Thursday August 9

Thursday evening

Today we both painted in the morning in different spots. Jim discovered a place where he could stand on the landing of a public building 1/2 floor up from street level. He did a great view looking up Via Roma. I was back in my spot up by Victorio’s hotel. The sky was so blue today, unlike on the day I started, when it was filled with sand from Africa.

Later, I finished my pastel of Castel di Irie. I had started it in the morning, but I wanted it to be an afternoon picture. In the morning Castel di Irie is all in shadow, in the afternoon the sun shines on it full blast. It was so beautiful out there. The whole time I could hear the bells on the goats. Finally I saw them right behind me. I made a short movie of the sound of the bells. I saw the woman who was herding them. I asked her if I could take her picture and she said, “no.” She covered her face with her hands and herded the goats back into the trees. She was dressed in the traditional cover all dress of this area and a black head scarf. We saw these goats with a man last year. The homemade muzzle on the dog proved it. It was a time from a previous century. When it seemed like I was going to lose the light, I started cleaning up. It does take some time to put all those pastels away. By the time I was ready to start back down the road, the sun had set behind the mountains. The sunflowers are almost finished and the word is that the wild boars like to come and eat them. I did see some ravage sunflower heads lying on the ground. Once I was on the road, I never thought of it again with so many beautiful views of Castelvecchio and the mountains.

Tonight is a concert of a soprano and piano. That is all I know. It is in the convento of San Francesco. Last night we went to a fabulous concert of South American/Spanish guitar.

One nice thing about these free concerts is that they are not super long. The guitarists played 6 songs plus an encore. If I had paid a lot of money I would have felt cheated, but the truth is, I can’t concentrate much longer anyway. I think there are diminishing returns for a longer concert.

9;30 pm

The night before was two jazz pianists. They were amazing. The setting, under the church of San Francesco, was beautiful. It was part of the Jazz in the Mountains series. This was a free concert, but some of them in other cities are quite expensive. I forgot to take my camera, but this is a picture of the church which was the backdrop. The church was so golden, but the lights on the performers was adjusted to make their skin color natural.

Tomorrow night is the celebration of long marriages. We will be the oldest people to have been married ONLY 25 years. In the convento are a series of black and white photos of weddings in Castelvecchio. They are so beautiful. At one time there were lots of people here. The brides are all radiant and the men are all nervous. Things don’t seem to change. In some they are walking through snow. I would prefer that to how hot some of them look. Jim has now raised the question, “do you think the mayor actually gave the priest our names?” I am sorry to admit that I think this could easily be true. So we will go to church and see what happens.

Saturday night is a play that we have interpreted the title to be, “All decisions are based on the flavor of the crepe”. It is preformed by the theater of the nude. In case you ever wondered, this is exactly how international problems start.

Now we know the truth. This is written in dialect and means stuff yourself with food.

Our Castelvecchio show is off and it is a relief. We could not find anything to hang the paintings with that would not take the paint and/or the plaster off. House paint here is not waterproof so even trying to clean the tape off was a problem We said we would figure it out for next year. Everyone went away happy.

Still Thursday

After dinner we dragged ourselves down to the piazza for the concert. We were not the first ones there, but we were close. Now I have this figured out. The intermission is first. The three concerts this week have started promptly at 10pm. The posters said 9:30. So intermission first is the simple and obvious solution to this conundrum. The concert was fabulous. The woman’s voice was amazing and the pianist was excellent. In between songs a guy got up to read some poetry. That was less meaningful.

9:30 pm

Now it is Friday morning. I have at least 3 new bug bites. The light on the mountains at 7am is a golden rose. The tractors are filling their tanks with water, people are honking hello to sleeping friends, dogs are prowling around the edges of the roads, a few people are already sitting on the stone wall across the street and it’s morning in Italy.

As you see there is something every night. We are going to all of it, except possibly the dancing part. We are not great dancers.