Getting the picture

Lunch with Artist - Beryl Martin.

Beryl Martin is a water colourist. She's quite modest because we have had to delve to discover the range and extent of her work of many years. There is an example of her art hung in the Australian National Gallery, Canberra - although she won't necessarily tell you. We know her work well because she is the mother of dear friends whose home is alive with her water colour depictions of flowers, still life and landscapes. We also own two lovely paintings of Beryl's that were sadly too large to bring on board Zofia.

Since Beryl lives in Adelaide, we were eager to catch up with her. It's been a couple of years since we'd last seen her. Now aged 89 she's less mobile so we were easily slotted into her social schedule and we had hired the 'bunkie' in large part to make this visit possible.

My photo's, complete with reflection of the flash (lol!) barely do justice to Beryl's work.

..... but you get the picture!

Only recently returned from a successful exhibition in Brisbane, Beryl was delighted when the Bloke asked if there might be any paintings that she'd consider selling to us. She zapped up the hallway with her walking frame at high speed, sniffing a sale.

It was not framed when we saw it but one of Beryl's depictions of Coffin Bay, where we had passed through only a few months ago, made our hearts sing. A quick call to her picture framer Murray around the corner, ensured that we would be able to protect and hang our new 'Beryl' with minimum delay.

A hearty lunch of Avgolemeno soup prepared by Beryl augmented by cheese, fresh bread and wine brought by us, was was enjoyed amid much mirth and story telling over a couple of hours before we had to tear ourselves away to meet up briefly with 'Marvelous Miles' and wife Steph at The Grange in Glenelg.

 We probably should have taken the photo BEFORE lunch!

Marvelous Miles had a new sausage roll for the Bloke to sample

The girls finished off the 'red' while the Bloke delivered Miles to his flight back to Port Lincoln.

A great day enjoyed by all and topped off with a two hour white knuckle drive, mostly through zigzagging hilly terrain, in the dark and pouring rain on the way back to the Marina. Phew, so glad we made it back in the bunkie!