The writing on the wall for the old sodium streetlights.

 I had been on a March walk with Bruce, on his birthday — the 25th. It was one of our usual routes, up a back lane, but that evening something about the light stopped me.

The twilight sky was an inky cobalt blue, and in contrast the sulphur‑orange streetlight glowed brilliantly on the wall and on a shed beyond it.

It was during the Covid lockdown, a strange, suspended time when familiar things felt sharper and more meaningful. I had realised that the comforting orange glow I’d known all my life — the old sodium streetlights — was slowly being replaced by bright white LED light. One day that orange light would be gone forever. It felt like the writing was literally on the wall for that kind of streetlighting and yet here it was, washing the wall in a beautiful moment of colour.

Two of my favourite colours, blue and orange, met in that moment: the cool twilight sky and the warm streetlight reflecting off the wall. That contrast, that fleeting glow, became the heart of the painting.

The Lighting is on the Wall is a snapshot in time — of Bruce’s birthday walk, of lockdown quiet, and of a disappearing colour of the night.