Primrose Time
4 April

The hour has changed.

And with it comes lighter evenings. Or it would if the weather had not taken a turn towards the inclement with greyer skies than we have be wont to expect of late.

With the general lushing up of the garden, the primoses are out in purple abundance. Last year, as I was separating them out from their clumps, I re-planted a number along the central garden path. the result is that, this spring, we have the beginnings of a primrose path in our back garden.

Monday was a deal brighter and Ross and I spent some time in the garden potting plants, sewing seeds and tending the garden and the house plants in general. We took some time out to visit a local farm shop and bought some local produce including some local honey. I've been told that using honey made from the pollen of local plants can help build up an immunity to hayfever. So, I'll give anything a go once. We also went out to nursery to buy some terracotta coloured gravel to sprinkle over the tops of the pots to give a more decorative look and to dissuade Nutkin from treating them as his new latrine.

We also took ourselves in to town where we purchased the food processor we had promised ourselves some time back and then went on to the Walker Art Gallery for a small exhibition entitled Art Behind Barbed Wire.

I had few preconceptions and expectations about this exhibition and was quite bowled over by it. The story of the Huyton Internment Camp was new to me - a new residential estate commandeered and surrounded by barbed wire to make it into a prison in which hundreds of people with links to Germany were placed. For some, it was like landing amongst what they had been fleeing to escape.

Unsurprisingly, in among the internees, were some artists. The bulk of the works on display were by one Hugo Dachinger of whom I had never previously heard. His work was outstanding - from individual portraits to landscapes of the camp, to scenes of everyday life behind barbed wire, to more expressionistic works exploring the madness of the situation, here was a great individual voice.

Somberly, most of the works are watercolours or gouache laid down on newspaper. You can just see the newsprint running behind the painting above. This in itself is a timely reminder of life elsewhere. One portrait is executed on The Times for Thursday 1 August 1940. In the background you can read the court circular for the previous day and see what various members of the royal family were doing.

I've been quite haunted by all this and have looked back at the catalogue a number of times over the course of the week. It seems to me to be a model of what a small exhibition can be and I give it four stars.

What else have I got to tell you? Oh, our neighbour Jamie has finally left his next door flat. He has a new job in Crewe and a new house out by Manchester and a new girlfriend. So, all things considered, it's going to be a momentous year for him. It's just a pity that we're not going to see his cute buns ever again.

I had a productive week in the training room. We've started a new unit that has some customer care elements so I was able to take the lead for once. The only down side to the week was that one of the customers believes that Dave and I have been picking on him - which is lunacy given that he hardly impinges on my consciousness at all.

Anyhow, it's the weekend. I've had a quiet Saturday and today brought Quakers in the morning and lunch with Albert and Grace. Ross goes off to his parents this week for Easter. My parents go down to Epsom to stay with Linda. It's going to be a bit like Christmas all over again. And I can feel the nervousness and fear rising inside of me. I need to keep calm and get a grip.