Swedish TV- channel 4?

 And during all this summer fun, where are we with the flat? Well, we have started knocking the walls down, but work has once more ground to a temporary halt. We are waiting for the Town Council to give us permission to put a container on the street in Via di Sambuco and a 'shoot'  from the top window to get rid of all the rubbish... 

So, at the moment, niente si fa...

However, a Swedish TV programme- channel 4- might be interested in making a little feature about it- it is one of those programmes that follows various people abroad in their building projects.. And I have actually already featured for  Swedish Channel 4 (show -off!) see blog post 20 March 2013: 

http://djennedjenno.blogspot.com/2013/03/

when I became a short lived celebrity in Mali because I was on the spot and could report on what was happening during the French intervention after the events of the 2012 coup and Jihadist invasion of northern Mali. The lovely Stefan  Borg, news anchor for channel 4 is here seen interviewing Baba in the bogolan studio in Djenne:

 And since my director/producer friend the Irish Peter was just here with a top notch camera on his mobile, he was able to film me in the Casato flat - top above- when I make my bid to be part of this TV series. Let's see what they say!

Meanwhile, have decided to try out a long standing but not yet created idea on the large interior northern wall of what in Tuscan speech is called the Tinello - the dining room. I want to put up posters and then tear them down - at least ten layers. so I create a sort of mosaic of interesting bits- better than the above.. but it was the best I could find...It might go quite well with the polished cement floor I have decided on for more or less the whole flat. The Swedish producer thought it was quite punk she said..? I wonder what Paolo will think of it...? 

Siena Summer fun

There is lots of it! 

Meanwhile Italy is of course imploding- the government has once again fallen ( it was the fault of the 5 Star Movement. I am very cross with them. I liked Draghi.) However, here people are shrugging their shoulders, eating, dancing and enjoying the heatwave as if nothing had happened...

The Contradas take it in turn to open up their large gardens, and every night for a fortnight or so, le tout Sienne visit the particular Contrada whose turn it is to entertain. There  the wine flows, the live music plays, and the grills, manned by the Contradioli volunteers, produce vast quantities of Salsicci ( they really are very good at sausages here.. although I maintain they don't know how to make bread in Tuscany...) and Costolette alla Griglia etc., consumed at  long trestle tables set up on the grassy slopes. Here I am at BRUCO (the silk worm) Contrada with Italian friends from my walking group.

After all that meat the tradition  is to jump up and down waving one's arms in the air frenetically for an hour or so to the live band - this particular night they did excellent cover versions of hits by the  Beatles, Stones and the Who etc,...below it looks like daylight, but it is only strong illumination...

An English (oops, Irish as a matter of fact) friend from London kept me company for three days here, and made me laugh- Peter Cavanagh, 

who also partook of the Contrada evenings with me, and introduced me to a new friend, the American Hettie, who lives here too and here she is below with her German nephew Louis at last night's Hoe-Down at the Nicchio  (The Shell) Contrada, where just as much Salsicci and wine was consumed...and just as much dancing took place.
                                                 

And the best of all: I have started to ride again, after some years break- Here below in the manege, but I now go on lovely treks along the Via Fancigena in the early evening with Laura, the manager of this stable, close to Siena. The horses are MUCH BIGGER than I was used to in Mali.

Bathing

Paolo made me laugh today.

 I have insisted on having a bath tub somewhere in the flat. First it was to be what is apparently grandly called a 'Vasca Pompeiana', which is a slipper sit-up bath, because there was no space in what will become my bathroom. I rather liked that idea. From my  Vasca Pompeiana

I would be able to admire the view of the Duomo; a candle lit, a glass of Prosecco in my hand, on a winter's night. 

However, I had to abandon my dream in order to create  space for  the rather more prosaic impiante idrico sanitario.,or the water heating system...

But naturally, neither I nor Paolo gave up completely.  And a new bathroom idea was formed, this time on the other side of the flat, and this time involving an antique bath with lion's feet, sitting in the very bedroom itself, with a view over Basilica of Santa Maria del Servi (in fact the Vadimontone Contrada head quarters...) and above is Paolo's drawing of me in the bath, with my glass of Prosecco, enjoying my view over just that. 

This was supposed to be accompanied by the sound track of Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay, the lyrics of which Paolo  had changed slightly:

"I'm sittin' in the tub of the room. watchin' the view at noon

Oh, I'm just sittin' in the tub of the room, Wastin'Time...

Other news from Italia include an outing, yesterday,  with my trekking group Camminando a Quercegrossa- only this time the walking was done in the water on the beach of the Parco della Sterpaia.

We joined a large multitude on this sandy beach where the beach umbrellas seemed to go on forever and  would probably have covered  more or less the entire coast of Tuscany as everyone tried to find a little cooling relief in the waves-

And then, tired; sun-baked and happy, we all decamped to a little country Trattoria on the route back to Siena and had things like  Tagliatelle al Cinghiale...

 

Finally!

These decidedly lacklustre pictures are not as boring as they seem...on the contrary! The first is the notice put up on the front door at 11 Casato di Sopra, announcing to all and sundry that renovation work has started, and that the Architect Firm Ingeniu is in charge.

I arrived to have a look at the first day's work , and found that two chaps had already dismantled all the interior doors and built-in wardrobes etc. So as not to get in the way, I decided to decamp into the kitchen and try my hand at the view for the first time... The Torre del Mangia seems to be in competition with the leaning tower of Pisa... oh, well, there will be plenty of time to try again...

 

Estrazione- the Luck of the Draw

 Last night the first Act was played out for the August Palio: the Campo filled up again with an expectant crowd awaiting the Estrazione, which is when the flags of the Contradas that will take part are revealed, one by one, from the windows of the Palazzo Pubblico, after the spin of the lottery wheel.

They are good at theatricals here- and the drama unfolded after the customary trumpet fanfare from the windows. Three Contradas were to be drawn- there were already seven who had a place secure, according to the complicated, and -to me- still rather nebulous rules of the Palio.

After the trumpet fanfare was heard, total silence and palpable tension in the Piazza- and then the light blue and white banner of ONDA appeared- and that is 'mine' of course! Great eruption of joy from the Onda section of the square, when they all broke into that Siena song...

The second flag to appear was that of the  SELVA, and that too pleased me, for quite arcane reasons:

I have mentioned that my little literary group read through the Divina Commedia in London for some three years. Well, as you know, it starts: 

Nel mezzo del cammin di  nostra vita/ mi ritrovai per una Selva oscura /che la diritta via  era smarrita

(of course, I am not pretending that we read it in Italian!) 

Selva, then, is the old Italian  name for forest, the place where Dante got lost when he was  having his mid- life crisis. For such tenuous and sentimental reasons I have always had a soft spot for the Selva contrada... Today's Italian word for forest is Bosco.

The third Contrada, making  the  ten, was Chiocciola, or the snail. 

And the flat business? Well, false alarm yesterday. Maybe tomorrow, says Pietro, the Capo of the construction company ...

The caress of the streets of Siena

There is no doubt that to start a new life in a new city where one knows no one is harder when one gets older. In addition, people have told me that particularly Siena would be a difficult nut to crack- the people here are known to be more reserved than perhaps any other Italian city. I think that is true. Now, when I have finished my school which took up half the days and put me in contact with interesting people from all over the world; and before the work on the flat has started; I find myself in a sort of limbo, where I spend most of my time alone. 

I have started to draw again, after many years. Like the proverbial English lady in Tuscany I set out in the morning with my hat; my folding stool and my sketchbook. then I find an exciting corner with lovely shapes- and that is the thing that fascinates me about this place: the shapes of the streets which create sweeping, sculptural gestures; as if they had been put there by  the brushstrokes of a giant artist, as the narrow  streets curl boldly around the three hills of Siena.

These grand  brush strokes also make for a lovely play of light as the sun hits the facades in unexpected ways, creating abstracts shapes that really need to be painted rather than drawn. So therefore, watch out- ecco the imminent arrival  of the ultimate version  of that English Lady in Tuscany: the one with the easel...

These are simple sketches of course without any pretence of being anything but a conventional record of this my adopted city  for my pleasure...

But the thing that keeps me interested is those bold  curves which feel like a tender caress, everywhere in this lovely place.
                                                   

And here, above,  is that little street called Via del Sambuco, where, in a few days, there will be a long 'shoot' placed from  the top left hand window, through which all the rubble of the building work will be thrown, because it is my flat where work is to start tomorrow morning.

Remembering Mali- remembering my Keita

 I don't expect there to be any new readers to my blog- so if you read this, you know who you see here. This photo was taken just after the Coup d'Etat in 2012. In spite of the turmoil, Keita and I - with two friends, Lassana and Levy, decided to go on a little holiday. And here we are, having been seduced into the waters of the Niger when we passed the bridge on our way to Guinea. It just looked too inviting! more about this holiday: www.djennedjenno.blogspot.com April 24,  2012 It is just over ten years ago now...

Why this sudden remembrance of times past? Well, it is Tabaski today (the West African name for Eid Al Adha) so there is an unusual lot of messages and contact between Siena and Mali today... and some of that involved 'my' sons Moussa and Lassie, who wanted to see pictures of their father. So I started digging out pictures...Well, it is a long and complicated story which belongs to my previous life. 

That request put me on a road of nostalgia - it made me put on KarKar- Boubakar Traore and Habib Koite on Spotify, and that is guaranteed to engender a state of exaltation and make me cry- both with  happiness that I was allowed to live through those times; and  with sadness that they are gone.  This time it also made me think that those extraordinary times were probably the greatest adventure I will have. But who knows? It would probably be greedy to think that anything could remotely come close to those days... 

I know there is a large part of me still remaining somewhere there by the shores of the Bani and the Niger...

Having said that, the work on the flat is finally going to start on Monday. And I have received, finally, that illusive Residency. I am now a Bona Fide inhabitant of Siena. Let this present chapter unravel and see what beauty there is here too to be discovered!

PALIO!

I decided to sit it out in the hot sun at the San Martino Bend this time, in order to ensure a great position. I arrived just after one- here is a picture of the tiny bit of shade offered to us at about 3pm, when the shadow of the Torre del Mangia passes to give some relief.  A long, hot day but with plenty of cameraderie. My crowd were not really tourists- well, some were from other parts of Italy- my neighbour by the railing was a girl from Livorno in Tuscany who comes here every year, and on the other side were a young couple from Verona, who had just spent their honey moon in Sweden. In other words there was plenty of opportunity to practise my Italian while the sun was beating down on us; while the balconies and the Campo was filling up, and while we all awaited the arrival of the Carabinieri- the mounted Police in their nineteenth century uniforms, who traditionally begins the Palio festivities. This year the Capitano was a woman!

Then began the Corteo Storico, the great Parade that includes representation in the form of flags, coats of arms and regalia from all the 17 existing Contradas and also from the several Contradas that no longer exist;  the alfieris and drummers as well as the  horses that are about to run the race.  These ancient suits of armour and weaponry are normally proudly displayed in the Museums of the Contradas. 

                                                 

And then,  as the shade finally arrived at last the Campo was ready for the big event...

But this proved difficult... The Palio was beset by problems this time- First of all, only eight horses were admitted at the starting point; two having been excluded for safety reasons, since they had suffered minor injuries during the trial run.  But that was not all: the race took nearly an hour to get going: it included four false starts, during which two more horses were eliminated- one because his jockey fell off and had to be carried away on a stretcher, and another because of another injury.  Here below we see 'Tittia', the most famous jockey, or fantino, at the San Martino bend during one of the false starts. He rode Zio Frac for the DRAGO Contrada, and eventually managed to arrive victorious in a photo finish over the Torre Contrada, to my great delight- I saw Tittia win the July 2019 Palio for Giraffa...

And today they were all out celebrating, doing the ceremonial parade through town to all the other Contradas while carrying their precious Palio, which this time was painted by the English painter Emma Sargeant. 

 

Siena on fire...

Siena really does live for the Palio- it is the soul and the life blood of the city, and this fundamental event  has not taken place for two years, therefore, although there are undoubtedly events more important on the world stage at the moment, here in Siena nothing exists apart from this just now...

The 'tufo' has once more been trod by the hooves of 85 candidates for the race- they have tried out the Campo on two 'night runs', when the selection committees have weeded out those that they don't deem suitable- both horses and fantini- the jockeys,.

the rejects- I would take them all on happily!- were led out of the Palazzo Pubblico before the crowds while the remaining ten were allotted to the ten fortunate Contradas who are taking part tomorrow.

There have been six 'Provas', or trial runs, and the Campo has been packed - as if it were the Palio itself.

Here below the Mayor, centre top, surveys 'his' city preparing for the joyful return of its raison d'etre tomorrow at this morning's Prova':

 

where the favourite Schietta- below- ridden by Carlo Sanna with the nickname Brigante. is getting a good start; it is one of the few horses who have run the Palio before- most are novices,  

 Tonight is the event which, after the Palio itself, has top billing: the Cena of the Prova Generale, when all the Contradas are eating in the street- I am with Paolo and his family at the Contrada of Valdimontone, just here where I have lived for the last year.

Below my window the dinner table preparations are taking place, but first of all they are waiting for 'our' horse to arrive from the stable- they will all then join the procession down to the Campo for the last 'Prova', before the dinner. I think I might just stay here for this one, since I have been at all the others, and have just washed my hair and feel more inclined to have a Campari Spritz while awaiting the evenings events in the cool and comfort of home for a change...