meanwhile, here in france...

A Painter's Garden

2009-07-09T18:37:00.004+02:00

We have been offered a little bit of land to use by Monsieur Chauvet Junior. They are his peaches, apricots and cherries that appear so often on Julian's
paintings and, low and behold, he turns out to be an amateur painter who has promptly 'fallen in admiration' with Julian's work. It only seems fitting, then, that we should plant a Potager du Peintre, growing things that will find their way onto little Provençal postcards and remind Monsieur (while he is busy packing spices in bottles for Ducros) of the lovely terrain where he hopes to retire. Then of course the vegetables will make their way to our soups and salads.

The first step today was to try and develop some good soil. Here is our somewhat improvised recipe:

1. Round up the oak chippings from the builder, the cut grass from next door, horse manure from the neighbours and our own rotting peelings.
2. Plonk them on the land.
3. Attempt to cover during a fierce mistral wind.
4. Let them simmer under the lid for a Provençal summer.
5. Turn on some loud music and invite the worms to party.

As you can see I have only managed one row and I have a very burnt nose.

two finales

2009-07-06T20:47:00.003+02:00

His feet hardly touch the ground. He floats above the court. Almost never lands. Certainly never falls. His footwork is as good and as graceful as that of Fred Astaire. His is never off balance. He is in the zone. He is zen. He is always in motion. His preparation and follow-through are exactly proportional to his stroke. (Unless, of course, he is tricking you, which is the only difference between Roger Federer and a great chamber musician.) Certainly (along with Stevie Wonder, of course) he is a God of bass line playing.

It was the end of Wimbledon, and the end of Garsington Opera. In fact, the opening chord of our last performance broke at almost exactly the moment that Federer broke Roddick’s serve for the first time and polished off the tournament. (At thirteen-all I had decided that my hour long warm up had already been shortened by fifty five too many minutes so I forced myself to leave three minutes before the end.) Apparently there were tears on centre court. And in the players’ box. There were certainly tears in the pit. Tears for what we had built and weathered and shared. For the poppies and the picnics. For the phrases we had sent out, along with the cock’s crow, in to the Oxfordshire air night after night. For stage style fancy dress on the last night. For the compassion we felt and received when finger-work was off, or we fell, or our gesture was not proportional to the note we were about to play and we put our desk partner off balance. For being human.

And meanwhile, in amongst all that humanity, it was good to know that there IS a God out there called Roger.

And it's good to be home at the foot of the Mont Ventoux and to know that another God, Lance Armstrong, will be passing by the bottom of the road to inspire us soon on the Tour de France.

We're heating up the barbecue.....

Rain Stops Play

2009-06-29T21:17:00.005+02:00

It was another steamy day in Garsington. I was looking after our conductor’s children for the afternoon and, along with the rest of the nation, we were waiting for the third game on Wimbledon’s centre court. Would we get to see the dour Scotsman under the new roof? we wondered as we watered the wilting flowerbeds of my B and B. I thought, with some sadness, that these two kids would never get to see Cliff Richard spontaneously entertaining the crowd, or hours of BBC footage of improvised head-gear when rain stopped play. It would be typical, just typical, wouldn’t it, we agreed, if he walked on court just as we had to walk in to the opera pit.

Murray, of course, walked on to a tennis court in South London at six; at exactly the moment I, in Oxfordshire, wove through the men’s chorus warming up (with the conductor's son) with a ball game and picnicking penguins squatting on blankets, and hauled my cello under the folded tarpaulin to add the squawk of my to the popping of champagne corks and the song of the blackbird in the gardens in preparation for Maestro Beethoven.

Our sixth performance was going well and I managed to forget my frustration at not seeing the match as we held the sublime sub-dominant chord for Leonora (the girl dressed as a boy employed as the prison turnkey in the hope of releasing her beloved Florestan) who sang like an angel about a rainbow.

In the break we rushed to the green room to see the score and witnessed Murray serving out the match. We shared leftover salads from tupperware containers, chatted for a bit about holidays, roses, children, motorways, and made coffee. And it was then that the rain came in fast moving sheets. Picnics were scooped up leaving flaked salmon and glasses littering the lawn, and out came the infamous English improvised headgear as we all rushed to the relative shelter of the opera tent. Florestan lay curled in his cell. We played our first pianissimo chord forte and the second fortissimo chord fortississimo to try and combat the sound of the rain. Fingers were damp, horsehair was limp, feet wet and bottoms cold. Peter Wedd belted his song noiselessly out into the sodden void: ‘Oh Gott…..’. Someone leaned over in to the pit and shouted. ‘You might as well stop playing we can’t hear a bloody thing.’ We continued, unwilling to cut the thread of this masterpiece and lost in our own submarine world of unheard mega decibels, until raindrops started plopping on seventeenth century varnish and putting our instruments at risk. There were hoots and cries from the punters above. There were gasps from the children. A clap of thunder sent a violinists’s son rushing for the safety of her knee and we had to stop. Then, just as we had fled to the only dry spot in the pit, the tarpaulin collapsed under the weight of the rain and a waterfall descended on the electrics at exactly the point where my colleagues and I had been sitting only moments before.

We waited. The audience waited. I think there may have been more improvised headgear and there were certainly some entertainers in the crowd. Eventually the cut-throat signal came from the manager. It was too dangerous to continue, he shouted above the sound of the pelting. We packed up and made our way to the Mole for an early pint leaving the debris of a half finished opera in the pit and an audience who had never even heard the hero sing.

Rain may no longer stop play at Wimbledon, but it can, and it did, stop play at Garsington, and that night two children were there to witness the thrill and the poetry of it.

Ah, England...

2009-06-21T16:39:00.002+02:00

Garsington days are spent walking through fields barley

Lying in fields, looking at the clouds

Chatting with and then eating Gloucester Old Spot pigs, and drowning the frustrations of Mr Martinu with a pint of 'hookie' in the best English pub I have found....

And yesterday a perfect dessert from a perfect English garden: Gooseberry and elderflower jelly with wild strawberries.

Smelling the Roses at Garsington

2009-06-17T12:06:00.003+02:00

From the first note of the first rehearsal of Martinu's Mirandolina I knew this was a work in which there would be no time to stop and smell the roses that cascade over the Jacobean walls and around the lighting rigs at Garsington. It consists, for us in the pit at least, of zillions of breathless fragments strung together like a busy necklace. There are no arias, very few places of rest, and there is perhaps only half a tune. Which comes once. In every bar there is the chance to play a forte note in a piannissimo rest, misread a clef or an accidental, misinterpret a dot or a slur....Not one to be played with a hangover, D and I agreed, or without a nap and a warm up. This was one to be played in the zone.

The zone for me is a place where I am totally present in the current bar yet always reading at least six bars ahead; I am comfortably in the phrase we are playing and yet on my way to the next; I am without anxiety yet with an edge of anticipation, I have an empty mind, I can feel each whole gesture in my body before I make it, and I am counting each quaver whilst being calmly guided by the changing pulse. And, as if that is not enough: As number two cello I must be decisive and confident without in any way undermining or preempting my number one.

Aaaah....I wish. Last night's dress rehearsal, despite an early and relatively (one pint of hookie) sober night, a nap and an hour of sixths and thirds and slow practice, was the opposite. A mini nightmare of notes having run away from me before I could get a finger on them, eyes skimming the bar before rather than the ones ahead (was that a sharp or a natural?), escalating questions and judgements (damd this feeble light on the yellowing pages - am I going blind? can't count, can't shift, can't concentrate, letting C down every step of the way), still being in waltz mode when we are already in saltorello, missing entries and thus giving my leader absolutely zero confidence in me which doubles the pressure on her, putting zingy pizzicati where there should be silence.....aaaargh.

That's what dress rehearsals are for, right?

And then it's over. We exit into the fragrant dusk of poppy lights and illuminated alium heads and people champagned and picnicked and entertained who didn't notice a thing, who loved it....

...And it is then that I stop and smell a rose.

Four cherries in Garsington

2009-06-14T11:04:00.004+02:00

Our Garsington cello section has, from the first day of rehearsal, been described as an orchestral version of Sex in the City – albeit a middle-aged one. We four women have played together for many years and share an enjoyment and appreciation not only of our similarities but also our differences. I love these girls. In fact I cherish them so much that Julian and I spent my two days at home picking cherries in an abandoned orchard and making cherry jam so I could show my appreciation on my return.

Oxford, June 2009.

A singer maps out the trajectory of a difficult scene on stage, operatic flourishes ride on the breeze from the Jacobean manor house, over the gardens and in under the flap of the tarpaulin that protects this opera house from the English June, and a blackbird practices for his imminent solo. It is an hour before the performance is due to start and Samantha is the only musician seated in the pit. Her antique watch is laid perilously at the back of her chair, a screen is in place to protect her ears from the screaming piccolo, and her iphone, switched to vibrate, touches her left buttock. She goes through the score slowly, breaking phrases down into exercises, playing with different finger groupings on the bow to retrain her lazy digits, trying to figure out why she is shortening and pulling up in her right hip, feeling her big toe alive in her right shoe, making her knuckles as supple as possible. She has failed (or has she refused?) to pack thermal underwear. She has no stockings and is décolletée. She is never going to get warm. And she is never going to learn. Charlotte arrives at the half hour call, wearing silk undergarments and black boots. She wraps a cashmere blanket around her waist, shares a thermos of tea with her lover in the violin section and warms her hands on the pink hot water bottle in her lap before commencing her elegant scales. At the quarter hour Miranda makes her way almost imperceptibly in to the pit, dodging tubas, cables and bows with her slim frame. She places a handkerchief sized bag under the chair, smoothes back her hair, plants her feet in their flat shoes firmly on the floor and starts to play very slowly on the C string. Her sound is rich and deep, full of tannin. All is calm. The orchestra pit fills up. The conductor arrives and tells us a cute story about his six year old son’s reaction to the dress rehearsal (‘Daddy does that mean Fidelio is gay? Daddy can I be gay? Daddy I want to be gay because when I grow up I want to marry a footballer’). We are about to tune. The red light is on. The conductor touches his baton. There is a rustle and a flurry and Carrie arrives. She is wearing a selection of furry items of clothing over her thermals and her insulated sports slacks, has a cello in a soft case flung over one arm and is carrying a pair of satin winkle picker shoes with diamantes across them. She sits down, kicks off her platformed sandals, shoves the dainty shoes on to her feet, hauls the cello out of its case, drops the case on to the floor, gives the instrument a quick tune, checks her blackberry for any mails that may have come in whilst she was crossing the formal gardens, turns it on to silent, and we are off. And we are one.

The cherry jam never made it past the Ryanair check in but when we get to the cello solo in the quartet our colours blend, our gestures are stilled into a single gesture and the vibrations we create rise up from the pit and make many weep. The sound is as sweet and plump and tasty as any confiture.

Meanwhile, in France, Julian has been practicing his clafoutis recipe. Here is is:

JULIAN'S CLAFOUTIS with Chauvet's Cherries.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Take a pound of un-stoned ripe black cherries (preferably straight from the tree:-)) and fill the base of a 12 inch non-stick flan tin in one layer . Whisk together (or put in a food processor) three eggs and three tablespoons of castor sugar (2oz) until smooth. Add a pinch of a salt and a drop of vanilla extract and a half pint of milk. Optionally a dob (tablespoon) of cream (creme fraiche) can be added at this point if you feel you need the calories. Whisk again and then incorporate 2oz/three tbs of flour and half tsp of baking powder. Whisk for 30 seconds. Pour enough batter into the flan tin so the cherries are still on the bottom and the tops are visible. Place in oven for 45 minutes. When colored and slightly risen, remove and dust with icing sugar. Ideally serve warm and it will keep for a day (not in our house).

I will miss...

2009-05-16T08:27:00.004+02:00

I will miss our home grown veg and marvellous wine at an affordable price....

But I am looking forward to Beethoven, cheddar and a good pint of beer!

I am off to England play in Garsington Opera. I will be sitting with one of my closest friends, in whose section I played for twelve years at Glyndebourne and who is just about to adopt as a single Mum. How glad we are that we may finally become mothers together! Perhaps a bit of a last fling for both of us?

Meanwhile, in the move, Julian has fallen twice down the crumbly unattached bricks and amputated ladder that have served as a staircase (and barrier) to his hemp mezzanine for the last few years, and we have broken some fine pottery (but luckily not the finest), but right now he seems content, inspecting his artichokes, dreaming of an insulated, well lit space, and singing 'Oh what a beautiful morning; Someone is coming my way...'

Perhaps he was right about Cuckoo Hamlet?

leaving

2009-05-15T20:57:00.005+02:00

It's hard to leave at this time of year. We have pulled our first carrots, made the most sublime pasta dish with our own artichokes and parsley. Our first ever roses are about to bloom and Oscar is sitting proudly on the roof of the car admiring a rainbow.

Three years ago, Julian moved his printer and office into 'my' room in order to 'do the work' on the studio himself.

'It'll only be a month' he said. Humph.
Knowing it would be at least a year I said 'Perhaps you should put your office in the spare room?'
'You don't understand. I can't move the printer into the spare room; there are wires, plugs, phone points to consider.....'

('He's never gonna leave her'...When Harry Met Sally).

Today, three years (yes, years) later, Olivier started that very same work that Julian never began on Julian's studio. It has taken this long for Julian to realize that he will never be a painter and a builder (and open a restaurant and internet cafe and make websites and climb all the mountains on Skye) all in one lifetime.

He moved the printer and plugs and phone points and wires in to the spare room, no problem. And, of course, his paints and easels into my room.

Olivier is sensitive to The Artist. He does not play a radio. He shows up on time. He says 'Perhaps I should do this bit first as it makes the most noise....Then, when Julian is working I can do the quiet things. I have a new machine that just goes SHHHHHHH...'. Olivier is from the North.

We may even have Mallow...er...Cuckoo gallery by the time I get back from two months in England.

Meanwhile, the wildflowers continue to amaze. Wile pyramid orchids, wild gladioli, broome, poppies, and the Provençal sage flower which, Mmme Chauvet assures us, when boiled down with Eau de Vie, makes and excellent remedy for digestive problems.

Life in the Cuckoo

2009-05-06T18:47:00.006+02:00

When we arrived in L'Hameau des Cougieux (as it was spelled then) - what, six years ago? - we were told by the estate agent that it was named after the 'pink flower that grew in the spring'. This we took (I can't remember why now) to be the Mallow flower and we decided we lived in Mallow Hamlet. We liked Mallow Hamlet. We were planning purchasing Mallow Press.com on which to publish various books about life in the Mallow. When the mallow sprung up in my flower bed I thought twice before cutting them down since they were so authentique. One day the mayor changed Cougieux to Couguieux on the sign because 'that was the correct Provençal spelling'. We changed our pronunciation (making the g hard) and spelling accordingly. Proudly. And now, a new Parisian neighbour arrives ('oh we'll just rent for a while and then find somewh....ohmygod, we never want to leave this exquisite magical spot) and tells us Couguieux is a bastardisation of the Provençal cougious which of course means Cuckoo! (Durrr). And tonight I go down to the new Cellier du Ventoux in Bedoin to get our daily ration of one bottle and he is playing Provençal music and it turns out his son is a professional Provençal folk musician and he is very interested in Provençal culture and he has a Provençal dictionary behind the counter and...well of course it is cuckoo!

Cuckoo Hamlet? Cuckoo Press? Life in the Cuckoo?

We have been walking around today in a daze, me practicing, him painting, both lunching and checking the artichokes and all the while bursting out with 'coucou, coucou', just to see how it tastes in our mouths, our new name.

I like it, because I love the round sound of the birds in the morning, especially when they trio with the recently arrived golden oriole and the hoopoe. Julian thinks there are overtones of cuckoo clocks and cuckold. I say beh.....

So here I am on the terrace, thinking how awful it will be to leave this emerald poppy dotted paradise and go play Beethoven in the Cotswolds next week. Julian is upstairs having his shoulders and back (knackered from peony painting) rubbed by our excellent Californian masseuse. Linseed oil is being sundried on the stone bassin. OK and yes I do have a glass of rosé in my hand.

Life in the Cuckoo...hmmm, cuckoo life? life in the hamlet of the cuckoos?... is very tough, as always.

smelling the roses

2009-05-04T22:13:00.001+02:00

May day.

2009-05-01T14:59:00.005+02:00

It is May day. It's the fête des travailleurs. It's a voluntary day off for Julian - the day Mo will be unveiled to Mo herself; a day for retraining roses and digging holes; for stroking cats in the sunshine; a day of green, of podding, of fecundity and planting seeds, of small figs and furry almonds with echoes of maypoles and morris dancing on the village green back home, and a cycle ride up hill through an emerald landscape to lunch and down hill home again.

And on this day it occurs to me that many of you have shown interest and concern in our own seeding process, and that to some I owe an explanation. It is such a personal and private process I have not wanted to write about it much, but this is where we are:

We have had our dossier in Mali since February last year. In March 2008 we paid our Bamako lawyer a handsome down payment and took a trip to meet him. He was stuck in Madagascar. The trip, of course, was extraordinary. The two orphanages which we visited tore us apart - so many souls to put in our pockets and take home; too many words and emotions and books to write.....

More than a year later we are still two and still in the dark. A commission has been and gone and we were not selected. In January this year, finally, I met our lawyer - tall, charming and so handsome - in Paris and he explained that one of his clients, though she had been selected, had not responded; that if she didn't we could take her place; that he would know by wednesday; that I should call him wednesday; that he had a sixth sense about this. I did call him, on skype from a pub in London. His number was no longer in service. Five months later we have heard nothing more. I presume he is still stuck in Madagascar....

Meanwhile, through a delightful collector of Julian's paintings who has himself adopted there, we became interested in having a sibling group from Haiti, for which country I have been compiling a dossier for the last five months. Now here's the rub:

If I send off the dossier to Haiti next week we will most likely be attributed two older children (three and six maybe?) immediately. This would mean photos, love, and it would mean family at last, in our hearts. And of course a down payment of 8000$. However, the procedure in Haiti is such that we would not be able to bring these - our - children home for two years. Meanwhile, should we be accepted in the next commission in Mali, which may or may not be in October, we would be attributed a baby within a few months and would ba able to take him or her home immediately, at which point we would lose our right to adopt 'our' children in Haiti. We could then, if we so wished, reapply to the French authorities for a new agreement (a year's process with yet another home study) for those children, but with no guarantee of being accepted or the children still being available.

We have been agonizing over so many things, but mostly: How could we bear being attributed a child or children that we then were forced to reject? I am not a depressive person, but I felt myself ceasing to feel. Anything. Joy at a blue sky, pain at a cat's wound; pleasure in playing the cello....something was wrong.

Luckily, our friend who recommended the lawyer in Mali is a bit more ballsy than me and, bless her, she called up both the orphanage and the office that deals with the adoptions in Bamako on our behalf. She ascertained that our dossier did exist, had been renewed and that indeed we did stand 'a good chance' of being selected at the next commission.....

With some regret, (so much support from Eric, Conor, Gladys...) we have decided not to send the dossier to Haiti until we know about the next commssion in Mali.

Today I am loving the blue sky, enjoying my scales, celebrating the season of green and of growth, cuddling a cat...It feels like the right decision. For now.

Holidays?

2009-04-26T17:13:00.003+02:00

Looking for a B and B off the beaten track in Italy this summer? Check out my Mum's exquisite trulli in Puglia.....

Paris

2009-04-24T17:17:00.007+02:00

It's always hard to leave home, especially when the asparagus are out, gathered in little bunches tied with raffia at the local farm shop, costing one euro, when our first lettuces have grown, and when the dandelion leaves are young and we have just discovered a new organic white wine that happens to accompany them all very well.

The forecast for Paris was dire. I was nervous about a physical theatre piece which didn't exist yet and which I was performing in three days, and Julian was nervous about whether or not he would be able to paint streets, bridges and rooftops in the rain instead of sunlit irises.

The project 'Rope and Strings' gathered force from the first day. The miracle of creative process never ceases to amaze me: Six people gather in a room with a rope, four oranges and a pile of twigs, and at the end of three days we have a piece of musical/physical theatre which has never existed before, but not just that. We have magic.

Why, why why, don't we do this every day, each and every one of us? With our families, friends, enemies, priests, builders, hairdressers....?

It was an inspiration to work with Jos Houben whom I have admired for so many years in Theatre de Complicité; to talk about movement like music, in terms of colour, architecture, accent, polyphony, melody and counterpoint. I particularly appreciate his insistence that this be not for us, between us, but that it communicate something to the audience...I was knackered but on such a high...

....and then it was over. Our presentation. Gone, like the sand mandala. We are dreaming Edinburgh, Brighton, Avignon 2010. New York. San Fransisco..... but we have no bookings as yet.

Check out the pictures and if you know anyone who is interested in funding such a project in any way (in terms of a residency, or someone who has a space begging a piece of rope magic) I have no hesitation in asking you to please get in touch.

Meanwhile the sun shone on Paris and on Julian who, based in our friends' flat near the Pantheon, velibbed around (I used to think the Paris metro was romantic) and turned out a
cracker or two....

Brought to Fullness

2009-04-14T16:52:00.005+02:00

Easter time is made meaningful to me not by chocolate (actually that's rubbish - I would have killed for a Cadbury’s creme egg on Friday) but by the prayer that is playing the St John Passion. In France Bach does not make much of an appearance and it has been almost six years since I have played it but last weekend, having meditated in the cloister, I sat once more next to the evangelist in the cathedral in Aix en Provence colouring his story, ripping at the string during the renting of the veil, warming up the tone for the purple robes, purifying it for Mary Magdalena, stabbing at the note like a sword, and I felt cleansed. I am not religious in that I do not follow a single religious doctrine, but I cannot think of anything more spiritual than the moment after the crucifiction, when Jesus sings his last words: Es ist Vollbracht (mistranslated often as ‘It is finished’, but meaning something more akin to ‘All is brought to fullness’) and the gamba solo that follows; the melody that sings more than silence itself could of peace, quiet, stillness and serenity, and then (as if that weren't enough) the continuo aria that is possibly the most joyous illustration of release ever written. The work makes me contemplate my life so often filled with fear - of dying, of letting go, of trusting the next step - and I am reminded that the next step may be paradise, it may be hell, but one thing is for sure, it will be.

( – and I have to confess I might have to spend some time in purgatory too because my first F sharp in the gamba solo was flat…..)

And so the fullness of the season is testing me in the same way. Last week the almond blossom was rent from the trees by a piercing wind, this week the cherry blossom may or may not survive the storm, next the purple cherries will appear, then disappear (not without having lined our stomachs), then the blood red poppies…..Every week, almost every day, there is something to hold on to, about which I can say, surely THIS is the most beautiful blah ever’, and each week, it is taken from me, it appears to die. Or is it merely a transformation? Bud to blossom, blossom to fruit, fruit to seed..... It's the same story.

Meanwhile, we enjoyed our walk in paradise this morning and I am enjoying being a free woman having sent my first draft off to my dear volontary editor and promised her not to tamper with it until she gets back to me.

market day

2009-04-06T15:06:00.000+02:00

Gisele Edwards

2009-03-22T13:26:00.004+01:00

Here Gisele is in rehearsal for a project with Jos Houben - a founder member of Complicité - around the subject of strings and ropes. We (Gisele, three cellists, four cellos and percussionist) will produce a taster evening in Paris at the end of April in the hope that we can get funding to create a show.

First blossom and first draft.

2009-03-15T18:28:00.003+01:00

Two weeks later than last year, Provence is in bloom. If you look behind the blossom you can still see the last (?) of the snow on the mountain.

The air smells of violets. I have a tan already as I have been sitting out on the terrace in twenty degrees, cuddling an ill cat, working my way through a walnut tart inspired by a walnut painting and reading through my first draft. It's off to my first reader tomorrow.

blossom

2009-03-12T13:37:00.002+01:00

Spring is here. Babu is playing with blossom, Julian is painting blossom and I am planting Felicité, Cecile, Katherina and a Sceptr'd Isle, thanks to Roger's Roses.

Fifty

2009-02-27T18:27:00.008+01:00

Julian turned fifty in Barcelona, in the Xampanyet tapas bar, with house cava poured from lemonade bottles and of all things, tinned food: Tinned olives, mussels, tuna, razor clams and anchovies. Why, in an olive growing country and above all why in a port, we were eating tinned food I have no idea, but that's what you do in Barcelona, and, well, we'd had quite alot of cava but it was strangely sublime!

We took in a Sorolla exhibit and lunch in the coolest place we found at the back of the Santa Caterina market and then, after a good night's sleep, we wove our way back to the Northern part of the Costa Brava, in search of magical coves. The plan was that Julian would paint and I would...er... assist.

Being a daily painter's assistant can at times be pretty boring: It involves quite a lot of cleaning, bill paying and organising. There is the middle ground stuff which is fun in a meditative sort of way: searching for the perfect pear or jonquil, scanning, documenting and packing paintings, gessoing boards in the sunshine. And then, at least in the case of this daily painter, there are the perks, and this was one of them: Sunbathing! In February!

Julian, if I am near to the painting process, is normally painting me, so this time I watch. I watch a white stroke appear and stop a group of trees from falling in to the sea, a blob of light green making a pine leap forward into the foreground ('Oh no. I can't believe it. I'm such an idiot. I've just made this pine tree in to a grenadier busby hat.') greys and pinks and greens and yellows bonding and becoming rocks, ('Damd, why did I come out yet again without a sketch book and a pencil?'), the flowering red cactus disappearing ('Too many colours! Bleuurghgh.'). I begin to want to go behind the rock in the middle ground of the painting and see if there is a jewel like beach there. That's a good sign I think. Then I watch the first board with all its blobby rocks sleeping and its playful trees leaping and its sea just starting to glint being scraped. It is heart breaking.

The next board appears from the Pochard. The rocks start to turn pink in the setting sun. A man pees in between the two exact trees Julian has started to paint. I hear happy humming ('This is more like it. Now I'm having fun!) and then frustrated growling (I don't know what I'm doing!') and, after three hours, I see a second board wiped clean of every careful mark.

I realise that I have a little strap mark on my shouder where the sun did not hit. Sometimes being the assistant is a whole lot easier than being the painter.

Luckily there is always manana.....

gesso

2009-02-21T11:50:00.002+01:00

Gessoing boards in the sunshine.....

wool pile or wood pile?

2009-01-11T20:35:00.001+01:00

La neige, la neige, encore la neige

2009-01-08T10:18:00.002+01:00

Silent days on the painter's street, not a car passing, just a cat print or two in the snow....

A New Year

2008-12-30T17:42:00.003+01:00

I am, I think, looking forward to a New Year. We are both a little scared too. I am cutting down my orchestral work; teaching may well be building; we both have book ideas in various stages which could or could not do well; Julian will not paint a painting a day for the rest of his life; we may or may not have a third and hopefully even a fourth member in our family some day.... One thing seems pretty sure, this will not be our last Christmas à deux. ....

Luckily there is a new man in the White House, who seems to think that calm, courage and peace are more important than drama, fear and war....I hope his influence will spread. We will see it all unravel, doubtless, but I have never known so many tremors of hope coursing through so many lives at the brink of a new year. New era even?

We will celebrate with friends on New Year's Day with a walk, or sledge or ski up on the Ventoux, weather permitting, and Julian's special feast. Today we did the shopping at Les Halles in Avignon:

When we told the potato seller that we will be crushing the potatoes with fresh truffles under a chapon, he recommended that we have the big rattes which are more floury, because the Normoitier, though twice the price, tend to become buttery and melt when crushed. Then, the butcher recommends that we spare a hundred euros and get the Red Label 'Fermier' capon instead of the Chapon de Bresse, because it is quite delicious, even though the Bresse has been milk fed and the fat is better distributed. The fishmonger insisted that the best oysters were Utah beach, not Gillardeau (another fifty euro saving). I took a quick break while Julian got some necessaries from the supermarket, and had six fines et claires d'Oleron with a small glass of white in the little stall next to the oyster seller. Then, wanting to support our local businesses rather than stock up in supermarkets, we drove to our favourite wine makers in the region - Mireille and Jean Pierre Cartier at Domaine Les Gouberts. On arrival, I insisted we owed them forty euros for a 'vieux millesime' bottle of Cuvée Florence from our anniversary in July. We considered buying four more bottles for New Year's Day, it was so good..... She said the 2000 Gigondas really was very special, a little less animal, and would perhaps go better with the capon. Luckily it was half the price. When we left, having paid our bill, Mireille gave us a 93 Cuvée Florence as a festive gift. That's my kind of credit crunch shopping!

SHOP LOCALLY! SUPPORT LOCAL SMALL BUSINESSES! every pore of my body screamed!!!!!

Meanwhile we are back home, stocks are being made, carcasses prepared and trimmed. 'How does such a huge fellow survive on such a tiny heart?' says Julian, pulling the small organ from the capon carcass. 'And look at the liver! It's huge! Just like mine!'

The New Year's resolution? Goes without saying, I think.

Happy New Year!

happy christmas

2008-12-25T13:21:00.003+01:00

In the beginning she was all into nature and stuff...

but now, of course, she has turned in to a typical materialistic teenager. What can a mum do?

Happy Christmas!

Cottage Industries

2008-12-11T14:01:00.006+01:00

Last weekend I ran a little stand, enjoyed some mulled wine and mince pies and wept through In the Bleak Midwinter at Domaine de Mourchon's warm and fuzzy Christmas fair. We did well and and are only just emerging, both of us with various strains of the Bedoin lurgy, from a pile of bubble wrap.

We are padding to and from the post office under a blanket of snow. This morning I stood and listened to it; to the rustle, fizz, hushed splat and occasional thump of it melting......

Meanwhile, the offer on Julian's prints runs till the 14th December. It is free shipping to all subscribers on all signed, limited edition prints and a 10 percent discount on more than one. Subscribing only takes two seconds and you can do it here. They make stonking Christmas presents for all of those you know who long for these parts and I can add personal messages to friends, kids, Mums, kittens, Uncles and Yoga teachers too. I have a very nice fountain pen and decent handwriting (amazing one can still do it after all these years tapping away on keyboards with two fingers!). I do not apologise for this shameless plug. It seems an ideal time to be supporting cottage industries and in recent weeks, though often unable to see for the mounds of tape and stiff card and labels and foam padding, and even as I unpack six paintings that I have forgotten to scan, and even as I cough and splutter over one which then has to be reprinted, I have felt so proud of the creative hive we have here, and grateful that it is still buzzing.