Sunny, Frosty Morning Walks

I slept soundly last night after some busy days and, this morning,  I was tempted to take a cup of tea back
to bed for a while but then I looked out of the window. The sun was just starting to stream slantwise across
a frozen landscape. As soon as I saw it,  I knew that breakfast would have to wait while I walked out across the fields with my camera.

These mornings have a sharp, clean quality to them to them; a clarity and lightness that lifts my spirits.
My walks are so often meditations on work or family issues but on mornings such as this, I am alert to my surroundings, cheered by the beauty that surrounds me and excited by fresh prospects and vistas as
I turn another corner of the frosty lane.

Indigo

I love colour and read a lot about the origins of various pigments and the history of the use of colour. I am very sensitive to tiny variations of  hue and sometimes a small dash of a particular colour in a room or on a painting can give a feeling of immediate pleasure. I think that it is something that speaks deeply to us.

Indigo, that extract from the leaves of Indigofera tinctoria, is a particular favourite of mine and I have found myself wearing a lot of indigo coloured clothes this year.

I'm not a casual clothes buyer, preferring to consider at length before I make a purchase but indigo has obviously held a great attraction for me, in both its natural and synthetic hues.

So here I am, at my desk this afternoon:

I wanted to put myself into the picture today. I have had some months of uncertain health and have withdrawn from time to time. This is one way of saying that I am back.

The City At Night

I'm a country boy through and through.

Night noises for me are the hooting of owls, the sneezing of hedgehogs and rustles of deer passing through.
I love to take a walk through the lanes lit by the moon alone, or gaze up at the sky full of stars.

Even when I travel, I prefer to find a country hotel but, once in a while, I will stay in the heart of a city.
Here I am wide eyed as a child with the glow of lights and the signs of all the people; the traffic and voices.

I still enjoy the novelty of buying a coffee and a sandwich in what seems like the middle of the night and sitting with them in the corner, reading a novel or scribbling in my notebook until its time to walk back to my hotel room, kick off my clothes and launch myself into the crisp clean sheets.

A Solitary Hotel Room

The name might seem misleading; wouldn't it be better to share my hotel room with its large bed and crisp linen? I don't disagree but I also want to dwell on the pleasures of having such a room to myself.

I walked into mine, switched on the light, closed the door behind me and took in its warmth and clean smell. I put down my bag, kicked off my shoes and then proceeded to pull off the rest of my clothes and spread out on the bed. I was tired from the journey but exhilarated at being in a new city with several hours of exploration ahead of me. I love being naked in my room; such a wonderful sense of freedom. A hotel room can be a happy cocoon from the everyday stresses of life.

Yes, it would be fun to explore the city with a companion but, alone, I could shamelessly and selfishly please myself in any way that I wanted, without pausing to consider the needs of anyone else. Its a rare luxury and one that I happily indulged myself in.

On the bed that night, I slowly and luxuriously pleased myself in another way.

I slept deeply and peacefully.

The Seaside Out Of Season

A beach to myself in late October.

There are few things that blow away the cobwebs as effectively as a walk along the beach on a windy day.
I fly my cares like mental kites and they rise higher and higher until they are small, distant soaring things leaving me with peace of mind.

I love the colours; the infinite greys.

I pitch pebbles into the sea, choosing one that feels good in the hand to keep in my pocket.

Salty foam washes my shoes as I leave a solitary trail in the sand behind me. If you could read footprints you would see that my step has something of a spring in it again.

Comfort Food

Grim Days.

I have been recovering from illness; nothing spectacular but enough to take the wind out of my sails. At the same time, I have had to be strong and supportive for others. Yesterday it all just hit me, made worse by the fact that I was having problems with a work project which were beyond my control.

I don't do beyond my control very well.

I was tired, headachey, my insides were knotted and I also had the small matter of a ton and a half of logs to shift before the rain fell; it was one of those times when you find yourself standing there looking for a wall to bang your head against. My comfy bed seemed very inviting; the thought of being in it and fucking to a standstill even more so.

Of course, I ended up in the kitchen.

I sat at the table with two boiled eggs from village hens and my own bread - sliced, toasted and cut into soldiers for dunking into perfectly timed runny-but-not-too-runny golden yolk.

A boy inside me smiled.

Living In The Country

When life feels as if it is collapsing in on top of me, when work just doesn't work and when being a carer starts to wear me down, all I have to do is walk out of  the door, cross the road and step out into the countryside.

Here I can be alone with the wind, the water and my thoughts.

I can listen to the birds (and know them from their songs).

I can kick at sticks.

I can put a pebble in my pocket and polish it with my fingers as I walk.

I can think about the boy I was and wish I could tell him that it would all be alright.
(I can think about my son and wish I could make it all better.)

Stone Circles

I was going to call this first post "Ancient Stones" but it is stone circles which are particularly in my mind this afternoon.

I have been sitting and working at my desk with Radio 4 coming through from the kitchen. It is a pleasant background to my drawing (and yet another small pleasure) but I didn't really stop and listen until the announcement of a program about the 1970s children's television program Children Of The Stones, which was set at Avebury in Wiltshire. This is my favourite stone circle in Britain.

I love the scale of stone circles, the size and weight of the stones, the sheer effort of constructing such features and the mystery surrounding their origins ans purpose. I love how they have survived and they way that they nestle into the landscape, weathered, perhaps fallen; sometimes reconstructed. With Avebury, I particularly love the proximity of the stones to the village.

I needed to be in the area last summer and, given the distance, I took the opportunity to book a hotel room and make my trip a more leisurely affair, including a visit to Avebury. There were a few other visitors but not so many that I couldn't enjoy a feeling of pleasant solitude as I walked round the circle, touching the stones and then sketching them.

A very pleasant journey and meal, private time at a favourite stone circle and then the quiet solitude of my hotel room.