Introducing Anita

Not far from us there is a spa town called La Roche Posay ( or as one of our lovely guests called it La Posh Rosay! ), anyway this town is a national centre for the treatment of skin conditions, making use of the spa water, which you can also drink.  People from all round the country are sent for the "cure" and stay for three weeks or more.  Naturally at some point they want to get out and about to explore and one day this resulted in a lady called Anita arriving to have a look round Mark's studio.  We chatted to her and Mark did a demonstration on the wheel and she very kindly bought one of his stoneware bowls.  Away she went and we said "what a nice lady" and never expected to see her again.

The next day Anita rang - could she possibly come to the studio again to buy another bowl?  Of course, I said, never being one to turn people away!  So the day after that she came again and regaled us with all sorts of stories about her visits the day before, to restaurants - where she had talked about us, to tourist information centres where she had talked about us ........ oh yes and she very kindly brought us a jar of soup from her region of France ( remind me to tell you the "big" soup story - in fact there are two and might be three, who would have thought that soup would be so interesting! ).

In we go to the studio and Anita chose another bowl and then went to look at Mark's paintings - he does all sorts of things with optical illusions and lighting so another demonstration, after which Anita asks the price of a few of them.  And bought one!  After that introduction, please meet Anita posing with her painting and Mark.  Thank you Anita!

PS That wasn't the last time we saw Anita - a couple of days later she rang and asked if she could come to lunch and we said "yes, of course".  And since then she has sent us a selection of photos that she took here, including the one above.
For those of you interested in bespoke headwear, the creation Anita is wearing came from a local craft market.