Sitting here on a Sunday afternoon with the sun is shining - I'm tying myself to my desk trying to play catch up with all kinds of things, because I have lots of news to share.   

Some of my news is that I have participated in two shortish movies about painting . .  One,  at 60 seconds is really really short - and rather sweet. It is called Dathanna (meaning "colours" in the Irish language). It was put together very fast by two young men. The TickTock lads have entered it into a competition run by Sony to tell a story in 60 seconds. 

If you hear no sound, there is a "volume" bar on bottom left, beside the play button. And, if you know how to, and are skilled in these matters, please do "share it" and "like" it. You can forward this email to a friend by clicking on the link     

The second one is a much bigger production (be maybe 8 -10 times longer) and being made collaboratively with Caroline Brennan of Giant Leap Productions and it is currently being lovingly edited.  If you have watched the short documentary, at the 58th second you will have seen me standing on one leg painting like a mad thing, with a canvas tied to fence post and the rain pelting down. So far, so normal . . . 

This is all in aid of my exhibition in Bray in the summer. The exhibition will be in the Signal Arts Centre and will run from Tuesday 20th June - Sunday 2nd July 2017. The opening reception is planned for Friday 23rd June from 7 - 9 pm. 

As the woman said, if you have more than one priority, you have none. And so it is with regret every evening I turn off the blinking screen that I have not yet managed to write a Blog for many weeks now. 

However, today is the day and this is going out before I have my breakfast whether I like it or not and if it is full of typos my new motto as you know is that perfect is the enemy of the good (enough). Seriously. 

Yes, I have lists of my lists. That is so bad and it can only mean one thing. Yes, I am preparing for an exhibition. It is called The Goose Field, and is a series of paintings based on what I see every day. There will be a few surprises in it for those of you who have been following my journey for some time now. 

Suffice to say that it will be my first solo show for a while and I seem to have lost the knack of figuring out what to do in which order. I bought canvases that don't need frames and I painted most of my pictures on special oil paper that do need frames. I order frames in a panic for pictures that are not painted yet. "Business as usual, so", I hear you snort into your morning cappaucino. Well, yes, even I admit this bit is true. 

My blue beetle is sadly no more and for many months now I have been without a car. It has both shrunk and conversely, expanded my world. It has shrunk my work in the sense that I reach out now only within what I consider striking distance of my other set of wheels - about 12 miles. My spectacular bike - which is built for speed, is a challenge on the small country roads. I am of course lit up like some kind of fluorescent lemon and lime spectacle in an effort to be seen by the crazed motorists. 

It has expanded my world in that the world now seems to come to me . . sadly mostly in the form of big brown boxes by courier. But I do try and buy from real shops that deliver. Ding Dong! As the door bell chimes that means another delivery of something I ordered that I don't need yet, but will do one day. It also means it is time for breakfast.