“2015 has shyly turned into 2016 and yesterday’s low but intense Amsterdam-like sun light has melted into much needed rain. My front garden is a pendulous fruit salad of pomegranates, oranges, lemons, limes, as well as giant, intensely red-penised aloe plants emerging from a carpet of tiny blue-flowered rosemary. The roof garden is awash with roses and orchids. All drink copiously and unabashedly in the reprieve from lingering drought. The pond in the back garden, now a clear and reflecting liquid surface, brims and dances with water drops in its winter state, as the water lilies are dormant and the koi sleep in the silt.

This has been an exceptionally busy year and half of international exhibitions, conferences, presentations, book launches and teaching. The summer of ’14 was punctuated by several weeks of total isolation…”