Certaldo

 Another sunny Saturday in Tuscany- just made for some more exploration. It is hard to go wrong here- whichever direction you strike out you are bound to stumble across something lovely...  This time I had researched a little, and had   chosen the little town of Certaldo, halfway to Florence and reachable with a 35 min. train journey straight northwards from Siena. 

                                                   

It is a small, sleepy town.  Its  modern, unremarkable neighbourhoods  nestle at the bottom of a steep hill, at the top of which sits the lovely little medieval town where its most famous son lived: Boccacio, who is also buried here. I inherited a rather beautiful old illustrated Decameron from my father- This place therefore seemed to provided some remote sentimental connection to him...

The medieval hilltop town can be  reached  by a steep ascent, or rather more fun: by taking a little funicular.  Its charming, narrow streets can be explored in ten minutes,  and there were a few Italian tourists doing just that before we all squeezed into a little sunny garden trattoria for lunch. It was  about the only place open today. Undoubtedly many more places would be open in the summer. 

The main attraction is the 13th century castle:

                       with some rather lovely frescoes in a Loggia in front of the main Facade:

I will continue expanding my research into good places to go on day trips from Siena- it seems a useful thing to do now, before everything starts! The coming week is dotted with important meetings: Paolo will show me his finalized drawings- they have been passed by the engineer. That means we can put the plans in for formal approval by the town council... and if all goes well building can start maybe in May if we can find workers?

Meanwhile, my ties with Mali are still very strong of course: I am hoping to go out in March. The recent unrest seems to have calmed down, and Air France, which had interrupted their flights to Bamako are resuming flights again. Djenne is calm at the moment. The little chicken venture I have entered into with my old barman Mamane seems to be going from strength to strength. Here he is with the current generation of chicks which he believes will be ready to sell in 20 days, Inchallah!

Getting Happily Lost

After a few foggy days when the hills around Siena with their cypresses and ancient villages rose like splendid islands in a dream landscape of clouds, the sun has once more  been shining and I have been out walking. 

Yesterday I walked 17 kilometres- something of a record, although it was not meant to be quite like that...I wanted to get to a riding stable, to catch up with my equestrian self, which is quite important and which I have neglected. 

There is this stable, according to Google, which I would be able to reach after one and a half hours walk in a south westerly direction.  I accepted Googles proposal and set out happily, leaving the city through the Fontebranda Gate at 10.55. 

I was supposed to walk for about half an hour before turning right. What Google did not explain was that this led me down a fast moving road where I had to squeeze myself flat against the walls of the buildings at the passing of the vehicles which moved at breakneck speed before having to  cross a spaghetti junction involving a motorway, where there was absolutely no provision for walkers... Siena is an ancient city where nothing changes, where everyone walks and everything moves at a leisurely pace. But just put your toe outside the ancient confines of its city walls and all that is but a faint, quaint memory!

( Illustration only, )

However, once I had crossed this fearful obstacle with my life intact- and some tears in my clothes and skin from brambles as I attempted to forge a path on the wrong side of the road barrier, so as not to be squashed by oncoming traffic, I decided to give up on the stable for this time and just chose the first road that looked like a peaceful option. Thankfully it was. It took me through the sort of Tuscan countryside I had been expecting, and the sun was still shining- in the distance I could see Siena:

I had been hoping for a little auberge to appear on the way- somewhere for a peaceful lunch. In fact this place did appear, and I realize now I should have stopped - in a place called Montalbuccio, there is an eponymous restaurant with very good reviews: I will go next time!

                 After about four hours I scaled the long hill that led to the Porta St Marco: 

after which I was was quite happy to hobble my way to the Piazza del Campo for what I felt was a well-deserved late lunch!

 

Bidets, Palio, Mali and other important matters

 My computer is being mended. I am surviving with some irritation and discomfort, doing everything with my little telefonino, as they call it here.                        

I am having meetings with Paolo, my handsome young architect, and we are running into some problems in the bathroom department (the arguments are  in Italian of course).

 Paolo is insisting that all good bathrooms must have a bidet and I say that bidets are for the French and the Italians but the rest if the world have managed quite successfully for centuries, indeed forever, without this contraption which takes up a lot of space.  The Malians have in fact got a very good solution, as everyone who has travelled there knows well: a sort if plastic kettle filled up with water stands next to the loo. Apart from this little misunderstanding the work is progressing apace- the drawings that is. I am not going to get possession of the place until the end of February, when hopefully the work will start.

Meanwhile, there seems to be some movement on the Palio front: that is of course the one thing that concerns the Senese. According to this article the Mayor and the chiefs of the 17 Contrade have come to the conclusion that there WILL be Palio this summer, come what may! Hurrah say I.

And what else?  Well, rather worrying news from Mali 🇲🇱... where they are being subjected to sanctions and closed borders with the CEDEAO, the neighbouring West African states. This is no doubt due to pressure from the French according to the Malians and everyone is most annoyed. The sanctions  are aimed at trying to get the ruling junta to organize elections and relinquish power if I understand things correctly. 

But not only that... Djenne which has been a safe haven in the midst of an increasingly dangerous and troubled Central Mali has suddenly deteriorated and Senossa, the Fulani village just a couple if kilometres from Djenne has been attacked  with several casualties. For the first time Babou, with whom I speak about library business every Saturday, said that he would not recommend that I go to Djenne right now...this is bad news indeed. We will have to see how things develop. My trip is planned for March, when I hope to see up the project in Gao too, finally.

 

 

January Blues

 It is amazing how bereft I always feel when taking down all those Christmas decorations. Every year the same feeling - like an empty Brighton Pier when summer is over and the popcorn and ice cream stands have been packed away...Everyone is gone and the only company is me... below is the last view of the tree at the Nichio Contrada on my evening walk: - tomorrow all will be gone.

I wonder how next Christmas will look? All going according to plan I should be in my new abode on Casato di Sopra, Siena, and all the planned building work should be well over- there will be room for some visitors. But right now Siena undoubtedly feels quite empty. 

I should be ashamed for feeling lonely! The last couple of months have been shock full of fun and events; there has hardly been a moment when friends have not been visiting  and not only that; I just came back from a most glamorous New Year visit to St. Paul, Minnesota where I was the guest of dear friends Patty and Les in their stunning loft style converted warehouse overlooking the frozen Mississippi river.   

                                                                     

                          

                           

 A cavalcade of interesting, beautiful  and intimidatingly clever people passed through and drank champagne and had exquisite dinners with us- the sort of people who 'sit on boards'.  Many of them  do indeed sit on the board of  HMML- Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, the  foundation that have been sponsoring the digitisation work in both Djenne and Timbuktu. 

                                                             

It dawned on me, making me blush while enjoying the gourmet dinners,  that I gave Les and Patty roast chicken and roast potatoes followed by apple crumble or something equally homely when they stayed with me... while they made Coquilles St Jacques followed by something heavenly called Flank Steak Mosaic and then Prosecco and raspberry jelly...well, it was probably a good wake up call. I will have to brush up on my cooking after all, to please future visitors and my little guest house...

                         

Patty Les and I visited the HMML head quarter at St John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota,  the Benedictine convent where my boss form the Manuscript World, Father Columba Stewart (with whom I share a hundred memories of  Mali adventures) cooked us Louisiana soul food dinner for us. 

Everyone in Minnesota seems to have a connection to Sweden, and  wanted to show off their few phrases of Swedish on me- the Swedes  was the biggest group of immigrants in this part of the States. There are a plethora of 'Ole and Lena' jokes, which pull the Swedish settler legs...("Ole was excited when he completed a jigsaw puzzle in six months. Sven told him 'Ya know Ole, dat doesn't sound so good.' Ole replied: 'Vell Sven, da box says right here,'two-to-four years.'")

 Below we see Les and Patty in a splendid museum displaying the late nineteenth century  interior that had belonged to a once poor Swedish immigrant that had made it big, a veritable illustration of the American Dream. The setting was straight out of the  Christmas scene of Fanny and Alexander.

                                                                           

So now: back to Italian school on Monday morning and later on a meeting with 'my architect' (gosh, that sounds grand!) Paolo to discuss the work on Casato di Sopra. What am I complaining about? Shame on me!