DebnJon Blog: Tuesday September 29

...and so now it is tomorrow!

Today was another day to be spent exploring areas around the Cotswolds, but we had company. We were met at 'Corner House' by friends Jeannie, daughter of Jon's parents friends and her husband Bruno. Anyway, we had sent them directions on where we were and a devilish part of me rejoiced when they had as much trouble finding 'Corner House' as we did!

Bruno drove and the perspective from the passenger's seat is quite different from being behind the wheel. You also have time to look at and appreciate the country side as you pass through it. A quite different perspective from that of being the navigator for a tourist who is trying to remember to drive on the left, but not too left into the curb or ditch, changing gears and all the roundabouts that require two sets of eyes to make it thru. We visited Chipping Campden and Broadway, both being very picturesque little towns.

Jeannie & Bruno

Very old Market building

One of our stops in CC was a visit to the Robert Welch design studio. Robert Welch is renown for his designs and back in the early 70's, an uncle gave to my sister Susan and myself a pepper mill and told us never to part with it. This particular piece has its place in New York's Museum of Modern Art, and when I told the people at the Welch studio, they were quite amazed and reinforced our uncle's direction to keep it safe....a true collectors' piece!

Jon's peppermill

Jeannie's father was Norman Neasom, a notable artist and principal of the Redditch Art College. The reason I mention this is because Jeannie is following in her father's footsteps and is herself an artist, so a trip anywhere for her includes visits to local galleries and such, and she didn't disappoint. In Broadway, one of the galleries we stopped by had several works worthy of note here. One was a piece by Claude Monet, the sale price being two million pounds/4 mil dollars. Interestingly one could view it from as close as one wished; it was hung on the gallery wall like any other picture and not protected in any way! The other notable works were two small pencil sketches by Picasso, each for sale for 450,000 pounds, a mere million dollars each.