Monday 6 July:

A much brighter morning weather-wise today for my regular harbour dawn walk. I even saw an elderly couple in their boat preparing to ‘catch the high tide’ at the Avon Lock – the first movement of any boat on the water I’d seen during the entire lockdown period (obviously, there could have been others, but it was definitely my first in nearly 16 weeks), see image.

After ‘indoors’ coffee with Moira, I spent some time reading my ‘Black+British’ book (exceptionally good thus far – I’m probably half way through – although it concentrates on the slave trade far more than I’d anticipated).

Rang Emmaus and left a message about all our de-selected books; they got back to me almost immediately but regretted that they would be able to make a collection (due to my ‘shielding’) until the beginning of August at the earliest… and even then, pending government ‘rules’… which was a little disappointing.

Received the weekly delivery from Hugo, which was good.

Had a very good zoom chat with Alice (+Jemima+Dan+Mikey). It sounded as if she’d had a nice birthday and they all sounded in pretty good form.

Listened to another ‘Resonate’ podcast on ‘The Church: What’s Next?’. Some good stuff, but it also rambled on a bit and rather lost its way (in my view)… it’ll be discussed at tomorrow evening’s ‘meeting’.

Spent a little time after lunch experimenting with pattern-making using wax and watercolour – not rocket science (and the results weren’t particularly interesting), but good to experiment using a tjanting paint tool and watercolours.

Watched the RSC’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ (with our friend Sam in the cast)… enjoyable, but not one of my favourite plays.