Post 53

I woke this morning to an email from my retreat friends, Sandra, in Manchester England, England,
(across a bit more than the Atlantic Sea from me) who is blessed with a pigeon nesting. It’s lovely to see the signs of Spring on the other side of the world in the midst of the pandemic. Thanks for the photo, Sandra.

My dove and I breakfasted together with a glass door between us. Mine rested on my Nicola Jarvis whitework ring cushion tray, hers was on the slightly wet tiles.

It was overcast and a bit showery in Adelaide. It got to 20C but felt a bit chilly.

I spent a bit of time this morning reading some samples of books from Thrums Press. Thrums publish and distribute books about textiles and textile artists around the world. They recently sent me a sample  from The Secret Language of Miao Embroidery. The sample includes four patterns for embroidery or colouring. The illustrations and patterns are lovely. 

Thrums are marketing the book as a package with Every Thread a Story, discounted by 20% on the print version and 50% on the digital. The Book Depository has the best print price, but it is expensive and hardback, which I find a bit awkward to read. Eventually I chanced the digital copy. It is really lovely, especially on my laptop rather than iPad. They have other interesting books. I sent an extract from their book on traditional Peruvian weavers out to the World Embroidery Study Group. 

By midday I was back on the fire screen, trying to finish the leaves and acorns at the very base of the section I had wound on yesterday. I got the section to the right of the squirrel finished before I put my frozen calamari and chips into the oven and made my salad.

I have not heard directly from Perth today. I watched the Chief Medical Officer's Press Conference this afternoon. There are now only 28 in hospital in Western Australia, 6 in ICU. That is 5 fewer in hospital than yesterday and the same number in ICU ( I got the number wrong yesterday. I said 5 in ICU but it was 6 - 5 fewer than the day before). Since they reported no ICU deaths, I am assuming Jennifer is still one of the 6. 

Again, I'm assuming no news is good news.

After dinner I worked on the section to the left of the squirrel. It isn't finished, but the squirrel is getting closer.

In South Australia we have widened our testing to include anyone with any kind of cold symptom or vulnerability. Today's appeal is for people aged 20-35 to get tested as that group is missing from the sample. Currently 420,000 have been tested in Australia of which 1.6% have been positive. Although this is an encouraging statistic, we are likely to emerge very slowly from lockdown. Predictions seem to be that we might be able to holiday in Australia by Christmas, but overseas travel will take longer than that. At this stage I can't see myself travelling to England (or Scotland) in 2021. I'm holding out, however, for The Lakes in October 2022. Deo Volente.












In the meantime I have a squirrel, a deer and a lot of leaves to embroider.