The biggest one you ever did see

Having a Kenneth Williams moment

On the subterranean last leg of our journey back to Blighty on Sunday, the only possible sport was in contemplating what awaited to cheer us on our return from civilisation.

One thing, of course, is The Girls. We are not immune to a syndrome, while away anywhere, of musing between ourselves on what the cats would think of such and such. After all, however daft it may seem to some, they’re our family.

In Collioure, for instance, we have occasionally seen small lizards – which provokes comments about how the cats would hunt them and then be rather surprised to find that their tails can come off without killing them.

And indeed, the terrible trio were delighted to see us. They didn’t even bother with the usual: ‘Who are you? You’re scary’ or the formality of a five-minute sulk. Their major concern was simple: fuss!

We’ve been immensely lucky over the years, with friends who will come in and feed and water them, and clean their litter trays. I much prefer it this way because, even if they do fret a little, they’re ultimately still in their own home, with their own familiar smells and places and toys and food and so on.

And I’ve heard more than a few horror stories about cats and dogs coming home from catteries and kennels with illnesses, fleas and whatever.

Some years ago, one of our cats – Trickie, who we’d ‘rescued’ from Battersea and was approximately 12 at the time – died suddenly while we were away on a long weekend. She’d gone and found somewhere dark, in a box under the bed, and simply curled up and died. It was unexpected and unpleasant to discover, obviously, but I’m glad that she was somewhere quiet and safe and familiar.

This bunch have had plenty of entertainment while we were away, as Ian, who is an absolute diamond, has been in both looking after them and sorting out our tiny home office.

He’s turned it from being a cramped, dark room into a light one, with – somehow – both more storage and more space.

Since his wife is allergic to cats and he loves them, this gives him the opportunity to enjoy some feline company. And we know from past experience that Otto in particular will sit for hours watching (supervising?) any work he’s doing.

We moved into the flat 18 years ago. As a new-build housing association block, it had carpets and basics – points that, as very low-paid hacks at the time, were both essential and very welcome.

But after 16 years, it needed work, so we’ve been steadily dealing with it over the last couple of years. And of course, once you sort one thing out, another goes – and everything else looks even shabbier by comparison.

The supervisor

We had been intending to do the kitchen this summer – the cupboards are falling apart – but after the boiler died early this year, that went out of the window. So we settled for a rather easier (and cheaper) job.

Good god: I remember the days – and with no faux romantic fondness whatsoever – when that boiler would have wiped us out. It should go without saying, but unfortunately doesn't in the UK at present, that low pay is no fun, and that poverty remains a very real situation for many, many people.

But anyway, there was also the question of seeing a ‘new’ room to welcome us home.

And then there was the patio and the potager.

By the time we unlocked the front door, dark had descended outside, so a full and proper inspection had to wait until the following morning.

In the event, there was plenty to be pleased with.

While the tomato plants have not produced a vast harvest, there is a nice collection of sizeable fruits that are just coming toward ripeness. And thank you to Lucie, who donated four to us after my attempts to grow from seed had all come to naught.

The chilies too are doing well – small, but the first ones are now turning red.

The thyme has died, but the oregano is flourishing. And the little olive tree, bought for decoration alone, is still sporting tiny olives. I doubt they’ll grow much further now, but it’s going to be transplanted into a bigger pot this autumn, replacing the lemon tree, which seems much more temperamental about temperature and water, and much less inclined to bear fruit than had been thought.

That south-facing wall of the patio really does have to be treated like the Mediterranean – in fact, very much like Roussillon, where frosts can hit, but where the heat in summer is high. I have much thinking to do.

Olives cope with frost, without needing to be wrapped in fleece – and indeed, a sharp spell of cold in the winter can actually help to promote to development of fruits in the summer.

Beyond the patio, in the carpark, the potager has done well. There are runner beans in various stages of development – even still some flowers – and I was able to enjoy harvesting the largest ones last night for dinner.

There’s some lettuce and the chard is knee-high and looking fantastic.

The shock was the courgettes. When we left, there were a number of very small ones, and when we returned, most had grown a bit larger – but one had grown insanely to at least a foot in length!

It was harvested on Monday evening and weighed in at a staggering 713g. And it still was a lovely delicate flavour when sliced and cooked for around 10 minutes with some mince and onion, that was simply garnished with fleur de sel, pepper – and nothing more.

Actually, it contributed to three meals.

Away from matters horticultural, I’ve always said that I don’t do new year’s resolutions.

But I have, in effect, made a number of post-holiday resolutions. I don’t want to lose all I gained in that three weeks in Pays Catalan.

Yesterday evening, I had an appointment at the local leisure centre, to sign up for a membership. I’m going to get back into a gym for the first time in 15 years. There are two reasons.

One: a bit of physical activity is a good way to deal with stress. And two, if I want to do more kayaking – and I do – then strengthening my torso, back, shoulders and arms wouldn’t go amiss.

And then there’s the writing.

According to a piece at the beginning of the week at BBC online, the ‘post-holiday blues’ include the feeling that nothing has changed – not least because you didn’t start that novel.

Well, I did.

And keeping more relaxed and energised could just be things that will help me continue it. That – and whopping big, home-grown vegetables!

Michelin-starred dining under the stars

The best dinner table in the world?

There are times in life when you fancy nothing more gastronomically challenging that a fish finger butty or, as we discovered in Salses, a great big fat toasted bap, full of steak haché and cheese.

But there are other times, just occasionally, when your culinary soul seeks a different kind of succour: something perhaps more challenging and even more artistic.

We’ve known for some time that there is a Michelin-starred restaurant in Collioure, but we’d never quite found it. Until last week.

La Balette is attached to a hotel, Le Relais des Trois Mas, but the whole so carefully hugs the cliff below the road from Port Vendre as it enters Collioure that it’s actually quite difficult to spot where it is.

Both hotel and restaurant pre-date WWII, with the latter having been regarded highly for as long.

First amuse bouche

But even though we’d never quite worked out where that Michel star hung, an advert in Terre Catalans had alerted me to the restaurant itself, and with a picture that was pure food porn as an incentive, we finally made a point of looking it up properly.

A little local research followed, as there were two other possible options for any real slap-up gourmet meal, but in the end, we took the plunge and booked for our penultimate evening.

At this time of year, you sit on one of three terraces that overlook the bay and back to the village. It must be one of the most gorgeous dining views anywhere.

There’s no muzak. The terraces are not crowded – quite the opposite. The restaurant keeps serious control of how many covers are dining at any one time.

The menu is minute by most standards: just three options for starters, two for meat mains and three for fish, plus one cheese and five desserts.

Second amuse bouche

The menu is such that, before we went, I sat down and did loose translations of all the dishes. Indeed, initially, The Other Half wasn’t sure whether he’d want a starter, since he doesn’t eat shellfish or offal, and the first two were shellfish and foie gras.

But we’ll come to that later.

Once seated, with the sun lowering but still casting a glorious warm light, we had an aperitif – the house special, of Champagne with almond and mint flavourings. Incredibly pleasant and refreshing.

And after ordering, we were presented with small plates of amuse bouche. A small, wafer-thin slice of toast, curled and topped with a paté of some sort. And alongside it, a spoon of finely shredded Mediterranean vegetables.Both were lovely.

Surprise, surprise, though, as we had a second plate of amuse bouche placed in front of us.

This time, it was a tuna tartare with a fig marmalade. Again, utterly gorgeous. Light and refreshing, yet packed with flavour.

Bonito

For my starter – and The Other Half had decided to try this too – I had bonito, which is a firm, meaty fish, a little like tuna, and is caught locally.

Seared on the outside, still pink in the middle, it was presented in slices on the plate, topped with wafer-thin rounds of turnip or radish, with basil leaves or thin slices of sweet red onion, and accompanied by a curl of tasty tuile, a ‘jam’ of peppers and dots of sauce.

Not only did it all look lovely, it tasted even better. It was a wonderful combination of textures and flavours, all of which complimented each other. And the fish itself was sublime.

For his main course, The Other Half opted for Catalan-style lamb. I picked the pigeon. In such a situation, I’d usually be expected to select from the available fish, but I’m so glad I didn’t this time.

I’ve eaten pigeon a lot in the last couple of years and, though I say so myself, can cook it quite well. But I’ve never actually had it cooked for me in a restaurant. And this was perfection.

It was a whole bird, but broken down into breasts and legs, with a sesame seed-topped croquette made from the offal and a gloriously gutsy jus.

Pigeon

There was also a young courgette, with its flower stuffed with a brunoise of shallot and toasted pine nuts. The surprise of the piece was a thin, light biscuit, again topped with sesame seeds, but flavoured with ginger.

I would never have thought of ginger and pigeon, but it was a lovely combination.

We decided, because it was such a special experience, to go with the sommerlier’s reccomendations for wine.

So for the fish starter, we had a glass of Cuvée Laïs, Côtes du Roussillon, Domaine Olivier Pithon, 2012. Very nice indeed.

And with both our mains, we had a Vingrau (Hervé Bizeul) Domaine du close des Fées – ‘De batter mon Coeur c’est arrêté’ – 2011, a syrah, with a very smoky, burnt toast taste, that was fascinating and a perfect match for the red meats.

Apricots

For dessert, I picked Roussillon apricots poached in vanilla butter, which came atop a layered cake of chocolate and pistachio. On the side was a blackcurrant ‘marmalade’ and a large quenelle of apricot sorbet with a sprig of rosemary in it.

After, as we sat peacefully watching the night, supping coffee (or in my case, white Banyuls), a plate of petits fours arrived, including little sugared jellies that were packed with subtle zing.

We left a different way, taking a few steps down to a small beach and winding our way back around the side of the cliff path to Port d'Avall, past a couple of men fishing, and another going in the opposite direction, with a torch on his hat and a bucket in hand, clearly off to look for shellfish.

Nearly dark

Chef Frédéric Bacquié is doing remarkable things with wonderful regional produce.

When you visit any restaurant, you’ll often find that one course isn’t quite as good as the others. Not bad, but just not at quite the same level as whatever is best.

What you get with Michelin-starred cooking is a meal like this that was absolutely flawless at every stage.

But not just flawless – it was an absolutely fabulous culinary experience from the first mouthful to the last. Fresh and deceptively simple; superbly cooked and using wonderful flavour combinations.

The service was excellent. Attentive, without ever being annoying; formal but friendly.

And all that with a view to match.

A walk into the hills, and a couple of good meals

 Colliore below, Roussillon coast beyond

After more than a fortnight in which we’d only dined out in an evening twice, we went a bit bonkers in the final week of our stay in Collioure and did so three times.

But this story starts a little bit earlier than you might expect.

Back in May, The Other Half made the trip to Perpignan for the game between Les Dragons Catalans and his beloved Castleford Tigers. The sacrifices he makes!

On the basis that I’d enjoyed a few days on my own the month before, gadding about in northern Germany, he took a day longer than usual – and used it to take the train to Collioure.

Boles de Picolat

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a grim, rainy day, with no opportunity to sit on a beach. The south of France, like most of western Europe, was hardly exempt from the long winter and the non-existent spring.

But before he returned to Perpignan, and after visiting the chateau to see an exhibition there (I’m not quite the only culture vulture in the house), he’d visited a brasserie that we had not tried before on our joint visits.

In large part, the reason that he picked Le Marinade was quite simply because it was open.

Sitting at a small table just inside, with a view over the damp square onto which backs the tourist information office, and from where August’s Fêtes de St Vincent is officially declared open by the mayor, he perused the menu – and realised that it offered a regional speciality that neither of us had tried before: Boles de Picolat.

Créme Catalan

This is Catalan meatballs, and he was most impressed.

During our second week, we were contemplating lunch one non-beach day, and thought that it might prove the ideal thing. But unfortunately, it was almost the end of the day’s lunch service – which is actually a recommendation, when you think about it.

But, early last week, when we had nothing particularly in for the evening, and I was feeling less inclined than usual to contemplate cooking – let alone actually doing it – I suggested that we sauntered along to Le Marinade and see if we couldn’t get a table.

We had no trouble with that, and sat down with a very specific meal choice in mind.

Graphosoma lineatum

The Boles de Picolat was excellent. The lovely meatballs – very light and with meat that had been very finely minced indeed so that it was close to a paté – came in a tomato and pepper sauce, with mushrooms and olives.

This is a top notch Catalan dish.

As a pure coincidence (I'm sure) there were several German diners around us. Does a menu with meatballs draw the northern Europeans? Anyway, I'll be cooking this at home soon, so watch out for the recipe.

In the meantime, after our main course, The Other Half tempted me toward the créme Catalan.

Gnarled vine

Now I utterly adore a créme brûlée, but I’ve only had the Catalan version once before, some years ago, in Barcelona.

The main difference is that it’s flavoured with orange. But my memories of it were also that it was staggeringly rich and very heavy, and that, me being me, after a fairly heavy meal, it was too heavy for my insides.

The Other Half, however, is a connoisseur of crème Catalane, and he assured me that, in Pays Catalan at least, it’s much lighter.

Sisal

On the simple grounds that it was the obvious choice to conclude a specifically Catalan meal, I decided to give it another go.

And I’m very glad that I did. Texturally, this was as light as a yogurt. The orange came through nice and clear, but there was also a hint of warm spice behind it.

All in all, it was a very, very good meal, and a rare opportunity to taste some authentic, rustic Catalan cooking.

The second eating out of the week was a case of going back to Le St Elme, after a five-hour walk in the hills left us feeling that home catering was beyond either of us.

A few words about the walk itself: we took the road out of the village and into the hills and vineyards that Le Petit Train Touristique takes – only of course, we were rather slower.

We had been entirely sensible and made sure we had water, bread, cheese, charcuterie and some fruit, had dressed sensibly, and took our time.

Mind, I had the camera with me so it also became another photo safari: I been becoming more and more fascinated by the scenery, by the plant life and insect life.

Fort St Elme

There was a red and black striped, beetle-like insect on just one of the many varieties of thistle-like plant you find. A Graphosoma lineatum, I learned later.

There were more blackberries growing wild.

There were occasional sisal plants – tall as trees and towering alone or in small groups.

There were cork trees with some of the bark carefully stripped. It grows back, so can be harvested for use in the local wine industry, making any use of plastic ‘corks’ seem even crazier. We knew from previous visits that the hills behind the village were first planted with vines by the Phoenicia, some 3,000 years ago, after they’d discovered that Port Vendre was a deep safe port in a storm.

Dead flower head

There were also, of course, lots of vines bearing lots of grapes. Some dusky, some pale, some glossy black. The harvest is coming soon in an area where they make some magnificent wines – and in particular, a wide array of delightful rosés.

There was vast sprays of wild fennel – but without any of the small snails we’d seen in Salses. And so much more.

There was even – dare I say it? – another fort. Dagommier this time; built just the right distance from Fort Elme for them to lob shots at each other.

It’s been in disrepair for some time, but recently, regional artist Marc-Andre 2 Figueras bought it for a single euro and has found funding to do it up. What he’ll do with it remains to be seen, but it’s got to be better than the rather dangerous relic that it was.

Grapes

We’d decided on that day for a walk because the forecast was for some cloud – in other words, it would be better walking weather. But as we neared Fort St Elme, the sun started seriously breaking through, and we could enjoy an incredible view of Collioure below us and the entire Roussillon plain beyond.

We sat down for a while for some fodder, only to watch in amazement as a rather large ant decided that it was going to take a fallen flake of bread and, come what may, cart it off to the nest. An ant – big by British standards certainly, but still an ant – carrying this piece of bread crust that was, by comparison with it itself, huge.

We carried on, passing Fort St Elme itself, and moving on.

We’ve done the route a number of times in that little tourist ‘train’, but this gave us time to stop and look. And even to think that, next year, we might be able to manage the walk to one of the higher hills beyond, to Madeloc. How ambitious Collioure makes us!

Fennel and a path and open sky

From there on, it was relatively easy, as we followed the road spiraling gently down toward Port Vendre.

But as walkers, we were able to break away and head more directly toward Collioure – although not much more directly.

There was a path over a hill beyond the road, and we took that. In the end, it took us little nearer our destination, but it was nonetheless enjoyable and felt pleasantly deserted.

By the time we got back to Collioure itself, we’d been walking for approximately five hours – and I really didn’t much like cooking or even contemplating what to eat.

And another Collioure sunset

So we went to Le St Elme and The Other Half enjoyed a steak, while I tucked into gambas and chips.

We were pleasantly tired – and also absolutely ravenous.

It might not be the greatest food in town, but it was perfect for what we needed.

And that’s the tale of two of our eatings-out – and one excellent walk.

And it’s also arguably a perfect illustration of why we self cater: the options. They’re beautiful.

Barry Blend: An Englishman in Collioure

Barry Blend and one of his sculptures

It was one of those moments when ‘isn’t it a small world’ barely seemed to do justice to the sentiment.

Collioure: Rue de la Fraternité; a winding, steep, narrow, picturesque street that plays home to a number of showrooms for local artists.

In this particular case, the venue was the gallery of Barry Blend, half an hour before opening on a Thursday morning in mid August. I was relaxing in a deckchair while Barry made cups of tea.

Not only was it really rather English, the subject under discussion was London. Because Barry hails from Clapton, which is only up the road from Hackney, where The Other Half and I live.

A conversation that was intended to be about art and Collioure begins in the realms of London’s East End. He’s intrigued to hear of different areas becoming trendy, including Dalston.

“In Holland, they tried to sell the idea of eating rats,” he muses, in response to the story that last year, Hackney’s Ridley Road Market had been the scene of a discovery of bush meat and cane rat.

Sardane

The consensus is that we’d both give rat a try. Cockroaches though ... the mere thought brings forth an outbreak of mutual shivers, even if Barry laughs a little as he suggests “cockroach peanut butter”.

But he warms to the theme, and points out the advantages of eating insects: “It’s a new source of protein; really economical; it doesn’t produce any ozone, it’s very good meat, it’s got vitamins ... everything”.

Nobody’s feeling particularly convinced, though.

But what about life growing up in Clapton – did he enjoy art at school?

“I’ve always liked drawing. Painting – yes, even when I was very small. I used to draw things. But I never followed a particular artistic course later on.

“You know the way it went with the GCE: you went into either a technical side or a cultural side; I was good at technical drawing and metalwork, so I followed the course of maths and physics, that sort of thing, rather than history and geography and art.”

The tea is ready – black – and leaflets on the gallery desk double as coasters.

“I liked painting and drawing. But when I was ...” he tries to remember his age at the time ... “well, I started playing the guitar quite a bit and, in fact when I came abroad, I was just hitching, and I was singing my songs of Bob Dylan. We had no money in those days and just got the hovercraft across – I don’t know if it still exists.

Le Petit Train Jaune

“They had this cheap thing where you’d get to Calais, then I had to hitch to Paris – just a backpack: I didn’t even have a tent. First I came down with a mate and then I came down regularly, every year ... I went to Italy and Spain, travel like that.

“I was just hitching – you don’t do that any more. You don’t see music people playing in restaurants – that’s past too. I used to go from restaurant to restaurant. I even had a mobilette at one point. I used to strap the thing in front of me and sing Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, and later on, I learned some classical stuff. That worked – it was less tiring ...”

But then came the art.

“I met my wife (Tineke, who runs the gallery on all but Wednesdays) ... it was 31, 32 years ago; there was a campsite in Collioure. Collioure was very quiet – it wasn’t known; it was completely different to now. There were still fishing boats on the beach. There were two trawlers – St Nichol, which they converted into a tourist thing ... I don’t know if it still exists ...”

He explains that there were other smaller boats too, although they employed a different method of fishing.

“On the wall in the front, you had all these old women, in black: they were still there. They’ve gone now.

Jazz band

“It wasn’t always black – they’d sometimes have a light-coloured scarf – but they were pretty well covered up. They would all line up on the wall in the front and yabbering, ‘da da da da da ... he’s doing this ...’

“We used to go round with the baby, when our son was small, and they’d say: ‘don’t let him walk in the dirt, don’t let him do that’.”

He was camping just outside Collioure, near The Round Fort, when he met Tineke. “I was still playing the guitar, and we traveled a bit, and she fell pregnant.

“We rented a little caravan on the beach ... there were all painters on the port at that time: there was something like 30, all along the port ... there weren’t so many restaurants. There were little painters, and they had their easels set up and you were allowed a folder open, and I saw this and I said to Tineke: ‘I can do at least that’.”

“They were selling – I could see they were selling – and I said: ‘I can make more money with that’.

“We were really short of money – we were even cleaning rooms in those days.

Collioure

“We had practically no money and she bought me a little box of watercolour paints and a pad of paper – it was our last few francs – and I exhibited on the port, a few things, and sold straight away. And thought: ‘This is it!’

“Since then, we’ve never looked back. We were exhibiting on the port for one or two years, and then we found a little atelier [studio] and rented that.”

At that stage, Barry started working with oils. He also used aquarelles, although “I already had my style”. He explains that “the oils have changed – they’ve become more smooth”.

And since the financial crash in 2008 hit the town’s art market, he’s “developed a lot of small things. The acrylics: they dry quickly, you can paint them fairly quickly, in small sizes.”

It isn’t, he says, quite what he enjoys doing most of all, but “it’s the bread a butter”, and that’s also been behind his decision to sell postcards and prints at the gallery.

How would he describe his own art?

“There is a word for it actually; they have a word for it in French ... but I’ve forgotten it.

“It’s figurative; and its expressionist, something like that ...”

It’s not difficult to look at Barry’s work and view it as combining cartoons and stained glass.

Artwork for the 2012 Fêtes bandana

He has actually considered trying with stained glass, while one person wanted to use his work as a model for the tiling on a swimming pool. He notes that he always loved cartoons “Batman comics, Superman comics ...”

His work also lacks any pristine, straight lines, having a curvaceous, voluptuous sense about it.

“The curves,” he observes after a moment, “they say it’s very maternal. Psychologists say curves are feminine.

“It’s true: I avoid straight lines – I’m quite conscious of that.

“In true life, when you look at things, when you look at a straight line, it’s not really straight, it’s curved.”

Looking up at the tall, narrow fisherman’s cottages that fill the streets of the old part of the village, it’s impossible not to see exactly what he means.

And he goes on to point out that the ancient Greeks built the Parthenon “curved up, so that when you looked at it, it looked straight”.

“You don’t really think about it, because your brain straightens it out and you see a straight line ...”

He stops for a moment, and finds himself recalling something from school. “In art class, you never drew a straight line with a ruler.”

So is his art ‘maternal’?

“It’s just what people say. Perhaps it is – perhaps it isn’t.” It might be in people’s perceptions, and the nature of perceptions means that “there are no rights and no wrongs”.

He observes that he’s “automatically looking for subjects that have colours. That’s why I don’t like nudes: okay, the shape’s interesting, but you have to put colours around them.”

Catalan barques in Collioure

He also wants his work “to be positive”. “I prefer to cheer people up rather than guide them to some philosophical point,” he explains.

“I try to make it harmonious and pleasing ... and with bright colours.”

He’s intrigued by how people live with his paintings. “I put them on my own wall and look at them all the time,” going on to describe how, when you live with art in that way, you absorb it; seeing different elements at different times.

It’s hard to imagine being in a better place than Collioure if you’re after colour.

He notes that the older generation of Collioure people “recognise something” in his work; see something of their culture and place reflected.

“I’ve somehow been here long enough to absorb some of that Catalan culture,” he suggests.

In terms of how he sees his art developing, he will probably “stay where I am for the moment. From a commercial point of view, you can’t have too many different things”.

He once developed a technique using watercolour, substituting white outlines for the black that his work makes much use of, but adds that he can’t put something like that, which would be quite different, alongside the other works that are in the gallery.

Detail of the barrel project

“I can do plenty of techniques, but you have to narrow it down.”

For the moment, then, he’ll continue with the oil and acrylic paintings, and the sculptures, most of which are based on extruded polystyrene, and then, depending on the complexity of the subject, covered in fiberglass or resin.

The technique has come a long way.

“The very first sculpture I made was actually covered in bog paper and white glue – took ages to dry! It was a bass player – I called him Charles, because he a nose like Charles de Gaulle.”

Is he perhaps glad that he didn’t have a formal art education?

He muses again, and suggests that you’d need a time machine so that you could visit parallel universes in order to see which Barry would have been best: the one who is self-taught or the formally-taught one.

A formal art education “would have been helpful – certainly in short cuts – but then I wouldn’t have done what I’m doing now.”

Sunflower

Would Keith Haring have been Keith Haring the artist we know, he asks, if he’d had a formal art education?

He says he doesn’t really know how to ‘play the game’ in the way that some artists do, although he does “know mayor Michel Moly”. The mayor, who is also a maths teacher, “gave lessons to my son”.

He may well feel that he can’t ‘play the game’, but nonetheless, he has an artistic presence around Collioure.

“I like to be modest,” he laughs, after positively bristling with pleasure on hearing that several people attending the previous evening’s opening of the Fêtes de St Vincent had been wearing the 2012 bandana, which he had designed.

It was not something that was tendered for, but is something that you’re asked to do – even though he was given just six days to do it.

Nor is it something that you get paid for – rather like a couple of other jobs he’s done in similar circumstances.

“In the old days,” he says, “goats were used to trim the grass [around the village], so they made an association to try to bring it back. And they needed money, so they gave some of us artists a barrel to paint”. The painted barrels were subsequently auctioned.

Dinosaur sculpture

Equally, back in 1988, he executed a design for CIP, the town’s diving school. “I did it just for the publicity – I didn’t ask for any royalties. I just wanted it to be clear that it was ‘by Barry Blend’ ... they’ve made a fortune out of it!

“The other day, I was in the supermarket in Argeles and there was someone wearing one right in front of me – I felt like tapping him on the shoulder and telling him ‘that’s mine!’ but I held back at the last minute.

But the CIP job “didn’t do me any harm,” he adds.

Barry has been described as “the most Catalan of English painters”, but then many of those who have painted Collioure so successfully have came from outside the area. Matisse is just one rather obvious example. Survage is another, together with Pignon, who, like Barry, was self taught.

When you realise that they what they painted – the coloured fishing barques and the old women in black – were still around when the young man with a guitar arrived from East London, then it’s much easier to place Barry within the wider context of artistic representations of Collioure.

The diving school t-shirt from 1997 – still selling

His representations of the village are not imagined or second-hand memories, but his own. Collioure’s past only ended very recently, but he is one of the last guardians of that visual past and will be one of the last artists who actually saw it that way.

Barry’s palate is less Survage and more Matisse: his too are bright, vibrant canvases – which is equally true of all his work, not just the Collioure pieces. And like those other artists who came to this extraordinary village, he makes it look as though working with such a palate is easy. It’s not.

A wander around Collioure allows you to look at the work of a great many artists, many of whom are taking the village as their subject matter. As when Barry himself arrived, many still use outside walls and steps and spaces for improvised galleries.

They are not all very good. And big, bright colours need to be used with great care and a real understanding of what you’re doing.

Barry has that. And while his work is modern and quite of himself, it also merits a place in the wider context of Collioure and how it is represented in art.

• To find out more and see more of Barry's work, visit www.barryblend.com

Barry also has a presence on Twitter @barryblend