45 years ago today we became parents for the first time!
Fetched and read the newspaper first thing… then morning
coffee, followed by streamed church (which was good – led by Phil and Lee
giving the talk).
Read more of my ‘Running’ book.
Early lunch followed by Urban Sketching in Norwich (which was
very enjoyable – although I wasn’t altogether happy with my choice of
locations).
Walked over to Ru’s to hand over birthday presents and drink
pink gins on the doorstep with her/them.
Roast beef dinner!
Evening telly: ‘Pottery Throw Down’ semi-final.
Image: one of my Norwich sketches.
Morning spent fetching and reading the newspaper… and
watching the cricket (which genuinely painful… with England 150+ runs behind on
first innings and then being all out 135 and losing by an innings and 25
runs!).
Watched ‘The Ipcress File’ on telly in the afternoon (which
was good, I thought) and then read some more of ‘Running’ book.
Other sport: Villa drew 0-0 at home to Wolves and Bears beat
Worcester 23-24 with a last gasp try!
Evening telly: Mary Beard’s excellent ‘Roman Empire’ documentary and ‘Bloodlands’
(with a shocking ending… and still two episodes to go!).
Image: Pansies on our front window cill (been in bloom since
October?).
Despite the unpromising weather forecast (but, hey, only
cloudy – NOT rain!), I decided to defer my daily weekday walk until the
afternoon… partly so that I could watch some cricket and partly because I
fancied getting outside to sketch again (when it would apparently be 5 degrees
warmer than the morning!).
The first part of this cunning plan didn’t really work out
well… despite a reasonable start by the England bowlers, India finished the day
89 runs ahead with 3 wickets left (Bess was hugely disappointing – no
consistency in line or length etc).
Moira and I enjoyed our usual morning coffee – although a
little later than usual (after Moira had breakfasted, bathed and collected
stuff from Boots on North Street).
I ended up walking to Pooles Wharf to sketch immediately
after lunch… wearing LOTS of layers, woolly hat, scarf and fingerless glove on
my drawing hand and, fortunately, reasonably sheltered from the wind etc.
Evening telly: ‘Art Club’ (which I really do love).
Image: Nameless boats at Pooles Wharf
Had originally planned a dawn walk through Leigh Wood/along
the Avon, but it was so grey and dull that I thought better of it… and ended up
just doing my ‘usual’ harbourside circuit.
I’d watched a little cricket on the telly very first thing
(and, once again, it was all a bit disastrous as far as England were concerned
- 30-3 when I first tuned in… and ending up all out 205).
Noticed a mass of seagulls behaving rather strangely – and then
saw the reason why (it was a drone!). I tried to take some rapid pics but,
sadly, they all came out blurred!
Collected a book from StorySmith and some fruit+veg from
Hugo’s… before taking in the Asda delivery just after lunch.
Ru worked in the studio from 11am to past 4pm.
Went to post office in afternoon to drop off Jeremy’s
pre-paid parcel… it transpired that I was 17th in the queue(!) and
there was just a single cashier operating. Needless to say, it took an AWFUL
long time to get served (if ONLY my package had been small enough to have
posted in the postbox!!). Hey ho!
Spoke to Iris by phone towards the end of the afternoon – and
she seemed fine… she’s very much looking forward to returning to school (her
year go back next Wednesday for Covid testing), but has enjoyed meeting up with
individual friends for occasional walks. I also managed to chat to Rosa a
little later (again, she sounded in good form – but was ‘dreading’ going back
to school… we chatted about this and, hopefully, she’s now feeling a little
more positive).
Evening telly: ‘McDonald+Dodds’ (crime-solvers!).
Image: new beginnings for someone?
Bloke’s Prayer, so no early morning walking (or ANY
walking!).
Pretty uneventful day (apart from the Budget – which I didn’t
really ‘follow’).
Checked out some possible urban sketching drawing locations
for this coming Sunday… and made some preliminary ‘marks’ (but not brilliant).
Read more of my ‘Running’ book in the afternoon… interesting
background/story, but I’m absolutely hating the writing style.
Evening Storysmith bookgroup zoom session (discussing Kiley
Reid’s book). Very good to see father Dan there – probably just giving him an
excuse to get out of some household duties! Interesting discussion – most
people enjoyed the book (just a couple of us who had some reservations).
Evening telly: ‘Landscape artist’ final.
Image: Robert Wyatt stencil by Stewy (at the top of our
road).
Went for my usual harbourside walk first thing… cold and grey.
Just like yesterday, the day brightened up after lunch and there was bright
sunshine.
Moira and I enjoyed our usual coffee+chat morning session.
The Drawing Group theme for the next fortnight is ‘Spring
Flowers’ and so I decided to sketch our small irises in the garden (too cold to
sketch insitu, I’m afraid – so I cheated!).
Nice to receive an email from Dan about tomorrow’s bookgroup
AND that they were now proud parents of son Kip (born on 26 February).
Spent a little time putting together a playlist – using old
‘Windows Media Player’ stuff that I’d recently being playing (and had
previously forgotten about)… rather nice to be reminded of lots of lovely old
stuff!
In the afternoon, I re-watched ‘This Beautiful Fantastic’
film (from 2016) on catch-up… and very much enjoyed it (again).
In the evening, I had another zoom catch-up with Alan – it
was lovely that it was just the two of us.
More ‘Running’ reading at bedtime!
Image: Garden Irises.
A somewhat different Monday morning…
As the weather forecast for the afternoon looked reasonably
bright, I decided on taking the first opportunity of the year for some en plain
sketching! So I ended up pottering about all morning… morning coffee/catch up
with Moira; re-reading my Blurb book text; preparing for Wednesday’s bookgroup
and suchlike.
After lunch, I went down to the pharmacy and collected my
prescription medications and then sat down in Bathurst Basin sketching yet more
boats! I was well wrapped up (several layers!) but, in fact, it was actually
quite pleasant in the sunshine.
Moira chatted to Alice (she seemed fine) and was informed
that, from now on, Mikey has indicated that he wishes to be known as “Mike”!
That’s quite something for him to decide on after a ‘lifetime’ of being known
as Mikey.
Usual Monday evening telly: ‘Only Connect’ and ‘University
Challenge’.
Image: First en plein sketch of the year!
