I may be sick (and how!) but I can’t bear to be idle all day, so I worked on a small painting for my lovely sister Mary, or Mayflower, as we call her. It’s another painting of lantanas, the weed-like flowers that grow in profusion in the bush or any rough land in our homeland of Australia. When we were kids we all used grab the heads of the lantanas in order to pull off the hundreds of tiny individual flowers and throw them, confetti-like, into the air over any unsuspecting boy and girl walking together.

“You’re getting married, you’re getting married” we would taunt.

It was all very embarrassing for the “couple” and there was every chance that you’d get chased and have the same thing done to you.

So I hope that Mary will like this little reminder of our childhood – she doesn’t yet know that I’ve painted it (and it didn’t take long). The other painting, the Coca-Cola girl, is a commission for Rosie (and she has had to wait ages!).