She moved down south through family necessity rather than choice. “I have come to love the countryside around here, now,” she says. “It has a much more gentle, rolling feel about it.” She spends a lot of time in it. “I spend at least ten hours a week walking and painting in the countryside. I love the way that the same scenery changes every day. I don’t understand people who want to move to hot countries where the sky is always blue.”
She tells me that she is a moody person, and the prints she shows me reflect those moods. One, of a flock of sheep in Heathfield, is bright and sunny. Another two, of Rialto Bridge in Venice at night, are dark, and edgy. I suggest there is something of the menace of ‘Don’t Look Now’ in them. “I love that film,” she says. “And I love Venice at night. The colours, the light, the mood, the smell of it.”

She is uneasy about exhibiting her work. “I would rather take my clothes off in public than have an exhibition,” she says. “I believe that anyone who does anything creative feels, in a way, the same way. The idea of criticism is pole-axing.” But her exhibitions are becoming increasingly frequent as her popularity grows. Despite her reservations, she is ready to face her public at a private view on Friday (6-9pm). “I love wickedly contemporary stuff, like Tom Homewood and Harold Mockford. And I know I don’t fall in that bracket. My passion is for the way I paint.” The results are always different, and often rather beautiful. And despite her painstaking methods, the beauty she creates often has an almost accidental look to it, which is a big part of its charm.