Last month, as you know, Moth and I went to Arles in southern France for a van Gogh hunting trip. One of the great thrills for me was to find that the night time view of the Rhône that Vincent painted…

…was virtually unchanged from Vincent’s time. Here’s a photo of it that Moth took:

As is so often the case, the camera simply can’t take in the whole scene and squash the space in the same way the human eye can, let alone translate it into two dimensions and a pleasing composition. So while I was there, I made my own quick sketch of it with Vincent’s own composition high in my mind as I worked:

Seeing what Vincent saw more or less unchanged made a great impression on me and I wanted to have a go at the scene myself. Readers will know that only rarely do I make pictures of things I haven’t seen or experienced personally, so my final version (below) isn’t merely a copy or reworking of Vincent’s painting, it’s a response to what I saw, and how I felt about the scene which Vincent immortalised in 1888. Here it is:

Yesterday I completed an edition of six drypoints* (a kind of engraving) each washed with watercolour. They measure 400mm x 300mm, the same size as my previous drypoint* of ‘Vincent’s café terrace’ and cost £95 unframed/ £125 unframed.

As a pair, Vincent’s café terrace and Vincent’s starry night over the Rhône look absolutely wonderful:

A 10% discount from the unframed price is available for collectors who'd like to buy a pair.

*Wondering what drypoint is?

I was recently asked by the vignerons at Domaine Chater, an independent, British-run, award-winning winery in south west France, if I would produce a painting suitable for use on the labels of their 2007 wines. Although, as you know, I do not drink anything stronger than tea, except in teeny weeny sips (doctor’s orders), I appreciate the joy of fine, carefully produced wines and was delighted to apply my mind - and my brushes - to his request. And here is the result, Fruit of the vine. It’s a single composition from which my friends at Domaine Chater can select sections to grace their fine produce, according to flavour and grape variety. I can’t wait to see the results printed on the labels and indeed sips the results of this year’s harvest, which is currently being picked I believe before they work their magic on it to turn it into red, white and pink loveliness.

I was particularly thrilled to see that Chater wines were selected last year for the Grand Prix Masters event at Silverstone. This is clearly Very Good Stuff. Check out their online shop.

On seeing the painting, Iain at Domaine Chater told me "my expectations really have been exceeded - and that takes quite a bit of doing".

Readers, you know that not only do I like a good rant, now it seems that parts of my body also like a damn good grumble, including - in recent days - my appendix, apparently. On Tuesday morning my GP sent me straight up to the surgical emergency unit at the hospital following six days of increasing pain in my right iliac fossa .

A series of tests, which involved scanning and poking and prodding seemed to suggest that my appendix was ‘grumbling’.

I really hate all that stuff – I particularly hate having a cannula inserted, though thankfully it only took them four attempts this time. Being stuck in hospital made me so miserable that I managed to persuade the doctors yesterday evening that I should be allowed to go home on the strict understanding that if it gets worse I would return. I’m hoping that my appendix – if indeed that is the problem - settles down a bit. They were threatening surgery.

There are compensations to being in hospital, though – yesterday morning’s intravenous anti-sickness drug was spectacular.

Tis only mid October, we haven’t even put the clocks back and already the tacky trappings of christmas are all over the shops like a bad case of the pox. It is a few years ago since I stopped ‘doing’ christmas. I have long hated all that tedious cooking, the dutiful family nonsense, the enforced jollity, Her Maj on the telly and the discomfort of joining in a christian festival, which as a committed naturalist/humanist/atheist has nothing to do with me.

But the worst thing of all is surely all that damned pointless shopping; buying things people don’t really want and receiving things that one didn’t ask for. And to see families out shopping buying stuff they don’t need - and in many cases can’t afford - saddens and sickens me. The needless stress people suffer at christmastime is terrible.

To be fair, some people love it. But I suspect there are thousands like me who loathe it. To them I say: be brave - it’s time to say no to christmas! Once you have it’s completely liberating and you can become quite smug about it if you’re not careful as you see friends and colleagues fretting about everything they have to do.

My friends and family were shocked at first when I announced that I wouldn't be 'doing' christmas. But when I explained why, and with the passage of time, they accepted it.

This year I'm going to avoid christmas entirely. My family and I are going to Egypt, to gaze at ancient temples, float up the Nile and enjoy some of that legendary middle-eastern hospitality. On christmas day I will be snorkelling in the Red Sea, with not a pressie, a turkey or a cracker in sight.

Blimey, was that a bit smug?!

My husband Moth is a huge fan of Canadian rock band Rush. After Moth and I first got together, he played me some Rush, who had disappeared off my musical radar about 20 years before. And they sounded much better than I remembered.

There's only three of them in the band - Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart - but if you listen to their work, recorded or live, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there must be at least eight musicians on stage, such is the size of their sound, their depth, complexity and musicianship.

We went to see them play Wembley arena on 10 October – the second of two nights at the venue. Their ability to fill Wembley two nights on the trot is testament to their huge following.. They have produced many albums over the past 30 years and I’m not that familiar with their work – I couldn’t sing along, for example, but I’d seen them play live on DVD so I knew I’d be in for a good show. A very good show, as it happens!

Rush give their fans a total sensory experience. Not only do you get pulled into the show by the massive waves of urgent sound pumping into your head, the images shown on three giant screens above the stage show both live pictures of each musician, but also short films to help the listener consider each song more closely.

The songs are carefully crafted both musically and lyrically – Rush appear to be naturalist/atheists like me, with a strong sense of social justice and humanity. But that's not to say they haven't got a sense of humour - they most certainly have! Their creativity and sense of the ridiculous is amply illustrated in the short films and the randomness of the props on stage: a row of plastic dinosaurs lined up on the monitors behind guitarist Alex Lifeson, and three rotisseries complete with revolving chickens are the backdrop to bassist and keyboard player Geddy Lee.

But there is more. As well as the music, the big screens, and the filmclip of South Park characters Rush give you a no-expenses-spared light show rivalled only, perhaps, by the aurora borealis.

Lasers, fireworks, fireballs and strobes complete the sensory bombardment. But there is still more. All this technical, electronic, audio visual wizardry pales into nothingness when compared to the talents of Neil Peart, Rush’s lyricist and drummer.

It was a privilege to see him play – I don’t think I’m overstating it to call him the finest drummer in the world.

Wow! What a gig!

Photos: Moth Clark

I’ve been to Auvers-sur-Oise a number of times before and blogged about it briefly here. It’s a village of real charm and character just north of Paris, and where Vincent van Gogh spent the final 70 days of his life. There is plenty here to interest both casual van Gogh tourists and aficionados alike as many of the places he painted still exist.

When I first came to Auvers in 1982 for my 19th birthday it was a very different village indeed. In 25 years, van Gogh tourism has taken off in a big way! In 1982, for example you could go to the café called La Maison de Van Gogh…

… and sit outside, have a beer, smoke a fag, and watch the world go by. And then, when you’d had enough beer, (here I am as a 19-year-old, having enough beer)…

… you could pluck up the courage to ask the barman if you could see the room where van Gogh died. No entrance fee, no tickets, no fancy audiovisual presentation. Today, the café has been restored to how it was in Vincent’s day in 1890, when it was the 'Auberge Ravoux':

The front has been repainted:

And the café now a hopelessly overpriced restaurant from which we were barred as there was nothing for vegetarians!

Nevertheless, I wanted to see again the grim little attic room where Vincent lived for 70 days, and then - on 29 July 1890 – died. So I paid my money and virtually had to plead with the staff not to see the audiovisual presentation and be let upstairs to view the room. “No photos” I was told. “Oh, OK. May I draw?” I asked. “Of course” came the delighted reply. So I went up the dingy, poorly lit staircase, turned on my camera, took a sneaky photo…

… and started to draw.

Vincent’s room is tiny and very poorly lit by a single tiny skylight. Yeah, suicide would feel like a welcome option if you lived here! The printed literature you get when you buy your ticket has a great phrase on it about the room. “There is nothing to see, but everything to feel.” So true!

After seeing the cheerless room where he lived and died I thought it would be a good idea to go out into the village and spot some of the places he painted, places full of light and life. Just round the corner (literally) from the Auberge is this scene:

…which Vincent painted.

I could tell you about many, many more of the scenes he painted in Auvers, but we’d be here all day and this blog would be ridiculous long, so I’m going to limit myself to just a few which may interest the general reader and not just Vincent aficionados. The church, for example:

Much has been written about the symbolism in this painting, the fact that it’s the back of the church, a church (in the wider sense) which he felt alienated from, increasingly putting his ‘faith’ in the natural world. I’m not so sure about any of those suppositions, but what I do know is that this the priest of this church, which Vincent immortalisd on canvas one sunny spring day in 1890, would later that summer refuse to host his funeral because he committed suicide. So much for christian charity and compassion, eh? Bastards.

On our last evening in Auvers we sat at the roadside, at the exact spot where Vincent set up his easel, and set up our camera on the tripod to take this shot – we were aiming to get the blue of the sky as deep as Vincent’s:

A short walk north up the sunken lane takes you into the great rolling fields above the Oise valley, where Vincent painted this, Wheatfield with crows, supposedly his last ever painting:

This is the ‘supposed’ spot today, a crossroads of farmtracks, though how this could have been accurately identified, I really don’t know:

Note the Japanese tourist, just one of many hundreds we saw on our van Gogh travels. Van Gogh sites have clearly made it onto most Japanese tourist itineraries! I decided that as it was a beautiful hot day, and Moth had retired to our B&B to watch the Belgian F1Grand Prix, I would sit and make a sketch.

As I sat quietly today with my paints out, many parties of tourists, from all over the world came to this spot. When I was here only 10 years ago, I sat on this path to paint and only a couple of locals walking their dogs passed by. From here, the site of the supposed last painting, perhaps even the field where our boy shot himself, the walls of the cemetery rise up above the field line:

And so to the cemetery, to pay respects once again at Vincent and Theo’s graves:

On previous trips, I’ve sat at the simple gravesides for some time and seen no-one. But today it was heaving:

Vincent, if only you could know how loved and admired your extraordinary, visionary views of the world are.

Finally, here’s a lovely touch. Auvers, the place where Vincent ended his life, is twinned with Zundert in the Netherlands where Vincent was born. I spotted this road sign and smiled:

What a fabulous journey Vincent has taken me on through my life!

If you want to see more of Vincent’s works, make sure you check out this website created and run by my friend David Brooks in Toronto. It displays 100% of Vincent's works and letters. Extraordinary!

Dr Paul Gachet lived in Auvers-sur-Oise, just north of Paris, and combined his private medical practice with a love of art and mixing with artists of his day. In 1890, when Vincent van Gogh moved to Auvers, Gachet was a widower with two teenage children: Marguerite and Paul. Vincent moved to Auvers specifically because of its artistic history and because he could be kept an eye on by Gachet (even though he was away at his practice in Paris for much of the week…work that one out! )

Gachet was probably a bit of a quack. He was interested in alternative medicines and mental health but did little to help Vincent who needed time, reassurance, a proper diagnosis and drugs which had yet to be developed, rather than useless homeopathic witchcraft. Vincent was possibly beyond help by this stage anyway, but his comments about Gachet are telling. He says he thought that “Gachet is sicker then me.”

For me, the name Gachet is synonymous with something dodgy: there is plenty of evidence that Gachet and his son traded off his van Gogh connection for the rest of his life. Indeed, it is likely that his good-for-nothing leech of a son faked a load of paintings and palmed them off as Vincent’s. But that’s another story!

In my previous trips to Auvers, I had managed to find Gachet’s house but as it was always privately owned, I had never seen inside. Since I was last here, the local authority has bought the house and turned it into a museum.

The whole property is perched high up on a steep terrace of the Oise valley, with the garden terraced into small areas for flowers and vegetables. Cezanne made a painting with Gachet’s house in it - it’s the tall one in the middle left:

Now we were here, we had to go in and check it out.

In the garden, beneath a perspex cover, stands the red table:

This was in daily use at chez Gachet being the table which Gachet leans on in the portrait Vincent painted of the doc in June 1890:

Another interesting exhibit is the piano in the drawing room.

This piano is - apparently - the one Vincent painted 17-year-old Marguerite Gachet playing:

It looked pretty similar to me. I spotted this nice photo of Marguerite Gachet as an old woman in 1947 playing the same piano.

Upstairs is Gachet's etching press, or one very like it…

…on which Vincent made his one and only etching, a portrait of Dr Gachet:

There are 61 known impressions of the copper plate - read more about it here - but many were made after Vincent’s death, by Gachet’s parasitic son, profiting on his tenuous van Gogh connection.

I was delighted to have seen Gachet's house and pace out how far Vincent had to walk to get to it from his end of the village. But I felt uncomfortable at perhaps being part of the over-aggrandisement of the Gachet family and their connection with Vincent. They hardly really knew him, after all.

I’ve already shown you this superb painting of Vincent van Gogh’s café terrace at night and what it looks like today: It was high on my list of places to go when we were in Arles last month:

On our last day in Arles we returned there again as I wanted to make a sketch:

Since we returned to Oxfordshire, I have had a composition of it brewing in my mind, based on my sketch, which I finally managed to execute over the past few days:

It’s a drypoint washed with watercolour and I’m absolutely delighted with it. Even my children (who are my harshest critics) said "Ooooh! Mum!" when I showed it to them. As it is a drypoint, I have made a limited edition of six impressions. They measure 400mm x 300mm and cost £95 unframed (plus £5 for postage). Get 'em while they’re wet!