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7.9.2019
Those of you
paying attention may have noticed the, despite announcements
to the contrary, I was not in Venice last week. But fear not -
I will be there in the first week in November. The churches
open for Biennale shows will still be open and From Titian
to Rubens: Masterpieces from Antwerp and other Flemish
Collections, the exhibition in the Palazzo Ducale which
opened last Thursday, the day I was due to come home, will
still be on. So all is good.
24.8.2019
Tinney Sue Heath's
A Thing
Done
was a novel set in Florence that I liked lots a few years
back. So an offer of her new one was greeted with joy. It's
called Lady of the Seven Suns and deals with the life
of Francis of Assisi from the viewpoint of a rich Roman
patrician woman who becomes an acolyte and a sturdy supporter.
I'm half way through and finding it a gentle but moving read,
from a perspective mixing faith with pragmatism. It's out on
September 1st and I hope to get my review up next week.
Also Michelle Lovric, a friend of
this site in the early days, has a new novel just out, set in
Venice, for children, called The Wishing Bones. The
plot revolves around an orphan, Casanova and the bones of
Saint Lucy, it seems, and promises the return of the author's
lovably stroppy mermaids.
12.7.2019
Cardiff
25.6.2019
Mantua &
Ferrara
30.5.2019
It seems that
guidebooks are waning in popularity, what with the internet
and all. It's still gratifying to get good head-swelling plugs
in them, though, like the new edition of the Rough Guide to
Venice and the Veneto, from which the image on my
News Page was snatched.
In less-good news, the healing hopes of my last posting turned
out to be misplaced, and a return of sharp pain meant that I
had to cancel the Umbrian hill towns trip at the last minute,
which did not make me happy! A swiftly-booked trip to Mantua,
on a revisit of a
trip I much enjoyed in 2005, should hopefully see
me getting into Mantegna's marvellous (I'm told!) Camera degli
Sposi this time. Trips to Cardiff, with Gloucester Cathedral,
and Venice are disappointment-soothing prospects for July and
September too.
6.5.2019
It's been weeks
since I returned from the Siena trip below, and only now can I
report the healing of the pulled muscle I came home with. I
can finally go places without limping back! And walk for
pleasure, rather than just supermarket supplies. (Thank you
Boots support bandage.) Which is just as well as I have a new
medieval course at the V&A starting tomorrow, and a guided
trip booked to Umbrian hill towns next week. Those damn hills!
But I sure got plenty of church-website work done, and lots of
reading. As a fiction fan I've always had a novel on the go,
since my teens, but recently the habit of a non-fiction book
too has become established. Currently, though, I'm reading
about the Habsburgs, the history of the Bible and the Palazzo
Rucellai - all three non-fiction! It's not natural. On
the baked-goods front I ate the last slice of simnel cake
yesterday and today the last of the Colomba di Pasqua, so I
feel that this Bank Holiday weekend marks the divide between
Siena and Easter and my striding, without pain, with hope in
my heart, into summer. Shame the central heating's still on.
more news
here |
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August 2019
Tinney Sue Heath Lady of the Seven Suns:
a novel of the woman
Saint Francis called Brother
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