Well, I did try to post during our holiday in Dorset, from which we returned this afternoon. In fact, I was most of the way through composing a piece one evening when it disappeared suddenly, and without trace. Whether this was a feature of the local rural broadband, or my mishandling of the iPad I don’t know. Either way my carefully crafted words were never to be seen again. I decided that this was divine intervention, and I was being given a clear instruction to take a proper holiday.
The message seemed to be repeated in a somewhat different form the next day. I chose to get out and do some drawing, and thought I had identified a good subject. The farm on which we were staying was next to a curious religious community. Although they had taken the idea of “lockdown” with ultimate seriousness their small church, viewed from the outside, struck me as an interesting thing to draw. It had been “restored” in the nineteenth century, but the original structure was actually fourteenth century. I found a good location in the church yard, and soon realised that the task was going to be difficult. I had not brought with me the small collapsible stool I normally use for plein air working. It wasn’t long before I realised that sitting on the ground was not going to be bearable, and tried kneeling instead. After about half an hour it became obvious that despite the religious nature of the location, kneeling was not going to be the answer to my problem. The divine message started to sink in. This was a holiday, and I wasn’t supposed to be working.
The visit was not without its interest, even so, as I discovered a hive of wild bees, which I’ve never seen before.
It was not long before I realised that total abstinence (from art, that is) was going to be more than I could cope with. Our cottage was attached to a large dairy farm, which we both found really interesting in a variety of ways. The challenge of a morning spent sketching the cows was quite irresistible. They have such interesting heads, and it is a real puzzle trying to decide whether they actually have expressions, or whether that is just the result of anthropomorphic imagination.
Although I spent parts of my childhood and youth around farms the outfit on which we were staying was quite unlike anything I had ever imagined, and aroused the interest of us both. Probably I will have more to say about that in subsequent postings. Anyway: here we are, back to “auld claethes an’ parritch” as they say in Scotland. It is good to be home.