-on positive! They've utterly 'got' what it was intended to achieve!

The story behind the image
Lobaria pulmonaria on pine
This is another lichen card, we did a few to see how people reacted and were surprised by how well they have gone down amongst people at events. Lobaria pulmonaria is also called Common Lungwort in reference to the lung-type shaping it has. It is also a marker of clean air, being pretty intolerant of most pollutants.
... Lobaria pulmonaria occurs widely in Scotland on many surfaces, it has even been found on telegraph poles. This picture, however, was not taken in Scotland (the light may give this away) but in Tenerife! Away from the horrors of seaside cavorting by humans of various shapes and sizes, up in the north of the island where the ground is high and the fogs last into mid-morning, there is sufficient humidity for lush lichen cover to be present in the Canarian pine forest (not as common a habitat as it once was and much of it now given special protection).
Reasons for possibly sending the card: Thought this would intrigue you
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The story behind the image
On top of a rock
For several years we were working on the lichens of Jersey, ultimately this culminated in the book The Lichens of Jersey (published by the Société Jersiaise but we sell copies as well). As work progressed we were photographing lichens all over the island, especially on the coastal outcrops that are literally festooned with them. While taking photographs at La Corbière we were chaperoned by the local wildlife and of course the gull o...n his rock at the same level as the lighthouse on it's rock was too good a shot to miss. You could come up with all manner of interpretations of the scene, gull and guano vs lighthouse and human visitors is one, possibly not to be used too frequently!
Reasons the card could be sent: Hey do you remember our Jersey holiday? How's the new job going? Thought this would tickle...
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The story behind the image....
This is a RANDOM selection, sorry to buzz in on the C/X word on a beautiful sunny day.
This was the first Christmas card I ever designed. I had been working as a map cataloguer with the intention (fulfilled) of becoming a map curator and many of the maps I was handling were Saxton and Speed and had fabulous cartouches and watermarks. The aim was to go back to the roots of the traditions, to move clear of the materialism and evoke more of the se...nse of wonder that the day brings best. It was simple and understated to offset much of the gold and glitter and stay in keeping with the idea behind the search.
Reasons for sending the card: Three guesses!!
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The story behind the image
Bluetits and milk bottles. This is a nostalgia - yet amusing - picture if ever there was one. It also sells well! In the 1970s and 1980s there was a boom in a learned habit of blue tits in particular, the act of removing the aluminium bottle tops from doorstep delivery milk to get at the cream at the top. It became a bit of a battle between human and bird to get to the milk first. In those days the bottles were Gold Top, Silver Top and I seem to rem...ember Blue Top with silver stripes. This was for full cream, standard and some sort of skimmed. The preferred bottle for the Blue Tit was the Gold Top, with the Silver Top being worth a peck. Anyone who had the Blue Tops delivered tended not to have the problem once the birds twigged there was no cream. My mother always found this fascinating and sort of endearing. My father built a milk bottle holder out of a bit of drainpipe and some bits of wood in order to discourage them. My mother has done a few paintings over the years. This one she did a bit after the boom years, so it is already nostalgic. Nowadays there aren't many milk deliveries, there certainly aren't many gold topped bottles and the habit has pretty-much stopped. Probably just as well as we are more aware of the bird-borne viruses as well so it wouldn't be as charming now as it used to be....
Possible reasons to send the card: - Hello - do you remember this? - Hello - I remember this - Look at this, I was thinking of you
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The story behind the image
There is an innate curiosity in sheep and cows. On several occasions on field trips with learned souls giving instruction to students, the lecture has been attended to with great concentration by the nearby livestock. This was not, however, one of those. We were on a walk at Amberley Wild Brooks with friends and a young bullock moved towards us to check us out. Simon (Davey) stopped to speak to the bullock, at which point he was joined by the rest o...f the herd. All in a row it was a musical festival of moo'ing from human to cow and back again...
Possible reasons for sending the card: - Wishing someone well off to University - Wishing someone well in a new teaching job - Wishing good luck with running a course
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A little while ago, someone suggested we do something on 'the story behind the image' for the images we have on our cards. It's hard to know if this is a good or difficult plan, as a card is a personal item to the sender and the sendee and yet it can help to know that story as well. So we are revisiting this idea, having done it for two cards as blog posts a couple of years ago.
We have lately returned from our first Trade Show, PGLive, with a box full of display cards. From... this I will pick at random, so in theory there will be something from all ranges, although randomness can mean clusters of course.
This first card we call Overhead Walkway. It was a drawing I did for the book Is No Problem (Simon Davey, Brambleby Books 2016). The walkway in question is in Ecuador, at Sacha Lodge, in the rainforest of the Amazonian complex, next to the Napo River. When we were there I had injured my left shoulder and leg and felt remarkably lop-sided as a result. This was fine for the boat trips and birdwatching, even for climbing the structure that surrounds a kapok tree. It was far from fine when faced with that walkway. The barrier is light netting and the whole thing bounces!
Only having one side with strength with fellow travellers who didn't understand the problem meant serious trouble could be brewing. Naively I said I would walk on the ground and meet everyone at the other end! This missed two crucial points: 1, as I discovered, the path was far from simple; and 2, there was every possibility of jaguar in the trees!! Thankfully we had two guides, so one went with our little group and I was accompanied on this walk by the other, far from pleased, but if I'd fallen he'd have been even less pleased! We met some cute little baby frogs at the other end of the walkway that we were able to show the others when they got down. Cute but not safe to touch... baby poison arrow frogs!
Possible reasons for sending this card: A new job Going off to university Leaving home Starting a new business
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Yesterday's Uckfield radio interview is now live on their website. Jacqui, the interviewer, is very talented and good at nudging you to stay on track without it being apparent. And pacing it so there is no blethering! She had a great reaction to Freckles too.... http://www.uckfieldfm.co.uk/…/amanda-da vey-freckles-and-fr…/

This morning was nearly a first, as I was on Uckfield FM talking about Freckles and Friends. The 'first' radio interview I did was last month and never transmitted! This morning's experience was a joy. Everyone was warm and kind and it was far less stressful than it might have been with the interviewer Jacqui really engaged with the book. A big thank you is due to them and to Richard for the connection...

Last year we had a brilliant month of June doing #30DaysWild - it gets mildly addictive... this year we are doing it again but as The British Lichen Society and focusing on lichens. The first one yesterday was Xanthoria parietina as a youngster on a car hub cap...

This is so in keeping with everything we believe in it's amazing!

Starting to get some lovely feedback on Freckles and Friends! The latest says it is 'a wonderful magical informative book' which is warming. However, the best bit is what follows. A description of observations from her own garden of a solitary bee coming and going in a tree also home to hornet moths that hatched and she was delighted to watch them pumping up their wings. I love how these little stories come in. A three-year-old who's mum is reading the book to her is already adding her own stories of her garden! Am to be given her stories soon. The whole idea was to encourage people's and children's eyes to be open to what they can see and observe close to home. To find this is happening is quite emotional!

Lovely to see Emma and Sarah at The Grove, Blackboys, delivering copies of Freckles and Friends plus some cards. Inspirational chat, thank you Emma!