When I was eight years old I decided that I’d had enough; I was going to run away from home. Despite the row with my mum that had finally forced my decision beyond thought of any further negotiation, this was not going to be a matter of just flouncing out, I knew I had to prepare properly and so I retreated to my bedroom with the family suitcase to start packing. I was a little offended at the lack of comment as I dragged the ungainly lump of leatherette down the hallway, but I decided to dismiss this as adult stupidity, and set to work deciding on essentials for my forthcoming life on the road. This proved to be more difficult than I had imagined. Action men are quite awkward and take up a lot of room. The Lego could be removed from its box so that individual bricks would slot into odd crevices, but the junior chemistry set needed packing properly as there were several items of glass among the pieces, and I certainly wasn’t going to leave behind the drawing pad, pencils, paints, brushes, rubber, crayons… Books were a real problem; books turned out to be really heavy. To save space I’d just have to make do with the clothes I was wearing, but even without these I couldn’t get the lid of the case shut, let alone pick it up. As the light faded on that grey winter afternoon so did my hopes of ever escaping.

In a few days time I’m off to St Ives again, and once more I find myself faced with a list of essentials including: camera, spare camera body, lenses (12-40mm, 7-14mm, fish eye, 60mm macro, 14-150mm) flash, tripod, torch, ipad, extra batteries and battery chargers for the aforementioned, pencils, pens, notebooks and sketchbooks, thermos flask… and I am beginning to wonder how much progress I’ve actually made in my life.