This was the venue last Saturday of the Wargrave and Shiplake regatta. Always a popular event, it lasts for two days, ending on Saturday evening with a spectacular firework display. We arrived there a bit late in the afternoon to find all the lanes leading up to the river at Shiplake full of cars so decided to park at the end of the line. This proved to be over a mile away from the riverbank. One of the events exclusive (unless I’m corrected by RG9) to this regatta is something called ‘Dongling’. I don’t know where this word came from but there is a resort near Yangshuo in China which may have something to do with it. Anyway here are a couple of donglers racing each other down the Thames.
I have some good news – after last week’s scan and subsequent blood test I had an appointment with the oncologist on Monday afternoon to be given the results. Hooray! All the cancer has cleared from my body. What a relief – especially as, before I knew the prognosis, and thinking positively, booked a holiday in the Far East for next January (with no possibility of getting the money back if I was unable to go). The scan did show a little scarring at the point in my inside where the colon was re-joined after the initial cancerous growth was removed, which will mean a colonoscopy in a couple of weeks. But no cancer. My state of mind in coming away from the surgery was quite the opposite of what it was on the way there.
You know the story about waiting ages for a bus to come along, only to find that eventually three come at once! Well this has happened to me in the form of self-portraits. Having not done any for over thirty years you may have seen the one I put on the blog a few weeks ago, and then the two silver cup portrait reflections. Well now I’ve made a miniature, which I’ll submit next weekend in London to the Royal Society’s annual exhibition. Here it is. (And it will be the last ever).
Nothing much has happened since I last wrote a blog. My young friend and I took a trip the other evening down river on ‘Marsh Mundy’ to Phyllis Court to have dinner. I played in a ‘Colours ‘ snooker match there the other evening, called in to see Rolf harris and looked at his latest paintings on Saturday morning, and went bowling on Monday. Last Sunday we drove over to Bampton to see Joanne. She made a lovely lunch for us all.
On the work front I drew a pencil portrait - one of a pair of commissions – and made this little miniature of a Balinese dancer to enter in the RMS next Sunday.
