Musing on the vicissitudes of life…

A couple of months ago, down by the riverside, I made the palm-thatched shelter that is shown in today’s photograph.  The idea was, that in the halcyon days of a West Indian summer, I could sit and muse on the vicissitudes of life.

Forget about it!  In these days of climate change the West Indian summer, like the English summer “hath all too shorter stay”.  For the last month, we’ve had nothing but one tropical wave after another.  If I do find time stroll down to the river, the palm-thatch is more to keep off the rain, rather than keep off the sun.

But I muse nevertheless.  Forty-five years ago, when I gave up a secure job as a design engineer and set out to earn my living as an artist, my mates in the drawing office asked, but what will you do when you reach sixty-five.  Flippantly I replied, that if push comes to shove, I'll go back to being an engineer.  In the last three years, my God I’ve eaten those words many times over. 

Today for instance, when I should have been working on the clay relief of a reclining nude figure, I was instead trying to figure out how to devise a machine for washing tania and dasheen clean enough for export to the UK and US. 

Note:  In this case, Tania and Dasheen does not refer to my two teenage daughters, one  

named Tania and the other nick-named Dasheen, but to two staple Caribbean root crops.