annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Day 48
I woke up this morning to the sound of rain lashing down against the open window, the smell of wet grass...bliss... it's been so long since it rained. For that first moment I thought I was waking up in my tent at Glastonbury festival - I don't know if I was sad or glad to be at home. When I sorted the back room out to do yoga via zoom, I put the clothes horse behind the bookcase and draped a cloth over the bit that showed. We haven't needed it once as it hasn't rained since - fucking mental - can't even work out how many weeks that is. So I was glad of the rain - it's only stopped briefly all day, good. Meant to last all week - even better. People moan but if you want to eat, those crops need rain.
My garden was extremely grateful and looked it at once:
It's coming into its best time - by next week the foxgloves will be flowering, then the roses... I'm pleased with the wildlife hedge that runs from the pond to the back fence - lots of different kinds of plants with berries the birds eat and places for them to hide.
So that was a good start, but things went right off with the Tuesday art group because zoom kept throwing us off and not letting us back in, and all of us, including the teacher became more and more agitated, and fuck off - this is a mental health recovery group - IT'S MEANT TO BE RELAXING. It was intended to be a paint-along so we'd all already received an email with the Matisse still life we were all going to copy, following our beloved teacher's instructions, and we did get glimpses of her now and then, but we ended up just doing it separately. This is mine:
I'm most pleased with the tablecloth.
I've just kept as busy as I can today, to keep my mind from wandering (ooh, Beatles lyric creeping in there... where it will go...). Daughter was no worse this morning, cooking a curry from scratch for lunch when I last spoke to her, so not that poorly but still with a raised temperature. She hasn't replied to my texts which is either a terrible sign that she's gone right off, or a good sign that she feels OK and thinks I'm fussing. Which I am.
I'm making her some pots out of papier mache. They don't look much yet, but need a few more layers, then some paint and decorations and varnish:
I sat in my little craft room, tearing strips of paper and sticking them down, with a Bob Dylan mix on Spotify (It's a great selection called Nish Dylan as it was picked by Nish Kumar), quite peaceful. I wished I had three straight-sided cylinders to use but I didn't so there you go. I'm going to try and be very careful when painting the decorations on - Daughter makes such beautiful things and is meticulous and careful and I feel like a clumsy brute in comparison. But it's full of love from me to her and I hope she will feel that.
One of my mates has joined in the re-creating of famous paintings:
It was the best thing I saw all day. It's making me think I should dress up for some photos for Daughter's video... Hmm.
Today I am grateful for: my good health; rain; messaging with Son; playing Morning Has Broken without a mistake (once); Twelfth Night from the National Theatre, with Tamsin Greig as Malvolia - brilliant - on Youtube till Thursday, recommended
Night night, sweet peeps. I hope you're not taking any chances. This is so fucking hard, but we can do it if we keep steady and take it one day at a time. I've stuck to the meditating - ten or fifteen minutes every day - works wonders for the existential dread! xxx
11:41 p.m. - 28.04.20
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