A lifetime ago in the early days of lockdowns a Hix Fix cocktail was brightening up the end of the first month of the pandemic. Facebook Time Hop flashed up this gem of a picture from April 2020. Cherry liqueur and Champagne seems an odd thing to drink in our own garden for no particular reason but I think it demonstrates an optimistic approach to Lockdown Life, we were probably celebrating a day of gardening.

Free of Lockdowns labouring is no longer rewarded with champagne. Building three shelf units and moving everything in the studio/ work room yesterday was rewarded far more appropriately with tea.

Moving art ‘stuff’ is a dirty job, the dirt is just more colourful. Tea alone was not enough of a reward and the sun was out so a swim was also scheduled.

This massive boat sailed past with three tugs making the water extra choppy. The sense of scale in this photograph does not reflect how wierd this really feels when we are in the water. It is like a twenty storey office block is floating past extremely close to us.

The informal sundial was very nearly accurate.

Enlivened by the swim, work continued on the storage/ shelf units and room reorganisation. There is every chance the job will be finished today.

Although not worthy of a blog of its own something happened for the last time this week. I’m not sure if technology or the Pandemic is the cause. One of my earliest memories is of going to banks with my parents or grandparents while they organised their financial affairs. My nose pressed against wood or leather panelling as a grown up did business way above my head in both the physical and literal sense.

Cheque books,Standing Orders, Direct Debits, Cash machines and posted bank statements meant I never really needed to take my own children to a bank and I will never take my grandchildren. The savings account I have had since I was a small person transitioned this week from a passbook to an App. I popped in to have the book updated, the last of my, not on-line banking. With a few taps on a computer my passbook was turned from the physical evidence of savings to a relic. The old passbook will be sent to me in the post. No longer something to be proud of, or grateful for, just a piece of history. Physically the same but in every way a shrivelled husk of what it used to be.