Lockdown became an astonishing time for me. I look back and see it now as an extraordinary reaping of a creative harvest that had been germinating for years.

I had been widowed three years previously, and the space left by the death of my husband had filled up with quietness and aloneness. During lockdown, however, something else started to seep into this space. A reconnection to my childhood and to my essence.

This time during lockdown was extraordinary and rare. There was no distraction from appointments, travel, friendships and family duties. I had the time and space to emerge. To be. It was as if my childhood age merged with my present age and I re-met my true self.

My grand-daughter was turning eight at the time, and suddenly I knew exactly what it was to be eight. I remembered it deeply.

I’ve had a lifetime interest in nature, painting, botany and gardening. I spent my first twenty years drawing and painting avidly. Marriage and children took me down other alleyways, but I always maintained my connection with nature through gardening. In my forties I took up painting again, had lessons and put on exhibitions. Recently, however, I had entered a slightly stuck phase.

Lockdown liberated me. I couldn’t wait to get started. I was bursting. There was nothing and nobody, just myself and an empty room, my paints and my imagination. It felt like I was turning a page to a new chapter.

When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I want to do is paint. I feel unfulfilled without it. Even if I can’t paint that day, due to other distractions, I can usually do something towards painting. Like preparing a canvas. That’s still progress! Setting out my paints is exciting. Squeezing out the paints the same. I love the smell, the mixing and the action of pushing the paint around.

That first daub of paint is extraordinary ... I want to express the joy, the exuberance and the thrill. It’s like a bursting forth. I also want to be silly again and express that instant childlike joy and wonder.

I have always adored flowers and their gaudy naughtiness, but vegetables must have their day too. They are innately beautiful, exquisite in fact.