Living in Provence

Painting in Provence

What makes painting so magical?  I go into a trance.  Setting it up gets me all excited.  Then time stands still.  The brushes seem to be just extensions of my hand.  The smell of the paint.  The first swirl.  The thick drips defying gravity - clinging to the edges.  So memorable.  And each time is a totally different experience.  When I look at the objects I've painted that I have scattered around our home here, I can instantly go right back to that moment- still time- creating color where before it didn't exsist.  It's like giving it a breath, a new life.

On Christmas Eve we were invited to a friend's house, actually the same people that came to our place for Thanksgiving on Friday.  There I met another lady who loves to paint.  We're no professionals.  But to say amatures might not be strong enough.  We found each other in a crowded room, standing shoulder to shoulder, happy as could be chatting away about the joys of painting.   I"m not alone!  Finding time to paint is her problem.  I should consider myself very lucky because I make the time.  Just before Christmas I painted 16 wine glasses with Christmas themes in pairs.   Fortunately my husband loved them.  That always makes me feel good.   It's like something I've painted has my blood running through it. 

One spring day, just after an art show where I had displayed my fish vase to find rave reviews and a couple surprising offers, I had it back in it's place on our marble top counter, when all of a sudden a Mistral Wind picked up and threw open the window, slamming open the door, creating a wind tunnel one would find hard to walk in, and in an instant- SMASH!  The vase was on the floor in pieces so tiny my husband couldn't even glue it together (and believe me that's tiny!).  I was in tears.  Well, not really.  I don't ever want to put that much weight on something tangible, but it was a very sad loss.  Ok, maybe my eyes did moisten a bit.  It was something I could never duplicate.  I painted it to be our very first decoration in our new house in FL.  It had just been a normal vase in the shape of a fish.  Um, are "normal" vases shaped like fish?  hum...

Yes, a bit of color, applied from the very fingers that are typing these words, (with the extensions of the brush) sure make something ordinary extraordinary! 

Back in Hull I had started a show called Alluring Artists- I"d like to start an Alluring Artists here in  Fayence.  So all of you paint lovers "come out come out wherever you are" and join me- let's get together and be Alluring Artists. 

Thanksgiving on Friday!

Thanksgiving on Friday!  Sure, why not?  There's no holiday here on that Thursday.  So why not celebrate ol Thanksgiving whenever you can?  Well that' what we did.  We invited our friends over, a lady from Scottland, her husband from Paris and their darling bilingual children.  It was impossible for me to find a big bird, no butterballs in Provence.  Although there is a place in Antibes, called Geoffrey's, which might have had one, but in past years when I've gone there to check out their Thanksgiving goodies, I haven't been very thankful that I went.  They charge a good five times more for the stuff.  A can of cranberry sauce goes for like 5 Euros.  Yeah right!  This year I was thankful I decided to shop at Geant Casino in Frejus.  I found enough "Dinde" in peices to make up for a whole bird and I didn't have to do any de-gutting.  Yipee!  It was really hard, and I found this funny, to try and keep the meal to typical American fare.  As I passed the olives I went to buy some, and then remembered, we never had olives at thanksgiving!  As I passed the pate and went to buy some, I had to stop and remember, we never had pate!  Then as I passed the cheese and went to buy some, I forgot we didn't have cheese after our meal for Thanksgiving and I bought enough cheese for 20 people!  HA, oops.  Well yeah, I ended up apologetically serving it before the desserts, but they were glad, being used to eating cheese at that time.  After all, I had pretty much shocked their taste buds with my strange ways- I made them try my mother's old receipe and my favorite, candied yams with pineapple and marshmellow.  The yams were found in the "exotic" food isle.  Near the small amount of Mexican Food offered.  So funny.  But anyway, except for the cheese platter, I think I succeeded in making a tradional American Thanksgiving Dinner.  Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoe ( added shredded Parmesean, but I think my mother would have, too) Oh I had to use pumpkin instead of summer squash, but that was fine, simialr taste and same color.  I bought brocoli, but forgot to make it, actually, just remembered it now, how funny is that!?  So now we have three large heads of brocoli to eat.  Ah yes, for an appetiser, (note I didn't say hors d'oeuvre) instead of the typical olives and saussison and almonds that one would fine over here waiting for hungry guests, I had cut up some fresh veggies and made a warm cheese dip I put in a big loaf of fresh bread.  Sadly though, the cheese hardened really fast and the loaf of bread became as heavy as a loaf of bricks and nobody but the kids and I ate it.  It still tasted good, I thought, but Chris made fun of me.  Oh yeah, and the stuffing, I made it from scratch, was very proud of it and just for kicks, to get my back patted before our guests arrived, I had Chris taste it.  Well, luckily he did because he said it was terrible (can we swear on this thing, cause that's more like what he said!! )  So I showed it to them, but didn't feed to anybody.  It looked good. 

For dessert I made lemon tarts, cherry custards, apple pie, had vanilla and chocolate ice cream and coffee.  Voila. 

We had a great time and I think our guests enjoyed our Thanksgiving meal, too.   Thankfully, we can celebrate Thanksgiving any day, any where.  Thanksgiving on Friday.  I'm so thankful that I have the family and friends that I do!   Thanks for reading!

Picking Olives in Provence

Ah, the quiet sunny days picking olives- can't beat them.  But what do I know about picking olives?  Just about three hours worth so far, but it sure is addictive.  We've taken on the pleasurable task of collecting olives from about 13 trees outside the village of Seillans at my in-laws'.  In three hours, my husband, little boy who's almost three, and I, have only just dented one tree!  I think this is going to take a while, but I sure am looking forward to it.  You see, I have just finished reading the second book by Carol Drinkwater, who writes about life in Cannes at her Olive Farm "Appassionata".   When I put that book down and heard my husband's question, "Want to gather my parent's olives this year?", a tingle of joy went through me and I couldn't resist!  What timing! 

This morning I put on two long sleeve shirts, both I didn't mind getting dirty, an old jacket and some gardening gloves, and wore my jeans with the hole in the knee along with my trusty old sneakers that I can stand on for hours.  Then I made a thermos of hot mint tea and put three bananas near our keys so I wouldn't forget to take them.  It's not everyday I'm this well planned, but thanks to Carol Drinkwater, I knew not to wear nice clothes and knew the task at hand wouldn't be that simple and we'd end up needing a snack here and there.

We threw the green nets around the bottom of the trees, got our new olive rakes ready, I put my gloves on, took the buckets out and we began to fill them....without the rakes.  It's so far much more satisfying to us just using our hands.  We'll see how long this new love of ours lasts.

Bon Appetite!