Monsieur et Madame Lacombe

Our friend M has had numerous serious health problems over the last couple of years and is currently staying in a convalescent home. Until he became too ill to do so, he used to paint. During a recent spell in hospital he shared a room with Y, who turned out to know our village and some of its inhabitants well. They hit it off well, making the boredom of hospital much more bearable, and after they were both discharged, Y proposed to organise a small exhibition of some of M's work. So for the last couple of days, working from a list drawn up by Y, S has been trawling the village for paintings by M which were given to various people.

It was nice to see some of the older paintings again. A few, including this one, were used on the cover of the summer brochure. This couple, M and Mme Lacombe, put on a gentle little musical show about love and marriage in about 1999. M was very involved in the summer programme at that time (he preceded me as the semi-official photographer), and he and these two performers got on so well that they kept in touch afterwards. M painted this, and Monsieur Lacombe drew a sympathetic and accurate caricature of M which now hangs on M's wall. I think this is my favourite of his paintings -- I like the airy, childlike atmosphere and the innocent poise of the heart-shaped balloon. I can't remember the show in any detail now, but this painting captures the ambiance.

Since we had all the paintings in one place I thought I might as well take the opportunity to photograph them all, so I did. Just in case we decide to do a catalogue of the exhibition ...