Thursday 2nd April 5.49am Birdsong fills the air outside my window. It is passionate and comes right from little feathery hearts, and it is a glorious sound. When you’re up at that hour you really feel like you’re on top of your life. I decide it’s my cue to get up. What a wonderfully productive…
Wednesday 1st April The days run into each other. They are full of online news, sewing, cooking, baking, writing, walking, sketching…and, luckily, picking up a small hairy white dog and giving him lots of hugs. He is roughly the size of a baby when they’re still very portable, so it’s the work of an instant…
Tuesday 31st March 8.00am I start the day the usual way: getting bread together so that by the time everyone is hungry it might actually be ready. It takes ages. In normal times you can buy fast action dried yeast. The whole thing is easy – in fact, it’s pretty fast action. Out comes bread…
Monday 30th March 3.00pm I have put together a Lockdown Art Kit for my brother Mal. He is a very able sketcher (most people are but he’s really, really good at observation) and I am always trying to evangelise him to develop a regular sketching habit. Now that he cannot leave the house or do…
Sunday 30th March 2.00pm My daughter Liv (15) looks rather 19th-century and somewhat wan sitting in my rocking chair, and I sketch her as fast as I can. Looks are deceptive, however, and she is as fit and strong as an ox. 5.00pm I continue to prepare and upload files for my American publisher. I…
Saturday 28th March Most of the Day I am organising, editing and sending images for my new book on drawing people to my publisher. My concentration is shot but I have promised to send everything by, well, yesterday. It is taking a long time to process the images. I hope people buy the book and…
Friday 27th March 10.00am Paddy (18) hangs the washing on the line. It’s whites, and consists of sheets, towels and a few socks and pants. He says if we think he is going to hang underpants on the line, we are mad. Later, I see them fluttering dry and clean in the breeze and Liv…
Thursday 26th March 3.00pm I am upstairs in my home, about to get ready to go out for a walk. Liv (15) and I coo over Reuben, the fluffy white terrier, who is gamboling around the bedrooms carefree and happy. We both find him adorable beyond belief, ever since the first time we saw him…
Wednesday 25th March 7.00am I’ve had a disturbing dream. I am looking out of the window into the back garden. It’s dark out. Before my eyes, a shrub in the distance bursts into flames. It is sudden and violent, and the flames spread very quickly to the rest of the garden. I run to get…
Tuesday 24th March All day I’m sewing in my studio. I cut and iron and pleat. I’m stitching away when Paddy (18) comes down to my studio for help with his Spanish oral exam. He has the Leaving Cert coming up soon, or did have, anyway. “Mum, do you mind?” he says, when I whirr…