Time & tide

After a good week's work in Singapore, on Friday I met my wife in Australia for Easter. We traveled south from Sydney to spend the night in the beautiful Calderwood Valley on the farm where she grew up.

The matriarch is her grandmother, a 92-year-old sculptress named May Barrie. May has been working in stone for seventy years and whilst she's well-known to the cognoscenti the family has always harboured a feeling that she deserved greater recognition. Last year she won Australia's most prominent sculpture prize.

May herself remains as matter-of-fact as ever. She's always known her work is good. A long life creating beautiful things in a beautiful place with friends and family close by is as good as it gets.