Happy New Year to everyone!

For the next while I've decided to post some of my first drawings that were inspired by la belle France and also the letters I wrote last winter when we were in Provence. I've been typing them up and it's really fun for me to read about these thing I've partly forgotten already.



The second still-life I did and one I still love very much.
8 x 10 on paper with pencil crayons

Carqueiranne, France

Lettre de Provence - #1

Feb. 12/02

Chers amis,

I am siting writing this in the sun with the balcony door open on my new tablecloth typiquement Provençale with sunflowers and olive branches. I never tire of the blues, reds, and yellows of le sud. I thought I would spend most of the trip looking for that special santon de Provence to keep my fisherman (from another trip) company. Would you believe I found the perfect one the first day in this little village! It is a painter with a smock (almost as messy as I manage to get my T-shirts...) with palette and brush in hand. There is also an easel with a typical provençale scene in the painting- a terracotta tile roofed house and cypress trees. In Hyeres I saw another wonderful santon scene - 4 men playing cards at a table with a Pastis bottle and glasses. The store was closed for annual holidays with no specified return date - very “midi” like. We’re reaccustoming ourselves for everything closing down for 2-4 hours in the afternoon - except restaurants, of course.

We had a very smooth flight, everything on time, baggage all arrived, and got the car very quickly. Nice airport is quite small and manageable and rather laid back. The customs people were nowhere to be seen so we didn’t even have to clear customs and our baggage was there in minutes. The flight from Frankfurt to Nice (about 1 hr. 10 min.) was great as we followed the Swiss Alps, the French Alps, then the Maritime Alps on the Mediterranean. We hadn’t travelled that route in winter so it was amazing to see the snow coverage. The Nice airport is located right on the Mediterranean so it’s a wonderful way to enter France...although nothing can quite beat stumbling bleary-eyed from your couchette compartment after tossing and turning all night on the overnight train from Paris to see the bluest of skies and the Mediterranean in all its glory and the familiar paysage du midi.

We couldn’t believe the weather on the 25th of January....sunny, blue blue skies and around 20 degrees. We sat on our hotel balcony overlooking the Promenade des Anglais and seriously thought of trying to find the shorts we had packed for April in Italy. Instead we cracked open a bottle of rosé de Provence from the mini-bar.

Everyone at the university where Jim is teaching is very nice and the university is quite pleasant. However, it is located in an area of industrial parks and big box stores - a bit of a shock after the charm of Nice. We have found a wonderfully charming village on the ocean called Carqueiranne which is only about a 15 minute drive to the university. We have fallen in love with this village, the people, and the way of life.

We began in the ground floor of a villa with the owners upstairs. We had a beautiful garden all to ourselves. They’ve been terrific - so friendly, inviting us up for drinks and appies. I mentioned I liked flowers so she ordered some special flowers for me from a friend who is a grower. She also gave us gifts of her home made lemon wine and orange marmelade made from the oranges and lemons in her garden. This is the season for oranges and lemons and it’s really neat to see all the trees laden with fruit. All the little villages have their flower festivals. Right now all the Mimosa (Acacia) trees are in bloom - beautiful yellow flowers a little like our broom.

We did find the lower level a little cool and we were hoping for a sea view so we did find a great modern apartment (we control the heat!) right in the port. The village is still very close and there are lots of interesting little shops and restaurants here as well.

We’ve had some wonderful meals - fish soup with rouille, mussels, fabulously fresh shrimp and prawns, various local fish and of course the usual wonderful free range chicken, eggs, wonderful lamb and pork - all the veg and fruits taste so fresh and “of the earth”. The markets have been really fun and we’ve some great cheeses from farms and saucage to die for.

We’ve also had a great time at flea markets. We really scored in adding five more water bottles for pastis to our collection and some neat French popular music from the 60’s. Jim tend to ferrat out smelly old books....
(to be cont'd)

The last of the quicktime movies from our trip. I have decided I don't really like taking video on trips...too much of a hassle worrying about the camera and lugging it around. Give me my lightweight still camera anyday. My son is pleased because he gets to borrow it indefinitely. This one is of our hotel in Siena. We arrived in Siena after a miserable day driving from Florence (almost didn't find our car after parking it on the outskirts of Florence for 6 days), got on the freeway to Rome rather than Siena and made bad choices about getting on the right road, Jim insisted I drive after my contant nagging about going too fast and passing dangerously, then fumed while I poked along behind a slow truck all the rest of the way into Siena. Those of you who travel know those kinds of days well. And we were expecting to get ripped off in one of the most popular hill towns in Tuscany.

We landed up in this fabulous old hotel with a room with a wonderful view of the Tuscan hills and a super back garden. The rate wasn't cheap but included breakfast and dinner. The dinners were wonderful and we sampled some great wines from the region. It was a real old style hotel and we felt completely pampered...just what we needed for three days and it was an excellent base to explore the area.

The music is Tino Rossi's "Viene, Viene" ...our theme song while driving through Italy.

roomwithaview.mov

Our hotel in Siena

I've made a quicktime movie that begins with our apartment in the port of Carqueiranne and then footage of the Thursday market. Shopping at the local weekly market is a total highlight of living in France. The day I did this there was a Mistral blowing and you get a good idea of the wind and also of the village of Carqueiranne. The market is spread over the main street and square. Although we're often in shirtsleeves in Feb/Mar in the south of France, that particular day was a little chilly. The music is Tino Rossi singing La Méditerranée.

Today's entry is for all my friends who love travelling in France...enjoy!

market.mov
The weekly market in Carqueiranne with the Mistral blowing.

A month today we'll be on our way to live for two months in the wonderful little village of Carqueiranne. I've posted some video footage in a small quicktime movie.

Carquieranne.France.mov

A taste of Carqueiranne

Merry Christmas everyone! Just taking a little break...turkey's cooked, gravy is made, Richard did the vegetables. Jim and Richard are having their Christmas chess game. Our very dear friends, Don and Elaine, will arrive in about an hour. We're all really looking forward to having a quiet Christmas together and remembering family, friends, and being thankful for being so blessed.

Today is a Christmas present for our dear friend, Monique. I took this video footage when we met her mother and her friend, Roger, in the south of France this past winter. It had been many years since we saw Jacqueline but we all had the feeling no time had passed and we so enjoyed meeting again. We hope to host them at our apartment in Carquieranne this coming winter.

UncadeaupourMonique.mov

One of the highlights of Christmas time in my childhood home was when my father brought home the wooden box of Japanese oranges...a tremendous treat we looked forward to all year long.



old Japanese orange box label

We're all booked for France...flights, car, apartment. We decided to go back to our apartment in the port of Carqueiranne. I'm thinking of that wonderful fresh fish I bought off the fishboats already...who knows...perhaps this time when I paint them they won't turn out red, blue, and yellow!
So, we'll be seeing this sign quite a bit very soon.

Autoroute entrance to Marseilles

I started reading "The Good Women of China" by Xinran. These stories were compiled by a radio journalist in China from 1989 who hosted a radio call-in show, during which she invited Chinese women to speak on the air about their lives. "Words on the Night Breeze" became famous throughout the country for its unfliching portrayal of what it meant to be a woman in modern China.

Now, is this a "Chinese thing"...to take a sad tale that stretches credibility anyway and then just for good measure throw in even more incredulity and melodrama?

The first story is called "The Girl who Kept a Fly as a Pet" and is based on a box of letters and journal entries mysteriously left at the radio station. A young girl begins to be sexually abused by her father at the age of 11. The father tells her her mother doesn't like her so she must not tell her mother or she will be jealous of her. Eventually the mother does find out but lets the situation continue to save the family's honour. The girl begins to deliberately injure herself and make herself sick so she can spend time in the hospital and be away from her father's abuse. So far, so good in terms of believability.

Then, one day when the girl is in hospital she feels a baby fly crawl up her legs and she is pleased to be so lovingly caressed in this way that she builds a little nest for the fly and keeps it as a pet. Still, not totally beyond the realm of the credible. The baby fly is squashed so then the girl befriends a large fly in her room and tries to protect it. This fly is eventually squashed. The girl becomes desperate and since she knows flies carry disease she squashes another fly into a wound which becomes infected and then she dies.

But this seemingly isn't enough. While in the hospital she has befriended a young woman with rheumatoid arthritis who was an orphan but was supported by her village to reach the achievement of being a cadre of the military. While on a walk outside the hospital our young girl sees a man and woman doing something she doesn't understand and reports to hospital staff that a man is trying to kill a woman. This was her friend who was making love with her boyfriend. They are both arrested and the young woman refuses to say her boyfriend was raping her. The boyfriend commits suicide. The young woman loses her position in the military and is marched back in shame to her village where she, of course, becomes completely ostracized.

Just a little over top don't you think. It doesn't make me inclined to read any more!

And one more time...



Sunrise

I'll try once again to post this painting.



Sunrise