It's wearing thin

Dave said yesterday that sometimes he feels like one of those zoo keepers who’s been looking after an animal for 30 years and one day goes into the cage and gets savaged.

After twelve weeks of lockdown I sometimes wish he would stop talking.

I also wish he would desist from opening the fridge door and peering in disconsolately and then shutting it. And then five minutes later doing the same thing again. It makes me jumpy.

Dave is much nicer than me in lockdown. But then he isn't really fed up with it. I have been asking people to rate how fed up they are on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 is mildly irritated, and 10 is so fed up you feel like punching someone. The only thing bugging Dave is that he can't get DIY materials and he can't visit his sister. so he gives it a rating of 1.

Very occasionally I would have a rating of 2, but mostly it swerves between 4 and 7.

I spent yesterday morning trying to photograph my paintings in order to upload them for the King Lear competition. Two were not too tricky, but one has glitter on it, and no matter how we took the photo, we could not get the glitter to show up. Glitter shines when you view it from an angle, and of course, you have to photograph a painting directly from above. The glitter is an important feature of the painting, so I was stymied.

Dave said - "Well, you'll just have to treat it as a learning experience and know not to use glitter in future.”

Aaarggh. He is full of annoying teacherisms like that - comments that in no way  help with the problem in hand. 

“I’m not thinking about the future, I’m thinking about how to get this bloody thing uploaded now. I suppose I will have to post the thing. I shan’t get it back, but that doesn’t matter.”

Dave: “You can't do that! It's part of your portfolio - when you're the new Grandma Moses, it could be valuable.”

Oh, Dave. 

Yes, on the one hand this is sweetly supportive, but honestly! I'm a writer who has six published books under her belt and who still can't get an agent. Does he think I want to be a failed painter as well? Painting for me is an enjoyable break from reality. Nothing more.

I can’t show you any of the paintings just yet, so you can see these boots I drew instead.