Tuesday

Back from a two week holiday and wondering what I should put in this post. Our trip away was indeed a fine one, with a fair mix of walking, sightseeing and relaxing. I always have a writing journal with me, but this year, for the first time, as well as the reflections on each day and the snatches of prose or poetry to be crafted later, I was sketching and painting.

Some time ago I moved away from lined paper in my writing journals - too restrictive - and recently I've been buying what are essentially sketch books to write in, so that when I do paint, the paper is absorbent enough. Writing on the thick pages is delicious, but occasionally I get knocked by the thought, are my words worth this weight of paper? Much of what goes down is scrawled, imperfect, not thought through, will remain as notes. But these are the seeds from which more crafted, more communicative work, which can touch others, will grow. And you wouldn't sow your prize marrows on scanty earth.

As a young secondary school pupil I was told by my art teacher that I was not good at his subject. That comment has stuck all these years. It is a joy now, therefore, to find out that I can work visually and am captured by form and colour. And I am discovering how what I draw complements and nourishes what I write in a satisfying symbiosis.