Anything is what happens next

Last week Simon and I took four of our nieces and nephews out for the day in London. It was quite an eye opener, not only because they are suddenly nearly adults - tall, confident, too old to hold hands, and funny, very funny in fact - but because spending time with them is like sitting in the park with the sun on your face: kind of what life is meant for.

Clambering over art students sat crossed-legged on the floors of The National Gallery, I was hit by a wave of nostalgia which bought back memories of days spent in galleries as a young girl, learning about perspective, depth of field, light and colour. I cringed as I pictured my recreation of Monet's Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies, which boasted none of the above. It was truly terrible.

I'm not an artist. I knew it. My art teacher knew it. Deep down my parents knew it too. Nonetheless my painting was hung on the wall of their house until I was old enough to suddenly understand the significance of this, and quietly took it down one day with my own fair hands, empowered by the knowledge that it wasn’t the execution of this beast of a painting which mattered to them.

I recounted this story to Lucy, my eldest niece, and through smirks she grilled me further, just so she could ascertain how bad bad actually was: "What, the bridge was wonky? And the paint all ran, making the water look like mud? And there was a hole in the paper??"

Yes, Yes and Yes. It was that bad.

“Oh. I wouldn't have thought you'd be bad at art.” was her reaction, and actually back then I didn't think I was bad at art either. In fact in my childlike bubble of confidence I didn’t think I was bad at anything at all, and did most things with an uninhibited fervour. It dawned on me that this approach to life has withered somewhat along the line.

Leaving the gallery we talked about computer games and horses, life as a teenager, school, university, and what happens next. The answer was unanimous: anything. Anything is what happens next. Simple. It struck me that life seems to suck this simplicity out of living, and that really truly looking at things this way is utterly refreshing, and totally freeing.

Maybe we should all regress a little, forget about the global economy and start approaching life like children do: splash in some puddles, chew Hubba Bubba and paint pictures, even if you don't have an artistic gene in your body.

Later that day Lucy turned to me, a smile growing on her face as if something brilliant had just dawned on her: “It was really clever that your mum and dad put your painting on the wall, wasn't it.”