Day 21: A gloriously sunny day followed by a beautiful balmy evening. Lift Chi Up, completed and filed UK tax return (yippee!). Dinner at Brasserie Raymond Blanc (starter of chick pea salad with smoked auberigine was great but main courses a bit so-so), followed by a stunning performance of the anti-war play, ‘The Silver Tassie’ at the National Theatre. A slightly startling play at which to be in the front line – I mean front row – what with the ‘shelling’ and the bayonets at some points coming within a couple of feet of our faces. A brief walk on the south bank, appreciating the views of London at its most gorgeous, then home to water the feijoas, pungas, magnolias etc that we haven’t had a chance to plant yet. We really need dry weather on Sunday to get them planted – keeping everything crossed.

Started organising paperwork for the UK tax return, took Katie and X, (a school friend of Katie’s) for muffins at a cafe and then to Blackheath Beach (http://www.conservatoire.org.uk/…/The-OnBlackheath-Beach-Op…) for a sand sculpting workshop. On the way home, I stopped to collect the linocut prints which were too wet to bring home yesterday. I was gathering them up carefully and beginning to test whether they were completely dry when X’s repeated attempts to grab them with her straight-from-the-sand-pit mucky hands prompted me to decide that they would be safer going straight in a bag. Unfortunately they were still just tacky enough to all stick together (and some now have added sand) – very sad.

Dog-bathing. not as a martial art, but as an exercise in advanced cross-species rapport building. I will draw a veil over the circumstances which led to my starting the day with emergency dog-bathing and just be glad that Sherlock not only cooperated but seemed to actively enjoy the process. Normally we bathe Sherlock in plain water but this time I decided, partway through, that shampoo was definitely required. I told Sherlock to stay and went off to get the shampoo, half expecting to have to chase him around the garden on my return, but no, there he was, still sitting happily in the basin. While Sherlock dried off in the sun (fabulous sunny day today) I decided that, having started the day grubby, I might as well get a bunch of other grubby jobs done before I hit the shower, so I washed all his bedding, emptied and scrubbed out the compost bin and gathered up and disposed of the rather chewed results of Sherlock’s frequent raids on the recycling bin. Lift Chi Up, then a nice hot shower – there’s a special pleasure in a nice hot shower when one feels dirty enough to actually need it – and off to printmaking. I did some more work on my lino cut and got some nice results. We were all sad that it was the last day as none of us could imagine continuing at home without the push of a class to go to. We may be reconvening in September though, to take part in a reminiscence project. Home to attack the pile of filing (which has begun to annoy me) and a (sadly fruitless) attempt to communicate with HMRC.