Christmas Eve- it's here...

Christmas caution

Rignac under snow

Could be a Christmas card...lovely from afar, but pretty chilly in reality. I took this shot on the road down from Roumegouse. As I gingerly made my way down the hill, I passed a couple waiting for the tow truck. Their car lay on its side in a ditch. Pretty slithery conditions. Thabo and Sam having a blast.

Red Lady

I am starting a series of large paintings loosely based on sketches from the Monday life drawing evening. I haven't painted for myself for years, and find it strangely constraining, after railing for years against editors and art directors who demanded changes in my illustrations. Perhaps I need a weight/force to work against, and feel adrift without it.

Anyway I have started, and interestingly enough, seem to be picking up from where I left off at art school decades ago: a fascination with large robustly charged women.

The Opium Den

Every night Sam disappears at about 10:30 or 11. I used to get in my car and try to find him. Once or twice I found him chilling his heels in a cage in Rocamadour or Gramat. He has chewed his way through three leashes and two collars. I replace the tag with my phone number on his collar very other day, though this is hardly necessary as everyone within a 20 kilometer radius of Rignac seems to know Sam now from his "Perdu!" posters.

Who knows where he goes but he is home in the morning, once with a suspiciously bloody mussel and this morning with a limp. He then spends the day recuperating in what used to be the Art Gallery, but now is referred to as the Opium Den.

Mysterious bearer of goodies in Rignac

About a month ago, I found this little rose bush, wrapped up and be-ribboned, and a homemade nut cake on my kitchen table. Still don't know how they got there, but a neighbour told me last week that the same thing happened to her a few years ago, and she still doesn't know who our secret benefactor is...