Jim Woods

A Brush Abroad

It was Jim’s habit, when he and his wife went on holiday – mainly to Europe – to take with him a small sketchbook and a box of watercolours.

This book is a selection of some of the sketches he made over twenty-odd years – usually while enjoying a glass of wine in a café – while his wife patiently worked out the next leg of their route. Like the sketches, their route, often through France was a somewhat random affair.

Their small car was usually pointed south and they preferred to avoid major roads.

They ‘put up’ wherever they happened to find themselves at about 5 o’clock in the evening which meant, as often as not, they lodged in some fairly obscure villages, and often in somewhat weird accommodation, which was all part of the enjoyment.

Jim recently unearthed these sketchbooks and, nostalgically perhaps, felt that some of them were worthy of reproduction; hence this book.