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So, this is my first foray into painting with watercolours. I am still an absolute novice when it comes to painting, but I am, I think, getting slightly better. I have a tendency to use too much pencil when sketching out the basic image with the result being a 'muddy' patch - see the bottom left-hand corner. That aside, the picture is based primarily on a scene that I imagined, but, when I came to sketching it, I had trouble with getting the sea in perspective. Luckily, a friend was in possession of a picture amongst her snaps that I was able to use to get the right colours and perspective. Voila! Saint Lucia as imagined by me.

Forgive us Father, For we have sinned. Today we woke up and saw Snow. A sleek layer of pure white, ice cold Cotton wool… And we moaned. And we cussed the heavens. And we threw up our hands with vexation. We waited whilst watching the breakfast news Only to learn of whether The 131 or the District Line were running. Meanwhile, all along, you knew of people Who had spent the night beneath dusty stars Nursing wounds. Nursing chaos On an evening spent praying out of doors Because their tin shacks Are No More. Shame on us. If you want to help with relief effort please visit: www.yele.org .

I am, deep down, a cricket romanticist. I love, above all else, tense Test match cricket. The thrill of not knowing from one moment to the next whether a slender edge is going to found by a bowler directing the ball to the slips; whether, with split-second decision-making, the batsman decides to leave the ball entirely or play a powerful hook to the boundary. Recently, having revisited the end of the Cardiff Ashes test from 2009, I couldn’t help but notice that I had completely allowed Paul Collingwood, and his contribution to that match, pass me by. In that instance, England’s second innings, his stand of 74 laid solid foundation from which the remainder of the tail, most famously Monty Panesar and Jimmy Anderson, were able to survive until time simply ran out for Australia. Collingwood was able to last for a remarkable 344 minutes facing 245 balls – only Simon Katich lasted longer at the crease. It is not this innings alone that has endeared Collingwood to me though. More recently