Changing times

I've been sitting in front of the laptop reflecting on news which has stunned me over the past week. The owners of the St Davids Studio Gallery in Pembrokeshire are calling time after this year. The future of the gallery is uncertain, it may continue, but it will be hard to recapture the warm relationship I've enjoyed with the owners over the past 11 years. The laptop remains untouched - there's no solution there.
More usefully I can start to plan for an exhibition of my work at the gallery at the end of the summer.
Now that my thoughts turn to new images for paintings I'm energised.

Meanwhile behind me the cat is doing what cats do!

August.

August. Oil on canvas.

Painted in France in 2003 and sold by St Davids Studio Gallery,Pembrokeshire to a woman living in Oxfordshire whom I'm never likely to meet - I like the strangeness of this.

Marimekko

In 1969 I used to pass the Marimekko shop in Jyväskylä almost daily, It was only a few hundred yards from our apartment.  It was winter in Finland when we arrived and I chose the one hour of daylight to push the pram through the snow to shop for the evening meal. In the long dark days with the monochrome landscape Marimekko became a beacon of colour. I went in often. I made curtains for the living room, bold blocks of white, bright yellow and shocking pink, and dresses of stunning blues and greens.
It's good to reflect on that time. If I have any worry now that leaving the bright colours of the South of France will adversely affect my paintings - I can forget it. My head has always been full of colour. After all, the designers at Marimekko managed it - brilliantly.
I still trawl through the Marimekko websites and look at all the designs I remember from that time.
More recently memories have come flooding back. I have been given two small beautiful Marimekko eggcups, as a gift from my son. Not normally an egg lover, I now start each day with a boiled egg. I can't resist the pleasure I get from just using them.

Wind and rain

The wind has been battering the house and it's raining heavily. With luck we may escape the snow this year. Over Christmas in Germany, as if by order, we had snow. Plenty of it just two days after Christmas. That felt different. We couldn't go far but we could walk to the restaurant in the evening and walk by the river, and we were on holiday so nothing really mattered. It was a bonus.When we stood on the balcony to watch the fireworks welcoming in 2015 the trees and houses were still covered in snow. It was magical.

I haven't resumed work yet. I am anxious to get back to the studio and start painting. Next week hopefully.