Middle Road Morning

Early on a cool October morning last year we were heading up Middle Road on the way to warm
our old bones with a long walk on the beach. Coming around the bend before the field the sun
was streaking through the mist and doing this ghostly sort of dance over the stone wall.

I’ve been wanting to find a way into a painting of this farm
for years, and, with it’s wing-like doors thrown open, and those majestic
animals burnt sienna dark against the field, and the gift of that morning’s
mysterious light, I saw my chance.
But. another artist had happened on this moment before me. A lone photographer with tripod
was set up and working along the fence by his car.
I crumbled and decided not to bother him and started to drive on.
No way, says Pat. That place is big enough for two.
I’ll spot you, now just pull over and go for it.
I wanted a different angle anyway, so I pulled over up ahead and got out as quietly as I could.
In the space of ten minutes or so I took a series of reference shots and sketched in my mind.
I was focusing on the landscape and the barn but the steer lumbered into the frame
as if to demand center stage.
That sort of serendipity never goes unnoticed by moi, so there they are.
And the photographer ? He was packing up as I drove away.

I drove by every morning at the same time for the next week but the elements never re-aligned.
Once again, Herself was right.
As passenger cum assistant artiste for all these years, she knows you gotta
get it while the getting’s good.