More Christmas cards from the archives, and a couple of paintings

Last week has flown by, and it’s time to post a few more of my oid Christmas cards. I have received a few emails from people who have kept my cards in a box over the years, which is touching. Knowing that they have been safely hoarded elsewhere I hope I will be able to solve the mystery of the card for 2001; there is a possibility that we were working away from home and I was unable to design one in time, so perhaps I sent bought cards instead.  It’s a shame if that’s the case, for I have missed an opportunity to use Graham’s favourite film 2001 as inspiration……..maybe I will do one anyway just for fun. Hmmmm, when?

Anyway, here is the card for year 1997:

 

 

year 1998:

 

 

the same card opened

 

 

year 1999, the year Gem aged 12, survived a horrid car accident. We were looking after a friends dog for a few days, I was out walking the 3 of them when they suddenly decided to pack and took off after the scent of something. Tessie and Kelly returned, but Gem did not. We searched everywhere well into the night, there was no sign of her. There was still no sign of her next day; in the afternoon rather belatedly I rang around all the vets, just in case, and discovered a dog answering to her description, we raced into Bergerac, and there she was poor thing, lying with her back leg broken in 3 places and internal injuries. She had been brought in by the firemen who had attended the accident on the main road to Perigueux, over a mile away from the house. The vets had done nothing to help her, because they didn’t know if she was owned by anyone, so she had lain there injured and suffering.   To cut a long story short, we gave the go-ahead to operate and they pinned her leg together, and we took her home a couple of days later. She was hit by a car travelling at 50 kph, and because she was small she had rolled under the car between the wheels and popped out the back. How she survived nobody knows , the car was a right-off ( well done Gem!). I hasten to add the driver was not injured at all, thank goodness, it could have been nasty. He said he thought it was a wild boar , He said he thought it was a wild boar, I suspect he was rather disappointed that the supper he was hoping to feast on turned out to a skinny slip of a dog.

 

 

 

It was also the year when throughout the summer we lost all our chickens numbering about 20 to pine martens. We were left with one cockerel, who decided to leave home in search of female company, which resulted in him staying with our neighbour René’s chickens. The cat population was reduced to 6. So that explains the theme for year 1999:

 

 

 

 

 

 

year 2000, the year of “La tempête”, when our house was flooded out even though we live on a hill! We lost another 2 cats that year:

 

 

 

year 2001 -missing.

UPDATE: It was missing but later on the card was found , Sue Willcox had carefully kept them all, and she looked out the missing card for me. We thought maybe the animals had died that year, as they had wings, then I realised that I had only turned them into angels for festive purposes.Here it is:

year 2002, poor old Tess was no longer with us:

 

 

year 2003: Gem at 15 was becoming hard of hearing:

 

 

 

year 2004: Gem still spritely, she loved running and played ball, however due to her deafness she also slept soundly! We found a kitten of 2 weeks that year and bottle-fed her, she is still with us. I added colour by hand, alas, no examples

 

 

the small painting 10 x 10 cm:

 

 

and another trompe l’œil 50 x 40cm:

 

 

 

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