It’s Boxing Day, early morning and I’m the only one up. Insomnia strikes less often than it used to, but when it does it is always when I could do with a good night’s sleep.
I feel I need to acknowledge my good fortune in having all my family around me this year, that Christmas has felt like a real celebration not just of the day but of the circumstances. We are together, and we are well. I know other families have not been so lucky.
It’s been a good year, and with the turkey leftovers still in the fridge, and many chocolates left uneaten, I find myself contemplating what to do next. Weirdly I feel the need to draw from observation. It is a thing I have always done, and the abstractions I draw I think betray this history. But I’ve not really done any for at least a year. I did a little at the start of the very first lockdown in 2020, but that was for different purposes I think. This time I feel it as research. I want to draw twigs and lichen… so today… I think we will all have a wander up to the park to blow away yesterday’s cobwebs… and I will take a bag in my pocket to collect a few things.
