Free as A BIRD

Evelyn's dreams had never taken flight. Surely it was too late now?

Evelyn glanced skywards, a bird gliding overhead, the solitary disruption to otherwise endless blue. Was it really two weeks since receiving George's gift and instructions to fulfil her dream?

Although early, the sun was high, the scent of lemon groves and wild thyme surrounding her. She smiled, feeling its warmth on her skin. The only sounds were students working on textured paper, mingled with the lazy 'tick' of cicadas.

Inevitably, Evelyn imagined what life would have been like if she had actually become an artist until approaching footsteps stirred her reverie.

'Just one tree?' her tutor Magda teased. But sensitively executed and very decorative, she'd added kindly before drifting away.

Decorative that wretched word again! As Evelyn's pastels rhythmically recreated an olive tree's gnarled trunk, a painful memory returned. Inwardly, she flinched, recalling her graduate show when she was an art student. She'd overheard a critic dismissing one of her paintings as 'decorative but lacking the passion and originality of the true artist'.

For Evelyn, young and idealistic, that casual dismissal had been devastating.

'Don't worry, angel,' her fiancé George placated, kissing her. When it sells, you'll be a professional artist, regardless of a stuffy old critic's opinion.