Only Nine Weeks Left!!

We left Vermont a week ago today. Again, it seems like a continuation of last summer, but there have been some major changes. Our Danish friends from Gagliano that had the gallery have moved to a large city in Puglio. It was too lonely and abandoned in Gagliano in the winter. They will be here a couple of weeks in August. I am afraid the end may be in sight for Gagliano as a town. There is only a tiny store and a caffe bar. The students will be coming from Detroit and L’Aquila, but that is only for a month. People who have left Gagliano still have very strong feelings about it and will be here in August, but at other times it is essentially a ghost town. Many foreigners have houses there because of our Danish relator, but I am so grateful that we don’t. It would be hard to live there without a car, even for only a vacation.

Serious work has started in CVS renovating the convent and other buildings in the historical center. CVS has a plan for the money they will receive. Gagliano doesn’t even have a plan. No plan, no money.

A rainy start to the day

I forgot to take my painting this morning and had to start a new one. Always take extra paper. This is Wallis.

Jim's finished painting

Changes made in the road signs to reflect road closures

We went to the hardware store today and purchased the paper Jim likes, a pair of scissors, bandaids, and some bug spray. Our friend who owns the place gave us the bug spray for free. She always undercharges or adds in something that we don’t have to pay for. She teaches English in public school so we are going to teach her some American slang. Today’s lesson was: “Awesome dude” and “see you later alligator, after while crocodile.” She loved that one. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before?

Afternoon

 Jim did this painting on request. When the guy came by Jim gave it to him, but he wanted the blue door included. From the picture below you can tell that the blue door is out of the picture.

 Now Jim has added the blue door, the man is pleased and we get some more homemade wine. 

Yes, I am in Italy, not just writing the blog from VT. Note the wayside baseball hat.

This is a sweet man that we affectionately refer to as "the Hobbit"

View of where I was painting. The terrace with the umbrella is Karin and Bjarne's

Things I saw while painting

My pastel after the first lay-in

The Long Walk

We only got first breakfast today, because we were walking over to Castel di Irie with Karin and Bjarne to the local, farmers or crafts people market. It is still not tourist season here so it was a little disappointing. One woman had made croqueted earrings that were very pretty. From there we took a different road back from CdI to see if there were any good places to do long landscapes. It was a long walk and there was no where in the shade that you could actually see anything worth painting. Eventually we made it back to the parking area for the catacombs. There was bench in the shade and a good view of Castelvecchio. Jim did his drawing and I got one layer of color on and sprayed it. We will go back earlier in the day tomorrow.

This morning: Pastelmatt paper

Jim is getting pizza ready for lunch and, although I swore I would not, I think I am going to have to take a nap. We have a painting to work on later in the day.

Lunch plus Watermelon

Yesterday afternoon and this afternoon.

Jim's finished piece

My finished pastel done on Richeson Paper

The Meeting

I am wondering how I ever found time to paint here. If i didn’t take so many naps and if I wasn’t so lazy I would get more done. I can’t even blame it on TV.

Last night at 9pm we had a meeting with the choir from CVS and our friend Pasquale. They are planning a trip to NYC, Boston and Vermont. They want to stay in people’s homes, not hotels. They want to come this December. Yikes. Any and all advice or suggestions would be welcome. We talked till 10:30 and then the choir members still had business to take care of. I showed them the watercolors of people that I had done in CVS. They were pretty excited and knew who everyone was. People are going to send me photos so I can put together a collection of 200 portraits. That is my plan. But that was not all. Next Pasquale called the family of Angela and we went over there to give them my watercolor. It was horrifically sad. We had to come home and drink lemoncello and eat chocolate. That sounds like a joke, but I assure you it is not.

This morning is beautiful. The sky started out completely clear, but now the clouds are forming over the mountains casting swiftly changing shadows. Somewhere some kids and a dad are playing basket ball and a swarm of bees just flew by. The swallows are making forays back and forth to catch mosquitos and feed their babies on our outside terrace  wall. There are sounds of the neighbors cleaning. How it is almost noon I do not know.

We have to eat fruit all the time. We went over board at the market and have 2 quarts of strawberries, 1/2 kilo of cherries and another of grapes, watermelon and cantaloupe. We ate so much fruit, we didn’t get out of the house till after 9:00.

Then it was time for second breakfast and a trip to the grocery store. The piazza has had some barricades installed to keep cars out and make it safer to drink coffee. In some ways this has only increased the danger with cars backing out of the piazza into the most dangerous intersection ever. I cannot believe anyone would ever pull into that space, but they do and they go up and down the one way street. Non-stop entertainment.

Things you do not see in our meat department and things that also see you.

         Tons of pasta.

Litari del vino

Interesting woman I saw at the grocery store

Vegetable man parked in worst place ever.

Driving away

My garden

Maria and me shelling peas

Our house!!

Danes on the way to our house for strawberry shortcake. The Italian flags are for the world cup.

                          

The day that never ends….

Karin and Bjarne: our internet cafe and good friends.

                                                    Bella: second best dog in the world.

Gail, friend from Vermont, picked us up for dinner at 8pm. We had pizza with her, Rolf and Kirsten who were only in Galiano for a day. The winters have proved to be to lonely and they have bought a place in Puglia. After pizza we had gelato.

 And that brought to an end our first day in CVS.

Day 2

We were awakened by the day time fire works that let us know that Castel di Ire is in festa. Today is the festival of San Luigi. (one of the Mario brothers) It was also market day so first things first. As you see we made our usual market score after first and second breakfast. The road from CVS to Raino is closed and this means there were fewer vendors as they now have to take a circuitous route to get here. No roasted chicken.

However there were plenty of T-shirts. The tight pants are modeled on blow up legs. You can decide for yourselves if you think this is funny or not, but we sure did.

Last year I did a painting of some people’s house. It turned out well and they like it. Somehow they made a tile copy of it and now it is on there house! These are the things that make my day.

After the market and putting away our swag we headed for Castel di Ieri to check out the festa. Well we did get coffee and saw the marching band. There was one small tent with people selling vacuum cleaners so perhaps San Luigi likes to keep it clean.

Church at Castel di Ieri

Virgin Mary with Candle lit for Annie

Caffe Bar in Castel di Ieri

The Band in Castel di Ieri

Castel di Ieri

A very sad thing has happened in CVS in the last month. A young woman, who sang in the choir and was my facebook friend has died. Pasquale, his wife and mother took us out to the cemetery to pay our respects. More about the cemeteries in Italy another time, but today was to personal.

Angela Santilli in memoria