Harmony Hall, London, 6 October 2025

12 Oct 2025

Another four weeks have passed since my last life modelling job. Again, I’ve not been entirely idle as I’ve continued with a series of all-day sittings for an oil painting portrait in the classical style. There has been some idleness, however: on a 10-night break to Essaouira in Morocco, which felt like a hideaway at the edge of the world.

I was booked to model for Walthamstow Lifedrawing in February, but had to cancel as my father died the day before the session was due. It was just one of several hard situations I had to work through from October to March – my ‘endurance’ period. April was, mercifully, a ‘stabilising’ month when nothing got any worse.

During the period from May to August I’ve been ‘rebuilding’. Then suddenly it seemed at the beginning of last month (September) almost all remaining issues got ‘resolved’. After one of the most challenging years of my life I felt I could finally reset and restart. Naively, in mid-September I even made a feel-good list of all adversities overcome…

Naturally, my twelvemonth wasn’t going to have a fairytale ending. In the last 10 days of September I received a hat-trick of stomach punches. Yet I remind myself I’m lucky to have had – and continue to have – many blessings absent from the lives of people who are suffering around world. It’s just my privileged restart will now look different.

If anyone ever reads this stuff, I know it won’t make much sense without a whole load more detail, which I’m afraid won’t be forthcoming. It is simply a self-indulgent spot of reflection; a folded corner on a page of my diary. Merely know this: it was lovely to be back with Walthamstow Lifedrawing again. Me, only me, being me.