What I've been reading lately.

"The Murder Room" by P.D. James. Up to expectations. What a treat to get another book from her considering her age. She is so wonderful at creating atmosphere.

"Black Bird" by Michel Basilieres. Macabre and very funny story. Very critical of Quebec - I can understand why the author lives in Toronto now. Another one of these very good first novels - how do they do it? The pet crow character is wonderful especially the scene where she plucks out the eye of a very nasty man about to do her harm. The description of the crow swooping behind the ambulance, finding the man's hospital room and standing guard is wonderful. The man who now has one eye wakes up to looking through his remaining eye to see this crow pressing one eye against the hospital window. Only the crow's eye is visible as it is winter and the window is frosty. "A short cawing like laughter is often heard from the crow."

"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. A really fun to read mystery come thriller. Also makes some interesting comments about the validity of what we feel is historical fact. Very cleverly done.

My latest painting...an almost local scene!



Vancouver freighters

I finally got around to painting these chairs I bought at a garage sale quite a while ago.




Carqueiranne harbour


Bandol vinyards

We had a great time with the Horne family from London yesterday. Madeleine and Victoria did some wonderful paintings...wow!


Madeleine's first painting


Madeleine's second painting


Victoria's work in progress


Victoria at work


The raw materials. Picture taken by Richard.

Went to Madrona Farm with a friend who is a longtime neighbour of theirs. Got some wonderful pictures of their sunflowers and veggies. I'll paint something from the pix I took.


Their original sign

Quite a while ago I found these old suitcases in a thrift store for $2 each and thought they'd be good for painting on. Getting paint to stick on this surface is rather difficult so it needed to be a pretty simple design. Also, wanted something from the sixties since they date from that time...so lava lamps seemed to fit the bill.

Been reading a very interesting non-fiction book (yes...I do actually read something from the "real" world from time to time...) called "Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching, and other tales from Newfoundland Fishing Village" by Robert Mellin. The author is an architecture prof who has studied the architecture and culture of an outpost in Newfoundland called Tilting. The old houses in this community are almost like boats in that they are built on wooden foundations so they can be moved or "launched" relatively easily and any porches are called bridges. Very easy on the environment since structures can be re-used and moved easily and if they are left to rot there isn't a cement foundation to mar the landscape until the end of time. We've probably all seen pictures of outports in Newfoundland so I included a picture of a patchwork quilt. I seem to recall having one of these in the family. The ones I remember more were made out of men's suits samples that my mom got from our uncle who ran a men's clothing store. My original scan keeps coming up upside down so am posting two that I played around with in Photoshop.



Quilt done with "crackelature" effect from Photoshop



Quilt done with "cutout effect from Photoshop

Books I've been reading....

"Fox Evil" by Minette Walters. What would summer be without a good mystery....well done as usual.

"Down the Road - Journeys Through Small Town B.C." by Rosemary Neering. Read a few selections before I had to return it. Quite interesting.

"The Photograph" by Penelope Lively. Found it a bit tiresome at times but perhaps it was the heat. Turned out to be quite good in the end.

"The Kalahari Typing School for Men" by Alexander McCall Smith. Very light reading but has an innocent quality of life in Botswana in a simpler time. I see this is the fourth in the series starting with "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency". Will be good to read on a plane.

The new P.D. James, "The Murder Room" arrived today. Looking forward to a good read!

We had a good time in Vancouver and got another nice swim in the ocean. Went to Las Margaritas with our son...wow, what a trendy and popular place...good thing we went early. Food is pretty good. The night before we went to Pastis (on 4th) and had their special menu with wine pairings. They have an interesting collection of pastis pitchers, glasses, etc. Most things on the menu were good but the monkfish course (which is why we were attracted to it since we've had fabulous monkfish or "lotte" as they call it in France) was lousy. Then the red wine they brought for the upcoming course of lamb wasn't very good. We rarely complain but did so and the owner couldn't do enough to satisfy us. He brought us another wine and also gave us the choice of ordering from the regular dessert menu. And, best of all, he gave us two pastis glasses (Ricard brand) for our own collection! We were thrilled with this because we don't have this particular type of glass and we were just talking about how we must get more glasses the next time we go to France since our new tile floor in the kitchen is taking a toll on glassware. We were impressed with the customer service since the place was packed with regulars and probably always is. I can see why with this attention to pleasing the customer.


My mom and son who share the same birthday. My mom will be 90 on the next one!
Not too bad a pix considering I used my mini digital camera. My mom was quite amazed by it.

My friend, Carole, gave me a wooden cube and I had this idea of using it as a planter stand for an olive tree. Apparently Le Coteau farms has these in the Spring and it should grow on my sunny deck. Then I had the idea to have some lavender in the meantime. So, I did four designs (one for each side) with lavender, olive trees, and other Provence type things. The lavender gave me a lot of trouble trying to get something I was pleased with so just let loose...figured anything would be better than what I initially came up with. I liked what I did in the end but except for the first one the purple came out as blue when I scanned them. So, did some hue adjustments with my scaning software but they didn't come out all that well. You'll get the idea at least.


Lavender and sunflowers


Lavender and olive trees


Lavender, olive trees, and cypress


Lavender and poppies
* Colours especially weird in this one...very different from the original.