Friday, June 19, 2009

THE DATE HARVEST

When we first came to live in Egypt, home was a house surrounded by farm fields on the road between the Pyramids of Giza and Sakkara.







Rural Egypt is completely different from rural England where I'd grown up so every day was a discovery for me.

There were several varieties of date palms which were harvested around September by fearless farm workers who climbed up the tree trunks supported by a sling and carrying a huge flat basket.

When the big bunches of dates were cut from the trees by large curved knives they were tossed into the basket which was lowered to the ground with a rope before the man himself came down.

One day I opened the front door to find the branches of freshly cut dates plus the old boots of the farm worker lying there in such a way that it shouted "painting" to me!

I made some quick sketches and "The Date Harvest" in watercolours was finished a couple of weeks later.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

This beautiful home looks like a dream!

Expat 21

Judy said...

Thanks so much. I did put a lot of love and work into decorating it but like many "character houses" it was a nightmare to maintain, especially in a country where maintenance isn't big anyway! We spent a lot of money on it too even though we were only renting it.

Unknown said...

Judy, I'm really enjoying reading your blog. What an incredible experience it is! Thank you.

Ros

Judy said...

Thanks Ros. :-)

Anonymous said...

Such a beautiful painting. I love your stories about Egypt. Very entertaining and interesting.

Judy said...

Thanks Alyice for the nice words. :-)