One of my favourite ways to feel better is to draw a massive oak tree. Draw it right off the page. Fill it with strength and life. I highly recommend it. I’ve been thinking about Albert Camus again a lot these days. His idea that in the face of the crazy absurdness of our existence,Continue reading “Great Oaks, Invincible Summers”
Category Archives: Life
Feathers
My daughter left this feather on the kitchen table this morning. She picked it up somewhere. It’s funny, usually I’m really grumpy about feathers, ‘They’re dirty! Leave them outside! Wash your hands!’ – mean-dad stuff. But today this feather got me out of a real funk. A Thursday-morning-existential-void. Actually, a grey-Thursday-morning-in-February-existential-void… doesn’t get more voidyContinue reading “Feathers”
Dancing in the kitchen
In my A to Z of the great great joys of life D is for Dancing in the kitchen. Tonight it was some New Orleans Jazz. Glass of red wine. Taking some black and white pictures of the rain on the window, street-lights, reflections – making supper and dancing in the kitchen. Put me inContinue reading “Dancing in the kitchen”
Long Hot Baths
Between January 1998 (when I just got back from New Year’s Eve in Spain) and August 1998, aged 25, I spent a lot of time in the bath. Long hot baths, often reading books by Hemingway. I can clearly see myself (you probably don’t want to) on a grey February morning up to my earsContinue reading “Long Hot Baths”
Joy – Bike – Park
On Monday, as part of Madrid’s ‘de-escalation’ process, the great Casa de Campo park opened. It’s a vast area of wild parkland right next to the city center, which I’ve been sorely missing. I normally go several times a week on my bike, and it’s been painfully off-limits since March 16th. So when I foundContinue reading “Joy – Bike – Park”
Notes from Ben 