Coronavirus diary, Monday 6 July

Television interviews these days via the internet are much more personal, intimate even, and my attention has often been drawn away from the talking head to the background. Especially to the pictures. 

Everyone has their favourites on their walls evoking personal memories.

I was interviewed on television a few months ago, sitting in my armchair, a blank wall behind me, and only now I realise I missed a trick. I could have made an impression with a picture. 

It set me thinking about the pictures I look at every day in my new home and what they mean to me, where they came from and why I cherish them.

The reason is because they bring back so many happy memories.

Most of them were chosen by Rosemary and me over the years. I am looking at them now.

On the wall in front of me are two paintings depicting a small seaside cove overlooked by a row of white-washed cottages.
One, my favourite, has two cats seated, viewing the scene. 
I remember the day we  bought them in the art gallery on board the P&O cruise ship Arcadia. Expensive, but 'free'! - bought from the £1,400 on board-spending money. (We  could not get rid of the bounty as we no longer went on shore excursions and were modest drinkers.)

So we splashed out £850 for the originals by a lady artist.

They gave us constant pleasure as they still do for me. More so, in fact, as they remind me vividly of those marvellous days when Rosemary and I cruised the world.

Another of my favourites is a vivid, colourful representation in oil of a street scene of Clapham Junction in London with a tram trundling along East Hill, near where I lived. It  is passing the church we used to go to. It was a present from Robert in1986. That is the impressive background I should have had for my television interview.

Another treasure is a large sea scene in dramatic blue bought in the gift shop next to our flat on Penarth Esplanade and another, the last we bought, a floral water colour from John Lewis in Cardiff. 

The Caerphilly Castle picture, a present from Beverley, reminds me of our first home where Beverley was born, while a  recent gift, painted by Janet, my niece Brenda's family, depicts local scenes including Roath Park Lake just down the road from where I am now.

I love my memories on the wall.