Granny Cabbage (A Portuguese Reaction to My Sketches)

Granny Cabbage was one of the first people I met in the village. Elderly and a bit infirm (although still farming her little plots of land), she often walked down my lane, using the wall and her cane for support, to give me fresh produce from her garden.

She has been living in rehab for the past many months following surgery to help her deal with her bad leg. When I heard this, I wanted to send her a little sketch of one of the many times she visited us to bring food and pet Kiitos. While stroking his head, she always told him how beautiful he was which, of course, he loved. I wanted her to know she was in our thoughts and we were wishing her the best.

Thinking it would look better in a frame, I drove over to the nearby town where a very nice Portuguese couple run a small frame business. When I put the sketch of Granny Cabbage and my sketchbook up on the counter the wife, who is kind and friendly, leaned over for a closer look.

“Oh, I love them!” she exclaimed.

That surprised me as that is not the normal Portuguese reaction to my drawings. Used to exacting representations in art, my sketches are just not their cup of tea.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said, smiling. “They are so childlike, yet with details that a child might not notice.”

I laughed. I think she has summed up my sketches perfectly.