Crow and Mr Toad

It was 1908 when Kenneth Grahame wrote 'The Wind in the Willows'. It's funny to think that there were only a handful of cars on the roads then and no highways at all. The west was industrializing and people were leaving the countryside in droves to get jobs in factories. It would be true to say life for most people wasn't as bucolic as appears in the Golden Age stories, but if you were middle class, as Grahame was, then the countryside was pristine and as beautiful as the story implies.

A couple of nights ago I looked up my favourite chapter in the book, the one called 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn'. In it a baby otter has gone missing from home and as his sad and exhausted father waits by the riverbank, Mole and Rat decide to search.

Note from Crow: 'Apologies for my delayed return but I needed a respite from the 21st century. Please warm the brandy and have my hot water bottle to hand. This Toad is not a skilled driver but he is most amusing company.'

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Watercolor with pen and ink
Original 7x10" Arches cold pressed paper