Primavera

 Yes, the spring has arrived here in Siena, and that means the first stirrings of the Contrade...

On the 25th of March the CAPO D ANNO SENESE, or the Sienese New Year is celebrated, and representatives of all the 17 contradas take part in a procession between the Duomo and the Piazza del Campo. This, apparently, is a tradition that originates centuries past, when Siena was a City Republic. Above we have the OCA to the right and ONDA to the left. I am still moved by these celebrations, and see them as the beginning of the happy part of the Siena year. 

And now, when the sun shines, I go and sit in the Piazza del Campo and look at the amusing dramas which take place among the multitudes of visitors that have had the same idea...

The local police fight a losing battle every day... Their aim used to be two fold: last year they walked around the Piazza telling people they were 1: not allowed to eat anything on the Piazza and 2: not allowed to lie down but had to maintain a sitting position. They do this in a fairly cordial manner, but with the sheer number of lunch eating sun worshippers they have had to admit defeat on the first part of their task, and now it seems to be OK to consume your picnic.  The second prohibition is still in place, however. I had been watching this group below left, and was aware of  the approaching guardians of the law.  

                       
but, as I said, it is a losing battle... 

New ones arrive, and it is of course only a question of time before these too will face the carabinieri...

And today it is Palm Sunday. I have a charming, young, very tall Chinese guest here, who turned out to be a Catholic. He is a great fan of early Italian art, and saw my newly purchased Vasari's Lives of the Artists on the table. He had read that in Chinese and had also been to see the recent Siena exhibition in London  at the National Gallery.  However, his English or Italian is virtually non-existent, so we  converse through the translation soft wear on his mobile phone.  We went to mass together and he presented me with a small statue of the Madonna of Shanghai:

                                                                       

I am constantly amazed by the interesting and varied people I have the privilege of meeting here...and they are quite often Chinese. I will admit to having been somewhat prejudiced before. I was  feeling quite removed from far Eastern peoples, thinking they were somehow from a different tribe, but now they are becoming alive to me, and taking on colours, like  drawings or films moving from black and white into colours. I think I may have mentioned this before, but it continues being a joyful discovery for me. 

A London February

Yes, a whole month in London, in the depths of Winter... but towards the end of this long time of rainy and near freezing  tribulation  the lovely gardens of Notting Hill and Holland Park began to express that they too had had enough, and started coming alive with the exotic splendour of magnolias and other very flamboyant, and to me rather un-English floral signs  of the arrival of spring...

but until those last days, I spent my days on my hands and knees in the prosaic surroundings of my hired,  un-heated studio space  on a North Acton Industrial Estate

painting the floorcloth for the Richmond Georgian House, which will be installed towards the autumn. This was the only time available for me to do this work, since now, with the arrival of spring, my little airBnb will begin to fill up again and from now onwards till end October Siena is the place to be!

I was often assisted by Iarla, my friend Kathy's son (who, by the way, chose to be Tarzan for my big spring party last March) and it was the second time he helped me to work on a floorcloth, the last being the one I made several years ago for Auckland Castle.

The best time of the day was when we finished the cold day's work and walked down to the lovely haven which was a little Lebanese workman's caff, where the friendly Ali and his nephew made us hot falaffels and there was always a lovely home made lentil soup which one could help oneself to

                                                                                 

 After a month of marbling and painting of border cornucopia to match the splendid wall decorations in the room our the work was finally rolled up and taken away for storage.

There was of course also some time at night to catch up with some of my London friends, and I spent the first couple of weeks at Sanjay's lovely Parson's Green flat before moving to Andrew's Portobello Road pad and then finally I caught up once more with Les and Patty again in the lovely Ladbroke Grove flat they now stay in when they spend time in London. 

All in all a successful but really demanding and exhausting month in London, while my friends Ed and Erika manned the fort in Siena. They left this morning and I am now alone, and about to fix a Campari Spitz to fortify myself to delve into the worrying Middle East news via CNN, France 24 and Al Jazeera...