Venice Part 1: Lungo il Canale

Arriving in Venice for the first time is akin to being thrown inside a giant kaleidoscope full of magical buildings, palaces, statues, bridges, turquoise canals, stripes, flags, posts, boats...all tumbled together in the most perfect random arrangements. Street after street, alley on alley, lane after lane and always water on your left, no right, no I mean straight ahead! You wonder, could there be a more perfect arrangement of  architecture and waterway than the one you are currently marveling at and then you cross an impossible tiny stone bridge or turn the tightest corner and there is another...and another...

 

The colours of Venice are divine...the combinations. Venice is rose and teal. Darkest green and turquoise. Terracotta and soft grey. Blush and faded Shrimper sail red.

~~~

I love to get acquainted with new cities. "Before you get your eye in" as Mr.Lane would say. 

All is new and wondrous, it is a heightened experience, like being a child again.

I am most alive when I am noticing. The smells, the sounds, the people. 

The market is invariably the starting point. 

Head to the market and all will be revealed.*

~~~

I have long associated Venice with two incredible films. 

Visconti's Death in Venice starring Dirk Bogarde, adapted from Thomas Mann's masterpiece, with that ravishing Mahler score. And Nicholas Roeg's chilling adaptation of a Daphne Du Maurier story, Don't Look Now starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. I wondered if I had too many preconceptions to really see the city for myself. Imagine the thrill of seeing Venice for the first time with no prior knowledge! I needn't have worried... there is so much more to discover beyond the tourist trail.
~~~
Venice beguiles you, being at once familiar and yet tricksy to navigate. We stayed in the quieter area of Santa Croce and wandered the narrow streets unflustered, knowing eventually we would spot a landmark and navigate from it. If all else failed we stopped for coffee or gelato...
At times it seemed the Gods were gently turning the kaleidoscope a quarter turn and all the streets were shuffled, just as you think you have the hang of it.

Meanwhile, back at the Lane, it seems a corner has been turned...there is blossom and birdsong...
--x--

Post Script: I changed the title of this post several times, feeling I sounded rather Cecil Vyse. Then, on reflection I realised I probably am a little Cecil ( sans the pince nez! )
* Back soon at the market!

The Pi"Sea"

Sea Fever by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

 
 As the end of February nudges the wind chimes and days creep towards Spring, when you begin to feel March breathe on the nape of your neck and daylight pauses a little longer...My head turns West, I feel the magnetic pull of Atlantic tides, waves edging up Cornish beaches and I long for Kernow. Boodle feels my restless energy. We went to the coast this week, here in Sussex, the yen was too strong. He smelt it  four miles away and his hears pricked and he sang his beach song from the boot. I smiled, I know.

I have no need of sunshine, just the sea. Yes I am Piscean.

Sea=S-J squared

 Could there be any more beautiful sound than jingle-shells? Makes me want to take a breath and sing a very long note...

 To fellow fish...Happy Birthday...here's to merry yarns and flung spray...

 This wonderful image is by Jean Francois Lepage. A French fashion photographer who uses drawing and collage to create his images.A photographer and a painter, such a wonderful combination.

-x-

Petersham

..is a kind if ribbon that I am fond of as well as the location for one of the loveliest oasis in London. Petersham Nurseries.

~~~~
outside; stair-rods, cats, dogs, torrents, teeming, slaking, deluge of grey rain ribbons.
The house is almost moated.
So I run away, just for a few hours...
~~~~

~~~

 I wend my way out of my Sussex bunker...mossy green damp...along the back lanes for as long as possible, until the inevitable. The wide multi-laned loop known as the M25. It's funny, that road urbanises me, I snap quickly into my street smart sassy London self of 20 years ago.The M25, a necessary evil. I imagine London laid out in the centre of a child's play rug with this thick grey motorway enclosing it, tiny cars and lorries wheel around, clockwise anti-clockwise endless movement.Inside each coloured metal capsule, lives. All those lives being lived, all those reasons to be on this road with me at the same time. I wonder about those men in their saloons all grey and joyless, grim faced, motorway hardened, not really there at all. And then I recognise I am falling down the rabbit hole and I concentrate.
I have one of those brains that remembers rabbit runs, short-cuts, detours. In a previous life a cabbie! Heading for West London and I begin weighing up Esher? Hampton Court? Kempton Park? Twickenham? Perhaps take in some of my old haunts...I lived in the Hampton-Richmond environs for years, for happy years.

Arriving in Ham at Petersham Nurseries the cloud is lifted. 

 Here your senses can feast...wherever your gaze travels, vignettes and tableau, flowers, objets, antiques.

 I am the kind of girl who values the ambition of running a restaurant in a greenhouse with mud floors, fairy lights, paint chipped shutters and the kindest food you could wish for. When I say "kind" that is not to diminish it , the food served here is delicious and beautifully cooked. What I mean is, it nourishes, honestly and simply and never disappoints.

Taleggio & Watercress Risotto followed by Slow Roast Lamb shoulder with Pearl Barley, Sweet Potato , Rocket and Pomegranate are you smiling?

I am, remembering Marsala Baked Pears & Dates with Honeyed Oats & Vanilla Marscapone...seriously it was SO good! Been trying to recreate... 

So that's me, just trying to create some sunshine of my own. Pools of warmth to step into now and then and imagine the onset of springtime.

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Confession:  I am a Valentine's Day denier! I despair at the idea ones husband, lover, partner must be nudged by commercial interest into buying me some token of affection. Yes! Give me roses, every other day of the year if it pleases you but NEVER on Valentines Day.(And please, never red! I know you never would lovely Lane Man!)
Confession:  I am a great believer in L O V E and so I am sending you some ~x~
Confession:  Valentine's Day once taught me a very valuable lesson.
 When I was at school and you measured your value by the silliest things, the number of Valentines cards you received being a primary example. I had a particularly successful year, I was amazed, all these cards and all for me....One of these cards shines in my memory. It said "You've got to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your Prince". Walking home from school I thought a lot about those words and by the time I got home I had come to a very significant conclusion. "I am NOT going to kiss lots of frogs" so I didn't.

The following year I received one card from a Prince.

~x~

The art of self preservation

I love the rhythm of the year. Where would I be without the ritual of seasons and their seasonal tasks. Constancy, circular repetition, patterns if you will. 52 weeks arranged into months and quarters.I need to feel in sync with this eternal loop. I feel strangely bereft if I miss the first bluebell tips pushing through the dark crumbly woodland floor. (Yes they are! spotted them last Sunday.) The first helebores, reverently picking the loveliest bloom and later, gazing at it in it's bud vase next to my bed. Feverishly checking Bill's produce section for the first seville oranges to arrive.

I consider a day spent in the kitchen surrounded by the thick heady smell of oranges a neccessity before the end of January chimes and February rushes icily into my consciousness. It is an act of preservation on many levels.

 preservation: the action of preserving something

synonyms: conservation, protection, maintenance, care, safeguarding

So I chop, squeeze, shred, weigh, stir, sterilise all the while quietly musing how many other kitchens and their cooks are similarly employed. My mind wanders off to the garden, where best to plant 500 bulbs...orchard? too wet. Finally I land an idea, down the Lane! How silly of me, it's obvious in the verges down the Lane.

It is finished. This year's batch. Time for the tasting!
Boodle looks at me from his strategic position on the stone floor, directly over the hot water pipe that runs below. Unimpressed by the cloying orange scent hanging in the air and the distinct lack of proper cooking. Proper cooking: involving the preparation of meat that can be trimmed and re-distributed to those waiting patiently on their hot water pipe.

 Mr Lane declares this year's batch worthy of a prize and I bask quietly, my cheeks colour, it feels rather like laying directly over a hot water pipe...

I return to my musing about bulbs...

 ~X~

Bit brumous...

brumous: (adj). of grey skies and winter days; filled with heavy clouds or fog; relating to winter or cold, sunless weather.

This beautiful image is by Isa Marcelli.
Her photographs are wonderfully evocative, I adore the group "Hiver".They chime with me...

~~~

Finding cheer inside...the sun comes by way of textiles...floral cushions and colour drenched paintings...
This image is by An Magritt a Norwegian blogger and jewellery designer.

....still burning in my memory Paul Klee- Making Visible. Visited last Monday and etched in my mind...visually exhausting and rewarding all at once...

PAUL KLEE Flowers in Glasses 1925. Oil on paper on cardboard.

~~~

...such days, when the sun's in a  drawer

and the drawer locked....

...in the centre of everything, with still pools

of shadows and a fire throwing flowers.

Taken from"February-not everywhere by Norman MacCaig.

~~x~~

Hickory Dickory Dock...

...The mouse ran up the clock, over the top, down the back, out of the house and up The Lane...

...off he ran...and time span away, the hands on the clock turned and wheeled...sometimes whirring round so fast I lost sight of the time and the day. In the kitchen sits the Tardis, fashioned by a little hand. I have need of it, the Tardis. I could usher you in and we could travel back to Christmas, to Birthdays and a Wedding since last we were together...

Time spent in anticipation is achingly slow...tick~tock.

Suddenly everything you were day dreaming about is real, and you reel, dizzy in the midst of all the joy and the sparkle...

~~~

On Boxing day we walked on Dartmoor and, high up, discovered a Christmas tree decorated with tinsel and red baubles, imagine! Somehow the decorations were still attached to the tree despite the horrific weather in the preceding days.Sometimes you find yourself together alone. My brother took this picture, I am looking at my own pictures and time stands still, rewinds just for a moment.

Whilst I write, intermittently, I look up and out of the window. Across the garden, the hedge, the orchard, Home Field towards the Lane. I like the layers. The beech hedge, the fences beyond, the crab apples. The winter flowering cherry is studding the foreground with tiny white stars and the light is pinkish. Time slows, heart beats steady.

"There is a man haunts the forest, that hangs odes upon the hawthorns, and elegies on the brambles..."

Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 2

~~~

who's typing on the void

too many stories

they're twelve stones

hitting the clockface

twelve swans

flying out of winter

Bei Dao

So, let us reset. 

Hello 2014! Happy New Year to you all. 

I am full of resolve to do so much this year...

a blank page awaits

how wonderful...shall we begin?

~~x~~

Glory

...drenched in low golden light...filtering through leaves...balancing on fading petals...deepening shadows...cooler air...clearer skies...dappled green...silhouettes...

I am walking around the garden a little slower...quiet, still beauty. Amber, plum, purple.

. Craning my neck. Tree canopy doilies. Lacey vapour.

 hydrangeas, rosehips and see through leaves...an invitation to swing

She slips quietly away and leaves me blue

 

 

 Give me a garden fading... it is glorious!

Autumn 

~x~