Beyond the open window, a deliciously warm afternoon, the air filled with bird's cries. I am about to begin setting down the final layer of graphite on this drawing when the sound of the telephone causes me to start. It is my mother, who is longing to see her family and is finding it difficult to understand why I cannot call upon her and relieve her loneliness. I try to insert a positive note into the conversation and promise to sit in the garden with her and read poetry to her when restrictions have been lifted and it is possible to travel once more. I have this image in my mind to hold on to; the both of us seated in the green garden chairs beneath the spreading boughs of the venerable Bramley apple tree, little birds filling the air with their song, myself, having wrapped a blanket about my mother's knees, reading Christina Rossetti aloud.
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