I’m back in Belfast sorting out my father’s house, which has now been sold. Looking through my photos, I realise the diary goes back a couple of years to when he first began having hospital admissions, and not just since his death in February.

I suppose a death, for a time after, seems like a junction at which things both end and begin, and in this case the beginning of a series painted on road trips across the province as a panacea for grief. But with hindsight the shock of the moment creates this sense of a break from the past.

I got used to flying from Liverpool to Belfast to look after dad for periods since 2018 but especially the past two years. It was hard to resist photographing the aerial views and this has become an ongoing theme that I’m still developing. Above are examples added to the diary page in the Gallery section.

Having left Belfast in 1977, I found myself forced to reevaluate my feelings about a place I’d felt unhappy in due to troubles both personal and political.

Perhaps I’ll write more about this in due course, but for now I’m back on the road with the gift of dad’s car, experiencing my country of birth at ground level.