Well, what an evening it proved to be. There were at least 50 mixed French and English people milling about our drive last night with wine and nibbles in hand and I was quite overcome by their appreciation of the event and my paintings - I sold 4 and have reserved another! It was a gloriously sunny evening, but everyone kept in the shade of our old barn where my studio is built. My lovely French doctor brought his artist wife with him, the mayor of the village was there, the creator of the village website and his wife were there and want to put the studio on the site. The freelance journalist who runs the village shop came and took photos. And old Monsieur Dufort from down the road arrived unshaven, filthy dirty in shorts and carpet slippers, grinning inanely but paying a lot of attention to my work and saying that he would be back. I asked how Madame Dufort was and he shook his head and told me that she had taken to her bed for two days. The reason, he claimed, was "flooding" - then indicated the alcohol on the table next to us, saying "too much of that!". There's more, but I won't bore you with any more of an artist's life in downtown Gascony!
On the writing side, I've just had another full-length novel accepted by Robert Hale - my seventh with them. It's set on the islands of St Kilda, circa 1900, and it's called "The Raging Spirit". So, after two stale years I'm back on form again and once I get over my exhaustion of the last couple of weeks leading up to the studio opening I'll be very happy to lose myself in another imaginary world. Today, however, I'm already sinking slowly into the sunset long before it gets over the yard-arm.
Thank heavens the week-long wedding party down the road has finally fizzled out and all is tranquil again. But it was great to see the wedding transport (a huge tractor) trundling and hooting its way through the village with long poles and silver streamers floating out behind it, followed by all the wedding guests in their cars hooting their horns. When it comes to the French country folk they certainly know how to have fun.
