Sketches preparatory to an as yet unwritten children's book

Young Duck is getting ready for his first day at school. Mother Duck is quiet. ‘Why are you quiet, Mother Duck?’ asks Young Duck. ‘Because’ says Mother Duck ‘I equate significant milestones in your life with the inevitable narrowing of opportunities in mine. It is unfair, I know, but I need a moment to retrieve myself from the existential angst that, if left festering, might consume me.” (show illustration)