RIP Jill Cooper (Valentines day, 1931 - Easter Sunday 2015)

I posted earlier that Sian had facebooked the death of her mother, Jill - now I do not hestiate to lift this nice photo of her with the family taken by Lionel and posted by him.

Here they are; Sian, Tony, Pat, Russell and Jill.

 Jill and Tony moved here from Normandy donkeys years ago to be close to Russell and Pat, who live up the hill over by Rennes le Chateau. Poor Jill had always been bedevilled by cancer but rarely mentioned it. Instead she got on with things, painting delicate watercolours and being a major player with us local arts lot.

She hosted the drawing group for a while - between times at Dr Coues' and the MJC - and only dropped out of that when her legs were too weak to get up to the first floor where we now work. No disabled lift which seems odd in this day and age.

 She carried on doing landscapes and had an exhibition at Rennes les Bains which was very successful. 

Her background was in the antique trade and she had an unerring eye for the pleasing, the beautiful, the rare.

Bizzarrely, she knew Daniel in Normandy - he who co-founded the Creperie with Edith -  they both worked in the same trade.

This last illness was interminable but her spirits were always bouyant. Kat and I visited her in Quillan hospital a couple of days before she took a dive and she was asking for hair conditioner and wanting all the news from home. After that at our last visit she appeared to sleep - though it was possible to read movements on her face as responsive to names...

 

Her cremation is at Trebes at 9.00 am on Friday. 

Sian says, Jill loved flowers so LOTS of flowers, the more natural the better>