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!