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 I have had some months of uncertain health and have withdrawn from time to time.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.