Kandahar is not the last piece I finished but the colours are sort of Christmassy. It’s on display at the Ropewalk Gallery, Barton-on-Humber, in their Christmas show.

Christmas has never been stressful in our household – a blissful interlude of licensed ease, cooking nice things, time to read and take it slowly, the smell of pine, stockings (the best bit), parcels….Often I have a deadline for pictures in early Jan but, yippee, not this year. I have hardly set foot in the studio over the last ten days or so.

But suddenly things surge up on the horizon – most urgent deadline being the end of January. This involves creating work, with an infants’ school, and inspired by the exhibition Seeing Dragons in the Clouds at the Hub, Sleaford, to be put on display there at the same time. Wonderful evocative title! Then back into the studio to prepare for a very busy April and May….

No need for comment, really – the event was well supervised. The Lincolnshire artists’ Open Studio scheme (Art on the Map) struggles with the geography – studios are relatively few and far between. Some people who visited me yesterday had driven 200 miles between studios, but few people are that dedicated! Actually it’s the local people who don’t seem interested, despite all my efforts, but I always meet some really interesting people from further afield.

I parted with one picture yesterday that felt like an old friend; this was a large collage of our garden which won a prize last year. Sad to see it go – but great to see it go to a good home. It clears the mind for new work….