My interest in colouring in began with a previous job I was employed to do, which, amongst other things, involved decorating the area to create the type of environment that would make children, very young people and their families feel comfortable in whenever they paid a visit.

Not having an artistic bone in my body myself, I was no competition for quite a number of the very artistically creative other staff who seemed to effortlessly be able to magic beautiful scenes and images from what appeared to me a handful of bits and pieces. Fortunately, being artistic wasn't a prerequisite for the job so I was able to use my other skills to get things done.

I have since moved on from that job, but am now finding it soothing to engage in colouring in, from time to time, on a personal level.

Not for me those very advanced level, narrowly tight patterned colouring books or pages if I can help it. Rather, children's colouring books, for instance, with very large pictures and plenty of feedom of space to colour as I see fit - almost without boundaries - in any way and with whatever colours I choose each time, seem to be what I enjoy best.

Funnily enough, though outside the colouring realm I very much admire colour-co-ordination, when colouring in myself, I enjoy using colours at random, whichever ones I fancy at that point in time. I also don't necessarily stick to colours that would normally be associated with particular items such as blue skies and green grass.

I can see why colouring in can seem therapeutic to some - an act of of mindfulness. To me it's a 'mindless' activity which I don't need to complicate if I don't want to by thinking too hard about what I am doing. It doesn't matter if I colour the apple pink and someone's hair purple; I can just lose myself in my own world and do as I please, at least for a while.

At times, because I'm not sticking to a 'script' in terms of colours, perfect strokes of the pens or pencils used, I sometimes feel like I'm a real creative arrtist, part sketching and almost painting - without the mess - whatever picture I have in focus at the time.

I am by no means necessarily good at colouring in. I'm sure if there was a competition I still wouldn't rate highly, artistically; but that's the beauty of it, it doesn't matter and I don't care if it does.