One of the first things I do in the morning in my every day routine is as I come downstairs, I turn right while the cat sits and waits, posing. He knows what I’m doing, I’m going to turn on the computer and collect the camera from the office. I then return past the bottom of the stairs again, the cat eagerly leading now with a gentle meow, and on into the kitchen. I fill the cats feeding bowl and then pick up the camera from the worktop I put it down on whilst I filled two, yes two, bowls of food…  Still in my dressing gown I leave him stuffing his face and go out to take my daily weather image no matter what the weather is doing.

Coffee table reflects the sky – two skies to enjoy

Every day I position myself in the same place on the terrace, locating it by my bum on the arm of the bench. On some mornings, like this morning, when it is warm and pleasant I will sit and soak in the scents and colours, listening to the avian chatter, contemplating the spin of the dice that has brought me here. The ups and downs have been detailed in many of the blogs, like Such is Life, and I give thanks that I have survived and seem likely to end my days in this sylvan setting we have created, this little patch of urban forest made by the trees, planted back gardens and the school behind.

Grass painted by Van Gogh

This morning, I returned with my coffee and my camera and sitting at the table began to muse on the glory of the colours. After the coffee I wandered slowly around, pausing here and there to continue my war on bindweed (convolvulus if you prefer). I don’t just devour the colour sensations, the scents etc. but I also look at the garden with an artist’s eye, looking at how my partner has gently constructed the colour arrangements and appreciating garden design as an art form as well as storing images for possible future exploitation in the studio.

The stroll is almost a prayer. I pause at points to sit on a bench close my eyes and inhale the scents, relax and be thankful. This is a whole-body experience, not just visual but audio from the sparrow chatter, gulls laughter, crows cawlls; olfactory from lavender, roses and other florals; sensory from the feel of the damp grass underfoot, the sunlight on my face. I watch bees and butterflies, wasp and hoverflies, numbers varying year on year depending on how winter was – this year a run of frosts killed most of the greenfly, but I still see two types of ladybirds feasting on blackfly. People pay money to go to classes to ‘get in touch with themselves’ but getting touch through the sensory experience of a garden space costs nothing and restores the soul almost as well as a good day in the studio does for me.

My first two-up-two-down clog makers terraced house with its outside loo had a line of flagstones down one side of the yard which I lifted to plant hollyhocks, lupins etc. which flourished in soil untouched since the flags were laid in 1860. Their flower seed was dragged by the slipstream of passing trains on the track at the bottom of the garden to populate the embankment all the way to Bolton. Lupins became the subject of my paintings, much as the poppies and daisies here in Seaford have populated paintings too. Indeed, the lupin, which has new florets at the top opening more and more down the stem until at the bottom they shrink, moulder and die, is the basis of the mural at Morley College entitled by a member of the college staff the ‘Tree of Life’.

Spot the honeybee

This morning, I walked with the camera. Lately I have started to see the workings of other artist minds in the garden images ( the banner at the top is coloured as if by Gaugin) and this I may extend as opportunities present themselves, marrying my eye and brain to the camera lens even more. Today was just an opportunity taken to see the summer garden and record its delights. Take pleasure in your own gardens, look at the world close to you and see its beauty – it is always there when you look, much as I have mined beauty from the rusting sea defences so you can find beauty in the most unlikely of vistas. Turn on, as Timothy Leary said in the 1960’s. You don’t need drugs to find that state of mind, focus, contemplate, relax and trust your eye and brain to drop out for a while into another world.

Light and shade; colour; scent; the buzz of a bee

Turn on for a bit, tune into nature, drop out of modern life for a few moments and you will find it feeds your soul, calms your spirit.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

 And Eternity in an hour”

as William Blake wrote in his poem ‘Auguries of Innocence’ is indeed to feed your sense of wonder at life’s beauty. It takes you closer to God.

Then you can have another coffee…