We arrived in London quite late last night. (well early this morning really) Tired, late and a little brain dead. There was no conversation as we sat side by side in the back of Cyril’s London taxi on the way to the apartment. I dislike arriving in another place at night, I wake up in the morning in a state of disorientation.

So at 7.00 this morning when I woke up, I quickly dressed and put on the orange shoes and off I went for a couple of hours walk. I got back at 9.30 exhausted… but I had located the supermarket, changed money, bought a weekly bus pass and purchased fresh croissants and cheese for breakfast. Most importantly of all I knew just where I was.

Traveling to the airport  was a testing time yesterday.
First we manhandled the luggage down 4 flights of stairs and into the back of our vehicle.
I checked, checked, and checked our route again on the GPS….. Giverny, Monet’s Garden then the airport….. Gees Louise….
The trip from Bayeux to  Giverny was uneventful, the scenery flashed by on either side of the car as we slipped through the French countryside. Green pastures, blue sky, wheat stacks and stone buildings. I just couldn’t stop to photograph, but the memory will always be there.


Giverny is 220 kms from Bayeux so it was late morning when we arrived. The car park was filling fast and there were already queues to get in to the famous Monet’s Garden and also for the important task of buying ones gold plated lunch…
$10 for a dry hot dog… no thanks, I ate a croissant, "can you add some ham please" so I
purchased a croissant and a piece of ham for $10
AU.
The gift shop was enticing and I loved the colors…. specially the china and linen.!!!

Claude Monet, born in Paris in 1840 lived at Giverny for more than 40 years. He first rented the property… at times he lived a rather sparse life. His talent was recognized in a gradual awakening and he finally earned enough money to purchase the house he loved so much and began to establish the garden by rerouting a river. He selected different hybrids of waterlilies in an effort to get as many different colored flowers as possible, deliberately creating the garden as a motif for his paintings.

His studio is now the gift shop, his art is what I call a household image, but yesterday one of his painting reached a huge price .

Record $85m gilds lily for Monet market

June 26, 2008

ONE of Claude Monet’s large waterlily paintings yesterday sold for a world record pound stg. 41 million ($84.4 million), heralding a week of London art sales that could raise more than pound stg. 500 million in defiance of the global economic downturn.

An anonymous buyer bought Le Bassin aux Nympheas for what was a record price for the artist at auction and a record for a painting sold at auction in Europe.

It’s spring, the garden is in wake up mode. The poppies had just finished and now a new generation of flowers are about to bloom.

I was inspired by the colors.

Take this poppy for instance.

Look at the range of colors that I was able to extract from the photo…

If you look at the top two photos… you can see how Monet extracted the colors and images for his paintings.

I haven’t got blue in my photo, However, I will add a little tonight with my paint program and see what it looks like…

Want to make a poppy Quilt?

Well, we have the colors and designs right here…

Let me put my thinking cap on and I will see what I can do tonight ….

Off to Westminster Abbey today.

I will add more tonight.