This painting was inspired by a short but very enjoyable half hour spent with my cat Poppy. I had a coal bunker at the back of the studio and house that looked out over the field at the rear of the house, I used to sit on that and look out over the field on summer evening and most times Poppy would come onto the bunked and sit beside me, give me a nudge or put her head on my lap. One August evening we were looking out over the ripening wheat and four swallows started swooping back and forth just above the top of the wheat catching insects on the wing. They were so fast I watched Poppy, who was a terrific mouser, trying to work out how to catch them, she never would but it was a pleasure watching this playout. 

As I enjoyed this I was relaxed my mind wandered thinking of various things fliting from one to the other, and yet when I came back into the house I had no recollection of any of the thoughts and so this work is dedicated to those fleeting lost thoughts.

The swallows came first, and I liked the simple shapes of the swallows without the head because I could make them out of two mystical shapes, the crescent moon and the infinity sign. The graduated yellow the ripening corn, and the three spikes are three shadows that run across the field on summers evening created by three hawthorn bushes on the edge of the field.

The brown circles came last, I had completed the painting without them and an error on my part left the image looking like it was not balanced and needed something else at the top I like circles and the oneness they exude and so created three to run through the piece, they are evenly space because that is how we measure time in equal units a reference to the passage of time.