I can hardly wait for next week-end.
Every few years I arrange for myself to have what I describe as an “artistic retreat”. I find a tiny cottage somewhere, and take my art materials and something good to read. I stay there for around a week, usually speaking to nobody, and just collecting my thoughts. (A bottle of good single malt whisky and some nice wines usually help also.) Usually something quite valuable comes to the surface during these experiences. In fact, some of my best work has come directly out of them.
An amusing thing happened on one of my previous “retreats”. I went to the cottage with my wife, in the Cumbrian village of Appleby. She then came home by train, leaving me there. Before leaving she took care to make sure that I had been told how the TV worked, and became quite irritated when I showed no interest in her instruction. She knows that normally I am pretty illiterate when it comes to working the TV, and she wanted to make sure I would be OK. She understood the situation when I got back home, and showed her my photographs, one of which showed the fire-screen in front of the TV. No TV: no radio: no papers. Just quiet isolation. I can recommend it.
This year I really feel I need that. Recently there has been the wretched experience of my cold, combined with a load of distraction in connection with our discussion about possibly moving house. I have been suffering an “artist’s block” for getting on for two months now. I can’t wait to get away from it all.