Painting

It was raining so hard most of the day that Mum and I only ventured out fairly briefly in the car for an indulgent cup of hot chocolate to cheer ourselves up.  It's on grey days like this, which Mum calls "low ceiling" days, when we feel our loss the most.  My blipfoto shows one of the watercolours Dad painted, which hangs in the hall.  As a teenager living in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, his carpentry skills were put to good use helping to build boats, and he loved to do pictures of them.  As a child he had a little boat like the tender in this painting, and would row it around the creeks along the coast near Leigh when the tide was right.  He didn't start painting watercolours until quite late on in life, after he had retired, and he taught himself from books, magazines and videos.  He used to produce a lot of small pictures to make into greetings cards, and sold them in aid of the Church charities.  There is an extra photo of the artist himself at work a few Christmases ago.  Still missing him terribly.