Well, it wasn’t a very sunny one for a start, and there was a lot of dull cloudy weather with a pretty wet August, especially by Suffolk standards where it tends to be dry. A good indicator is that not once did I have to unravel the hosepipe to water the garden. On a shallow soil with sand only 15 cms down, that is quite remarkable. The one really fine, hot week in coastal Suffolk in early June, I was freezing in Helsinki where my flimsy summer clothes were no match for a cold northerly wind.

I went to a lot of exhibitions – of which more anon – but I haven’t painted much. I turned the corner, as hoped, during my week in north Norfolk with artist Michael Horn, not so much in the quantity of trials and studies that I produced as in the movement I made towards a new style (for me) of painting. I’ve called it ‘figurative abstraction’ and will write further about it, with examples, shortly.

Meanwhile, having successfully avoided exhibiting at all in 2017, I’m going to put three paintings into The Cut open exhibition at Halesworth during December-January 2018: I can no longer resist the temptation to do so when, at last, I have a small portfolio of new paintings from which to choose. I’ll write about them too, I hope before too long.