8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: To business and busyness. It would be a compact, intense, and dense day. Preparations and consultations. This day in my life will not have the same significance for somebody else. And who knows what the ‘day may bring forth’. The ‘evil thereof’ will be manifest in, for example, disappointments, frustrations, anxieties, failures, confusions, or anger. But there may be moments, too, of surprise, quiet joy, unexpected peace, and (occasionally) hope where none is justified.

9.40 am: Off to School in the drizzle for a 10.00 am appointment with a PhD fine art student, in my capacity as second supervisor. There’re occasions when both tutee and tutor are dumbstruck by the realisation of their shared humanity and its implications. Fine Art teaching can take its participants into the deep places of the heart and soul. We saw light, today.

11.30 pm: I met with the External Examiner for a pre-viva voce meeting. The candidate was ushered into the examination room half-an-hour later. They acquitted themselves very well, and were awarded a doctorate in Fine Art. I don’t tire of students’ success. And achievement at this level is always an occasion for rejoicing among the family of the School of Art.

2.30 pm: Viva admin completed, I returned to earth and the more mundane matters of exhibition preparations and assessment timetables. (In the background: Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.) The weather waxes and wanes at this time of year. Look out at the horizon, and you can see what’s going to hit the town in ten minutes’ time. 4.30 pm: A review of recently received exhibition catalogue statements.

5.20 pm: Homeward.

7.30 pm: I worked on the exhibition catalogue statements submissions further before reviewing ‘The Lesser Light’ in the studio. Transitions needed smoothing out. I took up ‘God Breathed’ with a view to, similarly, taking no hostages.