Living in mid-Wales is great when you get there. But coming and going is another matter. As a friend of mine is fond of saying "It's two hours in the car before you even start your journey". If you need to travel to London as I often do, you can clock up some mileage. A car is pretty important for getting about, and essential for the transportation of large paintings. When I first arrived in Ceredigion in 1992 I drove a SAAB. Coming up from South Wales late one night I had to break very sharply a couple of times and hang on to the steering wheel like a man obsessed to avoid putting the car in a ditch on a number of blind bends. I hadn't yet learned to read the road markings in Welsh. "Arrive in a Volvo, leave in a Mini" is another local saying. Suffice to say, I am now driving my father's old VW Polo. Anyway, the frustration of slow, narrow roads led to some ideas for paintings which never eventuated.

The one above is called Araf for obvious reasons. The licence plate visible in that version is the number of my old SAAB. Here's another version, without colour:

But the 20 mile an hour speed limit around schools and in residential areas in Wales has saved lives. In January to March 2024, there was a 23% drop in serious road casualties compared to the same period the previous year. That has to be good news.