London and Siena Ceiling Palio

Spending a couple of weeks in London, enjoying old friends and my London flat.  Meanwhile Siena is

beginning to take shape- the ancient walls have been covered with new plaster, the ceilings are exposed and ready to be painted light grey and it is possible, finally, to have an idea of the finished look of the flat.

Under the ceiling there will be a border of ca 30 cm, in the same colour as the ceiling, running all around the large space of the main room- on this border there will be a horse race! I will once more go back to  Eadweard Muybridge's wonderful early photography and use his horses to make stencils- working on that now in London using my old connection in Hatton Garden to engrave the stencils for me.

                                        

I could of course make the jockeys into Fantini, wearing the Contrada colours... Hmmm, perhaps? 

Below the corner of this large space where the kitchen will go. 

                                   

                                      

A Sunday trek in the Maremma

in the mountains surrounding the glorious little village of Montorsaio, from which it is possible to glimpse the sea by Grossetto. 

And we did, as the mists cleared towards evening, after our 12 k. hike through the misty mountain paths, where the hunt for cinghiale (wild boar) was in full swing:

                                           

                                                    

and where we visited the ruins of an old Benedictine monastery.

before returning to the  village of Montorsaio  and discovering the reason why this village has a special claim to fame: We were lucky enough to catch the last day of the display of the numerous Presepes that are dotted all around the village streets: every house has one displayed, all attempting to outdo each other in beauty and creativity,

with the main attraction being the largest of them all, featuring terracotta figures which are portraits of the village population:

including some of the wild boar hunters. Who knows, the one below we had perhaps met on our misty walk!

 

A Perfect New year

Discovering the loveliness which is Greece, or the Mani, that middle prong that protrude southwards on that lovely peninsula which is the Peloponnese.  Spending time with dear old friends Cressida (from the Royal College of Art times), and her Paul, both delightful originals...in Cressida's new (old) rustic hilltop cottage in the village of Platsa, where I picked my own delicious breakfast  from her orange trees, eaten with local yoghurt and honey. 

New Year's Eve was spent in the neighbouring village with no tourists at all, just the locals- a delightful and very Greek experience which included the local priest (below) cutting the cake for all present at midnight:

and plenty of Greek music and dancing! I thought, in my ignorance,  that that was something old fashioned  that  happened only for tourists or in the  film Zorba the Greek... Clearly not. 

On New Year's day I walked down from the hilltop village to the coast- a one and a half hour's trek through divine Mediterranean scenery on a warm day in total silence, only met one car on the way.

And Cressida awaited me by the beach- we went for a swim, it was actually very pleasant! Can't have been less than 17 degrees, so the same sort of temperature as a Swedish summer swim almost...

 Now back in Siena, where today the streets are full of witches- the last bit of Christmas- with the peculiar celebration of Befana, the broom riding old hag who brings sweets for all the good children, and charcoal for the bad ones... Hettie, Lisa and I are going for Befana Aperitivos in a little while.

                                                                            Buon Anno!

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....

 

Some alarming discoveries... and a train journey.

When one starts poking around in a building that may be about 800 years old, there are inevitably surprises. It is like being on an archaeological dig. One finds the remnants of centuries of changes to the building, in layers upon layers, in changes upon changes. That is what makes walking around Siena so fascinating: seeing the mysterious archways  that succeed each other as one has supplanted the other, making way for new doorways and entrances during the centuries. I didn't realize that my flat too would have these mysteries to reveal... 

However, the other day Piero told me that all the plaster needed to come off the walls, because it would be falling off of its own accord otherwise... It has something to do with the fact that we have lightened the floor of all its centuries of paving tiles, which has made the whole structure move and change slightly, thus making everything unstable. Nevertheless we thought that we would be able to keep at least some of the ceilings, and Paolo was certain that we would find some lovely affrescati- those painted ceilings so often found in Siena's great buildings. 

That may well have been so. In the  picture above we see part of a ceiling which may have been hiding who knows what marvellous masterpieces. Alas, a third of the plaster on the ceiling above fell down during the night after this picture was taken, so the rest obviously had to come down too. We are now left with absolutely the bare bones of this flat, and those bones are extremely fragile: so much so that our engineer may tell us tomorrow that we need to reinforce all the walls with metal structures like the one below, between my bedroom and the bathroom, on top of which will be applied concrete. I dare not even think of the cost this might add to what has already become significantly more expensive than we planned for. 

It hardly bears thinking about... so let's not.  Let's move on instead to the pleasant journey last Sunday with the Treno Natura, an old steam train that took me, Bonnie and Antonella through the sunny Tuscan countryside to the little village of San Giovanni  d'Asso where the White Truffle (and other goodies) Christmas Market was in full swing. 

I had wanted to treat Antonella to something nice- she is my first and most faithful friend of all those I have met in Siena, and she has introduced me to many of my new activities- my trekking group, my Gospel choir, the Lions Club and I can't remember it all...She was due a treat. We had 4 course lunch and there was even some jolly entertainment on the train!

Bonnie was, as usual, being her lovely but demanding self ( impegnativa) jumping around in excitement at everything and wanting to lick everyone. Nevertheless, Italians really like dogs, at least as much as the English do, so no real problem there.

 A lovely day!

Autumnal pursuits

In the two weeks since I last wrote, autumn has finally settled in here, and today, rather than sitting at my favourite place under the tree with the lovely view, (occupied below by Hettie and her Labrador Bonnie)

                                                   

I have moved inside, the heating is finally switched on, and cold winds sweep around the narrow streets of Siena, while  rain is drumming on the window panes. Hettie has gone to the States for Thanks giving, so I am 'dog and cat sitting' , a task that is proving quite demanding- Bonnie is a young dog, very strong, and, like all labradors, (I am led to believe) very emotional, and in possession of an almost excessively loving heart. 

This predicament has caused her great distress in the last couple of days, when she has mourned Hettie  with the most heart breaking howls and sobs in the evening when I have gone to bed... she is also very intelligent, it seems, and last night, before I retired, I sat down with her and had a good chat, stroking her and reassuring her that she was not left alone; that Hettie would be back and also that I would take her for walkis in the morning. And this actually calmed her down, and she trusted me...!

So, apart from becoming, rather late in life, for the first time, a dog whisperer and dog walker , I have continued some traditional autumnal pursuits, like my oil painting course, where we are taught by a lady who is giving us a very classical introduction to oil painting according to the methods of the renaissance masters- i.e. underpainting with earth colours etc. Here below I am depicted, to the right in the painting by a fellow pupil,  carrying out my task, and in the next picture my 'work-in-progress' effort at trying to make some painterly sense of a rather uninteresting still life:

                            

Have also continued my  fraternization with the ONDA Contrada since I hope to become one of their number. When pondering how I could be of some use, it became clear that the best place for me at this point would be the Bandieraie, or the embroiderers. So I have been taken on by the sewing ladies, and here I am, mending ONDA flags, a Wednesday afternoon pursuit.

And yes, there is some progress at the flat too! This afternoon a geometra (surveyor) from IKEA is coming to measure up for my new kitchen!