no lunch today...

...it's a question of priorities! The light was not so good this morning so I had to shift to a different painting spot. Good progress with the painting though... (big grin) and there's always bread and cheese and wine for lunch and chocolate for afters...

aaah... it's a good life!


That is, unless you are a dog.
Zacchi says "I've tried everything.
When I saw the footwear I staged a sit-in in the stair-well...
and even that didn't work!"

Talk about emotional blackmail... first the daughter then the dog. What's a girl supposed to do? Stay home and buy books? This is Zacchi's fifth different tactic to come with me or make me stay home... each one more pathetic than the last.

There was
*hopefully bounding upstairs,
*perfect upright best behaviour waiting on the top step,
*find the handbag and sit perfectly and hopefully right beside it,
*poor little me but "I'm so cute flattened into the step in absolute subservience"
*the scruffy neglected waif look.

The woman has no heart...

going public too soon...

I don't really like sharing the messy stages of my paintings... but, just for Peggy, here it is. Still plenty to do. I have put away the photograph and now am interpreting the painting. Lots of adjusting and balancing of colours still to happen, and of course the foreground rocks still to strengthen. When the oil dries I will glaze and bring some into shadow, put some further back... it is how I like to work, with many scumbled and transparent layers. I have used the scumbling technique under the glazes because I think it suits the ancient buildings.

Moving from acrylics into oil has had it's fun side and its "downside"... I enjoy being back in oils after the acrylic underpainting, but I forgot that they don't dry and I am now covered in paint... ah well, at least I feel good!

You Know If You *Really* Loved Me

Sarah has published a book of her art project. This was the email in my in-box this early Monday morning: (love the emotional blackmail in her subject line... how can a mother resist?)

You Know If You *Really* Loved Me

You'd buy my book!
Yes, yes, you would!
Each and everyone of you.
Then you'd beat your friends with a baseball bat until they bought a copy.
And then they'd beat *their* friends until *they* bought a copy!
It would be a beautiful friend-beating experience.
And then it would spread like CRAZY MAD RAPID FIRE!
And oh!
You'd buy them as gifts to give away!
You'd buy them to use as coasters, door stops and YES! Even toilet paper if you so choose. Think of how many could fit stacked from the bathroom floor to the ceiling!
If you *really* loved me you'd all buy my book and turn it into a freaky fungus type of deal, crawling all over the universe, taking over small villages and outrunning small children.
So do it.
Do it!
Buy my book.
Buy it at:
www.lulu.com
And then I will know that you all love me, for sure.
Anybody need a baseball bat?

*heads to the sports store*

a day to simply be

It is bright but overcast today. It is the Sunday of a long weekend.

The birds are singing, the insects chatting, the rooster was crowing earlier. Even the rascal Zacchi seems to know not to bark today.

There is a calm, a stillness over the valley. I can hear neither cars nor human voices. A lazy blowfly can't decide where to settle so flies from room to room, not hurried, gently taking me back to a corner window in Maru Maru, maybe fifty years ago. Can I really be that old? No, inside I am still young.

The sun comes and goes, teasing a little. Inside, outside... where do I want to be?

I didn't turn on the television, or the radio, or even my music.

I would rather hear the birds, the insects.

I don't think I will study, read or write. I don't think I will go to friends. I think I will sit outside and dream in the beauty of this silence. I think it is a day for me to simply be.

anyone who cares

The weather is glorious.

It is too late (full moon was 20 April) to finish pruning my olive trees.

The grass under the trees was cut today.

The work in the cantina continues slowly but beautifully.

The painting has come to a bit of a halt.

I was a guide today.

The flowers at the railway station monument are looking healthy but were happy to be watered. Today's visitors were impressed with the work the students had done. (Later they kept up what is becoming a kiwi tradition and helped me to pull out more weeds at the St Angelo Peace Bell site).

As we left the station traffic was held up by a procession of singing and laughing cyclists. One wore a peace flag like a cape. There was nothing to indicate who they were or what they were doing. I ran after them and asked one what their rally was about. They were promoting the use of cycles instead of cars in Cassino. They were, they said, "anyone who cares".

I got into my car and negotiated the chaotic holiday weekend traffic, vehicles three wide on a two-lane road with no lane marking. I too could have been on my bike singing happy summertime songs...

I am very very tired, but happily so.

Goodnight... but first a little piece of chocolate...

:-)

poppies for today

The poppies are brilliant right now.

In Cassino's fields.

The 4000+ Commonwealth soldiers lie peacefully under their marble headstones in the immaculate lawn and gardens. The 20,000+ German soldiers enjoy a still and dignified solitude on their conical hill. The 1,000+ Polish soldiers could do with a gardener in their patch; it's a pity the abbey only looks across at them and does nothing for the fallen man. The estimated 6,000 French with their colonial soldiers were locked in for the night by the time I got to Venafro. I guess the headstones of the colonial troops at the rear of that cemetery were still facing Mecca.
Tomorrow we paint poppies...

tomorrow and

tomorrow and

tomorrow.

La Festa della Liberazione

Today is a national holiday, La Festa della Liberazione, celebrated on April 25 to mark the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Italy by Allied troops. Also known as V2 Day, it has become a day of political protest... but there were no demonstrations in my corner of the woods. Politics were certainly aired over pranzo though, father and daughter going much too fast for me to understand the content other than that it was a political discussion.

It was far too good a day to be inside