True Romantics

There is a Black Headed Gull nesting on the flat pebbled covered roof of our staffroom at college. She is right in the corner and sits with her bottom towards the desks. Seeing her reminded me of Ayckroyd's introduction to 'London' where he talks about the pigeons who use the city buildings as cliff substitutes and how pigeons' ancestors as the most common London bird are rooks and kites

The sound of kites remind me of two summers of teaching in Switzerland and of heartache.

So much tantalising beauty: the huge glacial Lac Leman which was my bath tub for two summers Nazi gold glittering deep beneath me.

The Reichenbach Falls where Moriarty and Holmes fataly fell.

The ping-pong sized hail stones and black thunder that soaked in the middle of an oven-hot day.

In the middle of a lesson day would turn to night like a Victorian parlour trick where the smooth bright sea turns to a stormy tempest (with the help of a candle)

I started drawing natural objects as a child, torturing sea anemones by putting them in buckets to be drawn. My mother had 'Queen Victoria's Sketchbook' by Marina Warner and I loved the way she painted.
Growing up in Liverpool made me yearn for the countryside: teasels, bulrushes, birds nests and pheasants.
When we moved to Suffolk I made a 'nature museum' in the spare room and made an album for the 'Nature Club' of which I was the sole member.