Sunbathing

This small tortoiseshell butterfly was on my wall in the sun this afternoon when I went out to look for a blip. I would have loved to sit out in the sun, but I hate wasps and they're too in your face at the moment. Instead I expanded and filled the fine cracks in the wall in my lounge that reappeared since I decorated only three years ago. Then I sanded them down and painted them. I'm hoping a coat on that wall only will blend in ok rather than re-painting everywhere. I thought I'd do it now as I'm still hoping to have new carpets fitted throughout soon. It got put on hold due to the supplier failing, then lockdown, then a new supplier didn't restart their factory until Aug, and now the supplier can't get the yarn. 

Day 158 / Full Day 150 of Lockdown / Day 48 of Step 3 (for my record only)
UK deaths up 6 to 41,403 (revised basis), with new daily cases up by 1,182 (very variable). New cases in France today were up 4,771. Quarantine is no longer required for people returning from Portugal, but is now required for Croatia, Austria and Trinidad and Tobago. Northern Ireland tightens lockdown restrictions on indoor and outdoor meetings - unsurprising given Ireland's increased restrictions. Scotland saw the largest daily rise in cases for nearly three months. Figures supplied for Sky News show only 1 in 6 workers have returned to the office in cities in August. 

GCSE results were issued today with the expected grade inflation with grade 7 (equivalent to the old A or A*) being awarded to 25.9% of pupils, up from 20.7%. I caught up with podcasts of More or Less whilst decorating and they explained how the moderation algorithm worked in principle - in my opinion it was never going to be fair, which should have been identified by the Education Secretary in his oversight of the process. They also talked about the change to all UK countries having a cut off of 28 days from a positive test for a death to be regarded as Covid related which I think is too short. Evidently if a cut off of 60 days is used, numbers would reflect the more accurate ONS data. So to me that implies figures are now being under reported.