According to Winsor & Newton, ‘The average number of colours humans can distinguish is around a million. This varies such as with colour blindness or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, with ‘tetrachromats’; rare individuals with a genetic mutation who can see up to 100 million colours. However, what humans do have in common is a shared ability to recognise variations of green better than any other colour.’

One of my books on the wonderful early-20th century artist, Eric Ravilious, claims that he didn’t much like the colour green, and found ways to get around using it in his Sussex landscapes. I’m not sure, looking at his art, that this is true — but even if he didn’t want to swath his paintings in green, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he didn’t like green.

I love green, and I’m always looking for the right combination of greens to put in my pictures (and well as the right combination of greys, blues, and warmer colours).

I’ve become something of an appreciator of celery in recent years — a vegetable I spent most of my life considering as expendable and completely boring. I rarely used it. Now I put it frequently in salads, in the chicken roast, in our dog’s dinner. It’s nothing less than a staple in our household. And I now realize that most of the celery I’ve ever eaten was past its peak of freshness, and had lost whatever green intensity (and nutritional value and bright flavour) it might once have had. A very fresh bunch of celery is intensely, beautifully green. We got such a bunch the other day, and I was so delighted with it, I put it in a vase by the door and photographed it as if it were a bunch of flowers. Here’s to the beauty of green!