It is lockdown but not quite. A lurking requirement needs to be fulfilled not for us but for the buzzing bees much needed in the ecosystem. So we hauled a log of larch hollowed out and prepared by the wonderful Matt Somerville into an unsuspecting oak.....three days it took for a band of little black scouts to work out this could be home. Within a week the place was alive with noise and bombarding bee activity and as the warm May air brought flowers to life the movements became move often and the buzzing from within more loud. No lockdown for these ...
Not that the indigenous peoples of Morocco would necessarily wish to agree but the French influence provides a rather agreeable ‘je ne sais quoi’ to the experience of a visiting incomer. French has integrated into the language to the extent one can often hold a full conversation: but perhaps its most prominent legacy is in the food and there is brilliant fusion through for example the use of fresh herbs and spices with bright uncontaminated tomatoes with things like local mutton and chicken. As we wander through tracks and poor villages see the raw simplicities of the people eking out a ...
Not everyone agrees that walking in the snowy mountains can be every bit as enjoyable as the fast thrill of the skis nicely cutting down a red slope: or was it black but more like blue I'd say? However the thought of all that tramping around in cumbersome extended boots bleeping through the gates into drafty lifts just to fly for a few minutes, perhaps with agony on some muscle or snowboarding hooligan, only to repeat, is a long way from the tranquil soft uncomplicated pull into the parts where clattering metal apparatus and such speed is unknown. Just to the right ...
We have a friend with a lovely place on Paxos - in amongst the olive trees and not far from some stunning rocks with a private view of the sunset. The ideal place for quiet rest and painting. The day consist of three things - a good walk along the shady droves, a swim in the azure warm sea and a paint somewhere along route: however this has to be interspersed by successful coffee time, grabbing some fresh delicacies and a good lunch. Sleep is not allowed. [caption id="attachment_2039" align="alignnone" width="300"] Serenas boat in Loggos[/caption] [caption id="attachment_2038" align="alignnone" width="300"] another of Serena's ...
I suppose ever since Napoleonic times the British have had a hankering to get away to Corfu and it does remain a place with a very good feeling in the autumn sun as home dives into rain and cloud. We stayed a couple of nights at the Belle Venezia though I was told the Hotel Cavalieri was supposed to be better and with a with a roof terrace atop. So I visited the platform for an expensive beer whilst doing a sketch but and realise our little place was preferable [caption id="attachment_2040" align="alignright" width="315"] The ok view of the mainland ...
Local reports from Udaipur this week confirm that, thanks to the quick-thinking magnanimity by the ruler at the Delwara Fort Palace, a clash of some ugly proportions did not come to pass. Early last Friday a band of insurrectionaries emerged from the Aravalli Hills to the walls of the fort, setting up camp in the heat and dust of the orchards. By Saturday night fuelled by french champagne and enlisting military drummers the rabble took a short 45 minutes to get to the gates. Cleverly, they had employed tailors and couture from the region, hairdressers and make up people to disguise their ...
WE made it to the Uttarakhand region of the Himalayan hills on the north-eastern reaches of India in the nick on the map bordered by Nepal and Tibet. At about 150 km south of the highest peak in India, the 21,000 feet of Nanda Devi, loomed on the horizon in the gin clear air as though it was a short walk away from our mere 7000 feet hillocks. Steep and intriguing hills rolling into the distance alive with activity. With eagles souring and woodpeckers sounding, the local doves and great barbetts make the most sound in the short twilight when ...
In a landscape where serried ranks of vines line the hillsides it doesn't take much to move off the beaten track and just along the unfenced yards to a point where the hedges laden with fruit drop away on the southern slope. And here is a special place to be found. But all the more joyous when the chatter of manual harvesters are not replaced by machinery. For we are on a private estate in Italy where care is paramount. And on they go and all is quiet again. And this reminds me of a similar exercise, now an annual event, ...
A paint with friends in the Tuscan Hills on one of those bright very warming autumn days brings an interesting dimension to the same view. Sitting in a vineyard in the shade of the olive trees along the drive to the ancient building in which we were all holed up for a few days, we concentrated on tone and shapes and nine of us produced some marvelously different results but all saying the same thing. With discipline of just three colours per painter, quiet distant chatter from the grape-pickers, and an errant puppy bouncing its uncontrollable paws into pallets and spilling the water pots, ...
An olive tree is a fine thing especially when you realise it may be many hundred years old and it survives on scant ground with extremes of weather on steep slopes of an island to which they were introduced and established against these considerable odds. For us sweltering on a fine summers day on Paxos the mere 40 degrees and high humidity meant all we could do was to rush for the shade and hope for a breeze. The olive tree nearly always our sanctuary. And as we meandered the inland parts those lovely ranks of dark twisting trunks with a ...
Using a variety of media and styles the work responds to mood and geography but is more than often an observation of simple scenes in everyday life and on the travels across Europe.