The BEST thing that the Physio from the Rehab team gave me was ‘permission to paint’ so today, without guilt, I loaded up the basket of my walking frame with oil paint tubes, palette knives, a roll of toilet paper for cleaning up, and a couple of canvases and headed off with my faithful cat to paint the old persimmon tree. The walking frame has a tray on the top which I have discovered today is a perfect height to paint from, and putting the palette on the seat means it is VERY accessable and leaves my arms free so there is not the pain of holding anything.

Opal, the cat, got a bit bored and wandered off for her own explorations, calling out loudly to me at intervals to make sure I hadn’t left without her.

I haven’t used a palette knife very often and I found today the best approach for me was to pick up the paint with it and make lots of little short strokes following a certain direction . BOY it used up a HEAP of paint for a quite small canvas!

I love the finished work, it is so vibrant and full of colour and movement – such a ‘happiness’ painting – and the fruit are so THICK in their application (combined brilliant red, vermillion (I LOVE vermillion) and a nice yellow and plastered it on with broad swirls of pigment.

Came home just as the heavens opened and a huge outpouring of rain occurred over a 5 minute period.

I feel relieved to have had the time out on location painting – it’s very emotionally healing as painting is the only time I am fully present in the moment, fully focussed, especially if out on location. It gives me the only break I get from how hard things are sometimes. It gives me a chance, just for that moment, to feel at ‘one’ with this world, to be alive.