Blue Dream

Dust off those dampened dreams
I've brought you Cornflowers
Extending blue
Beyond our tide.

Fragment from a poem by Eileen Carney Hulme


My painting. Acrylic Ink and Acrylic Paint on a small 20cm x 20cm canvas.

I'd rather go for a Walk!

It's hot today and my master doesn't seem to want to leave this shady spot!

This tranquil scene photographed at the end of Rockland dyke. The launch place for our canoe trip onto Rockland Broad. See previous post.

The Past Revisited

 Over 50 years ago as a young boy with my friend Billy Mayhew we used to cycle the eight miles from Norwich to Rockland Broad. We used to hire rowing boats from Archie the old Broadsman who lived in the tumbledown cottage at the end of Rockland dyke. We spent many happy days fishing on this wonderful broad. I always wanted to go out on this water again to see if it had changed. Only accessible by water due to surrounding reedbeds rowboats are no longer hired. So accompanied by Peter Norton we launched our canoes. After more than 50 years Archie's cottage had been gentrified but I was delighted to find the broad had changed little. Indeed there was such a proliferation of wildlife and fish stock it seemed timeless. In a world of relentless change it was truly balm for the soul.

Home on the moor

One day I left this place
It seemed right then
Beyond was calling

Now I talk to the mountain
Listen to the Curlews
Beyond was here not there



This is the third of my small paintings on canvas
20cm x 20cm.

The Essence of Summer

This is the second of my small canvases for an upcoming exhibition. 20cm x 20cm Acrylic ink.


Poppies capture summer, blue skies and heat for me.

Leonard Cohen's last love letter to Marianne

Before he was famous Leonard Cohen met Marianne Ihlen on the Greek island of Hydra. She was the inspiration of songs such as So Long Marianne and Bird on the Wire. They were together for seven years. When he learnt she was dying in Oslo and only had days to live he sent her this letter.
" Well Marianne it's come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand I think you can reach mine. I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love. See you down the road".
According to a friend she was so happy to receive this beautiful letter and died two days later.
I think this is love and lovely. The painting is one of my small ones for a coming exhibition and is of wild flowers. I think their love was wild and unconditional and that this painting is therefore appropriate for my tribute to them both.