on our way home to Reading

We are on our way back after a hectic fortnight in Céret. Eurotunnel on Tuesday, although we are in Dieppe now and could make it tomorrow and pay a little surcharge on our tickets.

We have purchased all the furniture in the house which will make the move much easier in October. We negotiated a job lot for the entire house contents!

I have left my motorbike in the garage, (it's got a disc brake lock on it to stop it being moved), and we have seen a notaire, so he can sign the final documents in about 6 weeks, without us.

The odd thing is that this house is so far removed from what we looked at last year; places with loads of spare rooms, gardens, drop dead gorgeous views of the mountains. We did this to get the right location in the heart of the art market, along with all the other artists working there. And to keep Carol happy and not have any reason to sell up in Reading, no financial pressures at all. 

We do get a view of the mountains behind Céret, although it is over roof tops, but the front and back of the house are just so easy to miss, unless the garage doors are folded fully back to show the inside space. This is because the frontage is a mere 3.4m wide….and opposite the bread shop. The road is also very narrow, just one car width.

So we will do what all the other artists in Céret do; we shall have posters and information displayed in the various info spots and cafes etc, and a small metal sign in the nearby market square, and in the nearest restaurant square, just a hundred yards away.

I am now trying to figure how best to use the incredibly small gallery space - just a single garage space. If pressed for space and the art venture is good with lots of clients buying my work, then I may share a gallery with Denis Ribas, a very successful artist selling internationally. We had lunch with him, and he is charming, a little eccentric, and Catalan French. Take a look at Denis' website  www.denisribas.com . Denis will be very useful to me; already he introduced me to the man who does his marketing and promotions in the south of France, and who shot the film of Denis on his website. The photographer and marketing man (whose name I have forgotten) has his shop just around the corner from us. I quite like Denis' style and the fast way he works, wet on wet.

The other artist who will be a great friend and source of help is Matthew Wright - he has a UK based website www.matthewwright.co.uk and sells stuff in London when he is not in Céret, but usually spends a long summer in France, at least. Both these artists are using a poppy seed oil based paint made by Charvin, so I may change my supplies accordingly.

There is apparently a very international community of Europeans living there, so we are looking forward to meeting more people. There is a tennis club with three courts in Céret, and a swimming pool, and a rugby club, all good opportunities for socialising.

Next year the museum of modern art is putting on a huge Picasso exhibition, and is in the process of enlarging its gallery space to do so. So we hope there will be more art lovers and art buyers coming.

I am keen to get back home and start painting again to have enough stock for the summer season next year. And I must get started printing my own greetings cards like Matthew does. It helps to have stuff for sale for €3 a pop for a card, so that folk stop and browse further in.