When I first came to Italy and lived with James we spent almost every Sunday at different antiques markets . He would pack the car on Saturday afternoon and then we would get up about 5am on Sunday morning, summer and winter, and get in the car and drive for at least an hour to the nearest market. It took about 2 hours to set up the gazebo or umbrella , tables and display cabinets and then organise the stock on and in them. Quite often I had paintings to display as well.

Markets were generally fun. We met a lot of interesting people both buying and selling. It was good to belong and I still keep in touch with some of the other stall holders I met.

I also liked exploring and would wander off around the old parts of various cities. Lecce was particularly gorgeous, but Ostuni was very pretty too. Martina Franca had the biggest market. Taranto was the closest until we started doing the market at Matera as well. We got lost every single time we left Matera for the first year so it took as long to get back from as Taranto.

Then there was a period when I did markets by myself in Pisticci , but that was only one Sunday a month.

After that when we didn’t do markets any more and were living in separate houses, very few Sundays would pass without one of us texting the other and saying , ” how about a walk on the beach and then eat at the Esso.” ( Hotel beside the Esso garage) We never had a bad meal or time there. I miss that.

So Sundays are a bit quiet now. It’s a family day here. Most Sundays I plan some work .

Today I didn’t really have a plan.

However I have been wanting to tidy up my work room for a while so I started by moving a set of still lives which I love but nobody else does and used them to cover my paint spattered wall. As a group I like them even more.

I think it looks a bit tidier now. I also rearranged some paintings in my gallery and tried to fix a painting which was bothering me.

Other than that I read about a pain in the neck detective.

I look forward to Monday mornings.

Cheers 🍷🍷