Monte Amiata

Here are four more ready paintings for my exhibition (which I know I've shown before on this blog), but, at least, they have dry paint! I am now working on two canvases, which I'm trying hard to finish by the time we set off from here in SW France, on Monday the 30th February. They may well turn out to be a bit of a problem with smeary paint surfaces in Robert's car and he won't be happy if he finds blobs of oil paint inside it, after our journey to London.

Where I live in Tuscany, we are very near Tuscany's highest mountain, Monte Amiata where you can even ski in the winter ... well, it's a bit rough going for the smart set, but it's wonderfully located in the woods, and has a great little bar at the top where you can eat grilled sausages and have hot wine, before slithering down the so-called black run. Then you can have a glass of grappa at the bottom to recover. I love it!

I have a fascination with Amiata,  dominating the sky, as you look south from Montisi. Its colours change from season to season and according to the time of day. It also has weather forecast properties, in that you can see a change of weather coming in from the Mediterranean side of its slopes.  We used to live in Rapolano Terme, where the old people told us that if you see Monte Amiata with its hat on, it's time to take an umbrella ….. and invariably this turns out to be correct. So many times I knew we would most likely not be flying in the morning, because of Amiata having put its hat on.