Tolerance is an often overlooked virtue, don’t you think? Perhaps I naively anticipate a time when the private activities of consenting adults are no longer a topic of public debate. Human curiosity tends to be insatiable, after all. But what should it matter to a person’s career if they prefer one form of love or another? Or perhaps not even love but plain, honest lust? Despite all the politically-correct rhetoric which so many proudly liberal-minded people adore, sexual scandal remains a sure-fire way of damaging an opponent’s reputation, sometimes even irrevocably.

Perhaps one of the most tragic expressions of intolerance is religious. X has a different view of the world from Y so they do their utmost to annihilate each other in the name of their deity. Look upwards – it’s one sky. Look downwards – it’s one planet. Look at an autopsy – we all share a similar biology. Get used to it.

“I hate modern art,” a friend of mine said. I tried to explain that “modern art” is very much an umbrella term which bunches together every form of artistic endeavour created since the 1950s (more or less). Did she hate every painting, sculpture, book, piece of music, film or theatrical play from the last fifty years? “Of course not,” she said. So could she name any artists whose work she particularly disliked? No. And yet isn’t this so typical of many people, who have firm opinions on subject about which they actually know rather little?

Thank you to everyone who left messages here, in IM and on email. My father is still in hospital, having fallen again while there. He is currently resting on a mattress on the floor to prevent him falling out of bed again. This also means he can't get to his feet without aid.

His specialist said that my father doesn't really know where he is or what's going on. When he leaves hospital he is to be moved into a different section of his nursing home which has a much higher staff-to-patient ratio.

My poor mother is distraught, of course. She told me it's like standing on the edge of a precipice and waiting for fate to push her forwards into the unknown. She knows the inevitable will happen sooner or later, but watching his steady decline is understandably traumatic for her.

Anyway, the good news is that my brother Eric has now returned to work following successful chemotherapy for prostate cancer.

And our snowdrops are in bloom! Don’t you just love snowdrops?

Oh, and some of you might recognise the subject of this graphite and watercolour portrait! I don’t consider myself particularly good at painting at all. In fact whenever I look at my work I see a frustrating myriad of flaws, but I enjoy painting and drawing even so.

My father is in hospital, having cut his head open when he fell for the second time in two weeks. His high Warfarin intake causes him to bleed profusely, and in this instance neither the nurses at his residential home nor the paramedic who was called to the scene were able to staunch the blood-flow. We’re now waiting for the results of a skull x-ray which is possibly to check for any internal bleeding – but getting any information from hospitals via the telephone is hopeless, as I’m sure you all already know!

During his previous recent fall he incurred severe bruising to his face, lower arms and ribs. The bruises hadn’t healed from that before he fell again. He’s very frail now, and can only move from his private room to the communal lounge with the aid of his walking stick, and due to a combination of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases, he is fast losing any remaining strength in his hands and arms. As it is, his once-strong stride is now a tentative shuffle.

Ah, life can be cruel at times. We tend to forget its relentless brutality, cushioned as we are in our relatively cosy vision of the world.

Some of you may recognise these two gentlemen…

I’ve just arrived home from the village, where I bought two 6B pencils and two 8B pencils from the art shop, plus a tin of stain sealant for the kitchen ceiling from the hardware store. We think the ceiling used to be covered with those vile, and highly inflammable, polystyrene tiles. Try as we might, the remaining streaks of old glue refuse to dissolve. I put four coats of paint on that ceiling last year and already marks are starting to show through. Hopefully a coat or two of the sealant underneath a fresh coat of new paint will prevent this happening again.

Monday saw us wandering around Birkenhead’s sales. He came home with some stout walking boots and some brown and tan trainers, which look a bit like old-fashioned football boots and are rather smart. The clothes shops were full to bursting with garbage not worth giving wardrobe space to. I’m sure shops buy-in cheap junk deliberately just so they can pretend to have a sale! I bought two pretty sketchpads, one whose padded pink silk cover is decorated with sewn-on shells, while the other is a thick wad of handmade paper in a wrap-around-and-tie cover made from soft brown tooled leather.

Did I ever mention my stationary fetish?

No, really, I’m being serious. This quirk reared its odd yet harmless little head at puberty, when I developed a fixation with biros. My collection of pens in every colour, shape and brand name was my pride and joy. From there, I moved on to felt tip pens, then those funny furry toys which you stick on the end of your pens. Pencil cases didn’t do much for me but writing paper did. This trait has remained with me. I’ve a drawer in my Gran’s old chest-of-drawers which is so crammed with note pads, sketch pads, charcoal pencils, fine-line ink pens, putty rubbers and similar paraphernalia that it’s becoming a struggle to open it without something getting jammed.

This doesn’t even take into account my collection of old diaries which date back into pre-history (well, it feels like they do, sometimes!) They’re full of riveting observations on my daily life, such as “The cat smashed a vase”, or “Today I made apple and apricot pie”, (well, actually I did make that last night). Even these are bound with silky bows or velvet ribbons, or reveal embroidered bookmarks hiding between long-closed pages. And then there’s the volumes of my poetry, which no-one is allowed to touch under pain of death.

So come on, tell me – what’s your quirk?

Hiding from the sub-zero temperatures outside, I've just uploaded more images to my Art & Crafts gallery. You are, of course, most welcome to visit.

Men are not safe let loose in a home, they really aren't! The handle which flushes the toilet snapped off in his hand this morning. Until we get that mended, we're having to use pliers to make the remaining stub of the handle turn! Can you credit it?!! Ah, the joys of life...

This photograph brings back many memories! It shows the Life Studio at City College, Clarence Street, Liverpool. The easels were ancient and liable to sudden collapse. The long-suffering models had to pose next to an electric fire to ward off hypothermia. The room always smelled of coffee and linseed oil.

As can be gathered from this post, my little gallery of photographs is now open to visitors. I've an enormous heap of photos which I've not had time to upload yet! Anyway, pay a visit to the gallery if you wish. I hope you enjoy it.