101 From France with Love

This painting is a self portrait of me a couple of years ago when I had viral meningitis,(that itself is another story) but what I want to focus on is the book that I am reading in this acrylic on board artwork, this painting which was bought by a psychiatrist funnily enough. Anyway the book is called “From France with Love” and is written by my dear friend Nadine Williams.

We have been friends ever since she did a story about me in the South Australian daily newspaper The Advertiser where she had been a Senior Journalist for the last 20 years.

Over the years I have lost count of the number of times I have been interviewed, both as a model and an artist and I have meet lots of great reporters, but Nadine was really someone special and we immediately struck up a great friendship.

I think I liked her right away because she is such a warm hearted person, another generation up from myself but very young in her thinking, with an open mind and knowledgeably in just about every subject having dwelt into stories from around the globe at some stage or another. Now Nadine has had some amazing things happening in her life lately. Firstly she fell in love with a wonderful Frenchman Olivier Foubert. He is quite the business man in his own right being the man behind the famous ‘Caleche by Colette Foubert ‘label, with a wicked sense of humour for a soft spoken very French kind of guy. He totally cracks me up with his sly and dry remarks!

Nadine decided to write about their love story with ‘baggage’ as she calls it, love in mature years and all that entails, and including a road trip in France. The book became a best seller and the rest of course is history, as the book has now been optioned for a movie by acclaimed film producer Peta Astbury. Peta shopped the possible film around Cannes recently, with quite a bit of interest, ”as there seems to be a gaping hole in the market for films targeted at baby boomers”, she says.

Nadine and I have been on this website journey together as our websites were being designed at the same time, both of us with no knowledge in the world of the web or even with technology as our long suffering husbands know. However, never say never, because here we both are making quite an inroad on the net and getting some very good traffic numbers too.

So perhaps you may like to check out Nadine’s site, she is writing hers in a magazine style, offering up a regular blog on the delights of the French Kitchen, as well as covering everything from women’s issues, spirituality and sexuality, yes you will find articles on all matters, love, loss, relationships, family dynamics and divorce, gossip and book and movie reviews. The age group she is aiming for is the 50 – 100 but I know it would appeal to a younger audience too.

So check it out www.nadinewilliams.com.au

Nadine and Ollie

But hey, don’t forget to come back and visit me too lol.

Here is a quote I like from writer Katherine Mansfield:

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only for wallowing in.”

Till next time,

Love Marie (c)

(As you can see the book I painted and the one Nadine is holding in the photo below looks quite different, well that is because they changed the book cover for the second edition.)

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