Then we went over to the house for awhile and I ran into Carmela and her friend Francois from Paris who lives in Castiglione, too. And then their native-to-Castiglione friend showed up. It turned out to be Silvana who was the first person I'd ever met in Castiglione the first day I went there to check it out and was looking at the real estate listings in the agency window. She and I had started chatting and had looked forward to seeing each other again. So we finally did! She has quit her job in Firenze to move back home. We might have the makings of a crew here: Rome, Paris, Castiglione and NYC. Smart, vibrant, warm and funny women who have fled the madness of city life for the peace of this hilltown above the Val d'Orcia. Silvana says the valley is a woman who is never seen to wear the same dress twice. You never tire of looking at her. I had coffee with Silvana on the terrace at Bar Petra on the edge of town early one morning, dinner twice at Carmela's and chats with both of them and Francois whenever we encountered one another going to and fro in the village. When I'm there, I see them almost every day.
The "crew" often meets here across from my house, over looking my garden on the other side of which is Carmela's place.
3 Comments:
I would like to recommend a couple of books to you. Summer's Lease, by John Mortimer is one. He wrote the Rumpole stories. You might like Lisa St. Aubin de Terain's book about her villa in Umbria better than Frances Mayes (who is terribly smug and, to quote Flanders and Swann, "terribly House and Garden".) The movie was actually pretty good. Thanks for visiting my blog. Yours is a better escape from the fascism here, but I hope I at least manage to be funny... sometimes.
Joanna, your response to my post about a book discussion group (on expatsinitaly site) was encouraging, but the idea didn't go over very well in general. Perhaps it's just as well. I've never belonged to a book group, even though I'm a constant reader. I just noticed on our blog that Elaine Pagel's "Gnostic Gospels" is one of your favorite books. I think our tastes run along the same lines (I've read two of her books; the DaVinci Code sent me scurrying for something worthwhile on the subject). And the Alexandria Quartet! I've returned to it 100 times since college (a long time ago), but I've never completed it. Still, for some reason it holds a strange fascination for me. In fact, I almost named my boat Clea! Anyway, thanks for your posts on books. You're a source of new reading directions for me.
Best regards,
"Joe A."
P.S. Coincidentally (re: Pasquino's post) I just finished "Summer's Lease" too. A nice Wodehouse-like read.
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