There is so much to see here in the autumn; this is a photo M took last week.I love the colours as they turn and look different everyday. Even though I keep complaining that every day seems the same.
Which in many ways they do what with little to break up the week. Even when M is working it’s from his home office. And I think most of all that there’s so few things to look forward to and those that are are uncertain and subject to COVID developments.
We are - or rather we’re as I’ve given up hoping for a more neutral outlook- hoping to go to Scotland for a Christmas but as things stand at the moment we wouldn’t be able to according to the rules. Unless the governments all give us a licence to have Christmas as usual that would unleash a huge further contagion.
My white blood cell count is continuing to go on a downward trend. I went to Papworth last week which was a break in the monotony at least. I will have another blood test in two weeks and they will review it then. Not sure what they would do though as I they have already stripped my immunosuppressants down to a minimum.
I’m amazed that I haven’t had some sort of infection, if just from being scratched by Ralph who is pretty feisty on occasion and without warning! I don’t intend to sound moany about the ‘monotony’ as I actually like having so much time to paint and resent anything that diverts me. I suppose that’s wanting to both have your cake and eat it.
But I do miss being able to see friends and family and am disappointed that we’ve just had to call off a visit from my friend Pam and Lee from London. They are right in the thick of it in Tower Hamlets so I think we all thought best not despite an urge to take the risk.
I have been painting flowers as well as landscapes partly because of the great images of the local saltmarshes and coastline. Although he dahlias are still holding up apart from a few catastrophes in the storm last week. I have been choosing some new ones for next year:
Apart from the storm the garden is looking a bit neglected. The vegetable bed needs a good tidy up to get rid of the old lettuce and aubergines that never came to anything. The cavolo nero has perked up as has my pink lettuce and we have allowed the runner beans to grow to a foot long.
I also got round to updating my website and have added lots of new ones to it:
I also have my Pilates once a week which I even quite look forward to although I got told off for doing exercise by the cataract nurse who called me. I hadn’t really thought about it but tried to persuade her that it didn’t count. I hate meeting disapproval, probabaly because it makes you feel like a child.
Now I am thinking about it I have lots to do! I have to book an eye test in a few weeks following my last cataract op. And my dentist appointments for filling repairs were cancelled so I’ll be having an outing to the dentist soon. And there is always the great outdoors (another of M's photos of the salt marsh at Morston:
I think I narrowly escaped having to take Ralph to the vet today as he came in limping last night and had sustained an injury to his leg. But we gave him some cat pain killer and he is right as rain today. It could be that he was making a fuss as he wanted some of the delicious grouse we had yesterday (with bread sauce and watercress).
We also had partridge at the weekend with blackberries and cavolo nero. I made a nice Ligurian fish soup on Friday and risked eating 2 crevettes which are on the transplant list of banned items. I like the local bakery so much that I will make something that will give me an excuse to eat their ciabatta or baguettes. Ciabatta being perfect to mop up the tomatoey fennel and garlic fish soup.
M is making French onion soup today inspired by a giant Spanish onion I bought just because it was there. That will be a treat with rouille and croutons.
I'm starting and finishing with boats this week. These are Alfred Lewis’s paintings. He painted mostly coastal scenes and boats in Cornwall and I think he used boat paint. His paintings have that nice naive quality:
