And here is, for everyone's delectation, a Close -Up of my Kama Sutra Pyamas:
I fell in love with Siena at the July Palio 2019, and returned in August 2021 to see if there is maybe a New Life here for me? Could Siena be the new Djenne? (www.djennedjenno.blogspot.com) Let's see!
And here is, for everyone's delectation, a Close -Up of my Kama Sutra Pyamas:
It didn't last all that long for me however... a skip across a little forest stream- arriving safely on the other side; then at the next, easy, step up the forest path my foot was entangled in a layer of trecherous fine roots; I went flying forward and smashed my left knee against a rock...
It quickly became evident that I would not be able to carry on, I would have to be lifted out of there! Emergency services were called, with some difficulty because we had strayed out of easy coverage.
I eventually found myself strapped to a stretcher and was carried to the waiting ambulance which stood about 800 m. from the accident spot. 4 Heroic volunteers from the San Giminano MISERICORDIA, the Italian social/health services as well as 4 fellow walkers took on the task of carting me up the steep hill ascent. The event got front page position in the local paper La Nazione in the morning.
I spent 5 nights in Poggibonsi hospital where they operated on my broken knee cap.
Back home again last Friday night, this time transported by another Misericorda team, who were laughing at my pyamas which they had time to notice because the journey took a while and eyes had time to stray... My Karma Sutra pyamas was given me once a long time ago by Giulietta, when I was about to go in to hospital for some other reason...It never fails to amuse me that people don't notice what the pattern is.
Back home there was dear Patty who had come down from Bologna to help me for a few days. Soon arrived three, four other friends from the walking group and a couple of theatre friends- it became quite a jolly party!
And today Patty left, and I am starting to look after myself- but I and my crutches are
already able to go and have a cup of coffee and a croissant at the bar St. Pietro!
And the last in my Trilogy of Autumn journeys took me to Carloforte, the lovely little island off the southern Coast of Sardinia:
where I met up with my friends Eva and Leonardo again, and helped harvest the olives from their 100 olive trees: a bountiful harvest this year!There was the 70s Disco section, and the American High school section and ...and... and...
for a taste of it:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/847924827513927I have always complained that noone really does proper parties (apart from Cressida Bell) and if I want to have a party I have to organize it myself... and I have done, although it was a very long time ago now, in fact it was the French Revolution Party that I did in my flat in Paris in 1989...
Well, I have now ended up, obviously, where I am supposed to be. I take my hat off unconditionally- it was absolutely the best party I have ever been to. There were two girls from Brazil staying in my Airbnb, they live in Rio de Janeiro and they said they had more fun than at the Rio Carnival...
Below my friend Carmen and I at the entrance to Via Giovanni Dupre, before it all started...
And on Saturday there is the Victory Banquet on the Piazza del Mercato with around 800 people, and THE HORSE TABACCO in the place of honour....!
Perhaps thankfully this sort of seemingly inexhaustible merry making only happens when a Contrada wins the Palio, and some have not won for more than thirty years...
Because it has been Palio again- about a week of Horse Madness beginning with the wonderful Prove di Notte, the enchanted dawn rides around the Piazza which denotes the beginning of the Palio, when new horses and new fantini (jockeys) have a chance to show off in front of the assembled Contrada Capitani.
Once more I had guests who had come from far and wide to see the Palio and who were disappointed because they had to leave in the morning of the 17th. The rest congregated once more on the Piazza and the Palio finally went ahead after an unusually long and difficult Mossa - the starting of the race- when all sorts of shenanigans take place and the fantini from enemy contradas are doing their utmost to try and ruin the starting position of their adversary. The overwhelming favourite was the star fantino Tittia, riding for Istrice- the Porcupine.
Our Canarino was unfortunately never to be seen anywhere near the front runners. This was a real surprise Palio- the winner was La Lupa, the She wolf, with a horse called Benitos, also running his first Palio and a rank outsider, ridden by the oldest fantino in the race at 43, nicknamed Velluto, who had never won a Palio before and had not even ridden one for 7 years.
The summer marches on here with its relentless heat reverberating beween the ancient buildngs and alleyways of Siena. Hoards of ice cream eating visitors attempt some relief in the shade of the numerous awnings and parasols offered by the trattorias and bars that line Siena's meandering streets: this is the Deep Summer.
But there is always a sadness when August arrives... autumn is inexorably on the march towards us. I want to grasp on to these days and store them with their azur blue skies, their breathless, uncompromising heat.
I have an unusually long period of relative calm here at my tiny 'pensione', because although all three room are taken the guests are staying for a minimum of one week, so I am finding some days of freedom. Yesterday I was invited to the coast to visit my friend the eye specialist Marilena, originally from Basilicata in the South, but who has lived here in Siena most of her life. She has bought a holiday flat in the city of Piombino on the Tuscan coast just north of Livorno: a new discovery for me. I went in the company of my only Swedish friend here, the Siena eye doctor Gunnar, who has lived in Siena for 45 years and who met Marilena when they were studying medicine at the Siena university. They have remained close friends ever since and seen each other through two or three marriages and close relationships respectively- somehow showing that friendships can sometimes outlast the slings and arrows of love...how fortunate they are to have each other.
The evenings now are full of events all around town- there is the Nicchio Contrada with its summer fest in their beautiful gardens; there are 'apericenas' with open air cinema- last night Fritz Lang's Metropolis - there is the yearly 'Siena Jazz', attended by one of my guests, Louis from Belgium, a jazz pianist, who gave a concert with the other members of his group at the Fonte Nuova (the 'New' Fountain..finished 1303..) in the Contrada of the Lupa the other night...
And soon, of course, there is once more the Palio- the first related event, shortly, being the unveiling of the August Palio, created by the artist/illustrator Riccardo Guasco, whose work I have already admired at the opera of Bologna, where he has made many posters:
Here we have, just for David (who asked for it in the previous comments) the front page of the Nazione, where, on the left hand side, the...