I wrote these words almost a year ago, not knowing how poignant they would be;-

‘I know life changes constantly and can be swept away in an instant, but I feel gratitude and a sense of continuity from thinking about places and things that are familiar to me, and for the moment, still the same, even when we are not there.’

It is now November 2019, it has been a strange and difficult year. Revisiting dark places and battling with demons. I have been unable to sketch or paint anything much.

Then, ‘in an instant’ two young lives in our family, have recently been swept away, leaving numbness, pain and disbelief. The first, Jacob, Bennie’s dad.

I am visiting my niece and the children in America. In an effort to get us painting again I bought two concertina sketchbooks. One for Bennie and one for me. We sat together in the garden of his friends house in Connecticut, the colours of the last of the ‘Fall’ still so beautiful.

We started sketching, encouraging each other, and in the midst of the sadness I have reconnected to my sketching and found some solace.

Ps, the concertina book is fun, albeit a little unwieldy!