I discovered that wandering with Dear Miss Fletcher involves learning Genova's secrets.
And the crazy thing is that I've walked past this charity slot, from 1729, so many times. In another location, Sabina showed me where the charity holes in the wall had been removed.
But ... if you don't know what you're looking for you will never find it. In another place, she stopped me in a narrow alleyway and showed me the indentations left in the cobblestones ... by chariots.
A highlight from today was meeting the Genovese blogger responsible for the most wonderful blog - titled, Dear Miss Fletcher.
Paola, the friend who gifts me the use of her apartment here in Genova ... the woman who first introduced me to Genova, was also responsible for introducing me to the blog, Dear Miss Fletcher. And so I've been reading her posts, via google translate, because it's true, she tells marvelous stories about this city I love.
But I was so busy talking with the blogger, whose real name is Sabina, that I didn't get the details of this marvelous barber shop. The one down the narrow caruggi where they saw us outside, me with my camera ... and invited us in. I'm going back during the day, to chat a little and take some more photographs because who wouldn't but you can find a post about it already, over on Dear Miss Fletcher.
The photograph below shows you what drew us in ...
A huge thank you must go to Sabina, for her beautiful English and her glorious introduction to so many new things I still didn't know of the city. It's her city, and it's in good hands with her writing of it and photographing it too.
Grazie mille, Sabina :-)
Kim, from Dragonlane, popped over from the UK and attended both my photography exhibition opening and my big fat celebratory birthday party.
She had her phone camera and captured some of the deliciousness that was Friday night's exhibition opening.
Her post, with photographs, delighted me.
2 // take a break from your carefully packaged & organised life; suspend all the doing, sit amongst the shambles of half-read books and empty cups, let blessed rest find you.
Leonie Wise, lifted from her beautiful blog.
Murray left yesterday and I collapsed into a small pile of crumple today. I can do stuff ... I can but oh how I pay. Just till the iron medication kicks in.
I'm so impatient for it to work though. And so I was always going to love Leonie's wise words, suspend all the doing.
Although, rather than suspend all, I'm doing slowly and carefully, then resting. Multiple loads of laundry have been done today because ... it's 17 celsius here in Belgium. Unusual perhaps, or simply an Indian summer. It's good, as so many of my very best people are arriving on Friday.
Shannon and Erik are zooming over from Holland, Teresa and Kim from the UK, Jayne is coming and her Steve is flying back from Dubai, Ren and her lovely Norwegian are coming too.
Steven and Isabel, Martin and Gaby, Ellen and Anna, Marcia and her man ... I'm happy.
My photography exhibition has its official reception/opening on Friday night. Saturday night is the night of the birthday party. But honestly, it's mostly about my pleasure in catching up with these people I love.
I'm scared I've forgotten to invite some people and they need to contact me because I am haphazard at the moment. The anemia has surely caused problems with energy levels but also with concentration. And I thought it was enough to take the medicine and move slowly but it's the 'not doing' that is making me most crazy. It feels like someone has removed my larger station wagon motor and replaced it with the engine of a very small scooter.
Or that's the way I'm explaining this loss of forward motion.
Slowly, slowly ... let's see how it goes.
Leonie, thank you for the music too.
Of all the world's creatures, perhaps those in greatest need of rewilding are our children. The collapse of children's engagement with nature has been even faster than the collapse of the natural world. In the turning of one generation, the outdoor life in which many of us were immersed has gone....So many fences are raised to shut us out that eventually they shut us in.
George Monbiot
I absolutely borrowed this from Terri Windling's blog, Myth & Moor. I wanted to note it some place ...
I read Leonie Wise's beautiful blog. Lately, she's been sharing music.