Another beautiful spring day- or is it summer now? - and the garden is full of nice things again. Although too full of things that have self seeded and planted themselves in among the flower beds so I can’t tell what’s what. Even the lipids seem to have bullied their way over other plants.
This photo is of a bunch of flowers from my friends’ garden which I actually went to last week, keeping my distance. They have been delivering our food but due to a comms breakdown I ended up going over there to collect all our vegetables and fish. And took the opportunity to look at their lovely garden and pick some flowers to paint. including this very pale lavender-ish iris and some blousy pink peonies.
I also went out 3 times to the post office as I had sold some paintings that needed to be sent off. Strictly against the rules but I wore a mask and it is very quiet in there. I think I was emboldened by my Papworth visit and that I’m going out to the GP tomorrow for a blood test. My rationale and justification being that if it's ok to do those things it must be ok to do others. I guess it is down to us to make our own risk assessment and decide what to do.
Some might say that is selfish and not enough to ‘protect the NHS’. But given the conflicting, confusing and mendacious communications from the government, as well as the rules for them and us, the little people. I am less inclined to follow the herd. Pun intended. I don’t want to bang on about politics here, hopefully it’s more effective to write to my MP which I have done. And I guess anything which could be an excuse to be able to get out at last to break the monotony.
So that aside painting flowers and selling some pictures is great. What am I complaining about! It's all relative. Flowers aside, my pride and joy at the moment are my lettuce;
I’ve been foolish (due to impatience and haste) as I haven’t labelled anything and ca’t quite remember what is what. There is one lettuce with big flat leaves and another which I’m pretty sure is curly endive. We’ve had a couple of salads already and plenty more to come.
We’ve been making good use of the morso with more wood roasted turbot, chicken and pork chops tonight. We got some rather disappointing cherries from the greengrocer so I am going to turn them into a sauce for the pork with red wine. And another home grown salad.
I’ve been spending far more time looking at the garden than doing anything to it like tidying the flower beds. Despite that June is the time for gardens and flowers I think. This purple iris looks stunning in the garden next to the red poppies but doesn't have the elegance of the lovely pale ones:
I have been utterly lacking in energy which may be a result of reducing my steroids, I don’t know. It’s also difficult doing anything with such blurred vision from the cataracts. I managed to get through to the cataract referral service so I'm now waiting to be contacted by the centre that does the operations. I suppose that as opticians have been closed they won't have a backlog of referrals to get through so that could work to my advantage with any luck.
I have my laundry drying outside satisfyingly. The day is ahead (well half of it as I get up late) and I have all the time to do a painting, go for a bike ride, make cherry sauce etc. Without really having anything to do I seem to keep busy. And before I know it it will be next week’s blog day again.
My painter this week is called Uwe Wittwer. His pictures look quite delicate and have an otherworldly quality that I like:
I sold this little painting almost before the paint was dry. This is one of my favourite pots to paint for its shape, colour and texture and of course it's different every time.
I might just paint it again today with some daisies, in which case you will see it on my next post.