SEPTEMBER 2025

Monday 1.9.25

Henrietta had had her long swimming session in the pool this morning and Kev but the boys had a lie in, before the big clear up and packing. Franscesco arrives along with the taxi driver about 1.15. Actually the owner had said we could stay on for an extra day free of charge if we had wanted to but we all had commitments on our return his evening. Kev and the boys are going back to the airport in the hired car but Henrietta, Ricard and I are going in the taxi. Francesco sits in the back with Henrietta and me as the taxi, which does a lot of work for the house is going to drop him off in Ostuni, the white city, on the way back. When Francesco asks us if we’ve been to Italy before and we give him the names of all the regions we have had the pleasure of staying, culminating in last year in Venice, he says how much he loves Venice and spent three years there doing his service in the Navy though he wnants to do his Masters in English in the UK. The taxi driver is really good and chats to Richard, who is sitting in the front, throughout the journey giving us descriptions and a bit of a guided tour through the Italian land, town and city scapes. He’s much better than the taxt driver who collected us from the airport and half the price.

We arrive in Bari by three though Kev and the boys hd stopped en route for something to eat. They are anxious to go through to the duty-free but of course can’t come back so we have drinks before going through. The plane is once again delayed and this time we have a drink and something to eat. I buy a few Italian food gifts and olive oil to take back for Nathan and for John who has been collecting our post each day.

Then we board for our flight home. I get Richard to have a coffee en route so that he has enough energy to drive us back. It feels considerably cooler back en Angleterre even though I think this has been our hottest summer on record. Now we have the conundrum of how to fit all six passangers plus luggage into the hired car. Kev gets Isaac to try and fit into the very backseat but as as Isaac points out it is a little unlikely to fit the tallest person in the smallest seat and I had always known that it would be me; by taking my shoes off and having my smaller red case on the seat next to me, we all manage to pack in. Henrietta between the two boys, Kev next to Richard who’s driving and me almost obscured by luggage. R manages to drive us safely back to Blackheath.

Tuesday 2.9.25

Today we’re driving to Ramsgate for a belated birthday visit to Nathan. We arrive about two and he makes us poached eggs on avocado on toast. He shows us samples of carpet and curtains for his bedroom on the top floor. As it is an end of terrace house it gets quite cold in the winter. A midnight blue thermal curtains and a beautiful blackish brown long piled carpet. He had a wood burner stove put in downstairs a couple of years ago which he lights for us when we all come back from walking Bea as I’m feeling the effects of the lower temperature after the warmth of Puglia. He cooks us a most wonderful dinner with fresh oysters as starters then clams with spaghetti. He’s opened his presents earlier, one of them a book on Agnes Vada the French filmmaker with which he seemed very pleased but his main present was a painting Richard had done of him as a boy looking into the model shop in Cheltenham High Street. He tries it out on one or two different walls to find the right place. Its lovely chatting to him about the different films and projects on the horizon. We set off for Blackheath about 8.30 and Henrietta rings on our journey back having had a good first day at Goldsmiths where she is now head of art in the postgraduate education department.

Wednesday 3.9.25

After chatting to Kev and the boys in the garden, which they have cleared and started a new path, we set out for Bristol and the Royal West of England Academy where I am selecting the winner of the £1000 for figurative painting that I am awarding. They sent images through yesterday so I had spent the journey to and from Nathan’s scrolling through them looking for a suitable painting. It’s a very difficult task as  there are some very beautiful large portrait-type paintings, very much of now. They have a vibrancy of colour and design but perhaps are almost too sophisticated so my choice ends up between a tiny little watercolour painting by Olive Haigh and a self portrait of an older man in a vest and a furry hat with ear flaps that hang down either side. It has a direct gaze scrutinising hmself and the vulnerabilities of getting older. Full of humanity but still defiant by Nigel Casseldine. Unlike yesterday it’s very warm both in the car and in the Academy itself where the staff are just finishing off hanging the exhibition. They very kindly agree to lift down Nigel’s painting which is hung rather high so that I can scrutinise it up close. The young technician who lifts it down and another female member of the Academy’s team both agree that it’s a good choice. Interestingly last year when I received the Tony Steele award it was for my painting The Sisterhood which was also hung rather high.

Then it’s the last forty miles home  and as always we’re relieved to see everything still here.

Thursday 4.9.25

John calls to bring our post. He’s so wonderful looking after everything while we’re away. We are so fortunate to have him as such a good friend. We drink tea and chatter and give him the fruit amoretti and bottled cherries we brought back from Puglia for him.

Friday 5.9.25

It’s good to be back working in the studio but it always takes time to build up momentum and looking at the four pieces I was working on in Puglia they are good starts but all need rather a lot more work.

Saturday 6.9.25

Richard collects Professor Masa and Keiko with whom we spend the most delightful afternoon/evening. Masa will be lecturing at SOAS where he is a visiting professor on Monday. They will be going to Florence the week after where he is now also a visiting professor, delivering his talk on art and business. He’s written his latest book on Japanism which he’d like to send me a few pages of in English. They are also going to Paris to see the Mona Lisa so R goes and gets a copy of David Sassoon’s book where he has reproduced my painting Leonardo along with a Dali, Duchamp and a Botero etc. all representing their take on Mona Lisa.

Sunday 7.9.25

Working on the charity ‘secret postcard’ for the RWA and one of the miniatures, not on one of John’s gothic shaped frames but on a small square that Sam has made for me that I am thinking of giving as a tenth wedding anniversary present for Venetia and Ben next weekend when we go to dinner at Huntley Manor.

Monday 8.9.25

Working on the miniature Owl & the Pussycat for Venetia and Ben and the larger work on paper for the secret postcard charity auction at the RWA.

There are lots more apples in the garden that need collecting, both windfalls and still on the tree but sadly all the apricots have fallen off while we’ve been away - it had been pretty prolific so clearly a good year for the birds and insects to enjoy.

Tuesday 9.9.25

Pluck up courage to recommence Martin’s commission. It’s always difficult when I’ve been away from a painting for two or three week to reignite with it, especially as I’d worked out a fairly convincing composition with the remains of the church that used to be there, a rather beautiful memorial arch and tombstones. but as of yet, no figures. So start with the main protagonist, Martin himself, in his Cambridge graduation gown …

Wednesday 10.9.25

… which means as I add others, I have to move various elements such as tomb stones to make not only a convincing composition but also continue a similarity to the old church’s graveyard (the new church is at the other end of the village.Much of the original village which was mostly timber houses sadly burned down at the end of the eighteenth century. The new village was located higher up the hill with a new church built by the new incumbent who also happened to be the local landowner. This old churchyard does have the feeling that many histories lie there beneath the earth.

Thursday 11.9.25

I now have several figures emerging from their graves although I’ve given some of them the resemblances I can remember from the photographs, I need to check them out again because sometimes they will be two interesting photographs of the same person such as Martin’s father in his VRRAF uniform. But I think it’s also a photograph of him later in life wearing a beret.

Friaday 12.9.25

I put some finishing touches to the little painting for Venetia and Ben to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary; yesterday I’d painted a banner being flown in the air by two seagulls on which R wrote their names with Happy 10th Anniversary in the middle.

We set off for Huntley Manor at about 5.45. It’s still quite light when we get there and Peter, who tends to look after Percy and Manfred and their beautiful dog, says he thinks we can park. As soon as I get out of the car Percy comes running up and says “Miss Crook the artist” Percy’s now seven and Manfred who joins him tells me he’s six. They are beautiful boys, still full of that glorious innocence of childhood. Percy presents me with an acorn he has just picked up - I say thank you and comment on how it doesn’t have a cup at one end so he rushes off hunting around and shortly returns holding up an acorn in a cup but as he gives it to me I realise he’s teasing as it isn’t attached to the acorn, just held in place with his finger. We then walk across to the manor house as we are parked in front of Venetia, Ben, Percy and Manfred’s home. As we enter we are greated by Tim and Dorianne who whisks me off to see a photograph of a portrait they have just had made of the family by Susan Ryder. It looks lovely and even includes their beautiful Newfoundland dog with long white fur. Venetia’s wearing a lovely long black dress with a sun, moon and star jewels on the front of the dress.I then see Charles Martell who says “Ah, the lovely artist” and wonders if I remember him. I say that of course I do and that last time I saw him he was High Sherriff and he say “..when people had to bow and scrape..” and I tell him with a smile that I’m still happy to bow and scrape. Charles has a thirty acre farm on which he has a hundred apple and pear trees of Gloucestershire varieties from which they make calvados and a herd of Gloucestershire cows from which they make single and double  Gloucester cheese as well as Stinking Bishop. When Richard mentions to Charles’ lovely wife over dinner that our friend Nick Park had used Stinking Bishops in one of his Wallace & Gromit films she commented that it had a huge effect on increasing sales. The dinner is in a marquee next to the house - the same marquee in the same place as was used for the wedding ten years ago an the same cateres from Oxford had prepared tonight’s supper as again when Venetia and Ben ware married. It’s a dleicious meal and I’m sat next to Michael Thompson with his wife Clare to my right. Michael is the very interesting man and we had already had a discussion in the house about my large auction painting which is now hanging above the fire place. He used to be with Christies but set up his own company doing valuations of historic fine art and antiquities. It’s very interesting chatting to both him and Clare. There are some fascinating conversations and lively too when it gets to politics. We’re home about midnight.

Saturday 13.9.25

Back to Huntley Manor. We meet Peter again, standing outside the marquee and he says his Mum had asked him what I was wearing yesterday. His Mum was a sort of nanny to Venetia when she was a child. He said she was coming tonight but we would probably miss her as she wasn’t coming until 6.  For lunch we’re sitting on a table with the same people though this time I sit next to Clare’s sisiter who is a financial analyst, lives in Westminster and went to the Ladies College. After we’d been chatting for a while she asked if I’d mind taking her into the house and collects her mother and a recently widowed portrait painter’s wife. I’m slightly nervous about doing so as Dorianne had told people the house was closed due to one of the cats misbehaving itself and that people were to use one of the loos in the indoor swimming pool area. So off we set like intrepid explorers; I find the first large auction painting over the mantlepiece and then show them in the next room the Infant and the Animals that they bought because the infant resembles Manfred, Percy’s younger brother. . The portrait painter’s widow comments on what a wonderful imagination I have. We then go back into the hall where she points out two beautiful large portraits in pastel, one of Venetia and one of Ben which I think he made just before they got married. I then attempt to take them to see a group of my smaller works that Dorianne had shown me yesterday when she had taken me through the kitchens but there’s a notice on the kitchen door saying ‘Do Not Enter’ so we turn back and I tell them that they will see more of my work in Venetia and Ben’s house during this afternoon’s piano concert.

Which we are all ushered over to shortly afterwards. It’s perfect for a concert, this brilliant chapel-like room with its tall pointed roof and amost floor to ceiling windows at each gable end gives adquate space for the rows of seats for this concert with the piano that we had all contributed to when Venetia and Ben got married which had inlaid marquetry portraits of them on the underside of the lid which we can all see as it is open during the concert by the French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet who gives a brilliant performance of Haydn sonata no 31 followed by Robert Schumann’s Faschingsschwank Aus Wien op26. His schedule will take him across four continents in the 2026 season with perfomances in major venues such as Sydney’s recital hall, Kyoto’s concert hall; Beijing’s national centre for the perfoming arts; Seoul’s Kumho Arts Centre; Stockholm’s Queen Sylvia concert hall; the glasshouse international centre; Wiener Konzerthaus and Lincoln Centre New York. During the interval tea, coffee and cakes are served and afterwards it’s almost all of Maurice Ravel’s piano output. Before he recommences Jean-Efflam again gives a superb verbal rather picturesque description of the six pieces he’ about to play which he does with such vigour that little Manfred puts his hands over his ears as the music is so powerful and he is sitting in close proximity to the musician and the instrument.

Sunday 14.9.25

Having done more research I discover that it is Martin’s uncle wearing the beret. Martin actually lost his father (who is in the RAFVR uniform) when he was seventeen. So I imagine his maternal uncle was rather like a father figure to him.  Also discover that Martin didn’t wear bands for his graduation from Cambridge.

Monday 15.9.25

I’m looking at starting a small painting or two as I’ve been asked by The Friends if I will donate a work to their fund raising evening at the Nook rooftop restaurant, so I get out two or three of the primed boards and frames that R has prepared for me in readiness.

Also had to send photographs to Roger at the SPG for their exhibition at the Trent Art Gallery. Its a bit like going down memory lane as many years ago I showed in a museum show there called Midland View where Kenneth Armitage described my painting The Brides as poetic and witty.

Tuesday 16.9.25

Lovely e mail from Helen at the Brian Sinfeld GAllery attaching the paperwork for my painting Cat Duet, which they have sold during their summer exhibition.

Wednesday 17.9.25

Send cheque to Karen at the Cheltenham and Gloucester Hospitals Trust ‘Big Space Cancer Appeal’ as my sponsorship of the National Star College students’ lion, the proceeds for which came from the small painting I created for just that purpose. Ellie sold it to the two collectors who just happened to be in Cheltenham and who had bought the biggest painting from my London show in June. They had spotted Leon in her window and recognised it as being by me. Such a wonderful coincidence.

Thursday 18.9.25

Working on the smaller pieces but do some more research on Martin’s commission.

Friday 19.9.25

I’m contemplating the miniature frames that John has so lovingly made. I think he likes to keep me on my toes by inventing new shapes. And this year there are two or three upright trapezoids which means the top and bottom are parallel but the two sides gently recede like a road or avenue in perspective. Trying to think of new subjects is always a bit of a challenge but a couple of ideas are glimmering away at the back of my mind.

Saturday 20.9.25

E mail from Masa saying they have just come back from Paris, that it was amazing and he has many things to share with me but will do that next time. He’s very impressed with my ‘kind words and considerate review’ of his writing and says that he is now convinced to continue to writing about Japnoism and kinobi; he also says thank you for the book on the Mona Lisa that we sent as it tells the story of how the painting became so famous, also shwing other artists’ using it in their own work, including Dali, Duchamp, Botero etc They are flying back to Japan tomorrow

Sunday 21.9.25

Richard is digging holes in the former vegetable garden into which he sinks the first two supporting posts for the greenhouse/folly he’s abut to start building. Working intuitively using recycled windows, doors and other interesting objects.

I’m still struggling about on one of the small works in particular, a familiar theme but a new composition ….

Monday 22.9.25

…. the composition gradually seems to build and by ….

Tuesday 23.9.25

…. today it feels both plausible and exciting. Also continue on a  small work with the Friends of The Wilson charity auction in mind.

Wednesday 24.9.25

Today we’re woken up by a policewoman who is actually in the house. We’d been burgled and a dog walker found two of my bags in the snicket leading from Priory Lane to Station Road.  They had broken in through the garage door and Richard’s two electric bikes and the charger for the La Pierre have gone.

Thursday 25.9.25

E mail from Julian the administrator for Trinity House saying that my painting had arrived back from the USA where Trinity House had it at their gallery in San Francisco, unbeknown to me. So I’m very fortunate that Kev organses a courier to deliver it to him in Blackheath so that he and Henrietta can bring it when they come at the weekend. It’s surprising how much we the artists have had to pay for the return of our own work from both the USA and Broadway not to mention the works that were sold that we didn’t get paid for.

Friday 26.9.25

Lovely e mail from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich saying that when they presented my sailor doll that had celebrated the launch of the QE2 when I worked at about the age of twenty two or three for a firm in Weston super Mare setting up a silk screen department.  I’ve kept the original designs. They say they would be ‘delighted to acquire this doll’ and it was ‘warmly received by the committee’.

Nathan arrives just after 2.30 with Bea, his beautiful boxer dog. He realises he’s forgotton his meditation chair so sets about sawing the legs off one of a pair of camping chairs that he gave to us some years ago.  He is looking good having arrived back from Milan on Tuesday where he had been finishing a job, I think for Tiffany which he has been working on with Celine Song the young Oscar winning director. He’s going to Mexico in just over a week’s time  working on a film for three months. But this weekend he’s going on a retreat, thus the need for the meditation chair and we are looking after Bea, who takes quite a lot of entertaining. We’ve found she loves barking at the manual mower when Richard cuts the grass. She loves fighting brooms so much R stands in the middle of the garden moving in a circle with it high up - they look rather like a circus act with bea leaping for the bristles. We also discover a musical ball with lights that we bought her at Christmas so I play football with her but she is amazingly fast and accurate at knowing where I am going to kick it. Being a boxer she has the most endearing face with such expressive and pleading eyes.

Saturday 27.9.25

Henrietta and Kev arrive from London at about 4. We’re having an early birthday celebration for Henrietta. It’s so lovely to see them and one of the things they are going to do is take Bea for a long walk over the fields where they can let her off the lead. Richard has made an apple cake with apples from our garden in which I place candles. He cooks a new recipe of chicken and fennell.

Sunday 28.9.25

Henrietta and Kev have taken Bea on a long walk over the fields again. Nathan arrives back from the retreat at 1.30, just the time he said he would, shortly before H&K return with Bea, who is delighted to see Nathan again. Richard cooks a dozen scrambled eggs which we enjoy with some of his gravadlax and pomegranite salad.  We all sit round and chatwith Nathan and Kev in particular exchanging news on their latest projects. I write a card and wrap a present for Annabelle, Samuel’s girlfriend, who shares a birthday with Henrietta, 2nd October which is on Thursday. We then see Henrietta and Kev off on their journey back to London. Nathan has a nap as he had taken his lavu tent to the retreat and although it has kept last night’s heavy rain off, the strong wind has kept him awake. though he did go for a nice swim in the lake in the morning.

In the evening R cooks monkfish and beans in beer which is always delicious. We had baked more of our apples filled with dates and figs for the desert course. We sit and chatter and share a glass of wine about his next film project in Mexico, which will last until Christmas, before Nathan and Bea call it a day. There are a further two films on his schedule for next year.

Monday 29.9.25

Nathan comes back over with Bea from the studio at about 9 and sets off back to Ramsgate with Bea just before 11. He looks so well and is at the top of his game career wise as I feel Henrietta is. Both happy in their careers but both very hard working.

Yesterday early evening when Nathan was having his sleep I boldly started putting colour on three of the minatures, two of them being the trapezoids . It struck me that a windmill might fit in nicely to one  and perhaps inspired by Richard entertaining Bea with his circular motions with the broom made me think of Don Quixote fighting off windmills.

Tuesday 30.9.25

E mail from Paul James, who was leader of Gloucester City Council for twelve years who mentioned the late Lise Noakes, a dear friend of his who was also a councillor and when we first met her, at Gloucester City Art Gallery & Museum, when she was the Mayor of Gloucester. She bought one of my paintings, Band of Angels, there. She had several of my works. He says he has been writing a series of books and is in the process of doing one called Facts, Myths and Legends of Cheltenham and would like to include me. He also says he’s been told that Brian May owns some of my paintings so in my reply I tell him that ‘our’ Brian May did own one of the paintings in my last exhibition at Gloucester and that he even commissioned me to do a painting to set on the cover of one of his CDs as he was an anti-war campaigner who sang rather beautifully accompanying himself on his guitar. He was also a great collector and renovator of Bristol cars which he had a field full of in various states of repair in the grounds of his beautiful house near Solihull. One of them he sold to the architect Norman Foster which he had great trouble being paid for. Sadly Brian died during the Covid epidemic though not of Covid. A lovely man and true eccentric. We’re still in touch with Jean his widow and Greg his son.