A new picture

With dogs on path to Lavenham

Ann walked with me yesterday to exercise the dogs. We aimed for our old haunt, The Swan, but turning in the car park was full with double parking, and the field behind had been roped off. Nick, the manager, came out as we were struggling to turn round and said everyone had been using it to visit Clare, so he'd roped it off because he wanted to mow the grass. We then moved on to Rodbridge, but this too was packed with many picnickers spreading over the whole area. Finally, we went to one of the garden centres in Long Melford, parking at the very far end away from the shoppers, where there is a lovely path to Lavenham, several miles away.

In the evening we had another quiz, presented by Lucia. She chose some good questions, covering the wide range of ages and knowledge, and about 11 of us took part.

I've been getting some bad cramps recently, so in an attempt to stop it I have given up alcohol at present, so was drinking juice. I won't pretend it is easy: I miss my wine and whisky. However, I have abstained for three days and thus far it is working; I have been free of cramp for three nights. I will keep it up for a bit longer and see if it continues to help.

We had a lot of junk from clearing the garage to make a studio that had been cluttering outside, but I'm not allowed to go to the tip whilst in isolation, so when Mary Anne and Sam came round again for a chat and shopping they took it to the tip for us. I finished another painting today, this time of Lucy and Edwin when he was new born. It took some time to paint, and shows some improvement, but Lucy's hair is fine and long, with subtle waves and colouring. It would need a Pre Raphaelite to capture it well and I will never do it justice, but I keep making the attempts.

Lucy with Edwin when a baby

When in previous posts I made comments about China's involvement with the Covid-19 virus, and made certain suggestions, I qualified them by saying they were my conspiracy theories (see Expanding boundaries). I note today that Sir Richard Dearlove, ex head of MI6, has published an analysis of the genetic fingerprint of the virus. Apparently it has gene insertions that don't occur naturally, but are designed to increase its ability to adhere to human cells, thereby rendering human-to-human transmission more possible. The emerging fact that it also sticks to male cells more aggressively than female, and targets people of Western origin more than Oriental, adds to the suspicion that this was a designed virus rather than natural. This suggests that my wild conspiracy theory may not be so improbable, and re-enforces the need to become more independent from China, and not share so much technology with them.