Going for a short afternoon walk and for the first time in a long time it isn’t laps of Tempelhofer Feld. along Via Pennino, Contrada Santa Croce, and Via Campoluongo. Olive trees ripe and ready for harvest, grape vines mostly already harvested (and currently the must is being siphoned next door), do not drink the water from the fountain, yes those cactus fruits are edible, and I could never get tired of this view.
Evening stroll around Bonnie’s Italian countryside villa “Not a villa” looks like at least villa-adjacent to my bogan eyes. I thought the sun and light was going to stay grotty and not put on any show, and then, surprise! Storm over Taburno massif, setting sun hitting the tuff of the old work shed, Ginger the dog posing, chooks also posing, a rainbow, cactus, and four of the five dogs allowing me a group portrait. My FujiFilm X-T4 is finally getting a workout.
Thursday stroll through Italian countryside to the nearby town of Sant’Agata de’Goti. Which is half on a cliff over a gorge and there’s a plaque commemorating two women who fell in love and painted frescos together (or something). It’s all ridiculously beautiful and coffee pasta wine is apparently all I want.
Five dogs, seven cats, two ducks, a lot of chickens, heaps of olive trees, heaps of grapevines, fig, apricot, apple, persimmon, kaki trees, high hills and low mountains all round, old castles, churches, villas all over. Storms when I arrived and storms every day and night since. I’m sleeping so good.
A couple of months ago Bonnie said, “Come to Napoli!” Wednesday, my first time flying since 2019, first time out of Berlin since Miss Rona arrived (very masked and all for the whole trip), first time in Italy since 2014, I arrived in Napoli. And damn I forgot how much I love flying. The takeoff, the landing (it was a bumpy one), the hours above the clouds where the sky is a much darker blue.
This is where we wake up each morning. We moved the table later today so we have a complete, uninterrupted view. The windows – if they can be called that at such a size; walls perhaps – also open. Last night in the storm with the lights out, I opened the one directly in front so we were exposed to its massiveness.
Because I seem to spend so much time in Brussels, and also have lived in several cities which until now have only been tags …
Berlin, Brussels, Zürich, Vienna, Guangzhou, Taipei, Adelaide, Melbourne. Countries also. How does living in Switzerland or Germany differ from the city within which I reside? Or rather, how does it differ here, where I write?
Because there’s no way to make things neat, to allocate everything according to its place; categories, tags, uses, definitions change over time and even from post to post, I decided to stick with the cities I lived in as sub-categories for the Places category. Countries, other cities I have spent time in or have a connection to have remained free-floating.
Another way to regard the issue: these cities should have been categories all along, and by making them so now, I’m merely anticipating the addition of new cities (or places) in which I shall reside.
Anyway, more importantly, it makes it easy to see where I (will) (might) (have) be(en). There, in the sidebar.
I spent the weekend near Bendigo with Paul and Bonnie, eating, drinking, sleeping in, more eating and drinking, walking up some hills and mostly doing very little.
