A Journal of Thoughts, Photographs and Sketches
This dead tree always looks like a sentinel standing at the entrance of the barley fields. Whenever I pass it on my way to the woods on the right of this image, the old soldier in me wants to salute it. I love these fields which have produced crops and harvests year after year. They together with the skies of Kent give me a wonderful sense of spaciousness and freedom.
The Boabab tree dots the African landscape. To the local peoples, these magnificent trees are seen to be retainers of the memories of the ancestors. There is a sanctity about them. Their branches always remind me of hundreds of fingers reaching out and trying to clutch the sky. I love sketching and drawing them.
The world between close friends takes on a life of its own. It’s a world where speech is often not needed and where nothing really has to be proved. Assumption and intuition flourish without sanction, and trust is never mentioned. A “knowing” permeates this special world.
The cycle of life goes on. They’ve just ploughed the fields and planted the seed behind our backgarden, and now await this year’s growth and coming harvest. I can’t help but wonder what the harvest will look like that comes out of the seed planting during these dark and confining times. Will Nature’s voice be heard? Will lessons be learnt and be built into a future beyond this frightening and challenging time? I sincerely hope so.
A scene I sketched from the Namib desert in Namibia – Southern Africa. A strange and beautiful place. When the wind blows through these ragged trees it creates a peculiar, almost mournful whistling sound.
Another shot of our visit to Scotney Castle. Loved this scene of the old castle.
This morning I was in the presence of what I can only describe as an overly exuberant person. Being more on the introverted side of things, encounters like these test my patience. I can’t join in because of my sense of incongruence, and a deadened response to it is just plain bad manners. So I find myself, at times, in these rather uncomfortable and in-between places. Fortunately, over the years, I’ve mastered a subtle and measured form of enthusiasm, which I reserve specifically for these encounters. I applied it in this case and it served me well.
In the English landscape, you often see a single, sizable and old tree standing in a flat and expansive landscape. Although it has the look of loneliness about it, it’s locational rootedness is a positive affirmation of its presence and its right to be there. It makes no apologies for its presence.
Whenever I see such a tree, it affirms in me “my right to be here” and I live and move through this beautiful world without any apology for my presence.
