A trilogy; the three sisters in their respective settings. Eldest in a beautiful and arty cafe, middle in a pub with her friends, me in a bar..
I promised to publish it, the one of me and here it is.
I did enjoy going to the pub as a teenager and young adult.
Funny story about those days in the mid eighties, I met a guy who I became close with and he was a very strong young man and would arm wrestle people in the pub. No one could beat him. A guy called Andy saw this and thought about his mate called Sid who would be a good challenge, So Andy got Sid to wrestle my mate Ian in the pub.
They never got to have that arm wrestle because , well, I got banned from the pub for having a beer fight - several in fact. So we; me, my mate Ian, his mate Richard and our friend Nita all had to troupe off to another pub. We moved from the Hop and Vine to the Spyglass and kettle.
Anyway, this guy Sid who had come to the pub and we'd chatted at the bar, he came back to find me but I'd been banned as I said. But then as fate would have it, many years later, twenty years later actually we met up again. Sid and I became an item for a few years.
I did a watercolour of me and Sid, a while ago now, possibly 15 years ago, I'm not sure where it is, but it was exhibited in Canterbury back then as part of a group show.
Going back to Ian, he was a very strong young man and we were together for a few years in the 1980's. I couldn't shake away the memories of him, he stayed in my heart for a long old time. This is a recent painting I made of him in pastels. A lovely man who used to make me laugh. I fell in love with him.
Ah well, he's gone now but not forgotten.
I came upon the idea of painting cafe scenes by a local proprietor who was thinking about commissioning me to do one. Although that didn't work out, he gave me the idea. So I am on a series of three cafe scenes. One cafe for myself and my two sisters; we're each in our own cafe. I finally got down to doing these, although I haven't got my own one done yet. So, two out of three isn't bad , as they say.
I've enjoyed doing them and they have been extremely challenging and have exhausted me on many occasions. But I have lived to tell the tale of my sisters and their cafes.
Oldest sister setting is an up market very tasteful and artistic cafe, Middle sister's is in fact a pub. And that's her in the middle.
Next is to do my one. Wish me luck