Buses, trains, ferry, buses and automobile..

 

...brought me finally, after 30 hours, from Siena to Cressida’s place in the little village of Platsa in the southern Peloponnese. 

This is just the round the corner from the beach where Anthony Quinn danced, and almost exactly where Nikos Kazantzakis lived.  Rather exciting for me to see the mountainous Greek coast appearing in the morning mists, having sailed from Bari at night. I have never been to Greece- that is, if one doesn’t count one afternoon in Athen’s airport in the 1970’s...I don’t even know how to say hello, please or thank you in this language, at first encounter so incomprehensible that it might as well be Chinese. When going into the details, it is of course a fascinating language, since so many words have their origin here...

This new adventure has come, like a lovely dessert after a splendid Christmas feast where the first course was London, getting my flat ready for Patty and Les and seeing my old London pals- catching some of the highlights of the World Cup even...

 The main course came in the shape of the Christmas days in Siena, spent in Hettie’s lovely flat with old Lyonnaise friends Monique and Pascal and new American friend Lisa. 

Three days of pure Christmas indulgence: a real Turkey was ordered and purchased from the little family butcher around the corner from where I will live- he told me that it was one of the two turkeys he had sold this Christmas, the other one to an English customer who had bought  one every year for the last twenty. I made a chestnut stuffing- it took me about 4 hours to peel the blasted things. But the first course was the Foie Gras and Champagne, courtesy of out French friends.  

Other traditional behaviour included the watching sitting replete with another glass of wine, watching A Christmas Carol (the version with George C. Scott); Love Actually and the  obligatory (for a Swede)   old Walt Disney classics such as Lady and the Tramp at the Neapolitan restaurant – the Italians love this one too!

 And, of course, walking around Siena which showed its  most splendid and sunny side for all those who were strolling around and having drinks on the Campo.

And tonight, according to Cressida and Paul, we are going to have New Year’s dinner at a restaurant at which apparently Nikos Kazanzakis used to eat – and dance!  

 

In Haste!

Sometimes, in the winter, when there is a sunny but cold day, the Campo becomes warmer and more welcoming than anywhere else... 

and that is when it is easy to sit there and nod off gratefully...oblivious of time but not space

But there has been activity too! Here are the sopranos (me at far back) of  my gospel choir, just before our performance in the venerable, ancient Santa Maria dei Servi, Siena, below:

but now a couple of hectic weeks in London, preparing my Ladbroke Grove flat for the arrival of Les and Patty on Saturday, and catching up with old friends.. here Sanjay:

                                                                                  

and here, last night, to the left of  me (I am wearing a mask because of bad cold) David, who has all the best tickets for all the best things in London.  We are in St Martins in the Field for Bach's Christmas Oratorio,  the Monteverdi choir and orchestra directed by John Eliot Gardiner. We both once more concurred the blindingly obvious: Bach is God.  

And we were in Heaven.

                                                         

More soon....