Every year I look forward for Purbeck Arts Week - you can visit artists in their studios, peruse catalogues in louche galleries, handle sculptures carved out of pale driftwood -
Sophie charms the artists - she drifts, smiling, around the Saxon Church hung with tapestries - the eccentric weaver warms to her - she's wearing a beautiful jacket of worn tweed -
One year, we went inside Manor House, in South Street, opposite The Black Bear - Pesvner says it has an outstandingly elaborately carved and shaped doorway - the lead roof of the house is dated 1702 - laurel trees, with dark gleaming leaves, screen the facade - I imagine an antiquary hiding there, in the attics, scribbling secrets in his journal -
But when Sophie and I walked through the high ceilinged rooms, we met instead a fine boned woman, the wife of the artist - he was a former Spitfire pilot, gentle, hawk eyed, fragile -
We tiptoed on Turkish carpets - it felt as though we were passing through a dream - I can remember the painter's smile, calm, enigmatic, his delicate hands - but all else is a smoky memory - when I try to recall the paintings I saw, it is as though I am looking through mottled glass -
I passed by Manor House this morning - some of the laurel trees had been felled - I wondered what had happened to the artist and his wife - a sweet pang of melancholy speared my heart -
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