It’s about time we featured our newsagent. The shop is full of hundreds of titles of magazines and also sells some foreign papers. It is run by a lovely couple who also have the photocopier that has played a very large part in our lives, even before we bought the house and, after that, during the residency saga. (Although, they haven’t had the Italian version of Scientific American, Le Scienze, since we actually bought the house. Coincidence? I think not.)
As we got to know them, I was intrigued by the beautiful painted ceiling and asked about who might have painted it and if the shop was once a house. The wife said that the shop had always been in her family and that the ceiling was painted when her grandfather was running it. It was done by his friend as repayment for a favour and splendid it is too. It has the exuberant bowls of roses, plumes and excesses of what would be our late Victorian/Edwardian era but also touches of Deco with the lapis blue fans and scarab motifs. The family found a painter, in more recent times, to paint the other end of the shop to match. I am wondering if this person could do our sitting room!
Sunflowers and Saffron 