Le pique-nique
8 x 10 felt pens on paper - May/01

Lettre de Provence #3 cont'd

le 11 mars 2002

Carqueiranne, France
Searching desperately for peanut butter today - no luck. Funny how certain cravings come after you’ve been travelling a while. I looked forward to and enjoyed immensely a McDonald’s meal. We went mainly because we wanted to eat before we saw a 7pm film. It still does amaze me that no other restaurant other than McDonalds serves a meal before 7pm in the evening...but then Hyeres is a fairly small town and it isn’t the tourist season. I also wouldn’t mind a pizza like we get at home. It can be quite good here but it is different and they seem to be obsessed with “feu au bois” (woodburning ovens) for pizza. Most of them don’t have an open fire so you don’t get the smoke taste - it mainly seems to serve the function of burning half the crust. Even the travelling vans that make pizza have their woodstove. It’s funny to see smoke streaming out the roof. All adding to the various smoke by burning around here - some farm related and a year round forest fire problem because of the lack of rain. Saw the Canadairs out the other day. Along with the pollen of mimosas and other things it does make it somewhat irritating for the eyes. I did manage to replicate a home-made hotdog - my hamburgers were not a success.

We did see two good films, “Amen” (a new Costa Brava film) and “M. Patignole”. Both about the second world war. Seems to be a popular subject for the French. I’ve become quite fascinated by these “campaniles” - the wrought iron bell towers on top of so many towers and steeples here. Some are extremely ornate, although I am more attracted to the simple ones. I got a very good book from the library on them. I was quite interested to see that some designs are taken directly from nature. They showed a picture of the shell of a fruit (pavot?) and it was the same design as the campanile. I did one today. I was quite pleased with it; however, mine will never manage to be symetrical. I guess they’ll be like the carpets that are never squate as only Allah is perfect.

12 mars, 02

I’ve done 20 paintings now and am running out of white paint and need some more brushes. The three brushes I have can’t quite manage a lot of stuff I’d like to do. I have pictures and ideas for future paintings to last me for years. Perhaps I’ll even be inspired by local subjects when I get home.

Very close to us is an area where they do wind surfing and “kite boarding” (they use the English name for this although the wind surfing is called “surf voile”). It’s very colourful to see and the kite boarding is amazing to watch. It’s like snowboarding with a large kite so they get airborne and do flips and stuff. I bought a magazine on it and it seems they do it in the snow as well. I hope to render it in a painting. I surprised myself by doing cyclists on the path along the coast. It turned out quite well. I even did one of a group of brightly coloured motorcycles we saw in St. Tropez. These are all attractive subjects for me because of the bright colours. Even the non-racing cyclists seem to wear the multicoloured racing gear here. This cycling path is wonderful for people and it gets a lot of use. I believe it goes along the coast from Marseilles to St. Tropez. There are breaks in it but the coastal road is safe for cyclists too. People are driving pretty reasonably.
It’s interesting to see the differences in packaging. I’m pleased to see recycling depots in many places. In one sense the French have always recycled with the habit of taking baskets for shopping, getting table wine in their own bottles, etc. Also, cleaning products refills come in plastic sacs so lots of plastic bottles get reused with very little garbage from the package. In another sense the packaging is very wasteful. So much is packaged in small quantities. Even when you think you are buying a large size, often there are lots of little packages in it - rather like unwrapping Russian dolls. I guess concerns about freshness and a lack of storage in cupboards and fridges drives this. Although they do have sales with a price reduction, the best sales (for food especially) are usually something like “buy 2 get one free”. And the 3 items are shrinkwrapped together, always. Pricewise we aren’t really spending anymore than at home since wine and cheese are much cheaper (major items for us!)

Restaurants often mark up wine 3 to 4 times yet food, especially if you order from the 3 course menu items seems a much better value than Canada. In fact, I can’t quite see how they do it. To give you an idea, we had a lunch in a good restaurant with a view of the port for $27 each (all tips and tax included). I had a warm goat cheese salad to start (ingredients would have cost around $5), then lamb chops ( the four chops would have been $12 and then there were also veg which aren’t cheap around here, but very good and fresh by the way), fresh strawberry pie for dessert ($6 to buy in a pastry shop). So, I would have paid close to $27 myself...go figure!