One of the really neat things when travelling out of the summer season is seeing things in nature that you hadn't seen before. When we arrived in January the Mimosa (or Acacia) trees were in full bloom and were just fabulous. The downside is that these trees are so prolific in the area they cause eye infections for a lot of people. And when you add all the burning of slash related to farming and the fact that the French are still smoking like fiends....it's a triple whammy. The Mimosa branch is in one of the many pastis water bottles we collected at flea markets when we were there. We had a lot of fun finding these and pastis is so typical of the area. It also never seems to taste any good outside of the south of France. The flea markets were also great for book browsing and people watching.

Mimosa Branch in Pastis 51 Pitcher

Twisted Pines and Mimosa Trees

Mimosa Trees in Winter

I really loved seeing the old colourful wooden fishing boats that were in every port, even some nestled beside big fancy yachts in places like St. Tropez. I named the open ones after the main characters from Pagnol's Manon des Sources. We saw this film again on French TV when we were there. What a perfect film to see when you're in Provence.


Wooden fishing boats - Port of Sanary


Wooden fishing boats - Port of Giens

Hello everyone. I'm going to use this space to post my art, photos, quicktime movies, and random scribblings. This is the first painting I did in France. I bought the fish direct from the fisherman just as he came into the port.The fish were excellent to eat and didn't quite look like what the painting turned out to be in the end. I kept wanting to add more colour than was really there. I'm sure there probably are fish this colour somewhere in the Mediterranean...
I've also included a painting I did of the port

Enjoy and send me email with your comments!



Mediterranean rock fish on a provencale tablecloth


Port of Carqueiranne