CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WEDNESDAY 5TH APRIL 2017
The scene from the studio window was bleak. Spring’s swollen buds and tender new leaves shocked frozen by a dusting of unseasonal snow. The meadow on the rise a mottle of brown and white. The was sky heavy, the wind freshening from the west, and Judith knew that in her garden the vegetables that she planted during last week’s heat wave, would be dying or already dead.
She felt cold, too cold to paint. She left the studio and went through to the living room where a meagre fire burned in the grate. She poked and stoked and waited for the blaze, then stood and warmed her back.
On the edge of the hearthrug her laptop flashed at her its tiny sharp light. The lid was down. She picked it up and sat with it in the chair closest to the fire and opened th
