Ross's Time
5 December

The last few weeks have been more about what Ross has been up to than anything that I have done.

Mostly, currently, I am not doing things like not going to the Welsh National Opera performance of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos which I had planned to attend. Still, I've seen it before and, no doubt, then chance will arise to see it again. On the night, it seemed much more important to continue the conversation that I was having with work colleagues.

I have, however, done things like go to the dentist and have a filling replaced - oh, joy, oh, bliss.

I did catch Before Sunset at the local cinema which was a rare treat. I'd seen the previous film Before Sunrise which also starred Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy nearly a decade ago before I started up this Journal. This film revisits the same two people ten years on and allows us to catch up with how their lives have changed in the meantime.

It's short, some 80 minutes or so, but is pitched at absolutely the right level. Shot in real time, we just spend time with these two people as they pick up the pieces of a thwarted relationship as they re-discover each other in the little time they have before the Ethan Hawke character has to catch a plane.

I loved the fact that this was a true ensemble piece scripted, played and shot with incredible finesse. I'm going to give it four stars.

Ross and I have also been to The Playhouse to see the Oxford Touring Theatre's production of David Storey's Home. I remember when this first appeared on the West End stage starring Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud. It's still a very lyrical piece about age, memory, friendship, pain and surviving. David Calder and Geraldine James were both outstanding. I'd give the evening a more than reasonable three stars.

Then, it was quite a shock to realise that the whole evening is set in a mental hospital. Now this doesn't have the same shock value. What was also missing with the passage of time was the sense of metaphor about England and the loss of Empire and the feeling of a country adrift in the world cut off from its memories and roots.

I explained all of this to Ross. We were attending the performance as guests of North West Disability Arts Forum (NWDAF) as Ross was one of a number of artists who had been invited to watch the play and produce an artwork in response to the piece. He took my exegesis and turned it into a large painting of one of the central visual themes of the play (two elderly men by a wrought iron table in a park-like landscape) and placed that in front of a rumpled flag of St George. The painting is very sparse and quick and quite like Braque in its handling of false perspectives. I think that it is one of the best things that he has done this year - notwithstanding my birthday portrait. It is on display in the Playouse at the present.

Ross was also called on to show his work to HRH Prince Edward when he made a visit to NWDAF later in the week. The royal spent some time with my little queen and apparently passed some little time leafing through his portfolio and lingering over the male nudes for a longer period than may have been though necessary.

Currently, Ross is engaged in a long term project with Crosby Catholic Primary School. This is going to last well into May of next year. Once a week, he spends a day in the school working with small groups of the youngsters producing artworks which relate in some way to the overall curriculum. As with the STAR project he worked on two years ago, this is all about integrating art work into the broader curriculum as a way of releasing creativity and enhancing the learning experience. It's an area where Ross is making quite a name for himself locally.

And as a consequence, he's getting other work too like the week long artist residency which he has just completed for Merseyside Play Action Council.

Which all adds up to the reason why he was nominated for one of this year's NWDAF prizes at the annual DaDaFest awards. He didn't win but he's come a long way in just three years.

So he probably needed a night out himself. He and his friend, Max, went to see Welsh National Opera's Turandot at the Empire. I stayed at home. I'm pleased to say that he had an exceptionally good time without me and enjoyed the opera a treat.

Even last year, that sort of schedule would have been impossible for him. Better support, more confidence, better management and possibly the use of the light box seem all to have contributed. Anyway, he's thriving at the moment.