equinox

 It is the first day of Autumn; a chill is in the air, whose swift passage has brought swathes of soft grey cloud to drape the sky, which was earlier this morning of peerless blue, brilliant sunshine illuminating my drawing board, where I had laid the drawings made during the course of the last few days.

I repair to the garden to keep company with Minos who greets me with a fulsome range of utterance before settling at my feet. Recalling the day before, I remember how I watched in horrified fascination, a garden spider weaving with skilled artistry a silken jacket about a large black fly, who had blundered into the web in the centre of which the spider had waited for the whole of the previous day without a catch. This afternoon, the spider sits once more in the middle of the web, the delicate, deadly threads of which radiate in almost perfect symmetry from it's tweedy body. The neatly packaged fly of yesterday is nowhere to be seen. 

Contemplating the clouds, which are now moving more rapidly across the sky and have formed an impenetrable layer , I find myself pondering the Autumnal Equinox, the likeness of this time to Spring, a now distant season, the late flush of growth, the often prodigious blooming, and a feeling of restlessness, almost of a need to migrate, to be on the move. 

This morning, after having bid farewell to my partner, I made a cup of coffee and returned to bed, where I sat up against the pillows and worked upon the drawing shown above; the drawing to the right of the frame.Later I had a number of errands to run, which took me out into the then bright air and brilliant sunshine. When I returned to the house, I completed the drawing and, as is my habit, immediately photographed it; delighting in the dappled sunlight and shadow falling across it's surface. 

The day has changed in character considerably; I ponder upon how to next engage myself. I had made a promise to myself that I would, once I had completed the necessary tasks of the day, to work steadfastly at the grid drawings, but find myself unsettled, made uneasy by the change in the weather, which was forcast, but which I am finding difficult to adjust to coming as it does after days of fine and even aspect.

I resolve to take my drawing things into the garden and keep company once more with Minos, who has adopted a life out of doors with the run of sunny days. The breeze will no doubt lift the paper in my notebook, my pencils will rattle about on the old tin tray I use to convey my materials to the outside, yet I shall be content. "Draw all the time", said Mary Potter- I am glad to be able so to do.