Marc Provins

This is my mum, the woman who brought me into this world and who nurtured my brother and me, she is still looking after our well-being now. I think the vast majority of the useful things that I've learned in life have been picked up from my mum and dad, they are wise folk. This picture was taken at the weekend whilst I was on a bank holiday visit. I like it as it is more or less how I picture mum when there is distance between us, surrounded by nature, Gloucestershire nature. Her stance makes me think that she is mulling over the bigger picture, as she often does.

My New Year's resolution this January was to see more of my mum and dad, which I'm managing to do pretty successfully. Somehow in 2013 I only got to Gloucestershire twice, which really shocked me when I realised, let's face it none of us are getting any younger. So I've just had a very lovely couple of days in their company and breathing in some good country air.  I always end up feeling a bit nostalgic visiting that neck of the woods as I grew up there but left in a dash at 19. So today flying along the A40 in my little car with my camera on the passenger seat and Depeche Mode on the stereo, I suddenly had a flashback to doing exactly the same thing about thirty years ago. This time however I wasn't sporting dyed, crimped hair and guyliner and my car seemed a bit quieter than my battered Escort Mark 1. When things become familiar, it's easy to take them for granted and this picture is about that process in a way. The sofa in the picture belongs to...

Given the right attitude it is possible to grow to like almost anything, even a motorway. I say this as driving back from my parents' home this morning it struck me that the M6 and M5 have acted as a long and winding tarmac umbilical cord over the years.  I grew up in Gloucestershire and although they're not in the same house my mum and dad are still there. Strangely, over the years I seemed to keep moving up the M5 and then the M6, going to college in Birmingham, university in Staffordshire and then on to Manchester. So we've had decades of visiting each other by travelling up and down that same stretch of highway.  The clocks went back this morning, and I woke up thinking about the aide-mémoire 'fall into winter, spring into summer'. It's definitely autumn and whilst talking to mum in her garden I couldn't help noticing the hair like seed heads of one of her clematis. This also happens to forge a further link between our two homes as I have...