Dream Car - Fiat 500 watercolour sketch

La Bianca - pen & watercolour

I've been wondering how I am going to get to Provence for my two week painting holiday this month. Anyone who has tried to plan a train journey from Tuscany to Avignon, France will have a fair idea of the problems. Of course I could drive, if I wasn't absolutely terrified of the Italian Autostrada and if our old Mitsibishi would make it.

Anyway, since I first laid eyes on the revamped Fiat 500 or cinquecento, as she's called here in Italy, I've been in love. Now La Bianca and I are an item.

Anyone who wants to follow us to Provence - not too closely, please - should follow the blog, Four Go Painting in Provence.

Sweet eh?

Look out America, the Fiats are Coming!

Fiat 500s passing under my window. They might be small but they're feisty.

And there's more where those came from!

You'll love the new model.

Meantime I'm still trying to make quick, spirited sketches (and wishing I had a Cinquecento)

Anna's Car

My year of art is off to a very slow start, but visitors from home are a lovely distraction.

When we first arrived in CF, Snowy and I were nearly bowled over by a little Fiat 500 held together, it seemed, by packing tape. As it passed us in the narrow street and careered around a bend, the driver's door flew open and an elegant arm reached out and casually caught it. Without, it seemed, even coming to a stop it was thrown into reverse and screeched back into a tiny parking spot. I was fascinated by its driver, an intensely elegant dark haired woman waving a cigarette around as she slammed the door and swept off up the street. Eighteen months later we now know that this is Anna's car and that she is the charming proprietor of a very classy boutique a few doors down the street from our apartment. Today Snowy and I don't even flinch when a car bowls past with barely an inch to spare.