AUGUST 2025

Friday 1.8.25

Richard calls out excitedly that Ellie has sold the Angel & Lion painting that I made as sponsorship of the National Star students’ lion. Shortly afterwards we received an e mail from Ellie who said “We've had another very busy day with Leon, lots of people are enjoying him …” She also tells us that she’s sold the little Lion & Angel painting to a couple who were drawn in by seeing Leon in the window as they recognised my work. They were the lovely couple who bought the large painting And So It Came To Pass from my London exhibition who are spending a day in Cheltenham. It seems amazing to me that they could recognise my work even when painted on a 3D lion. It’s brilliant news as tha means my sponsorship is covered plus a little extra.

Saturday 2.8.25

Henrietta ‘phones on the way back from Devon. They’ve had a lovely time and although it wasn’t the heat wave, most days had sunny spells and the evenings always seem to be  full of sunshine in Devon. She had sent lots of photographs of them on the large extended family walks over the glorious Devonian countryside and on the beach where they all swam. It’s such a glorious thing to continue doing as it started when Isaac and Samuel were both very young and Kev’s parents bought a holiday apartment there. But now all the boys are bigger they all stay in rather wonderful mobile holiday homes on a camp that has a swimming pool, shop and bar etc. Although the time has gone too quickly especially for Kev who has had to work remotely part of the time as he is the director of a design comany in London

I am now trying to build plausible but meaningful compositions on the two new paintings although we do spend as much time as we can in the garden having at least two meals out there each day. Richard has cut back a very largr shrub in my studio garden which had become rather bush or even tree-like and was encroaching onto the grass. Each day we go to count the red hot pokers that dear Roger, who used to rent the bungalow before we sold it, grew from seeds and gave to us in little pots. Each year they come up and grow into magnificent plants predominately yellow/orange and we reminisce about his guitar playing. Karen did stay on living there for a year or two after he sadly died but then moved to be nearer her sister. We still exchange Christmas cards.

Sunday 3.8.25

The weather is still good although the wind has been stong overnight and blown down even more apples which I collect up each day. We were amazed last week that an area of the garden  that we had replanted with two roses that my dear friends Janet and David had given me on two seperate birthdays in an area where there had been another large shrub - although it had beautiful soft silvery leaves it had grown woody large and rather stragly encroaching out over the lawn. So Richard dug it up for me and we put grass seed down on that area that had become barren and I’d said on about the sixth day ‘I don’t suppose anything will have happened with the grass seed’ and he called out and said ‘no, it hasn’t’ in such a way that I knew he was teasing me. When I joined him I take a gasp as it is covered in the most brilliant green shoots of new grass. Although we had watered it well I think this recent rain has given it and much of the garden a boost as it had all become so dry and parched during the heat waves and dry spell. As if boosted by the growth in the garden I make better progress though it sometimes takes a leap of faith or just knowing I can keep changing the compsition until I have something that fires my imagination.

Later I continue working on the new interior, beginning to build the composition by adding a central player. It starts to look a lot more hopeful. There’s always an almost irresistable urge to try and play safe by wanting to recreate previous compositions and it is even harder when the studio is empty after a recent exhibition - almost like a feeling of panic, a bit like writers’ block..

Monday 4.8.25

We’re very fortunate today as  the forecast is for high winds and heavy rain from Storm Floris which is worrying as Sykes Timber have said they will deliver the newly turned 3 metre lengths of white poplar in two of the different patterns I use for my frames. They are also bringing birch ply for my panels. What good luck that when the open truck arrives at about 2pm the weather is dry and Richard is ble to store it away in the loft of his outside workshop. But shortly afterwards there is a downpour where the rain is lashing diagonally. He has now already cut the lengths for Martin D’s commission so it’s now a matter of having John make it up into a frame in readiness for me to commence work. We’re meeting Martin and Reiko his Japanese wife in Churchill next week to do a visit to the old churchyard where the painting will probably be set.

Richard’s made a pile of all the miniature frames John has made that he has freshly gessoed and sanded - he always gives three coats to build up the surface and to enable him to sand in between coats. John loves to experiment and makes these frames (as a labour of love) in many imaginative tiny shapes and forms for me to use at my Christmas charity Open Studio. They are becoming even more challenging as he experiments and tries to find more and new ways of using the recycled wood. He’s such a brilliant craftsman. and we count our blessings to have him as a friend; never idle he even swims during his lunchbreak from the theatre workshop.

Whilst working in the studio in the evening I hear a programme on Radio 4 called ‘Changing The Odds - episode 2 Gibralter’ and part the way through there is an interview with Victor Chandler whose father and grandfather were both bookmakers and owned the Walthamstow Stadium. I met Victor at Cheltenham Racecourse as my then dealer Theo Waddington was one of his clients and Theo had sold Victor one of my large newspaper paintings (which he was photogoraphed in front of in The Observer and in the article mentioned me in the same sentance as a painter he collected along with Freud; he wrote the forward to my Day at the Races exhibition catalogue (2006).  He commissioned me via Theo to do a large football painting of Chelsea playing Manchester United which was a gift for one of his clients - one can only imagine how much that client must have spent betting with Victor Chandler. A few years later the painting came up for auction and was bought by Sir Michael Parkinson. I guess the client must have been on a losing streak at the time. Victor was one of the first bookmakers to recognise that betting would soon become an online procedure and he moved his business to Gibralter to avoid the betting tax of 9% that was then levied here. The painter Lucien Freud had an account with him as he was known to be great gambler; when his bets became large enough he painted a portrait of Victor which shortly after Vicotr sold for £4.5 million. He was a great collector of paintings and even had them stored under his bed.

Tuesday 5.8.25

Today is a good news day, Richard had his appointment at Gloucester Royal with his haematology consultant who said the results of his blood test showed his kidney and liver were functioning well and his haemaglobin level is good. He also physically examined his lymph nodes all of which were fine. So again we breath a sigh of relief in gratitude. He doesn’t need to go again for another four months. So very very pleased.

Henrietta ‘phones from Salou to see how he’s got on. She’s there wth ‘Becca and Katrina her friends from student days and they are staying in the apartment that used to belong to Katrina’s grandparents. She says it is very hot and they are relaxing in the garden.

Working on the interior trying out different ideas. In the early hours I lay in bed contemplating different scenraios which sometimes work and sometimes don’t in the light of the day.

Wednesday 6.8.25

David Carpanini comes at 2. He’d ‘phoned Richard yesterday to see if he might be able to deliver his work to the RWA today but they said no. David and I were art students in Cheltenham at the same time and he went on to do the postgraduate course at the Royal College and after that a PGCE course and has managed to combine a career in teaching and that of a practicing artist. His paintings and etchings reflect his Welsh upbringing, often rows of small terraced house with a few figures in the foreground reflecting the community, sometimes with flat caps or women in aprons. Some of the etchings are very atmospheric landscapes and he was presidnt of the Royal Society of Painter Etchers for some years. We are very touched as he gives us a very beautiful mounted black and white etching of these terraced houses with a strike of lightening in the sky. Before he leaves we look at etchings by Reggie Dent who was principal of the art school when we were there and by Ken Oliver head of printmaking and Robert Ball who taught life drawing. We last saw David at the funeral of dear Michael Shinn who became head of the art school after Reggie and had taught me before that.

Thursday 7.8.25

Lovely e mail from Nathan who is in Marseilles again and had an interview for a film this morning which he said went well. He’s staying in the fantastic Le Corbusier Cité radieuse and is about to go to the beach for a swim. He sends photos of the brutalist architecture with its dramatic concrete construction, the beautifully coloured seperate apartments with balconies which look a bit like cubes in red white yellow or blue stacked to make the whole experience exciting. It contains at least three art galleries, shops and a running track and small pool on the roof. It’s interesting that brultalism is suddently in fashion again though le Corbusier never seems to have gone out.

Earlier in the week I’d caught the second episode of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Artist of the Floating World and I’d found it compelling so wanted to hear the first and subsequent episodes. But it always seemed to coincide with our supper so Richard gets it up for me on BBC Sounds to take up to the studio while I am doing a further stint on the new interior that again relates to time. It is SO compelling that I find I listen to all ten episodes whilst sat working for two and half hours. It is a fascinating listen and like The Remains of the Day there are strong references to the War and generational perceptions and critiscisms. It is also very gentle in parts and has resonances with the Japanese culture that I admire.

And I did also make quite a lot of progress on the painting.

Friday 8.8.25

I'm always moved that these red hot pokers come up each year (twenty one this summer). They were given to us as seedlings by our friend and neighbour Roger shortly before he died, ten or more years ago and each summer they spring up anew and I can almost hear Roger playing his guitar. They are in my studio garden where the horse I designed for the Museum for the Racecourse's centenary of the Gold Cup looks on. Two of her siblings live at the wonderful Alderman Knight special school, Pantomime and Midnight and the other, Seahorse lives in Florida. My White Horse captures the imagination of the many children who can see her from the Lane as they pass by.

Saturday 9.8.25

This is the most glorious time of year for harvesting. Today I've picked figs, plums, blackberries, apple and rhubarb all from the gardens of the house or studio. I love eating it straight from the tree or bush and Richard has stewed a lot of the windfall apples to freeze.

Sunday 10.8.25

As an art student I had also studied textile design, feeling that it could be a means of making a living. So I freelanced for a short time, selling to a Swedish Company though Sandersons in London. They wanted to see new work each season but was warned by Shirley Conran it’s very hard to make a living as a freelance textile designer and each textile house probably only buys five or six new designs per season but that they would expect the designer to have a folio full of a couple of dozen new designs each time. I therefore decided I needed to be more enterprising so with Geoff I set about making all sorts of Pop Art posters/prints, jewellery, bags and toys at which we really did rather well and some of our items were featured in The Daily Mail and House & Garden. We sold mainly to shops like Galt or a wonderful woman in Hampstead who had a shop called That New Shop, who bought something of everything we designed and made. but it was still all very hand to mouth even though we had been approached by marketing agents (who were slow at paying up) so we moved out of London to a rather beautiful ground floor flat in Landsdown Terrace, Cheltenham where we screen printed and continued but it was still difficult to produce enough with just the two of us. So after a year or so we moved to Weston super Mare where Geoff came from, initially staying with his parents. Geoff had found a job in a small boat building yard and after looking in the local paper I saw an ad for a local company, Peggy Nisbett, who made costume dolls. On a whim I went into a telephone box and told them that I was a designer who was in town and wondered if they would like to see some of my soft toy designs. I was thrilled when they bought the designs and offered me job designing more and setting up a silk screen design department, although they were eventually printed by a firm in Amersham who specialised in silk screen printing textiles. I think I felt quite pleased with myself as I was earning a thousand pounds a year for a four day week which was more than my friends who were teaching got. A group of my designs, some of them wooden and painted by outworkers, received the Council of Industrial Design Award for the investiture of the Prince of Wales. I only stayed there ’til the age of twenty four when again we started mail ordering things like silk screen printed ‘Georgian’ dolls houses made in plywood. I designed some brown bears in dungarees I had made up by outworkers. This story is to tell you why we spent part of the day vaccuming all the prototypes and samples of the many designs I made for Peggy Nisbet so that we can bag them up individually to preserve them for still longer…

Monday 11.8.25

…It wasn’t until after the birth of Henrietta that the design work seemed rather ethemeral as I knew I really wanted to paint or sculpt. So it now seems so brilliant that I have managed to make a living by creating images. How fortunate I am and have been.

E mial from Chirag and Gita Gandhi who have rescheduled their trip here to November. They were going to be coming over in April but their work commitments changed. Chirag is a brain cancer surgeon and Gita is a breast cancer specialist. Gita was in her teens when her parents (also doctors) commissioned me to do a double portrait of Gita with her sister Usha. Likewise Chirag and Gita commissioned me to do a portrait of ther twins Sedna and Ronan when they're were about five or six.

Continue in the stidio on the new interior Timescale and also do a little more work on Ex Libris.

Henrietta ‘phones in the evenng and also gives me an update on the work Isaac and his friend Lucas are doing on our studio garden there.

Work on both Time Scale and Ex Libris  Feeling happier now I’ve got two or three works well in progress in the studio; it’s one of the problems with having successful exhibitions that one’s own studio can look very forelorn without a lot of activity going on.

Tuesday 12.8.25

Today we met Martin and Reiko, long time friends and collectors at the Old Churchyard in Churchill as Martin is commissioning a resurrection painting in which it will feature. What remains in Churchill is only the restored chancel which is now a little museum (open on Saturdays and Sundays) - a new church was built in about 1820 by the then incumbent (who also owned most of the village).

I’m very touched by how Reiko looks after Martin, guiding him over bumpy terrain and being concerned that he’s getting too much sun- today is another of our heat waves. Reiko had greeted us by the lych gate but Martin was waiting for us sitting on a table tomb in the shade of a tree. But he does look rather wonderfull later sitting on a bench in what Reiko calls his agricultural hat.

Afterwards we went to tea with the artists David and Jane Carpanini who live only two miles away. They have the most magnificent collection of prints both huge and small, many familiar names like to two tiny Rembrandt etchings to an enormous Frank Brangwy etching and a William Scott lithograph, a couple of large Kyffin Williams, a delightful pair of Agnes Miller Parker wood engravings. Printmaking has always been very important to him, an ex Royal College student he went on to be come president of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (RE) and a member of almost all the societies such as the Watercolour Society

Wednesday 13.8.25

I heard from Jean-Marie Oger that Francine van Hove, a long time exhibitor with Galerie Alain Blondel where I also showed for over twenty years, had died. Poor Francide had sadly fallen down her stairs and had multiple fractures but was expected to recover and have two months of physiotherapy so this was not expected.

Francine was an elegant Frenchwoman who specialised in painting exquisite life paintings of her models - all young beautiful women usually relaxing or pensive sometimes contemplating an object. She had shown with the Blondels for many years before I joined the gallery and had a large following. Since she always looked the same, with her dark hair in a french plait down her back. I remember having a conversation with her where she observed that the drawing in my paintings was very apparant in the often dark line I would paint round figures or objects to strengthen them whereas hers were imaculately painted and had the same flawless look as her models. The good thing is that she will live on in the legacy of glorious paintings she created in her lifetime.

Some time spent discussing my new resurection painting commission with Richard who pointed out that resurrection paintings have been created for at least a thousand years and I recal the life and eath fresoes in the bascillica of San Gimigniano. And of course Michaelangel’s figures rising to heaven on the end wall of the Sistine Chapel.  William Blake made many works based on the theme as well of course as Stanley Spencer

Nathan rings in the evening. He had hoped to come and see us nthis or next week but work commitments don’t currently permit. It’s wonderful that he is so well regarded and sought after. So I say we will visit him early in September.

Richard has a seemingly sudden urge to build a greenhouse/folly in the small garden where we used to grow our vegetables  - it;s a brilliant idea as it would acomplish several things. It would make the space look far more beautiful, be a brilliant home for my lemon tree and other plants like the canna to overwinter in, it would also use up a lot of old timber, french doors etc. which we have been hoarding for many years. I remind him that the exquisite little summer house he built for me over thirty years ago, still brings us joy every day and is still in sound condition.

I’m working on all fronts in the studio.

Thursday 14.8.25

Richard comes back from Cheltenham looking very pleased with himself as he’s collected the frame for Martin’s commission. He only delivered the wood to John on Monday so he’s been super quick. Sam too has also delivered to the porch the frame for a painting I bought from Artshape (of which I am Patron) the charity that works with people with mental and physical health problems etc. It’s by one of their artists called Julie Green. I bought it a few years ago intending it to be a present for my sister Gill but enjoyed having it in my studio so have only just got round to having a frame made for it. Gill lost her dear dog Duke in early June so hope this little dog called George will be a comfort.

Sam also delivered my second  now framed copy of the Tikkum magazine which featured the corrugated  painting After The Eleventh both of which now live at the Imperial War Museum.

Friday 15.8.25

I’ve been working on another painting inspired by our trip to Venice last year. I’m wanting it to echo the other three in the series but to also make it different - so making the buildings both in the foreground and background proportionately larger with walkways either side of the water and with a larger bridge in the foreground. Also do a little more to Ex Libris, again the fourth one in a series.

Richard has now given the canvas and frame for Martin’s commission, a dark undercoat that I’ve mixed up specially,  over the three coats of white gesso.

Just as I’d expected, nothing has come from Trump’s meeting with Putin. But Ukraine is probably relieved that some deal hasn’t been done without them, offering the Dombast or other regions of the country to Putin. The world is in such a sad place where with the mass killings and starvation in Gaza likewise in Sudan the people are starving due to their civil war. It makes me want to weep that man is capable of the most extraordinary goodness, creating breakthroughs in medecine and science but its energies are also squandered on aggression and greed.  I heard Mark Serwotka, former general secretary of the TUCtalking on Any Questions and his words and vision were wonderfully idealistic, so much more so than the politicians. He pointed out that when he had a heart transplant that the sugreons who performed the merticulous operation where of many different nationalities as were the nurses who cared for him.

Saturday 16.8.25

Working in the studio on varous paintings; a little more to the Venetian and a small carved wooden tiger for the top of Milk for theTiger which Richard trimmed still further. So I paint it again after he has taken more off in the parts around its head and neck and joints to the back legs. He drills holes in the tiger’s feet and the top of the frame in which he inserts dowels as he’s taking them to Bristol to the RWA tomorow along with David Carpanini’s two paintings.

Sunday 17.8.25

Before he leaves R has carried the new canvas and frame for the resurrection commission up to my house studio.

After my daily excercises I go straight into the studio without having breakfast to try and start the new Resurrection commission. It’s always daunting when one is confronted by a pristine white canvas but this one is a deep blackish grey so it’s not quite as daunting. I’ve been thinking around the idea so after having a quick look at the references I made at the old Churchill churchyard I start with the small chancel building (all that remains of the original church) with its small bell tower and arched porch. It now opens as a museum and heritage centre at weekends. Being very old it has a wonderful selection of tombs in the graveyard, some of them hardly legible with the erosion of time and lichen. There is a very nice stone arch which gives atmosphere and structure. It always takes a bit of time to get into it but by the time Richard gets back I have the bones of a composition, albeit monochrome apart from the moon which gives light and form to the scene.

Monday 18.8.25

Send time in the garden picking plums and apples, even a couple of apricots, as well as watering, carrying the can from space to space in the garden then over the Lane to my studio garden where one of the fruit trees we planted four or five years ago is now taller than the six foot fence and has the most beautiful deep red apples. Many of them are still quite small, the lack of rain hasn’t helped.

Tuesday 19.8.25

I come down and Richard’s vaccuming the car in readiness for the journey to Blunham to visit Gill on Friday then travelling to the London studio in the evening before taking Henrietta Kev the boys and us to Gatwick on Saturday midday. Tomorrow it goes in for a check up.

Wednesday 20.8.25

A day of mixed blessings. Richard had booked the car in for a service and check-up including a new cam belt but when Jonothan arrives to collect it, Richard can’t get it into reverse. So he could go forward but not back. So Jon went back to the garage returning shortly afterwards with four other men and they push the Land Rover up the drive away from the gates so they can drive it off for an inspection. Jonathan ‘phones shortly after to say it needs a new gear box. So he tells me how much it is I I ask if it might not be best to put it towards a new car but Jonathan assures me that this one will go on for a long time once it is repaired

Thursday 21.8.25

As we’re going away tomorrow I pick all the plums which Richard then halves, stones and stews before freezing. Likewise with a lot of the windfall Bramleys which he also freezes plus gathering a basketful to take for my sister Gill tomorrow. Then from the tree I collect all those that are still on the branches within arms reach to store for the winter as I’m afraid they will all have blown off whilst we are away.

I’ve been packing gradually for several days including tubes of paint and a very small pot of gesso, brushes and some of the miniature boards and frames that John had made so beautifully and Richard has prepared and primed specially for me plus the charity ‘postcard’ I need to paint for the RWA. I’m hoping to research the land of the Tullies, such fascinating architecture and to see the White City, Leeci and towns of Puglia in the heel of Italy.

Manage to do a little more to the fifth in the construction of my Venice series whilst Richard waits for the two splendid apple cakes he has made, to cool. One for my stister’s birthday tomorrow and another that we will put in the freezer at the London studio to take to Ramsgate when we visit Nathan (just afer his birthday)  on our return from Italy.

After watering all my studio jars of mixed paints and covering them in the hope that they may last until we get back in a coupleof weeks time, we turn in.

Friday 22.8.25

It takes longer for Richard to collect and do the paperwork on the hired car then come back to collect me and all the bags for the different destinations. Today visiting my sister in Blunham, Bedfordshire especially as it is her birthday.I ping an e mail to say we are unfortunately going to be a little later than we anticipated. It also takes Richard a bit of time to get used to driving it as it is full of extra gadgets such as lane assist and warnings for exceeding the speed limit; it’s also an automatic. We arrive just before 4. It’s lovely to see Gill and Ian. She and I spend time looking round her glorious garden, so beautifully kept and cared for. Gill also shows me a newly revamped shed which now has room to accomodate all the gardening parephinalia and space for potting etc followed by a tour of their large old garage with the wood store upstairs. It’s quite barn-like. Here I spot a rathr beautiful window in an alcove which she tells me the man who helps with the garden will be taking away as they are trying to get rid of lots of things on the village exchange and mart. I tell her its just the sort of window we are looking for for Richard’s folly and she says they would be delighted for him to have it and says there is also a door, both of which came for their old kitchen. When I tell Richard he gets rather excited so Ian takes him in to see that and other pieces of wood.

Gill has prepared a delicious meal of cod on rice and tomatoes followed by strawberries on puff pastry filled with lemon curd and mascarpone, after which R takes out of the tin he brought it in, a deep apple cake on which we place candles that he lights and sing happy birthday to Gill. Then it’s time to set out for London and Blackheath where arrive about 10. Henrietta meets us by opening the side gate. When I tell her the hired car isn’t as big as we had hoped so wasn’t sure quite how easy it would be to get all the luggage in after the six passangers she tells me there has actually been a slight change of plan. Nathan has ‘phoned to offer Isaac a job as part of the team on bank holiday Monday for a Google ‘phone advert featuring Mitoma who plays for the Japanese national team as well as for Brighton here in the UK. Because it’s bank holidayhe gets double pay. For a film and television production student with a large overdrft who is passionate about football, this isa very appealing project. So Henrietta sets about seein if she can alter his ticket which she manages to do by paying another £48. So Nathan will collet Isaac on Sunday , they will stay in an hotel in Brighton with the crew on Sunday night film on Monday and Nathan will drive him to Gatwick in the early hours of Tuesday morning so he will be with us in Italy by Tuesday lunchtime, Kev having met him in the hired car at Bari airport.

Saturday 23.8.25

We’re all assembled with luggage packed and in the rented car in which Richard drives us to the airport.I sit in the middle between Hnerietta and Samuel, being the smallest. Samuel still seems to have a cough that he picked up when he went to the Boardmasters Festival in cornwall where they camped through rain and shine. We valet park the car in the Sofitel car park and go and check in. Our flight which was at about 4.30 is running about half an hour late so when we land in Bari, southern Italy, it is dark because we are also an hour behind with British Summer Time. The taxi driver that Kev has pre-booked is waiting for Henriett, Samuel and me although it is so large we could have got the whole family in. Richard and Kev go off to collect the hired car. It’s an interesting journey and even though it’s dark we can see the white city which the driver points out as we drive through it. It takes about an hour and a half before the taxi stops at the gates of a long drive. As he departs we see Francesco walking down to meet us who says he has only been there a minute or two. A rather beautiful young man who could have stepped out of a Botticelli or Bellini painting. He gives us a guided tour of the house which looks charming with two of the bedrooms inside trulli. There’s also a seperate building that he calls the studio and has two double beds, shower etc. that Henrietta and Kev have allocated to the boys. He then walks us through the grounds to the swimming pool which looks large and blue. We haven’t been back in the house long before Francesco opened a box containing wine, pasta and other edibles as a gift from the owner. He checks all our passports and we say we will send photos of Kev and Richard’s and Isaac’s when he arrives on Tuesday. Shortly after he leaves we hear Richard and Kev arrive so it’s our turn now to show them around. It had been too late for them to go to a supermarket so we’ll have to pick up provisions in the morning.

Sunday 24.8.25

Henrietta takes me on an exploration of the five acres of grounds, through the olives, figs and cactus the pine. We walk along to the hamock over the deep pine needles. It’s very relaxing with its gently rocking motion looking up through the trees to the sky beyond and we decide it would be just right for Richard who has aways thought it would be great to sleep in one under the stars but when I take him there, there has been a bit of a downpour but later when it has dried out, Henrietta encourages him to lie there and read hisTLS. It’s not that far away from the pool were we are sitting after Henrietta’s daily forty minute continuous swim, which she increases up to fifty minutes by the end of the week we can hear Richard laughing as he reads the funny bits.

Monday 25.8.25

We’re thinking about Isaac doing the job with Nathan who has picked him up as planned they were staying in an hotel in Brighton ready for an early start on Bank Holiday Monday. They are working with the famous Japanese footballer Kaoru Mitoma who plays for the Japanese national team as well as Brighton.

I seem to have caught a virus perhaps from Samuel and end up loosing my voice.

Tuesday 26.8.25

Kev leaves early to collect Isaac who arrives safely though very tired

spend some of the time painting miniatures on the desk in my room.

It is good to hear Isaac talk about his role as an assistant to the Production Designer over dinner after he has recovered some sleep.

Wednesday 27.8.25

In the evening we go to a very nice outdoor pizza garden that Richard and Kev had found on one of their food shopping sprees. So Kev does two journeys, taking the boys and R on the first one  and then coming back to collect Henrietta and me. It’s lovely when we arrive, they are sitting in front of two or three trulli with a table of ante pasta and talking away. Isaac’s weaing his Moroccan hat from his surfing trip there early in the year. The freshly cooked pizzas are enormous and everyone enjoyed them though I only managed two sections from mine. it was a delightful evening though Kev was mldly embarrassed when Richard and I sang Happy Birthday to Nathan down the ‘phone.

Thursday 28.8.25

A day of relaxing and enjoying this blissful abode away from the stresses of a world full of  warfare and strife. It is such a joy to be together on holiday as a family and we reminsce about previous holidays we’ve spent together, sometimes with Nathan too as when we stayed in the big house in the Charante, Nathan having had a knee operation and little Samuel, then only about four, had broken his arm. Neither of them could actually get their wounds wet; the pool was very large so Nathan in a canoe towed Samuel, in a little dinghy, around the pool. On the way there we’d been to see the Bayeaux Tapestry and on the journey home went to Giverney. Another year we went to Greece, starting with Athens and the Acropylis where Isaac posed for a school project where you had to be reading in an interesting place. We all also went to Spain to Barcelona where we saw Gaudi’s amazing La Sacrada Familia  and the Miro Foundation before driving up to Feguras to stay in another beautiful house with a pool and visit the Dali foundation then over the mountain to Cadaques to see Dali’s beach front home. But our first trip to Italy when the boys were very young because Isaac had been asking about Gallileo I decided we should start there so that they could see the leaning tower of Pisa, then drove to Florence for three nights and down to Sienna and stayed in a lovely old farmhouse with a swimming pool near Panicale where there was a Raphael in the tiny church. Richad and I also drove down to Assisi to see the bascillica there with Giotto’s paintgs on the life of St Francis. It also housed St Francis’ much patched habit and sandles. More recently we stayed in Lazio and Richard I went from there into Rome to see the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museum. Last year it was Lake Garda followed by a few days in Venice. But Puglia, the land of the trullis is the furthest south weve been. We are lucky the boys are still keen on coming

Friday 29.8.35

Henrietta, Kev and the boys drive to Monopoli; they had particularly chosen to go there as Isaac wanted to make a little film with his new camera. Kev had offered to come back for us but we had decided to explore the grounds. There are lots of magnificent cactus as well as olives, figs and conifers. Richard particularly enjoyed lying on the hammock surrounded by the vast vegetation. I’ve also been using my paints and brushes to start three miniature paintings and tomorrow I hope to begin the RWA Secret Postcard card. It’s always a challenge improvising away from the studio. They all arrive back in time for Kev to barbeque tuna steaks whilst Richard prepares large platters of tomaoes, basil and buffalo mozorella and a pan of ratatouille.

Saturday 30.6.25

Another day being creative, enjoying time around the pool, watching the boys and their dexterity with the football. Manage to get my ‘secret postcard’ for the RWA well on the way today so packup my paints and wash the pallete as tomorrow we will be spending the day driving through the countryside of Puglia down to Lecce.

Sunday 31.8.25

Kev drives Henrietta, Richard and me down to Lecce which is right down the heel of Italy. It’s a fine Baroque city though with hints of the Moorish. Robert Fripp had told us that this region felt even more North African than Italian which was particularly apparant in Thursday’s trip to Monopoli, whch Francesco had said was his favourite place to visit and walk round with his girlfriend. Isaac loved it and made a beautiful little film with his new sophisticated camera.

We have pasta at a little bistro in one of the narrow streets near the Duomo and then buy tickets to enter. Particualrly striking were the brightly coloured stained glass windows that had been paintied as small portraits or scenes; they felt almost neon with the brightness of the outside sun shining through them. There’s a beautiful sculpted nativity scene with the three wise men rendered in an almost naive way in marble quite high up probably life size. The Crypt below was truly beautiful in its simplicity with numerous pilars supporting the floor of the Cathedral above. The capitals to these pilars were carved with exquisite figures of sheep, heads etc and looked almost Byzantine. One could also look and walk through arches that showed what was happening on the floor below and on the inner walls and foundations. There was a painted altarpiece that I noticed looked quite modern in parts, particularly the heads of the two doctors.  Richard put it down to poor restoration but I thought it had a strange surreal feeling about it.

We then wend our way back through the beautiful narrow streets still lit by the the radiant sun turning the stone to gold and casting deep shadows across them, stopping for ice creams en route. We manage to find the car.  Then back to the boys for a last night feast trying to use up all the provisions that are left. Such a glorious finish to a brilliant holiday and month.