spontanea ...my happy news

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as mentioned in the previous post, quite excitingly yesterday we went to hang 13 photos in my summertime exhibition 'spontanea' at the mulino della ricavata. as the great people at the family-run mulino use flowers in their delicious homemade cookery, and as they are surrounded by such wonderful countryside and nature, it only seemed fitting to choose 13 of my colour macro shots of flowers for this exhibition. you can see some of them here, here, here and here but there are a further nine which aren't yet on my blog (a couple can be seen in my etsy shop, they're iris #1 and iris #2).

'spontanea', the name, for the way in which my favourite flowers grow. sponaneous also the way in which they are displayed. rather than hanging on the walls they are positioned around the downstairs entrance hall where many old objects from the water mill can be found, such as large old mill stones and big wooden chests full of dried vines. it's very atmospheric and there's also a lovely back wall which still has water naturally trickling down it. added to this the extremely friendly cats who have the good fortune to call this place their home, and all together it makes for a lovely place indeed and i feel very fortunate to have found such a nice temporary home for my photos (showing july and hopefully august). thank you very much to the lovely people at the mulino della ricavata, i'm a very happy nadia indeed! (and a big, grateful thanks to my love other half for his extreme patience and for taking these photos of the finished exhibition!)

mulino della ricavata

yesterday i went to hang 13 of my photos as a summertime exhibition at 'mulino della ricavata' which is a wonderful agritourism in the countryside. i went there for the first time earlier this year, in fact just a few posts ago i mentioned it when i was telling you about the scene near the river (those snapshots were taken there). the mulino ('mulino' being a 'mill', and in this specific case a water mill) is very old indeed, around 500 or 600 years old. it's enchanting and wonderful, the owners are ever so friendly and they also cook the most divine food! just a few of the things that first struck me about the place were that a) - they make extensive use of flowers in their cooking and baking and b) - the old water mill room is really quite atmospheric.

if anyone happens to live in /or be visiting this area of italy, it is well worth stopping by. the food is magical and deeeeelicious, and what's more they make it all themselves using many of their own allotment produce and the little tiny restaurant leaves you feeling that you've stepped into a fairytale!

for more information about the mulino della ricavata, click here

sucked away between the pages

My wonderful, superfriend Jen sent me an incredible book last week. I opened it up in excitement (I never feel very inspired by the few English titles that Italian bookstores in our town keep). "The Time Traveler's Wife" byAudrey Niffenegger. I didn't know a thing about it. I liked that, as all too often it's easy to be swayed or start reading already having an idea of the plot. Here I had no idea whatsoever about anything other than that which was written on the back cover; oh and also the fact that Jen said it's being made into a film. I made sure not to look up anything about it on the internet, as I didn't want the Hollywood-chosen cast to superimpose their faces onto the characters in my mind. I wanted to blog about it, but had to wait until I'd finished as I didn't want any kind commentor actually inadvertently giving away some part of what was still be read!

So, five days after starting it, and after five days of feeling as if I were actually the bookmark (because even when I closed the pages my thoughts were still stuck there) I finished it yesterday afternoon. Thank you Jen, I loved it, so much. What a wonderful book. I will say no more, so as not to spoil anything for anyone who may want to read it. In fact, you may have noticed that I decided not to link to any pages about the book or the author. That's so as not to tempt anyone who may want to read it into discovering too much before starting it. If you do want to read it, then don't watch the film when it comes out this summer until you've read the book.

It has left me with a desire to discover the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. It has left me with a curiosity to look up and hence discover Christopher Schneberger , his photography and his group Avocet which I stumbled upon and am listening to right now (do like 'Fight'). It (the novel) has left me with a thirst for more good books to read (any suggestions?). It has left me, hmmm.... I dunno, quite, in words... but what a book...

So anyway, this is why I was pretty absent for the past few days. Now I've finished reading it and hence have fallen back into real world. My days at the moment are a mix of lots to do at and for work (what was I thinking when I thought that the end of lessons would mean less to do?!) and I have new courses starting tomorrow. Also there is quite exciting news which I shall share within the next few days, but can't quite, jus yet (however this doesn't I'm pregnant by the way, hehehe!)

Ooh! I've just realised, I've finally started using upper-case letters in shadowsandclouds, a thing which I never intended and had always tried to avoid! Oh well!

Anyhow for now I shall sign off, have to get ready for school tomorrow! And have some sewing to do :)

Have a good afternoon.

second name, clumsy

agh!
1. smashed the glass jar full of sultanas on the kitchen floor
2. burnt the bottom of the cake by putting it on the wrong oven shelf
3. dropped a pan of rice on the kitchen floor (will be needing a good mopping, i hear you say!)
4. managed to catch aforementioned pan as it was landing, hence saving the rice, but burning a finger on pan, which now has a big blister (the finger, not the pan)
5. took cake (see point 2) out of tin when cake was still too hot (a thing i never, ever, ever do, so why did i do it today?!) and it broke into 3 lovely pieces. it wasn't even meant for us, it was meant for our neighbours. so now we have a broken, semi-carbonised cake to eat for breakfast tomorrow morning...mmm, yum....?!
6. left the bread to rise for too long.
7. nearly burnt hand again whilst turning bread in oven.
8. had to clean up cat sick (sorry, maybe you didn't want to know that one)
9. ...i think that's all...

so, despite the clumsy day it's been quite a constructive one. in fact the above isn't a moan, it's just me marvelling at how uncoordinated one person can be in one single day (though point 8, theoretically, can only be blamed on one of the two cats! ...may the guilty cat please step forward? oh, no, they're both sleeping!)

one exciting thing i found out today was that moo (printing company with a european and an american base who can make you business cards, postcards, stickers etc. with your own images) now do a ten-business-card free offer on their site, so you can try some out with your own photos before purchasing. i have made up my ten on eco-green card to see what they look like and they should soon be heading this way in the post. fingers crossed they look nice so i can make a real order!

on another fun note, any photography lovers out there might be interested to know that the guardian newspaper's website has set up its own photo club with site, blog and flickr group. worth a look.

today is a day of beth orton, micrologus, crazy cat escapades, form-filling-in, helpful post-men and other such randomness. can you tell from my rambling that i'm feeling quite sleepy?
night night!

a story with a happy ending and a happy summer solstice

5.25 a.m. - when i woke up this morning (at aforementioned time) it was one of those moments when you're really just half awake. when you usually just roll back over onto your other side and fall back asleep, having been (half) 'awake' for no more than eight seconds. which is what i would have done had it not been for the fact that sleepy-time-calm was immediately invaded by "will padma be outside?". we have 2 cats, as regular visitors will know. padma and elgo. a she and a he. they live with us, indoors and outdoors. they play in the garden, sometimes sneak out into a neighbour's garden, but always come home. last night i went to get pizza. we had dinner in the garden. the cats were out too. elgo came back but padma didn't. so we looked for her, but couldn't find her. so we sat out in the garden with elgo. elgo too looked quite worried. he sat on his rock in the garden looking around in a lost fashion for his playmate/warmate padma. but she wasn't there. it got dark. we waited. i brought out some whisky (ahhhh for the joys of islay! thank you mamma!). we waited some more. we shook the food bowl, we tried whistling, tried calling, tried looking in the nearby streets. nothing. we had to face it, for the first time ever we would have to go to bed knowing a cat was missing.

so this morning when i woke up at 5.25 i went straight downstairs. will she be there? i opened the door and peered into the early morning garden. a clean bright sky was unfolding. swifts flying, clouds rolling. but no padma. so that's it, i thought. she's not going to come back.

i went upstairs, swapped nightclothes for dayclothes. went back downstairs and ready to wander the streets for a while looking for her. i opened the door and as if by magic there was padma, sitting next to the basil plants waiting to come in.

what a relief !!!!!!!!

i tried going back to sleep but by then my mind was awake. so i got up. hung out the night's load of washing. put on another load. made myself a nice cup of earl grey, ate a slice of bread and jam and made a courgette cake in celebration of the fact that padma had returned. the cats are wandering around the house. two loads of washing are drying on the line. outside the birds are calling. in the kitchen the cake is cooling and i am much happier than i was at 5.25 this morning!

have a good weekend and as i shan't be blogging tomorrow then happy summer solstice!

river greens

the other day we had to visit a place for work for mr m. it was a place in the countryside, and i took my camera with me so that whilst waiting for him i could take photos of the flowers there. but then i spotted the river. it was a hot day, blue sky with a few lazy, happy tufts of white cloud. i went to sit at the edge of the grass near the river. there were two hammocks hanging in the tree (no, i didn't climb up into them, scrambling up and falling out the other side as would doubtless have happened with me, well, it would have spoiled the moment). i just sat and watched. the river. the grass. the breeze in the trees. the sounds. the greens, so many of them. just sat and soaked it in. no great photos came of the day, but i didn't really mind. i was quite happy to sacrifice all photographic attempts to be able to sit there and just soak it all in. one of those timeless and magical moments.

cherry cotton photos

these are some of the things i've been making recently. bunting, to celebrate my mum's visit over here. i had some hanging up in the kitchen over the fireplace and some up in her bedroom. also a little cushion with inner and outer cover, made from upcycled fabric and filled with cherry stones. for older shadowsandclouds friends you may remember that last year i saved our cherry stones and tried to clean them using various techniques including boiling, boiling with vinegar and in the end resorted to scrubbing (the hundreds of) them one by one with a little brillo pad. at first i thought i would go insane. then i found immense beauty and focus in the action and realised that if more people were to spend time cleaning cherry stones one by one then there would probably be much less violence and much more clarity in the world. it's a semi-enlightening experience.

anyhow, the cherry stones were kept to make a little floppy cherry stone cushion. they're meant to be soothing. so i made one for my mum. it's cherry time again here and i already have people saving their (icky) cherry stones. agh! you know what i'll be doing in a few days when lessons finish at school! one of the beautiful things about cherries, i realised as i was making cherry jam the other day, is that you can actually use everything! i mean, the fruit in the jam, the stones in a soothing cushion, even the stalks are meant to make a great cherry stalk infusion or something similar, so i shall be looking into that as i've saved them too. exciting!

tomorrow i'm off to take down my photos from the bar where i've had them on display for a month. and now i'm sorting out some new ones, of fruit, vegetables and flowers for an upcoming appointment at a local agritourism restaurant which cooks using their own produce and also makes extensive use of flowers in their cookery. wish me luck!

have a good tuesday evening, i'm off to the choir, want to come sing?

p.s. lesley, i just realised after uploading this photo that i have also included a little wee corner of your wonderful tea-cup lino print in the last photo, which hangs merrily above the fireplace, next to my tea cupboard in the kitchen! for those interested in seeing more of lesley's wonderful creations of various types, then visit her blog bird ahoy! or her etsy shop here.

june

i just decided that june is perhaps my favourite of months. june is the month of lime tree flower scent. which is one of my favourite moments of each year. it is also the moment of jasmine flowering and hence another of my favourite scents. and therefore has earned another good point. what's more it is the month in which broom flowers, along with its own wonderful perfume. added to this it is still a springtime month, and i love spring so much. it is warm enough to be luscious, but not enough to be sufferingly hot. swallows and swifts fly in the sky. self-set red poppies open out in the garden. the evenings get to their longest. midsummer occurs. fireflies can be seen. you can walk barefoot. the lawn looks lovely and welcoming (come july and august in italy it looks scorched!). school finishes (i DO love my job ever so much, honestly, it's fabfabfab but i have lots of little creative plans in the 'on-hold' queue until summer.)

just now i went to the post office on mr m's bike. i love mr m's bike (not his flash mountain-bike, but his old 'going to the allotment' bike. for the english people out there it's kind of similar to an old style raleigh bike. black and battered, no gears, just brakes. one brake hangs loosely though it does work. as i wobbled it backwards and forwards whilst i was riding i had a flashback of memories of loose teeth as a child, you know, when your milk-teeth are ready for dropping out and you would wiggle them about in a mix of horror and amused curiosity?

so i was going to the post office on the bike, with my little bag in the d.i.y. basket (mr m's creation, it is actually a plastic fruit crate!), and as i peddled and free-wheeled through the back-streets the speed of the bike against the air on the street brought even more lime-tree-flower perfume my way as i went on my way along the street dappled in lime-tree shadows. and that's when i realised how much i love june.