For those of you who don't know him. This is my Dad. Mum took this photo of us together at Stonehenge last year when they came over from Australia to visit me. We had nearly 5 wonderful weeks where I took some time off work and we spent some great time together. We drove up to Scotland to visit Mum's Aunt and then down to Darlington to see where Dad's family left England from. The best bit for me was finding all the Hodgkins who are buried in Darlington Quaker Meeting House Burial Ground.

While they were here, Dad helped out on my studio, working on some of the plastering with me. He told me yesterday that my sister-in-law had shown him how to get to my blog so that he could see the studio and he was so chuffed to see that I was nearly completely moved in (I'm not sure that I'll ever be completely moved in).

Unfortunately, I am welcoming my own mortality this week with the news that my father has terminal cancer - leukaemia in fact. I'm 10,000 miles away and feeling rather helpless. We all disagree with our parents at some stages in our lives, and I'm no different. But they are the only ones I've got and knowing that at 40 I'm about to lose one of them is heartbreaking.

So, I'm going home to see him, let them both know how much I love them and share time with my immediate family. So, if I don't respond to queries, questions and anything else as quickly as you would expect, I am sorry and I'll be in touch with you as soon as I can.