The Deep Summer

 The summer marches on  here with its relentless heat reverberating beween the ancient buildngs and alleyways of Siena. Hoards of ice cream eating visitors attempt some relief  in the shade of the numerous awnings and parasols offered by the  trattorias and bars that line  Siena's meandering streets: this is the Deep Summer. 

 But there is always a sadness when August arrives... autumn is inexorably on the march towards us.   I want to grasp on to these days and store them with their azur blue skies, their breathless, uncompromising heat. 

I have an unusually long period of relative calm here at my tiny 'pensione', because although all three room are taken the guests are staying for a minimum of one week, so I am finding some days of freedom.  Yesterday I was invited to the coast to visit my friend the eye specialist Marilena, originally from Basilicata in the South,  but who has lived here in Siena most of her life. She has bought a holiday flat in the city of Piombino on the Tuscan coast just north of Livorno: a new discovery for me. I went in the company of my only Swedish friend here, the Siena eye doctor Gunnar, who has lived in Siena for 45 years and who met  Marilena when they were studying medicine at  the Siena university. They have remained close friends ever since and seen each other through two or three marriages and close relationships respectively- somehow showing that friendships can sometimes outlast the slings and arrows of love...how fortunate they are to have each other. 

The evenings now are full of events all around town- there is the Nicchio Contrada with its summer fest in their beautiful gardens; there are 'apericenas' with open air cinema- last night Fritz Lang's Metropolis - there is the yearly 'Siena Jazz', attended by one of my guests, Louis from Belgium,  a jazz pianist, who gave a concert with the  other members of his group at the Fonte Nuova (the 'New' Fountain..finished 1303..) in the Contrada of the Lupa  the other night...

And soon, of course,  there is once more the Palio- the first related event, shortly,  being the unveiling of the  August Palio, created by the artist/illustrator Riccardo Guasco, whose work I have already admired at the opera of Bologna, where he has made many posters: