The Castagnet children

Two recently completed portraits of my neighbour's children. I messed up the little boy and had to rework it from a photograph. Hate doing that but sometimes it's necessary. The one of the little girl was done from life and captures her slightly naughty yet charming personality.

Spring

The cows finally emerged from their barns this week. The nights are still crisp and a fire in the grate very welcoming, but the days are gloriously sunny. Snowdrops have been replaced by shy violets and daffodils in the woods.

Between Gym Tonique, my stretch class, speed walking three times a week for a heart study program in Toulouse, and walking the dogs, I am getting a fair amount of exercise. For an annual fee of 60 euros a year (about 80 dollars US) I participate in the state sponsored exercise classes four times or more a week.

I just cannot understand the resistance so many Americans have to a national health system. According to The New York Times, the French have the best medical care in the world, and it's universal.

Fame

I gave up a fairly successful career as an illustrator and portraitist in New York to come and live full time in in this small cottage in France. I tell my friends that I committed financial and professional suicide by doing this, yet I have no regrets.

I subscribe to Robert Genn's bi-weekly internet newsletter, and a few days ago, fame and celebrity were his subject. Two quotes made an impression on me:

Winslow Homer noted, "The most interesting part of my life is of no concern to the public."

Henry Miller wrote that art's purpose is to transform the artist. An idea is absorbed by the body's cells, digested, and worked through his entire system, after which the artist is transformed like a butterfly, but the art itself is like dung. He was embarrassed to give his books to people because they were dung.

I think I want to become a butterfly.

Things are never quite as they seem...

Two days after I booked my ticket to Zimbabwe and South Africa, my house sitters informed me that they had just been offered a gig in Greece and were leaving.

After a total meltdown as I feared I wouldn't be able to find anyone else to look after the animals and would have to forfeit my ticket, I received an email from Opodo, my internet travel agency, informing me that they had annulled my ticket as the price had increased before they could process my credit card.

As my dogs had been accused of killing some sheep and there was to be a tribunal of sorts, I resigned myself to staying in France to make amends, only to find out the other day that another pair of black and white dogs had been seen harassing cows. Mine have been under lock down ever since the incident, so it seems that they are innocent after all. A huge relief.

Meanwhile I have decided to focus on my book, take part in a sixteen week French government health study that involves several hours of speed walking a week, and tackle a little self discipline on several other fronts which need attention.

My garden is full of small white snowdrops and daffodils and tulips have pushed themselves out of the ground. Life could be a lot worse.

Blast from the past