A first oil portrait

We continue emerging from lockdown, with a few visits to local pubs, and lunch in a restaurant on our return from Sheringham. We only went in for a soup or a jacket potato, but they had only a fixed-price menu with a choice of 2 or 3 courses. We opted for the 2 courses, sharing starter and desert.

Colin Buckland - oil on canvas

I have completed my picture first oil on canvas portrait of my old friend, Colin. Many mistakes were made, but oils can be very forgiving, and everyone says at least you can recognise who it is. In the eulogy delivered by his son, Tom, he said, "While conducting he was said to be able to bring in the sopranos with his left eyebrow while keeping the lid on the basses by glowering at them with his right – all the while keeping perfect time with his hands." Certainly, Colin's eyebrows were expressive and I wanted to capture them in the portrait, along with his look as though he was smiling at the world from some secret knowledge. I am currently painting a portrait of Matthew, and hope to capture all the children and grandchildren, completing one of Ben next.

We continue to have minor disagreements with our new neighbours. Their new sheds are built very closely to our new boundary fence, and I requested that they ensure the guttering won't overlap our fence. They responded by sending a copy of a land registry map with their property outlined in red, and a strong letter advising that if we had any dispute about where the boundary lay, we should take it up with the land registry office. Now he is working on his shed roof, he looks straight down through our patio window to my chair, so I'm having to keep the curtain closed in the day, or else sit in a different chair, as I am sensitive about being stared at.

Autumnal things seem very early this year. Walking the circuit in Clare behind the Swan, I found ripe blackberries already, and some of the chestnut trees are already browning. The shortening days seem cooler already, though it is not yet August.

Days out under the new normal

Pub grub new normal style

Our first break away post-lockdown saw us heading for Norfolk. Unsure what we'd find, we stopped for lunch at a suitable looking pub just before Fakenham, The Crown, that boasted "meals served now" on the board outside. No lights were on and the front door was locked, but they had set out tables at the rear with marquee covers, and a mobile canteen was set up in the carpark serving nachos and burgers, with orders taken at the table. The waitress, who was also the owner, was doing everything on her own. She took the orders, cooked and served the food, and went into the backdoor of the pub to get the drinks. I guess the rest of her staff were still on furlough, but the whole thing seemed to work very well.

We came to Sherrington without high expectations, and were not disappointed. The town is typical small British seaside, with few redeeming features. In its favour, they are managing the new separation rules well, with clear arrows dictating one-way flow for pedestrian traffic on either pavement, and clearly marked queuing areas for the shops that people seemed to follow fairly well. But those same pavements were crowded, the pubs were bursting, the beach busy. High groins of stone blocks break up the beach so it is difficult to stroll along it, with only occasional steep steps down for access, and we were glad to get away again. Instead, we drove round the coast towards Yarmouth, stopping at a wonderful pub near Hickling Broad for lunch.

The pub itself was not taking diners, but the gardens were quintessentially English, with deep-set varieties of flowers and shrubs round the borders and nooks and alcoves set with hidden tables. It was a hot day, but I'd done another silly - leaving the dog leads in the house after my morning walk with them, so we couldn't bring them into the garden. All we could do was leave the car windows open while having a quick drink and a plate of chips, while drooling over the most tempting menu.

We made up for it in Yarmouth where we headed for our favourite ice-cream van for soft creamy Italian ices. He is there everyday, including the worst winter days, parked on a verge outside the town near the docks. Most day-trippers might not know he was there, yet there was a long queue which moved quickly, and the women behind me told me they drove miles just for this ice-cream, as we did.

Today we visited the shrine at Walsingham. That too is very different. A nun at the door was regulating admissions to one person/couple at a time. Candles cannot be lit there, but the nun offered to light them on our behalf.

Coming out of Covid lockdown

Four times did the new neighbour promise to replace our damaged party fence, and four times he failed to deliver, though I had offered to pay half, or even all for the materials. So today, we have a professional replacing the four panels, with concrete posts and a neat top trellis to finish. James was recommended by several people responding to a note from Ann in the local FaceBook pages, and he was brilliant. In when he said, bringing the materials round early this morning, and starting the job by nine. He got four panels and the concrete posts in by midday, and for a very reasonable price. Having lost the old trees and their wild life of birds and bats, we will grow new trees and shrubs to blot out the unsightly work rooms he is constructing that now dominate our garden.

This afternoon, Ann managed to get back to the dentist for a checkup. This meant she could make her friend Sylvia, who lives in Romford, jealous as her dentist is still only seeing emergencies. We even got to our old pub in Halstead for a drink as we always used to after visiting the dentist, though in the beer garden and served at the table rather than inside to queue at the bar. This is more like the continental way of doing things in bars and cafes, much more civilised, and I'm all for it.

After all these months and three lost trips away (including going to Center Parcs with Lucy and the children; to Lucy's reunion party; and to Thailand where we should have been this week) we met by chance one of Edwin's old teachers from the short time he attended Hundon primary school, over 20 years ago. We talked for a long time. Like Edwin, her son - who now wants to be a journalist - read English Literature at Anglia Ruskin. She and her husband own a holiday let, and gave us a sheet with the details, so we have finally booked a few days away by the coast, to a cottage where we can take the dogs. I therefore cancelled the papers when I walked the dogs in Clare this morning.

The assistant in the paper shop had clearly had her hair done, in a great bouffant style, tinged subtly with a purple dye. I am PC enough to know to be careful with complements these days, but I did risk saying I'd noticed her hair, and how smart it looked. The other assistant too had her hair piled in waves, though untinted, so I ventured to say "I see you've had your hair done too!"

"No," she said. "I haven't managed to go to the hairdressers yet. I go next week." Oops. I tried to revive my blunder by adding, "well, you certainly do a good job yourself," but it didn't sound very convincing. She has always been a little cold to me, but now she will be permanently frosty.

How to fit a dishwasher

We had Edwin and Andre to stay overnight on Friday. They had much to discuss and stayed up until nearly 2 a.m. chatting to Ann, long after I'd gone to bed.

On Saturday morning, the plumber arrived to fit the dishwasher. He had been due in the afternoon, but was suddenly banging on the door at 8 a.m. following cancellation of another job. Everyone else was in bed, but he started and they were soon up. But we could not get into the kitchen - he had blocked access to the cupboards for the plates, the spoons, the bread bin, and all the essentials for breakfast, so Ann's intention to provide a good breakfast for everyone to start the day were thrown to the wolves. Meanwhile, the plumber struggled to push the dishwasher back into the hole the old one had emerged from. He ended up lying on his back, kicking and pushing the front to try and lever it in, though at the end it still protruded a little on one side. He had told us that he'd never fitted a dishwasher before; now he was demonstrating this.

The boys left early to go shopping, and sight-seeing in Lavenham, ending up with a good lunch at the Swan to compensate for their hunger. Finally the plumber finished, and switched the machine on. The lights lit up, so he said the job was done and left. We put some utensils in to try it, but despite the lights, it made no noises and didn't seem to be progressing. We struggled for nearly two hours, reading the manual, trying different combinations of buttons, and despairing that we might need to inform the manufacturers that their new machine didn't work. Then I discovered that he had neglected to turn back on the main water feed at the back of the cupboard.

After that, the machine clearly made good water-entering sounds, and began to churn round to clean the pots. Suddenly it stopped in midcycle. I pulled the door open, and there was a puddle of water at the bottom, with an error symbol flashing. Back to the instruction book - the code said that there was a blockage, which seemed obvious. But it was now late in the day, and I could do no more. I went to bed, overslept, and even missed the evening quiz. 

Next morning, I had to pull the machine back out into the middle of the kitchen. I quickly found why he had had so much trouble getting it back, and why the machine didn't empty: he had looped the drain hose up behind the machine instead of feeding it out through the bottom, and it had folded double and was completely kinked. The fitting instructions even contained a big picture of the hose with a cross through to warn against the practice, and a warning not to kink the tube! I dared to squeeze it back into an approximation of a circle, hoping it had not developed a split, and fed it through the correct way. The machine now slid easily and perfectly back to where it should have been. I replaced the kicking board but now the door wouldn't open properly - he had fitted the door cover too low, leaving a gap at the top, but too low to clear the kicking board at the bottom. I now had to remove the door, redrill the screw holes, and fit it proberly. Finally all worked. All that is left is to await the bill for his work - surely a sarcastic account of what he'll claim he's done.

Country pursuits

Streaking fox

Training on the long reins

From my window in the early light, with a low mist still on the fields, was a fox attempting to cross the horse's field. This was no urban fox, fearlessly feeding from dustbins, but shy and wary as any traditional country fox. It kept creeping forward, attracting the attention of the horse which each time began to move towards it, at which point the fox ran back to the hedge. Not that the horse was aggressive, but more curious. Finally, after several forays, it had courage enough to streak past the horse and under the fence. The owner of the fields is a specialised trainer who takes in other people's horses to break them in or teach them good techniques. He has built a series of jumps and circuits, and they can often be seen doing circuits on a single rein. I saw something new this week, though, when they came up the road on long reins - a special technique for teaching them to respond to commands on the reins before they take a saddle and rider. Unfortunately I had a dog on the lead in each hand and they trotted past too quickly for me to photograph, so I've cheated and pulled this one off the web.

I have returned to my oil painting of Colin. Bob Ross, on his program The Joy of Painting, likes to beat his brushes to get the cleaner out, saying, "You have to beat the devil out of it". After I had primed the canvas and applied a background of colour, I followed his advice and started to beat the devil out of my brush, a large flat 1½" brush. The metal ferrule holding the bristles flew off into the dustbin and I was left holding just a bright yellow handle. Bob's advice is not always good, so now I clean my brushes by wiping them carefully with tissues. Oil is a slow medium: the oil-based paints stay moist for a long time and blend easily, but also streak if one tries too many layers. It is slowly taking shape, but it is easy to overwork it and take away a good effect that one likes.

Weird omens

Swan and cygnets in Clare park

It has been a strange day, triggered by the dishwasher failing last night, and this morning, the model stork by the pond suddenly seeming to leap into the water head first just as we turned to look at it, as though on suicidal intent. I had to call into the accountants in Sudbury this morning, and passed two cars that had collided on the empty roads - surely as great an omen as any in Shakespeare, and forcing me to drive with extra care on my own journey, aware that today the world stands askance. In the park, a solitary swan rears her head guarding her cygnets with wild threat, and when I walked in some woods at Sudbury, I became disorientated and lost my way as though it were some great forest.

Now it grows dark, a time when we used to welcome the bats swooping round the garden. I loved to see them, symbols of wild nature hunting insects in seemingly random flickers, but since our neighbour cut down all our trees, there are no bats. I am sure that it is illegal to damage their habitat, for they are a protected species, but this vandal cares not a fig about conservation or nature, as Ann wrote in her poem (in eco-vandalism). He continues to cover his garden in concrete, today bringing in a concrete mixer that has been churning all day, and he still has not replaced the fencing panel he removed behind the saloon, despite his promises to do so.

Another portrait for the portfolio

Grandson Luke

On Saturday, Edwin and his partner came round for a meal to celebrate their release from quarantine after getting back from Luxembourg, and us being able to meet another group. It was Luke's turn to organise the quiz, and that was really well organised, and he chose some great questions for us. The boys went upstairs and used Granny Annie's computer, while we used mine downstairs. I think we came last! We then had very late desert after the quiz was finished, and they didn't leave until 11pm.

I've finally finished Luke's portrait. I believe the original looks a bit better than my photo and it's reproduction, but the learning process is slow. These portraits have all been in acrylic, which is a good medium with a wide range of colours and good mixing and spreading potential, but one has to work quite fast to blend shading as the paints dry so quickly. I intend to return to my first oil picture tomorrow. This process is much slower, but the first layers have dried now so I can continue to build it up and add elements. I must say, oils are a very satisfying medium, but completely different from the water-based acrylics, and one has to take time to complete the picture.

I am continuing to work 'half time' - mostly just mornings. So far it has been quiet - just a couple of telecon meetings each week. I believe their office in London remains closed, so they're all working from home too - I don't want to travel into London yet, as I am one of the "high risk" people, so I am definitely trying to avoid any contact with people outside the family. I take the dogs for a walk each day, but it is generally round the fields, and if I see anyone coming the other way then one or the other of us moves off the path until we have passed each other.

For today's rant, I need look no further than the actress Florence Pugh having to apologise for cultural appropriation after admitting wearing cornrows as a teenager. It used to be that imitation was considered a sincere form of complementing and flattery, but no longer. For a woman to style her hair in cornrows is hardly a way of insulting someone of another race - it is a statement of admiration for how they do things. If this carries on, we should condemn Meghan Markle for wearing her hair straight and setting it in a bun or ponytail - that surely is appropriating British culture, the very thing she has turned her back on. Add to this the sudden pressure to remove stained glass windows and white statues of Jesus and Mary from our churches, and there will soon be nothing left of Western culture. In Africa and many other equatorial countries, Christ and the Madonna are portrayed as black, but why not? No one claims these figures are more realistic than white figures, for surely we know not what the true face of Christ looked like.