Buon Natale !

 

A rather belated Christmas greeting from Siena!

My dear friends Jeremiah and David have joined me for Christmas, as well as the lovely Pia, who was with me on my very first trip to Mali at Christmas/New Year 2005-6 when  I decided to start someting in Djenne. It feels appropriate and good that these friends should be with me now, for my first Christmas in Siena!

Christmas eve started  in the earliest hour with a brisk walk in the rain  down the precipitous Via del Comune to Porta Ovile, where one finds a lorry with a charming fisherman who comes up to Siena from Castiglione della Pescaia most mornings. And this morning was of course an important one, since all Italians have to eat fish for the Cena di Virgilio, or the dinner of the 7 Fishes, before going off to Midnight Mass.  I think we managed at least ten types... Below I am tackling the Branzino.
                                              

    Jeremiah was in charge of the prawns and aioli:

                                       

    and Satomi, my lovely Japanese friend from the language school brought sushi!

                            

 

 Pia, left above, brought a luxury Panettoni and the two of us, being Swedes, managed to find Walt Disney's Christmas cartoons at three in the afternoon- this is a Swedish tradition so entrenched that it equals Santa Lucia and Midsummer celebrations, and could only equal the Queen's Christmas Speech for the English. No self respecting, patriotic Swede would ever go with out this hour long medley of  treasures like Santa's Christmas factory, Snow white, Cinderella and here below, Lady and the Tramp at the Napoli restaurant, something that is also much loved by the Italians:

I managed to take time out of the kitchen long enough to show Jeremiah and Pia my new flat, where the owners, who  still live there until formalities are completed, were kind enough to let me show them around- we walked through a  rain sodden Siena, beautiful in the low mist, past the Campo and up to Casato di Sopra in 'my' Onda district: 

                                               

                                   

                                 

  Finally, we made midnight mass in the sumptuous Siena Cathedral: 

Christmas Day we played all those games...Charades of course... The Novel Game... and Botticelli... 

and tomorrow at 3.30 am I will pull my little trolley bag down the Via Pantaneto and up the via di Citta and down the Via Montanini to the bus station to board to bus to Roma.

 I am off to Minnesota: The coldest place in the whole of the US for New Year!

 More about this soon!....