Tempus fugit and all that. I  haven`t posted a blog for over two years. Over-scrolling on  Instagram   certainly  competes for head  space, as does  Netflix ,  but  there has been much useful  writing,  photographing and researching ideas for a  couple of books on the boil.  There are also my  efforts at painting and drawing with skills learnt on courses at the  jewel of an adult education centre  Morley College  under the guiding eye of  artist and teacher  Gillian Melling.  There`s something so completely connective and elemental about  dragging a paintbrush loaded with  colour  onto paper, drawing with a stub of grainy  charcoal  making marks that are one`s unique  interpretation of an object, a figure, a landscape or simply the fruit of imagination.

I`m just back  from New Year in  Olhao.  Cycling over the salt marshes  scattered with ponds and flocks of birds,  walking  and  swimming  on  Armona  in crystalline water were  energising.  At the Saturday market, stalls were teetering with deliciousness as usual: bundles of crunchy spring greens, plump lemons and oranges,  fat bulbs of fennel .  I  want to buy it all, but am on  the last plane home to Gatwick. So it`s ingredients for an flight picnic feast:  raspberries; a plump pink knobbly field tomato  a small round  sheeps and goats cheese, and pao d`agua   .

 Earthy textures:  cork bowl and new potatoes

Slices of pumpkin dispensed by  small machete

Lemons looking like real ones rather than the all look the same lemons at the supermarket.

Bundles of wild asparagus - it grows in ditches and grassy banks