I haven't blogged for a bit - it seems I've been a bit lost in translation. The last few posts were a bit bleak, and then I was sent on secondment with work, so the last couple of weeks have been spent in a hotel and of course in my head.

And what profound insights do I bring from this experience:- the clink of the breakfast buffet, the impersonal feel and smell of the hotel room, the way in which a menu can get old? The excitement of a hotel, the enjoyment of new surrounds, the way in which missing someone can grow to an ache? Amazing cloudscapes as the road or valley winds away - fragile wisps that are bundled unceremoniously out of the way by great storm juggernauts rolling in from the sea?

I'd like to think I'm that perceptive, but I think three weeks of letting my brain flatline was cathartic in a way. Sponge-like I absorbed the world around me, the menu, the expenses allowance, new routines and things to do. My job was different, which was nice, but my creative output was curtailed - between socialising and travelling I was only able to work on one project at the weekends; that and trying to make the most of being home for a few days.

I read, there was the world cup and comfortable beds. I sketched the odd thing, but mostly I let myself drift. A luxury? Perhaps, but maybe a useful moment to take off some pressure - pressure that I apply to myself. Achieve this or that, get the next thing done - after all this is my problem, I need to have another project, something to hold on to so I don't fly away, something that helps me grasp who I am, and not just what I do.

By the end I was tired of being away, and back a day I've finished a painting and written more and... well here's a blog. I want to travel, I love to create, but I dearly love my wife and as things move on and hopefully up I know I always want to be with her as the day ends - even if she is in a mood about, you know, everything.