Wednesday 8th April 8.00am There’s a plum tree in our garden. It has little white blossoms on it. In a few months it will be groaning with plums. I don’t what variety: I know they’re purple, and wasps like them, a lot. I stand up to sketch them in the early morning sunshine, and Reuben…
Tuesday 7th April 8.00am I bring Paddy (18) a cup of tea in bed. This has happened every morning since the lockdown began, as he hasn’t been getting up for school. Like me, Paddy is an early riser, so the cup of tea is just the job to help him get up and at ’em…
Monday 6th April 10.00am I am rather overcome by the beech tree buds of yesterday’s sketch, and I feel the need to sketch some more. There is something so delicate and perfect about the buds of trees and I can’t believe it has taken me this long to seek them out as subjects. The beech…
Sunday 5th April 3.00pm I spend a blissful hour in the garden sketching a beech tree. It is strong, with a powerful trunk and wood that look solid as can be. When we bought the field that would become our garden, there was nothing on it but grass and one very put-upon looking tree at…
Saturday 4th April 1.00pm The new Lockdown Blog is here! New name, new theme! I overhear my husband Marcel telling his mum Erika (91) that Ró is writing a Living in Lockdown blog. And he didn’t share this much cooler name with me before now because…? So I have a new name, and a new…
Friday 3rd April 4pm Liv (15) comes to me in my studio with her embroidered piece of denim. We have a pact, that if she makes an entire face mask on her own from start to finish, she can get creative with clothing (either hacking up things she doesn’t like, or making things from scratch)…
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…