the second sign of primavera

Today,
the first violetta.

the first sign of primavera

It was really hot this morning, hot enough to be outside with bare feet. Perhaps not a good idea in February, but it felt blissfully warm and balmy. I even opened the windows wide and in flew a calibroni, a big black blundering beautiful bee. I notice my irises have sent their first pale leaves towards the sky. By lunchtime the heavens had darkened, but this morning was the first glimpse of primavera and of course I realise there is much to do these next weeks before everything comes to life.

the light of summer

Today, with snow forecast and the fires ablaze, I remembered a shaft of intense summer light falling into the piano nobile of Palazzo Alaleona, and how deliciously cool it was to stand in the shadows of that wonderful building.

marmellata: 2

Just when I was thinking I was ahead, marmellata di arance smugly in the cupboard, Francesco in the market insists I make more marmalade with a different kind arance bianche he has brought especially from Sicillia. So yesterday after work I spent the evening slicing and squeezing a mountain of oranges, left them soaking as instructed and now they are on the stufa, filling the house with their heady perfume. Those who know me well, know about my little stufa, a rescue-stove found abandoned, dumped from a contadina farmhouse kitchen. It is adorable. Fill it with twigs and you can feed a family. The caldrone is another story, which I will come to later.

the cupboard door of Villa Vescovo

I found this gentle, Italian landscape in a villa last summer, it's winding road leading through an archetypal valley, past ruined buildings and cypress trees towards the distant mountains. It is painted onto a wooden door, the key located beneath the tree in the foreground, seemingly unlocking the way down the road and also the cupboard. The key has been turned many times and the continual locking and unlocking of the cupboard has worn away the grass beneath the tree, like centuries of feet walking the same route and wearing smooth a pathway. All most uplifting and reassuring.

the quiet Marche winter

A crisp, clear, frosty dawn. It is breathtakingly beautiful outside, snow deep up on the mountains and we are all wrapped up warm, including the agarve, which seem to be glowing, snug under their layer of insulation, waiting, as we are, for Spring. Yet there is much to do now and on a day such as this the bare, sleeping Marche landscape is quietly magnificent.