drat that fly!

you wouldnt think that you would get flies here in november but as angela was standing in the doorway telling me the latest gossip about her family ( which i am sorry to say i only understand part of- like the part where she makes a gun with her hand, points it at me and goes "bang". ) a big black fly flew in the door. all summer everyone has net curtains hanging across the doorways to keep flies out , but now my one is tied in a large knot out of the way and so that it doesnt get tangled up with the electric cables in high winds.

so now having chased this fly all over the studio, after taking ten mins to find my fly swatter i am hiding in my office with the door shut.

just opened the door to peer out and its in here again. can flies be suicidal ? or am i just attractive to them?

now i am trying to ignore it. but its hard to ignore that nasty buzzing noise.

today was market day in the village so there were lots of people about and lots of noise. i have finished my present commissions so am trying to decide what to do next. do i make lots of little paintings and hope people will buy them for christmas presents or make a few bigger ones, more expensive , or do something completely different.

i find that plans are good for giving an illusion of control and industry but here they rarely work out in the way i expect. but must go create some illusions . ( got that fly!!)

friday and the ape' did it again

cold and damp here today , especially inside. i hate winter here. am wearing 5 layers of jumpers etc plus a hat and scarf and i am still chilly. i should say that is in my studio. it is normally warmer outside. i know there is snow and blizzards in britain but i have obviously got acclimatised here. but enough moaning about the cold and on with the story.
last night i went to the doctors here in the village. i had an appt. at 6.15. i went into the surgery eventually at 9pm. to be fair once i got in i could have as much time as i needed with the doc , which is one of the reasons for the long wait as so can everyone else and there were 15 people there before me.
its all very sociable and to be honest nobody looked very ill and the majority were very cheerful. i wish i could somehow video just a little of the time spent there. i think its maybe like a lot of italian life where every time people get together its a social event. all ages from teenage boys to old men wearing trilbies, old ladies dressed in black, young married couples and children. people come and go all the time but usually someone knows who s next in the queue. however i will be taking a book next time!!
so having spent three hours in a little room surrounded by people speaking dialect, so understood very little i was more than relieved to get out and get in my ape' to drive home.( an ape' is a little 50cc truck which i can drive without a licence) ten minutes later i was sitting in the pitch dark on a country road with no lights. they just went off and i ran into the edge. my ape' has a history of breaking down, bits falling off etc. so was obliged once my eyes had adjusted to the dark to drive in first gear about 100 metres to stop opp. a house with an outside light. for some reason i had put a small led torch on a head band( which i am wearing in profile pic) in my handbag. so feeling very intrepid i got it out. my first attempt at wearing it only lit up the cab so i got out, and managed to tye it on to the window wiper where it shone almost as brightly as the headlight had done. reached home 5 mins later without meeting any other cars and feeling more than a little fraught but rather pleased with my ingenuity.
i am planning to sell my ape' as i now have a cute little three wheeler car, which i earnestly hope will not cause me the amount of problems that i have had with this vehicle. but having driven it for about 3 years i have had a lot of adventures in it.

end of the summer

been way too busy to write here all summer as i surprisingly sold about 60 paintings averaging about 30 euros each. since then all my transport has broken down so after getting scooter fixed and ape' fixed am now penniless ( more or less again). thanks to my good neighbour angela i wouldnt starve as most days she delivers food from on high, ( her balcony above) by means of string and a carrier bag , but it would be comforting to have a regular income of some sort.
this week i am working on a portrait from a great photo of a really pretty girl with lots of swirly hair and what a treat that is being. am also painting a second larger painting of a view of the village which was commisioned so i will get paid.
once i work out how to put photos on this i will display what i have been painting as well as anything else i think might be interesting, but not portraits cause they are personal.
i spend a lot of time in my studio alone so am partly writing this so that i have to go out to find interesting things to write about and not turn into a strange lonely wild eyed artist, well perhaps not that bad, but have heard on the radio that if you dont get out and meet people on a regular basis then you may get ill. its something about hormones or similar that you cant get from a computer. and i would like to be healthy as far as possible. also have noticed that just walking up the street and saying ciao and buon giorno to people really makes me feel good. also to touch on "my life as a story" i love being called signora. its so very not scottish and rather romantic and interesting, which is what i have always dreamt of being but never really thought i would acheive. but now i must go finish these paintings so that i can get paid. it may be true that money does not buy you happiness but not having enough matters.