Ravenna; Village Sagra; Octopus Feast and Andrea's Prophesy on the Wall...

My dear old friend David invited me to Ravenna, where he was writing reviews for its summer music and theatre festival- I managed to be present at one thing only- a idiosyncratic production of Don Quixote which was staged by a venerable Ravenna theatre company that he had known for decades- we were therefore looked after extremely well and after the performance we were invited to a late night wine flowing dinner with the company and all the actors- I was then driven back home to my litttle airbnb by Don Quixote himself in his beaten up old car which he called Rosinante!

                           Had just enough time to see those splendid Byzantine mosaics before leaving the  lovely Ravenna :

to host my old friend Robert, whom I met in Mali some years ago, and who now has business in Tuscany: here we are at a village Sagra, one of those lovely summer events which are so popular in the little villages around Siena and the Chianti. 

And here in  my flat I had my first large dinner- we managed to squeeze 11 people in around the dinner table. I cooked  Octopus using my friend Leonardo's Sicilian grandmother's recipe for some of those that I have met through the trekking group; but particularly those  of us who have a splintered off into a subsection of that large group- one where we read and act  and will perhaps engage in other creative activities too- who knows? 

This evening, after dinner, AnnaCarla, below in the chair, read from her book which is just published, called  Ballando Tra Vetro e Ombre : or  Dancing between glass and shadows'.

But the best thing of all was Andrea's Prophesy on my wall: I have a space where my guests write a message - the French call it a 'Livre d'Or' when it is in book form. But mine will fill a circle on my wall instead. And Andrea (above, centre) wrote:

'Don't be fooled by 

  appearances, this isn't a house, it's a fertile field. Don't just look, sow and in this place something will magically grow'