James Ruddy

STANDING on the spot where the great artist spent 43 years obsessively creating more than 250 canvases of his iconic water lilies, I noticed two dark blue dragonflies swooping past, locked together in an amorous embrace. For a fleeting moment, it felt as if Monet himself, on this balmy evening in the garden he created, was sending a message about the love he felt for this place and the surrounding poppy-filled meadows that proved so inspiring to his work.

A MILKY sunrise is beginning to spread a faint golden glow across the ageing limestone front wall of the Alamo, America’s most iconic battle monument, as many of the citizens of the surrounding city enjoy a final hour of peaceful slumber.

WARM memories of pootling through ancient Irish towns and along twisting country lanes came spilling back as I spotted the Almond Green body and the varnished ash wooden frame of what could easily have been my father’s Morris Minor Traveller.