Practical! On Wednesday afternoons I could be practically anything. What's up?

The dog, the rabbit and the hoop all feature in the painting, and take the place of the orrery.

The original item looked like a little hand cart with the figure of a man mounted on a platform between the wheels. The man's outstretched arm always pointed south.

It inspired all sorts of whims and fancies that I ultimately wove into a fairy tale complete with muse, the earth, the moon, some famous inventors, a dog and a rabbit.

The dog and the rabbit are telling us not to chase unattainable material goals.

In the fairy tale the painting represents the here and now. The book is actually divided into five sections, through which the key character, the muse, leads us.

I started by looking at what others had done before me. You see, over the years there have been attempts by many different people to reconstruct the chariot.