On a Clear Day ...

Which the day after Thanksgiving was not. How is it that there always seems to be such foul weather at the Holidays? But some friends and I headed east towards Slovenia to tour two wineries that were in the Udine/Trieste region. Braving the snow and rain we stopped first at the Bressan winery. Owned by the Bressan Family for 10 generations and currently overseen by Fulvio Bressan it has been in active production since 1726 and creates some of the finest wines in Europe. He is leaving Tuesday for Vienna to recieve an award from the European Union that says this ... so it is not just me. Although I would drink his wine for the rest of my life quite willingly.

The majority of the grapes that he grows are specific to the Friuli region: Tocai Friulano, Malvasia, Ribolla Gialla,Schiopettino and the legendary Pignol which is on it's way to extinction. He uses no chemicals and no synthetic fertilisers and no industrial yeasts. There is much more information at:  http://bressanwines.com/.


Stop two was to Castelvecchio (the "Old Castle") in Gorizia on the Slovinean border. There we toured the cellars. Entering though here:

A bit tough for the claustrophobic. And so down this shaft for a bit and then you come upon:

Lovely isn't it? When these cellars were dug out there was quite a cache of old Roman coins discovered. The wines here were also quite tasty although I am afraid that we should have come here first as the Bressan wines are impossible to follow. The homemade prosciutto crudo was wonderful as was the Sagrado Rosso, a wine they are quite well known for. The Viila has is being renovated and is beautiful ... and careful attention has been paid to the mosaics on the floors.

In other news. I have finished my designs for the "What Would Madame DeFarge Knit?" book that is coming from CraftLit in February. I am trying to finish the test knit on one last item and then it will be time to start on some new designs that have been floating round in my head and on bits of paper in my office for the last month or so. While I was knitting I was listening to a new audio book:  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I listened to the Audible.com one but am going to order the book to have. It was wonderful and I was very sorry to see it end. I think it should be a movie.

A foggy landscape
Fond memories of my home
Hanging on the wall.

Gainful Employment

I am a bit jealous. It's a hard thing to admit ... but I am jealous of JennietheDog. You see, while I am not allowed to seek gainful employment here, she has already found a job and settled right in. She is in training to be a Therapy Dog and so she is working at the local library helping the kids who come in to improve their reading skills.

Here she is on a Saturday being read to by a young girl. Today she goes to help the preschoolers. She loves her job since it means that sometimes she gets to be petted and sometimes they read her to sleep. It's a hard job ... but some puppy has to do it. Here she is hanging with her new friends just before she heads in to work.

We are off to work ... she still can't drive ... it's that "no opposable thumbs" thing. But if I get some good pictures I will update this when I get home.

Road Trip

Back at last from a longish break but with pictures and some news. We went to Florence(Firenza as it is called here) and had a splendid time. We rode the EuroStar train there as driving in the old city is right up there with having a tooth pulled without the benefits of anesthesia ... just plain no fun! But after an initial bit of rain the weather turned out glorious!



We saw "David" and spent a morning at the Uffizzi zmuseum and ate wonderful food and drank even better wines. We saw the old castle:

And we saw the Duomo and clocktower which are made from an amazing number of coloured maarbles.

On the knitting front I was able to finish my patterns for the new book from CraftLit that is coming out this Spring and I am still knitting away on my Faroe shawl. The shawl should be finished within the next week or so and I have a great idea for a shawl design that I will start on then. I am updating the Etsy shop this week and I have tried my hand at dying with walnut husks. This is what I got:

It is hanging to dry now and I am anxious to see how it ends up.

And we are at the end of the gardening season here. I still have spinach in the garden as it likes the cold but even the kiwi have been picked and brought in. Late October brings the roasted chestnuts to the forfront (castagna) and of course those must be eaten hot and only, ever, with a glass of red wine, never water, or they will give you a bad stomach.

And of course we have the cider we pressed in September ... tasty stuff that. LOL

The whisper of leaves

And me ... I keep listening for more.

But the wind moves on.

Summer Camp: the Remix

I am sure that most of us have suffered through Summer Camp. I went to several ... finally managing (I think) to be sent home from one in disgrace. And so a few weeks ago it was with some trepidation that I headed off to Camp again. And this camp was both different in some ways and in others the same.
I had signed up for a knitting camp with The Alpine Adventure Agency. I headed up into the Dolomites to a small "camp"called San Martino di Castrozza and a wonderful "tent" called The Grande Hotel des Alpes. It was tough there. The chefs were skilled and the sommeliers were amazing. We had the usual "camp fare" of venison soaked in wine with wild mushrooms, struedel with creme Anglais, lots of things with wild woodland berries ... I think I may have gained weight. And the wines there were to die for.
Then we were forced to hike through the usual campish scenery (if you were an extra in The Sound of Music that is):

We learned the science of cheese making at a local latteria where they have just a bit of cheese on the shelves being wiped down and aged:

We prowled the forests looking for various types of edible mushroom. We ate the good ones but these were the bad ones:

And for our "Crafttime" we had knitting since it was actually a knitting camp. Myrna Stahman (who will be sainted later this year for her unending patience) taught us how to knit Faroese Shawls and Seaman's Scaves. She was amazing ... even when she ripped back 10 rows on the middle stitches of my shawl and then knit them back up correctly while carrying on a lively conversation with the class. It was the best class I have ever taken. And we were able to take our knitting everywhere we went and that was fun too.

That is Myrna ... carrying on a conversation with me and knitting at the same time. I can only dream of being that coordinated someday. So, this time Camp was fun. And maybe next year I can go again ... if I can finish my shawl.

Only the wind sneaks

Into my room on this night

Guttering the flame

Change is in the Air

Sitting here this afternoon I suddenly felt a shift in the wind and it seemed that Autumn might just be lurking around the corner. It is one of the things about living overseas in climates and areas that you are completely unfamiliar with. When do the seasons change and what exactly are they bringing? Still, it is August here after all and my flowers are blooming like mad. These are the Moon Flowers which my friend Eiko says that she knows as Dutchman's Pipe:

Pre-bloom

Bloomed! They smell a bit like the plumeria in Hawaii. I am hoping to have one whole side of the house covered in them next summer.
While my neice was here, one of the places we traveled to was Aquileia to see the mosaics and some of the Roman ruins. They were amazing and the details were incredible. So much so that we were unable to get down to the old Roman docks as we spent so much time in the Basilica. The entire floor of the church is covered in mosaics.

They are still in the process of restoring some of them.

Hmmm ... that's awkward ... it's up-side down.

There are scary fishes (check out the teeth on the guy at the top), the Tale of Jonah (complete with regurgitating whale), Biblical stories and portaits of various citizens mixed in with a variety of seasonal scenes. The city is in the process of excavating the Market:

It is definetely something that I will go back and see again. There is a museum which we did not make it to and several other sets of ruins including the old Roman cemetary. All in all a fabulous day!
On the knitting front I am working on a Secret Project ... but on the not so secret side of my office I am working on what to take with me when I head up for 10 days in the Alps at a knitting workshop courtesy of The Alpine Adventure Agency ... check them out ... they are very cool! So I am going to learn to knit a Faroe Shawl ... here in Italy ... from a woman I apparently lived about 45 minutes from in Idaho ... go figure. LOL! I have decided to take a cone of my beige yarn from the last of my sheep. I sent out a pile of fleeces to Stonehedge Mill to have it spun into yarn. They did a beautiful job!

I am going to use the lightest one for the shawl. And later, I think I will use the darkest one to knit the new pattern from Schoolhouse Press that is EZ's Green Sweater ... and I may even try to overdye the dark yarn to give it a greenish sheen.
Well the mosquitos are eating me alive as I sit here ... I am like a buffet to them here in Italy ... after all those years in Asia where they would have nothing to do with me I have apparently built up quite the karmic debt.

How heavy both seem

The heat over the fields and

The cicada's song

In the Summer Sun

Last month I was lucky enough to have my neice come to visit. It was huge fun and I had the pleasure of dragging her out and about in the hottest weeks that anyone can remember here abouts. Yea, that is just how my luck rolls. It was actually so bad that for 2 or 3 days we lay about in the house watching DVD's while I coached her at knitting. However, before the heat was too bad we did head up into the Alps thinking, mistakenly as it turned out, that it would be cooler there.

Lake Bargis

We headed up to Chemolais. Past Lake Bargis (pr. barjiss) and on up further to a lovely, albeit hot, little valley in the mountains.

W had a great time and the scenery was stunning! We took JennietheDog and she had the best time running wildly with her buddies. We went to Venice several times and to Aquileia to see the mosaics. I think she had fun and I am hoping to lure her back to visit. After all ... there is still a gondola ride in her future.

And the JennietheDog says ... come and visit anytime!!!

In the mud puddle

I stir up my reflection

With my walking stick.

The Good Life

I woke up to the sounds of an accordian being played this morning by my quite elderly (late 80's) neighbor who was also singing along. A French love song he told me ... it had been his wife's favorite and now he sings it to his great-grand daughter. A large portion of the family lives in the 4 story house across the canal from me. He lives downstairs with his daughter, the daughter's daughters live on the next two floors with their husbands and one of their daughters and husband and children live on the top floor.
Family is everything here. And every morning they are all out, as soon as the sun comes up, raking leaves and working in the garden. There are no better gardeners than Italian men ...  although I suspect the women are, actually, just as good but in a really stealthy way. There is never a leaf out of place ... a weed left un-plucked ... or a blade of grass that is just a tad too long. And the flowers are amazing. The scent of jasmine wars with the fragrance of the magnolias and the roses. It is heaven.
And they laugh ... all day. It is hot here in a way that I had forgotten summer could be. With humidity you could cut with a knife. So, the Italians live outside all day in the summer in the shade. They laugh and the children play and then they squabble and the adults help them figure it out and life goes on ... loudly and publicly in a way that most of the world has forgotton.
At lunch time it was too hot to cook so I went to the restaurant across the street from our house where I was, by far, the youngest person there. The owner, our friend Stefano, came over to talk and asked how I was enjoying the weather. I said it was just too hot for me ... that at night it was too sweaty and sticky to sleep. His solution, which he yelled across the room to me and which had all of the other patrons nodding and laughing was " You must remember then to make love under the shower and not in the bed!"
Yep, life lived fully and without reservation ... that is the beauty of living here.