Back in England. Much of the last weeks were spent looking at my old life from the outside and remembering how much I loved to be in Senegal for short periods of time. Living there gave me an insight that isn't possible with a month here or there, and part of that insight was the loneliness of a life without distraction (the cinema, fast internet, book shopping), the mind-numbing boredom of long days when there's no work and the power is out and nothing much is happening in the lives of people around you, and witnessing the desperation of ordinary people, friends, who feel dragged down by their circumstances.

I wish I had taken a photo of the bowl containing the sheep's head we ate on the eve of the Muslim new year. I remembered my vegetarian days with a sort of hazy recollection, as if it was someone else's life.

Here is a place in Britain that I really love, Ben More on the Isle of Mull, just before a storm. When I was growing up, we spent our holidays in the shadows of this mountain, in my grandparent's house. This painting sums up the memories of always being wet as we were caught out by the quick-changing weather.