“Perhaps you could try it,” I am unable to resist muttering under my breath. I know that Ben is as reluctant as I am to do these foolish lessons, but I think he could be a bit more gracious about it.

“Here we are,” he says, rather unnecessarily, as we arrive in a small, shaded part of the garden where two easels have been set up. We’re in a paved area lined with trees, and the easels face back towards the house. There’s a charming view of the villa, its walls glowing rosily, almost pink under the sun. The tumbling red bougainvillea on the pergola is just visible to one side and splashes of green and yellow from the gardens complete the image. It already looks like a painting.

“So,” I say, moving to stand in front of one of the canvasses, “how exactly does this work?”

“Well, with painting the general aim is to get the paint on the canvas.”

He has set up a small table between the easels which holds pallets, small tubes of paints, brushes and jam jars full of water.

“Let’s just see what we’re working with, shall we? We can start with a landscape. Choose something to use as a subject and begin with that.”

“Right,” I say. The canvas looks very big and very white all of a sudden. “Right.” I pull back my shoulders and pick up a brush, dipping it carefully in the red paint and assessing the scene. The house, the pergola and the flowers. I can see them all with my eyes. How hard can it be to communicate this vision to my hand?

Ben watches me begin, then goes to his own easel and starts work. Unfortunately, while Ben is soon absorbed, I am not doing terribly well. I can certainly see the view in front of me and I can sort of see the different lines and shapes that make it up, but something gets very lost in translation as I try to recreate those lines and shapes in my painting. There’s a sort of squashed orange cube on my canvas where the house should be and it’s hovering somewhere above the ground. When I try and fill that in it looks even more wrong. I push my hair out of my eyes and realize I have smeared paint on my face.

After a while – how long I’m not sure, but it feels like hours – Ben stops working with a murmur of something that sounds like pleasure. He drops his brush into the jar of water and it makes a ringing noise as it bounces from side to side. Ben rolls his shoulders and stretches, blinking as though he has just woken up.

“Well.” He turns to me. “How have you been getting on?” His voice is happier, more relaxed now.