"Big time" continues, with plums, roses, pears. A time of all flowers and all fruits. At last we have hot weather, just as we move into early autumn. I went outside early in the day yesterday, and there was that autumnal smell in the air, sweet and slightly sad. I picked these "Superbowl" roses ( is there any uglier name for a rose? to associate it with thuggish American football?) but it has a wonderful fragrance, even though for me the colour leaves something to be desired.
Trachelospermum jasminoides has been flowering for a long time this year. The fragrance sends me to Italy every time I smell it. I stayed in a little hotel in Galzignano when I walked the Euganean Hills. They gave me a wonderful room that looked out on a huge arbour covered with Trachelospermum in flower. The day was rainy; I spent the morning lying in bed with Italian Vogue magazines, then a wonderful Sunday lunch in the restaurant. A family and friends were celebrating a boy's first communion. It was all very civilised. No one got drunk, as they would have in New Zealand, and no one made fun of the boy. It was all perfectly serious, but perfectly light-hearted as well; very Italian.
My Cinzano bottle, brought all the way from Sansepolcro, with a sprig of Trachelospermum and a blue paperweight from the West Coast of New Zealand.
I'm re-reading Marlena de Blasi's "A thousand days in Venice" at the moment, recounting her romance and marriage with a Venetian man, Francesco. She has an interesting way of writing, and her books make me so hungry! She is a great advocate of the good life, how to get enjoyment from small things, especially food. It's wonderful escapist reading. She threw over her whole life to go to Venice and start again with a new man in a new place. Sometimes I long for a new life too, though not with a new man (or woman, come to that), but a new life means ditching the old, and I don't think I'm ready for that. I would rather add to my existing life than turn it over completely for a new one. So many things to think about, the mind gets quite tired!
Marlena writes well doesn't she? I admire her courage too. At the moment I am busy trying to turn my existing life around. I don't have the intestinal fortitude to start again - though I sometimes think it would be easier on some levels.
ReplyDeleteStill hot here. Too hot.
As you get older, you realise that there are some things you don't want to change; I wouldn't want to change my friends, for instance. Wisdom is in knowing what to change and what to keep, a sort of soul-decluttering, I guess.
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