Yesterday we were present at the inauguration of Kety Bastiani’s exhibition titled ‘gli angeli del sogno’ (“Dream angels”) held in the Ermete Zacconi theatre at Montefegatesi and which is open from Friday 29th July to Sunday 7th August.

Maria Kety Bastiani was born in Barga (Lucca) on 12 March 1975 and graduated as an art teacher at Lucca’s art institute. Although the college taught her technique she soon understood that emotions were the real key to her art. Kety states that she learned to read her heart and try to convey what she felt to those who looked at her paintings.

For Kety a perfume, a colour, the landscape of her Tuscany can become a source of inspiration and creation. She declares that she leaves her heart and soul free to pick up those positive signals that the world and nature send to all of us willing to receive them. For Kety painting is the means by which she talks about herself. “I let my works introduce me” says the artist and continues, “I don’t remember exactly when I decided to paint angels. And if I look back I find it hard to remember the first picture of an angel I painted. I remember that, like a desire that comes from the heart, the need arose in me to bring what I felt inside onto the canvas, a call to lightness, to transparency that goes beyond concrete living. So I started letting colours settle on the white canvas, without logic of technique or studied setting. Colours intertwined delicate textures like feathers, revealing the message that came from my heart. I listened to that inner voice that every artist has and which inevitably must materialize in her art. Art, therefore, becomes a vehicle of emotions or feelings and the concrete matter of an abstract and indecipherable message. It is not easy in a world of negativity and banality, to bring out this voice. But courage is often given to us in ways we don’t understand. Too often we don’t let our hearts do the talking for us. The task of an artist must be to reveal to the world the impossible behind reality. The artist has to open doors that others do not have the courage to go through like I did with my angels. I listened to what they had to tell me”.

“I set out in search of this world so close to ours, but so invisible to many. In a book I found the key to express this message in my art: “Their word without sound is a word that speaks to the heart”. That’s right! There was no clearer concept than this. I had to silence myself to “listen” to what the angels had to tell me. This is how my first works were born, which I presented with great enthusiasm in various exhibitions. Not everyone was able to grasp the message of love, hope and peace that I wanted to convey, but over time I had several favourable appreciations. But what is more important is that people who bought my angel paintings did so because they felt they caught a particular emotion in that work. I often meet those who bought one of my angels to be told that they hung it in the most beautiful, bright and visible point of the house. And so, passing in front of my angel, they find themselves smiling and greeting the angel, just as one does with an old friend. I believe that this is the “task” of my works, to become part of the life of those who buy them, to be a reference point for emotions. As a Christian I know that my “gift” of being able to paint came from Heaven. Each of us has a talent, a gift, and this must be cultivated and placed at the service of others. For me, painting angels becomes a way of spreading awareness in the world that we are not alone, but accompanied in our steps by creatures of light “.

I would add to Kety’s beautifully candid avowal of her art my own reflections on the subject of angels. Every Italian child learns that when they cannot see their mum their ‘Angelo Custode’ (guardian angel) is looking over them and so they continue to remain safe. I learnt the same thing too. Later I came to understand that angels are intermediaries between the heavenly sphere of the gods and the world of humans. Because of this I also realised that angels are messengers. They may carry important announcements and a vital way they do this is through dreams since in our waking hours we are usually far too preoccupied with the mundane but necessary tasks of daily life. I also recognized that angels themselves have had a tough time when some of them rebelled against the kingdom of the gods and rebelled against it. It was truly a Paradise Lost for them because they refused to shake the hand of their maker.

In our own lives we all have our collection of fallen angels: persons we thought could be trusted and have even loved but who became carriers of false messages. It is, therefore, so difficult but so essential to recognize our true messengers and realise that faith in our personal guardian angel is paramount and can help.

Angels appear in all religious creeds through the world. Indeed, they unite them from the heavenly apsaras of Hinduism to the Malaka of Islam to the Melek Taus of Yazidism. Christianity has angels appearing at the most important points in the Gospels: the Angel of the Annunciation beautifully depicted by the greatest artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Simone Martini, the Heavenly Host appearing to the shepherds and announcing Christ’s birth and the Angel of Death leading the women to Christ’s tomb. For all angels are messengers and though some of their messages are difficult to bear they are also there to comfort us no matter what situation we might find ourselves in.

These thoughts found visual expression for me in Kety’s paintings which were accompanied by words selected by her. Here, for example, is this superbly graceful face

Accompanied by the words.

The variety of Kety’s technique in rendering her subjects verges on the virtuoso. Grisaille, chiaroscuro and bright colour contrasts are all imaginatively weaved into her work.

There is a world of difference between the words ‘childish’ and ‘child-like’. Kety’s artistic world is often child-like in its pure expression, its technical mastery and its direct power of communication but it is never ‘childish’!

I emerged from this very touching artistic manifestation of the world of angels to enter another world which still upon this tortured planet retains that power of connection to spiritual beings on a higher plane…

For Montefegatesi is the highest village in our comune of Bagni di Lucca and the only one which is not sited in the Lima valley but in Val Fegana instead. From its slopes one’s view extends from the Apennine to the Apuans. Here surely is a landscape where angels may land with impunity and extend their messages of truth and beauty to all of us humans.

PS I should also mention that in addition to having a guardian angel I have an angel wife who herself loves depicting these ethereal beings:

The recent admission by BBC presenter Nicky Campbell that he was a victim of abuse at school in the 1970s adds to the increasingly fat catalogue of school abuse stories which includes celebrities like Richard Branson, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift as their victims.

Not that school has ever been the idyllic place it was for some supposedly lucky pupils. Dickens with his ‘Dotheboys Hall’, Orwell and his essay ‘Such, such were the joys’, are just two examples illustrating the sad fact that British education has often been unpleasant and even brutal for so many children.

I have not noticed any similarly harsh school experiences in my reading of Italian literature. That classic book ‘Cuore’ by Edmondo De Amicis, cast in the form of a third year north Italian primary schoolboy’s diary, for example, brings out the importance of compassion and tolerance to be emphasised during this critical stage of a child’s development. I suspect there may have been tougher moments in a German kid’s education but so far there’s nothing I have come across there to beat sheer British school mistreatment of its clients.

So is it just the UK that has this spectre of cruelty haunting its educational system?

My own experiences of abuse during my elementary and secondary education are negligible but they should perhaps be mentioned.  The important point, however, is that what now passes as abuse was not considered so once but was deemed an intrinsic part of the school system.  Also abuse from other schoolchildren seems today rather more in the fore than abuse from the teaching establishment. It’s called bullying and in Italy ‘bullismo’ has truly become a very big issue.

Abuse may be sexual or physical. Actually, exploitation of sexual innocence and ‘ten of the best’ are physical abuse involving (im)pure violence. More deeply distressing is, of course the psychological damage these cruelties inflict upon the victim’s self-esteem. Nicky Campbell says it scarred him for life but at least he didn’t take that life as many other schoolkids have sadly done.

The boarding school scenario is clearly worse than the day school one. At least in the latter a child may seek escape after the rigours of the classroom within a seemingly ‘normal’ everyday life in and around the home they daily return to. But the title ‘Roman Catholic Boarding School’ is enough to inflict terror or revulsion in many of us now particularly when an ailing Pope has deemed it necessary to fly to another continent to apologize for the appalling mistreatment suffered by native children in schools run by psychotic religious ideological sadists.

In my own case at the secondary school I attended (a ‘public’ school for which I obtained an LCC scholarship) if there was any abuse it could be classified as coming from one of three sources: the teachers, the prefects and the other kids.

Regarding the teachers the school rules did allow corporal punishment in my days and I certainly did not escape the cane particularly during those volatile years of puberty when behaviour often became particularly erratic. I think the rod was applied to my bottom on a couple of occasions when aged twelve by a chapel-formed Welshman, head of the Lower School, who in all respects was a model of moral uprightness. It was, of course, the usual adage ‘it hurts me more than it hurts you’ and ‘it’s for your own good’. The punishment was administered in front of the martinet’s desk in his study and was unseen by anyone else. Indeed the thrashing was not even known about by my parents and I hid the telling marks on my posterior and the sting they produced for several hours from them. Not even a note was sent by the Lower School head to my parents to tell them of the punishment, let alone any request of permission for them to allow it to be inflicted upon their son.

The corporal punishment stage (or the physical abuse if you like) did not last much beyond my transition from childhood to young adolescent. However, this was not the end of the ‘physical’ aspect of my education. Unbelievably, the prefects (a band of sixth formers elected by the college to implement school rules among students – an institution developed in the famous Doctor Arnold’s school at Rugby) also had the right to cast the cane onto one’s bum. This occurrence happened to me once and the punishment was inflicted in the prefect’s room on the ground floor in the school’s south block and in the company of all the other prefects. Yes. It was a quite public affair among the elected ones and the procedure was preceded by a speech by the head prefect explaining the reason for the sentence which was to the effect that ‘you have disgraced the school’.

That leads me to a startling point. I can’t remember exactly why I received the cane or why I had suddenly disgraced the school. Was it for not wearing the school cap on the local railway station platform? Was it for being caught smoking a Consulate fag on the common? Was it for cutting games during a rainy Saturday afternoon? Was it for being cheeky with one of the prefects and showing them a picture of a French pin-up? Was it for being late for early report on an icy winter’s morning? Early report was usually inflicted for unsatisfactory homework or for not doing it at all. School started at nine a.m.  But, for early report given by the teachers, one had to turn up at a quarter to nine. Even worse, however, was early report given by the prefects when one had to turn up at half past eight!

Despite these unpleasant situations the tangible damage for me was psychological and one incident in particular brought this out. Indeed, I was reminded of it most sympathetically many years later when I met up with a former contemporary at an event for old boys at the school. (Yes, unlike quite a few others I did manage to return to my old school!) It was when I turned up in the second term of my third year class and was now in classical Latin and Greek stream. On entering the classroom I was suddenly told by my form master that I was no longer in this class for I had been expelled from it on the grounds of underperforming academically. I was to go, instead, to the (apparently lower) geography stream class. Shaken and clearly worried about what my parents (who had been most keen for me to become a classicist) would say I picked up my belongings and trudged to the geography class where I was greeted by a mixture of cheers, hoots and a resigned expression from my new form-master, a wonderful man nick-named Humph who, after his death I found had been a more-than-Sunday artist of some worth. Un-amazingly, my parents did not know about my class demotion until several weeks later.

Of teachers (or ‘master’s as they were called at my old school – there was not yet one female teacher on the staff) I was really only scared of one ‘beak’ who taught us English. It was my first year and ‘ook’, as he was known, summoned me from my desk to stand before him in front of our class of around thirty pupils. ‘Ook’ then began to bark at me and harangue me for my stupidity in the subject. I was underperforming.  I did not listen. I talked when I should have listened. I was a discredit to the class and to the school etc. etc. Indeed, the outbreak of this teacher upon me shocked not only me but the rest of the class as well to the extent that some boys tried to interrupt the jeremiad saying ‘Come on Sir. Don’t you think that’s enough? Let him go back to his desk.’ It was remarkable! Eleven year olds with already a modicum of moral obligation and fairness.

Years later I met up with the same master at another old boys event. (Yes I could never entirely tear myself away from the school. I think it must – although Anglican in philosophy – have learnt a thing or two about retaining its clients from the Jesuits.) At that meeting, the teacher offered an apology for his treatment of me during that fateful year one. That was probably the most valuable apology I have ever been offered by anyone in my life!

 I was luckily (outside selected teachers and prefects) not subject to any bullying at school. I think this may be because I gathered a band of really reliable friends around me some of which I keep in touch with to this day. It may also have been because the regime of compulsory games twice a week (Wed and Sat afternoons) would channel our aggressive feelings into something more organised like tackles and scrums. There was just one person who caused me a little angst, especially when we had a fight in the bike sheds (yes we cycled to school in those days) and I pushed him against his Reynolds 853 framed two wheeler buckling the front wheel. Again, I did not tell my parents about this incident but my dad, a man from the ‘Pru’, found out what had happened and saved me from forking out my pocket money to the bike-shed Bluto for the next twenty years by claiming on my insurance policy.

 So that is my little tale of abuse, exploitation and manipulation at school. But was it physical abuse or merely application of school rules regarding corporal punishment? Was it psychological abuse or just learning the facts of life and realising that cunningness usually counts for more in life than cleverness? Who knows? Certainly times change and they are now changing especially fast. Everything has become more complex. Multifaceted and heterogeneous elements enter the equation. Mind-sets mutate. Culture changes and occasionally evolves towards a better world.

Big questions still enter my mind, however. Apart from the vividness of the often traumatic episodes which have unexpectedly punctured my adolescent development. Apart from the cutting phrases which I can still remember. Apart from the wearing down of my ego by certain elders until I measured myself as being more lowly than an earthworm I consider myself lucky that I was never sexually abused for that must surely be more harsh, more life-destroying for so many people than being thrashed on one’s bottom by a prefect.

Would I have had a happier education if I had entered an Italian school as might well have been possible in my situation? Would I have avoided bullying or denigration? Would I have grown up into a more aesthetically rounded and appreciative person? Would I have been able to speak in fluent ancient Greek? Would I have avoided the trauma I had with maths? I would certainly have avoided corporal punishment as that was abolished in all Italian schools in 1928!

I have however, entered an Italian school but as a teacher, not a pupil, since becoming a resident of ‘il bel paese’ over sixteen years ago. But that is another story….

Although our house in Longoio is up for sale, of the agricultural land associated with the property we are still keeping our olive grove which has been planted and tended by us for over sixteen years.

Yesterday we visited this haven of sylvan peace to see how it was surviving during Italy’s longest period of drought in living memory.

Prior to our visit the grove appeared to promise a bumper crop of olives

I hope it will rain soon!!! But, according to the forecast, this week is not promising any liquid drops from the heavens.

Our fruit trees are happily a slightly different matter and are rather more productive. Plump plums and apples decorate their boughs; Sandra has been producing some rather tasty jam from the plum trees.

Our blessed plot bears witness to all the love and work we’ve put into it. Although we no longer grow vegetables there it remains a peaceful haven and is a gorgeous place to have a picnic.  Shady holm oaks adorn its slopes and the place affords lovely view over the Lima valley.

Although we have left living in Longoio I think it would be rather difficult to let go of our campo.

Long may we be able to be guardians of this precious little piece of appennine earth.

Il concerto tenuto due sere fa da Piero Nissim e i suoi musicisti nella nostra nuova casa è stato di certo un successo senza riserve! Il programma consisteva in un ciclo di canzoni basate su poesie che andavano dal medioevo all’età moderna musicate da Piero Nissim.

Piero Nissim, nato a Lucca nel 1946, è un musicista, esperantista e burattinaio italiano di fama notevole. Il padre, Giorgio Nissim, ricevette la medaglia d’oro al valor civile dal Presidente della Repubblica Italiana per il suo impegno nell’opposizione al nazifascismo. Sua madre era un’ebrea lituana. Piero Nissim partecipa spesso in tutta Italia ad eventi pubblici in ricordo dell’impegno del padre per il quale ha ricevuto – insieme alle due sorelle – lo stendardo d’argento dalla Regione Toscana.

Abbiamo conosciuto Piero perché suo zio Elio Nissim ha lavorato per “Radio Londra” (radio Italia Libera) durante la Seconda Guerra mondiale ed è diventato amico di mio suocero. È stato, quindi, un privilegio avere Piero esibirsi con i suoi amici musicisti per l’inaugurazione della nostra nuova casa! Piero è oggetto di vari miei post tra cui:

Il programma della serata aveva questo titolo:

“MUSICARE I POETI da Dante a Pasolini

Musiche PIERO NISSIM

Armonizzazioni FRANCO MEOLI con la soprano MARIA BRUNO e PIERO NISSIM (voci) FRANCO MEOLI (pianoforte)”

Nel giardino della casa di Francis e Alexandra Pettitt . Dopo il concerto Buffet condiviso.”

Efficace è stato l’accostamento delle due voci con la Maestra Maria Bruno, rinomata soprano originaria di Modica, che insegna al conservatorio di Lucca, e Piero che ha una voce alquanto commovente a suo modo ‘naturale’. Le canzoni spaziavano dalla brillante “Quant’è bella Giovinezza” di Lorenzo de Medici a un sonetto torturato di Michelangelo fino a un pezzo enigmatico di d’Annunzio. Includevano anche poesie più moderne tra cui una di Pier Paolo Pasolini di cui celebriamo quest’anno il centenario della nascita.

I cantanti sono stati sensibilmente accompagnati dal M° Franco Meoli le cui fini abilità tastieristiche sono ben note soprattutto nelle scuole e negli istituti superiori.

L’opera di Piero è un ciclo di canzoni ben realizzato e sebbene il compositore abbia affermato che le poesie non hanno bisogno di essere musicate -poichè serbano la propria musica – si sentiva anche che spesso potevano essere adornate con l’abilità del compositore.

Sono d’accordo con Piero su ciò in cui crede. Dopotutto non avremmo avuto opere così incantevoli come le poesie di Housman musicate da Butterworth e Vaughan-Williams oppure il Rimbaud di Britten. ….per non parlare dei classici composti da Schubert, Faure, Wolf e tanti altri grandi!

Speriamo di poter organizzare altri spettacoli al nostro luogo. È stato così piacevole ascoltare una musica così eccellente, così meravigliosamente eseguita in buona compagnia e con un bel “rinfresco a seguire! “

After two years of lock-down events are really beginning to return in our part of the world.

Here are just a few which have interested me.

Open air Cinema at Cafaggio:

The season of films being showing at Cafaggio’s open-air cinema continues tonight with Raya and the Last Dragon  a 2021 fantasy adventure film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. directed by Don Hall and Carlos López Estrada, co-directed by Paul Briggs and John Ripa and produced by Osnat Shurer and Peter Del Vecho. The film is based on traditional Southeast Asian cultures and as we’ve visited such amazing countries as Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos we are particularly keen to watch it tonight. Sandra suggests we should also bring plenty of mosquito repellent as well!

Morning Yoga in Bagni’s gardens on Wednesday and Friday mornings at 10 am is proving very popular and is teaching me lots about body-mind balance;

Bagni di Lucca’s literary festival continues as follows:

The concert for the winners of the Adolfo Betti quartet competition will be on this week at Bagn di Lucca’s Town Hall. The standard of playing of these musicians is so high as to be quite unmissable!

July finishes on a high note – the Grand ducal mountain road leading to Modena and Parma.

And that’s just the beginning. There’s plenty more to follow including Morena’s exhibition.

The concert held by Piero Nissim and his musicians at our new home last night was an unqualified success!

The programme consisted of a cycle of songs based on poems ranging from mediaeval to modern times set to music by Piero Nissim.

Piero Nissim, born in Lucca in 1946, is an Italian musician, esperantist and puppeteer. His father, Giorgio Nissim, received the gold medal for civil valour from the President of the Italian Republic for his commitment in opposing Nazi-fascism. His mother was a Lithuanian Jew. Piero Nissim often participates throughout Italy in public events in memory of the commitment of his father for which he received – together with his two sisters – the silver banner from the Tuscany Region. We got to know Piero because his uncle Elio Nissim worked for ‘Radio Londra’ (Free Italy radio) during World War Two and became friends with my father-in-law. It was, therefore, a privilege to have Piero perform with his musician friends for the inauguration of our new house!

Piero is the subject of various of my posts including :

The programme for the evening had this title:

“MUSICARE I POETI da Dante a Pasolini

Musiche PIERO NISSIM Armonizzazioni FRANCO MEOLI

con la soprano MARIA BRUNO e PIERO NISSIM (voci)

FRANCO MEOLI (pianoforte)”

Nel giardino della casa di Francis e Alexandra Pettitt

Dopo il concerto Buffet condiviso.”

The combination of the two voices with Maestra Maria Bruno, a renowned soprano who teaches at Lucca conservatoire, and Piero who has a voice, equally moving in its own ‘natural’ way, was most effective. The songs ranged from Lorenzo de Medici’s bright ‘Quant’è bella Giovinezza’ to a tortured Michelangelo sonnet to an enigmatic piece by d’Annunzio. They also included more modern poems including one by Pier Paolo Pasolini whose birth centenary we celebrate this year. The singers were sensitively accompanied by Maestro Franco Meoli whose fine keyboard skills are well-known particularly in schools and colleges.

Piero’s opus is a well-crafted song-cycle and. although the composer stated that good poems don’t need to be set to music having their own music when recited, he also felt that they could often be enhanced by the musician’s craft. I do agree with Piero with what he believes. After all we wouldn’t have had such ravishing works as the Housman poems set to music by Butterworth and Vaughan-Williams or the Rimbaud set by Britten. ….to say nothing of such classics composed by Schubert, Faure, Wolf and many other greats!

We do hope we can stage more shows at our place. It was so enjoyable to listen to such excellent music wonderfully performed in good company and with a great ‘rinfresco’ to follow!

Brits, some patiently fuming in cars while their kids are playing on a grid-locked motorway, are blaming the French while the French, some seething in their bureaucratic port booths, are blaming the Brits. And so the battle of Dover continues.

Oh dear! How sad! Never mind! There can really be only one cause for this lamentable state looking at the facts (particularly the point that brits can no longer wave their passports at the French to enter the ‘continent’ as they once could but must have it now stamped). Brexit. That is a fact. The ‘philosophy’ of Brexit is supposed to be based on facts too. However, it is actually a religious cult based on faith: faith that unites Putin supporters in a barbarous war against mythical Ukrainians Nazis; faith that ties climate-change deniers against supposed eco-warriors; faith that hitches anti-pandemic acolytes against medical facts; faith that links Trump groupies in their rejection of what the vote statistics stated; faith that bonds Brexit supporters against those who chose to remain in the world’s largest economic-political-cultural union.

An individual faith is an internal deeply felt personal belief based on devotion to a cause. It is not based on facts which may often easily disprove it. A person holding a faith feels defined as a human being with a significant place in the world largely because of it. To abandon it may be tantamount to denying one’s innermost belief in oneself. It may even lead to serious psychological problems or in extreme cases to self-annihilation.

Facts, on the other hand, are mainly based on external scientific reality, not on internal intuition. There will unfortunately be false facts or facts themselves can naturally change. Most spectacularly, for example, the latest pictures of Outer Space from the James Webb telescope are radically changing known facts about our universe.

It is usually pointless to discuss facts with a faith person with a view to persuading them to drop or at least modify it. That person will say their faith is not to be discussed scientifically or factually and that no matter how many statistical proofs refute it they will never relinquish their faith.  

This is the wretched fact. I do not doubt that faith can be double-edged: for every Bin Laden there will be a Mother Theresa. Faith can be a great comforter – unfortunately facts can equally be great discomforters.

At this moment a faith is being severely tried all the way from the English coast to a palace in Westminster. I wonder how many brits escaping abroad from the vagaries of their island weather voted to leave the EU? How many belonged to that infamous red wall? How many split their families with their beliefs? How many are still waiting at their front porches for the brexitian benefits to roll in? How many still have no doubt about the justness of their 2016 voting choice?

I am glad I am not going abroad on holiday fast this year…at least not outside the EU. I just have no time or patience for airport and motorway queues. But then I have to admit I’m quite lucky where my little house is placed.

However, that the premiership of an island nation might be left either in the hands of a former Lib-Dem and Remainer or a multimillionaire ex-banker remains a horrifying thought to me.

Last night, in the cool and mercifully (at least for me…) mosquito-free garden in front of the villa Webb, we attended the inaugural evening of ‘Scritture’, Bagni di Lucca’s literary festival which is dedicated to novels and books on music, art, poetry and photography. Tralerighe book publishers, with the patronage of the Municipality of Bagni di Lucca and in collaboration with the ProLoco and the Vicariate of the Val di Lima, have launched an event presenting these various literary expressions. The event is curated by Andrea Giannasi in collaboration with a group of authors.

The villa Webb was the holiday home of Lord Byron and overlooks other important buildings where writers such as Percy Bysshe Shelley resided. The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, Alexandre Dumas author of ‘The Three Musketeers’ and ‘The Count of Montecristo’, poets Carducci, Montale, Pascoli, and musicians Puccini, Strauss, Paganini, Listz, Verdi and Mascagni were all guests at Bagni. In addition Napoleon Bonaparte’s family holidayed in our spa town.

All ‘Scritture’ events start at 9 pm. They are followed by wine-tasting organized by the newly-opened Cantabruna wine shop in Fornoli and a visit to three exhibition spaces in the palazzo.

The ‘Scritture’ festival opened yesterday on the theme of crime and thriller novels with Marco Amerigo Innocenti, author of ‘Why a gigolo dies’ and Lida Coltelli, author of  a historical thriller’ Il calzare della sposa’. These are two rather different thrillers but are united by investigation, mystery and doubt. Andrea Giannasi moderated the event. Afterwards there was a guided tour of the scary ‘Museum of the Impossible’ which I have described in my post at Walking around Bagni di Lucca – From London to Longoio (and Lucca and Beyond) Part Three (wordpress.com) .

On Wednesday 27 July, the theme will be ‘documents and history’ referring to the history of Bagni di Lucca from the Jewish concentration camp, to the arrival of the Brazilian forces, the Afro-American infantry and Pippo’s partisans. It will mention the importance of Bagni di Lucca’s location on one of Italy’s most important roads, the SS 12. The meeting will include interviews with Andrea Giannasi and Virginio Monti and will be moderated by Marco Innocenti. Afterwards there’s the Cantabruna wine-tasting followed by a guided tour of weapons and armour of the Vicariate of Val di Lima by Virgilio Contrucci.

On Thursday 4 August the theme is ‘letters of the past to today’s photographs’. It’s a journey into the Republic of Lucca’s history with the correspondence of the poetess and dancer Teresa Bandettini based on research by Simonetta Simonetti and deals with the noblewoman’s letters from Vienna to Bagni di Lucca. There’s also a trip through twentieth century history by Aldo Bertozzi with his novel ‘Storia di due diffidenti’. Finally there are photographs taken world-wide by Duccio Casini. As before there will be the Cantabruna wine-tasting followed by a guided tour of Virgilio Contrucci’s marvellous collection of games of chances once played by visitors to the Bagni.

We found the first night of the ‘Scritture’ festival both interesting and convivial. It’s a great way to while away those mercifully cool evenings in Bagni, buy some ‘novel’ novels and indulge in good conversation and excellent wine!

With daytime temperatures continuing to hover in the upper thirties it’s getting a little tiresome to do much work in and around the house after mid-morning. However, we’ve managed (with a little help) to get a few of our projects for our new place well on their feet before the expected break in the climate after mid-August when we’ll probably be complaining of too much rain.

At the moment keeping the garden alive without rainfall is our big task. Council (and national) strictures regarding water usage means that there’s a hose-pipe ban and that we can only have water for domestic purposes or use rain-water instead. Despite this our plants, strong fighters as they are, have managed to keep their welcome splash of colour into our otherwise aridly-tinged grounds.

Pride of place goes to our two sunflowers which, because of the barbarism raging in Eastern Europe, have an added significance this year.

One project we are glad to have completed is our wood-pile shelter for which only fallen trees and a pile of old tiles have been used. I think the structure looks really cute. It will be especially useful when the cold weather comes.

Another project has been an essential safety one. To protect us and our guests from falling into the precipice marking a side of our land we have erected a continuation of the fence which partly demarcated the front of our grounds. Again we used home-grown fallen tree trunks which we saved from rotting away by giving them a new lease of life in our garden.

We are suitably pleased that we’ve managed to carry out these tasks (and so are our cats). Sometimes we think we could have done more but in this all-encompassing heat, the dire economic situation worsened by ever-growing inflation and political instability we must be especially wary and plan for the shorter term…   

Trust Italy to have a political crisis in a disastrous situation where Europe is still suffering from the latest stages of the pandemic (now renamed ‘infection’), where a barbarous war is afflicting half of the continent and where inflation is rapidly increasing the cost of living of the average family.

It’s funny how in Italy a prime minister wants to leave his job but has been requested to stay whereas in the kingdom of Brexitania the prime minister there wanted to stay but has been told he must leave.  Who will succeed him: that country’s first Asian PM or someone who once was a Lib Dem and a Remainer? We’ll know soon.

Worse than any of these contradictions is the way our continent is on fire and nowhere more so than in Italy. From the fires of the Carso to the great conflagration that has affected the area around Massarosa it’s difficult to get away from the smoke in our part of the world. Looking at the view from our balcony yesterday here’s what I could see:

…or not see.

Strong winds had transported smoke from the fires raging in the Versilia region into our valley until it seemed as if a dense fog had enveloped our hills and cancelled the sight of villages.

It’s clear that towering over problems dealing with party machinations the climate change syndrome remains of supreme importance to us all.