This is a picture of the studio we built in our backyard.

Three years ago, a massive Victorian water pipe exploded outside our home in London. It flooded our garden, kitchen and lower floor. Flower pots with trees, from the back of our garden, ended up in our kitchen. The fridge had floated away. Our household was affected along with about 30 others.

We lost a third of our stuff and a third of our house. I’m not crying. It was only stuff. But the disruption to our lives was difficult. We’ve lived in our house for 20 years and I had a studio set up in the largest room. Anyone who has had a studio for over 20 years will know the scariness of having to pack it up and move it.

Most of our neighbours elected to move out of their homes into rented accommodations while renovations took place. We decided to build a shed in our garden to use as a temporary kitchen while our house was renovated. The renovations were more extensive than we imagined. Everything needed doing. And then once we began, we decided to fix all the little things about our house that we wanted improving. We lived in it for 2 years while the work went on around us.

This garden shed was to be my new painting studio. My one regret was that I didn’t rent a studio to work in while it was going on. I lost the flow of working. I could never find things I needed. I had no private space or place to leave things where they wouldn’t be disturbed.

After the work was finished, I still couldn’t face the final move-in and organise of my new studio. I don’t know why. I had some kind of mental block. I have kind of worked in corners of my house for the last year.

This week I finally tackled the new studio space.

Got everything organised, dumped all the rubbish, put work up on the wall and began working in it. I feel so much better.

I don’t know what took me so long. It feels so good to have a space of my own again! I began a new painting and I started working into some works in progress from the summer.