Painting and writing in France

There is no doubt about it, I am suffering from the absence of sunshine.

I await the arrival of the first flower of spring like a bird waiting to migrate……………I keep looking at the sky for a hint. I better concentrate on some writing, this is doing me no good at all.

The dear old iMac, the one that looks like a pumpkin cut in half, is getting a little sad. I keep it because the screen is a comfortable size and it has an old copy of photoshop which I cannot transfer to a later machine, and I’m damned if I am going to fork out the zillions of bobs they demand for the programme nowadays. So I have been shifting through the piles of images stored thereupon. I don’t know if you have ever embarked on that mission, but is soon becomes a hazy meander through lost memories, a honeyed passing of time.

I have been wondering lately why I am here in this small French town not very far from anywhere really, surrounded by friendly folk who have no connection with me whatsoever. Some of my friends, and I can call them friends, close friends some of them, can casually refer to a great grandfather who lived in a house I have passed a thousand times and never really taken note of, which was left to him by his grandfather. They mention this in a casual conversation, perhaps regarding the butcher that used to be in the same street, little caring that they are talking about events that happened two hundred years ago. This fact has no  relevance to their line of thought, it is of no importance if it was yesterday or the century before the last, it is just their daily existence, just part of the fabric that makes up their lives. It is then that I realise I am not from here. I have no memory, direct or passed down that equates to the house down the road that was ………..

So I question myself, do I belong here? Or perhaps, most disturbingly, where do I belong? In fact does it matter? Perhaps not, there are many millions of people who have no roots where they live and a completely content with the fact. I am of that frame of mind, but I still find I am floating in the little bubble where my friends have anchors to the place that can be traced back centuries and I do not.

It was with great joy therefore when I found photos that gave me a sense of belonging and I will drag some of them out to bore you with my memories. This first one is of summertime in France, when it is best to be in the cool of an old building and even better to have a friend bring in a carafe of wine from the sun soaked courtyard. Not long now till summer.

If you want some light reading the local newspaper’s criminal court proceedings take some beating. This week they reported on some guy who used a false identity card and stolen cheque book to buy 15,000€ worth of bits and bobs. In his defence he said he was in need of a few small items. It’s all in the perception I suppose. As a defence it didn’t do him any good, he got two years.

A robber sporting a monster revolver, false moustache and wig was caught after robbing several shops in our local regional centre of Blois by police. They had been watching a suspect closely for some time because of his expertise in this type of crime and on checking his bank account found he made the elementary mistake of paying his takings directly into his bank account after each heist. He should have known better because he was the ex-crime reporter on the regional rag, the Nouvelle Republique. Now I would never dare write that into a book.

Photo:www.all-free-photos.com.

The second book in the Basil Ackroyd’s France -‘Just recompense’ is now available in paperback.
I haven’t even received my copy yet, can’t wait.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1505524288

Well I have joined twitter, what I am supposed to do with it I have no idea. Any ideas?

It is a mistake for me to sit down with nothing to do on a Sunday evening, I usually mess about with something that doesn’t need changing. It was the book covers today.

I am a dyslexic agnostic insomniac and spend most of my nights wondering if there really is a dog.