The train north. 20 3 16

Rain. Water. St Catherine Docks. 11 5 16

Homage to Richard Mabey. ‘Solvitur Ambulando’ flight Munich London early morning 19 04 2016

Listening to Feldman-For Stephan Wolpe 26 4 16

Time to sit quietly. A perfect room in the Residenz, Munich 28 4 16

Listening to Feldman-Rothko Chapel 26 4 16

Setting out-between St Pancras and Rainham; light on the marsh at Thurrock 21 4 16

Hunting for Tartini. A morning with Poussin might help. 20 4 16

Unlike many people, it seems, I love the Underground, and most especially the people on it. I have been drawing them, or rather, taking notes on them, ever since I was a teenager. Last night, on the way to rehearse Mozart. 15 minutes on the Jubilee line. 24 3 16

A strange day: began with the notification from Nigel Clarke? of what was happening at a nearby metro to him in Brussels: Nigel, being the person that he is, immediately grabbed all the first aid gear that he could find, and went to offer his assistance. Meanwhile I was listening to Thomas Simaku?’s impassioned, so human music in York, as the news from Belgium flickered across the computer screen. And then the train home, downhill south, with a carriage-load of people being strikingly gentle to each other, solicitous the slightly distressed Red Setter at the end of the carriage, maybe drinking slightly more Gin than was advisable for a weeknight. We passed a blazing electricity substation at Grantham, right by the track. The woman across the aisle said: ‘It’s a strange, dramatic day”, with deep melancholy. I found myself drawing the blaze from memory, as it welled up, filtered through the lens of Joseph Wright, and Turner’s paintings of Parliament in flames, and that blazing car wreck, by the side of the road in ‘The Inisider’. And in my memory, the faces of the fireman, in the flames, blazed copper. 22 3 16

Time with Ludolf Bakhuizen’s ‘Boats in a Storm’- and a group of wonderful school children admiring his wonderful seascape. 9 3 16

There and back. Two stations. Farringdon. 3 pm, 15 3 16

There and back. Two stations. Kings Cross (the John MaAslan & Partners) addition, 8 am 15 3 16

Conversation with a Plane Tree in cold sunlight. Smithfield (and Timothy Spall walking by) 9 am 17 3 16

My favourite of them all, van Ruisdael, Jacob 9 3 16