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For a little insight into how I came to have February as my writing month see this post. I only write my novel in Februaries (I know, really weird!) so if you are interested check out February from 2011 in the archive of the blog - scroll down the sidebar to Archive or depending on which device you are reading on scroll to end of posts. To concentrate on the job at hand I will post simple short posts and may repost some from previous Februaries Do you have a project for February? February is my Writing Month. I clear my diary (no need this year. Covid has done it for me). I clear my desk..  The dining table extends. The extension will be my dining area - I do like to eat at the table.  A few essentials  And I'm set to go. It will get messier. Much messier.. Our book group read A Room of One's Own in January and I came across this brilliant performance by Eileen Atkins A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Virginia Woolf. How lucky I am. From Shorelines, the book of poetry I am reading through January. Haiku Shiki (1867 - 1902 Long the Summer Day... Patterns on The Ocean Sand... Our Idle Footsteps Here is my winter adaptation Short the Winter Day... Patterns On The Frozen Grass... My spark-joy footsteps It feels like deep mid-winter tonight - snow forecast. Stay warm!  Yes, still here! { decided to make the lockdown into a proper work and health retreat as all is well on the sunny balcony bubble here in Venice, so forgive me if I just post the occasional photo and don't reply to comments for a bit as I concentrate on my writing project. Thinking of you all in so many different countries and different situations and hoping that all goes well with you. x  Below the balcony Two posts today!
I would like to say, on this 10th anniversary of Live Simply Simply Live how much this blog means to me. Trying to live simply in unprecedentedly complex times is a bigger challenge than ever. Writing a blog post almost every day for ten years has been a joy, a happy challenge, and a source of friendship and support I never could have imagined. I never could have imagined I would be writing this in lockdown in Venice either! So I will keep on keeping on, and hope you will stay with me and keep those intelligent, insightful and kind comments coming.... Thank you for reading and be well. Below - Eat Italian   The table has been removed now Venice is not only uncannily empty, it is also rather eerily silent. The few people who are about are heads down or talking on their phones as they walk along, keeping the required distance apart. Lockdown is being tightened further and the atmosphere is solemn. A death notice is pinned to a board by the fruit shop. A 90 year old. No funeral. And the bereaved partner and family must stay at home in isolation, even if the death was not caused by coronavirus.  Social distancing is taken very seriously. This is the queue for the supermarket. One out, one in. Courteous and calm, almost silent. There were another 15 people behind me though we didn't wait long. Three carabiniere walked by and I thought briefly of photographing them - then thought the better of it!  Venice is a small community and has been very hard hit. We are so glad to have a balcony in the sun, and work to keep us occupied. Work also sustains me... The attraction of the light on the water here in Venice is legend, but I am thinking of the light in the apartment - light to work by. I like the lamps here and fortunately two of them can give me the bright direct light I need ro work by, along with specs and a magnifying glass, as I battle with the job of editing my messy novel. It needs some work said my assistant editor Heather when she first read it. I didn't realise quite how much! I wish I had been more organised from the start, but a city in quarantine gives lots of time to focus on the job I'm here to do....     ...and every now and then I focus on the light on the water. Stunning.  What sustains you?   Ricotta dolce al limone Best eaten on the balcony in the sunshine. Be assured we are following and keeping up to date with directives and washing our hands continually! The argument might justifiably be made that we are in fact safer here in Italy where every possible precaution is being taken to avoid the spread of coronavirus, than in uk where they are just beginning to talk about such actions..... At the moment we are focussing on, and grateful for, work, food and wine.  All shops are now closed 'except those selling basic necessities'. ;-) This is where we did our shopping yesterday. The most beautiful Spar you have ever seen. Frescoes, ceiling paintings, even a stage. (Spar is a very ordinary grocery chain of small shops in uk.)            And you exit through red velvet curtains. Who knew shopping at Spar could be so beautiful? No shortages or empty shelves. Wonderful. Two posts today! Heather is learning Italian properly (she is already fluent in French) but I am learning just to get by - to be polite eg Posso fare una foto? to ask for what I want and pay for it, decipher labels and sell-by dates and figure out which milk is which, and generally find my way around. So I photograph street signs to help me remember my way home...  I love this name! Piazza of the Madonna of the Vegetable Garden.    For noting places I will want to go back to...   And just to know what's going on. The Tiepolo in the Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth will have to wait.  I try to translate the newspaper headlines..  Anti-virus panini anyone?   Sometimes I am just curious and photograph a sign to translate later. I don't expect this vocabulary to be especially useful to me, but I really wanted to know what it said! (Construction company boat. Mooring banned.) Now of course there are all the coronavirus notices to translate too! Erla Zwingle in her blog I Am Not Making This Up has helped us out here with a detailed post on the current situation.
Please note - we can go out people can go to work people can walk their dogs we can go shopping we can go to the cafe (until 6pm) we can go to the restaurants (until 6pm) Today's 2nd post is sure to make you giggle! Be well.   I noticed from the balcony this morning a few women carrying branches of mimosa, and at first didn't realise its special significance. We went to the cafe and asked if they would be staying open. The law is changing all the time. said the girl with a shrug and a laugh. Tomorrow? Who knows? So we sat in glorious sunshine with the other people enjoying drinks and snacks and chat - children playing on scooters, couples, elderly people with sticks or on the arm of a younger relative, prams, wheelchairs... The supermarket was no busier than usual, though for the first time they asked us to wait at the door until some people came out, so that it didn't get too busy I suppose. It looked as if people are stocking up a little, as we were, but there was certainly no panic buying and there didn't appear to be a shortage of anything. (Of course you can't just fill up the boot of your car - you have to walk home with what you can carry in Venice.) The smiling boy at the checkout handed us a potted hyacinth each as we left! For International Women's Day perhaps? When we came back I saw that our neighbour with the mimosa tree had a pair of stepladders beside it... It has been such a happy and productive first week.      No shortage of toilet rolls so far....!  and this fabulous one...  Could there be a more beautiful place to be locked-down in? I'm not going to call it a lockdown, I'm going to call it a retreat. :-) At last a sensible and sanguine article about coronavirus - a worthwhile read. See here.    We've found the local supermarket, a local fruit and vegetable shop and a cafe which is already our favourite, where the owner is very patient with our Italian (he speaks perfect English). People of all ages come in, some, like the mother and three children coming home from school just standing at the counter having their drinks. This was early in the week before the schools were closed.  People are still stopping for an Aperol spritz on their way home from work or shopping, so we did too! Perfetto! And no-one is wearing a mask. The interior of our little apartment has character. Venetian charactter. Warm colours, some nice old furniture and lamps, a chandelier and some old paintings and photographs, a terrazzo floor. Quirky.  Shades of Vermeer (apart from the TV!)        There are more modern touches too..  I think we are going to like living here. It rained heavily on our first day here.   I wonder if Catatrava who designed this bridge had Hokusai in mind. He is a painter as well as an architect, so he might well have..  Me. Heather has a good eye for composition. Oh, the colours when the sun comes out!   An hour on the balcony after a delicious home made lunch. 11 degrees and winds of 2 mph. I never could have imagined it would lead me to living in Venice for a month.
Views from the colourful balcony - we know we are in Venice!     We've started work already, planning to spend several hours per day - less when sunny more when rainy! Heather is doing a TEFL course (Teaching English As A Foreign Language) and is learning Italian. Our temperatures were checked when we arrived at Treviso airport and they didn't quarantine us! I am here in Venice for a month to work on my novel, so will be posting only short posts, and hope that you won't mind me not commenting for a spell. Venice is quiet and as astonishing and beautiful as ever. The 670,000 Venetians are still here (less than 60,000 in the historic centre.) I've only seen one person wearing a mask, and the shelves in the shops are bursting full of everything we could possibly need and more. The sounds on waking the first morning were of boats chugging along the canal outside the window, a church bell, a dog barking and a voice calling a cheerful Ciao Lorenzo! There is a mimosa tree in full flower....life goes on.  Minosa from my bedroom window I am so thrilled to be here. Trying to make the diffcult decision about Venice I found myself looking for signs. On the seat of the otherwise empty bus was a bottle of antibacterial hand gel which is in short supply in local shops! Was it a sign? In the Burgh Hall was an exhibition by a Signwriter called Frank Carty and this one struck a chord.. Could it be a message?  I'm not really making light of it - people are dying and many thousands of lives are being affected - but 81% of people who test positive for the coronavirus do not need any treatment at all.....the death rate appears to be 1-2% and 0.1% of Italian towns are affected. March is my writing month, and I can do this work anywhere. We have put off the decision until the last minute and are listening of course, to the advice from The Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I read with interest this blog post and the two most recent posts on Venezia blog and the interview with Sars expert Dr Sarah Borwein, which encourages caution while warning against panic, and I've marvelled at live web cams of quiet Venice in the sunshine today. Is anyone else having to reconisider their travel plans?
I am looking back at this post as I ponder the option of whether or not to go. NB I may not be blogging for a few days! ..I am ready for you! Many of you will know my history with February (brief summary here - lots more in February each year on sidebar and under Simply Write). This year I have moved my writing month to March and will be spending it working on my book in Venice (why not?), so February will be about preparing for the adventure! I moved it because Carnivale is in February and that's not really the Venice I want to experience. March in Venice is still quite cheap (prices jump during Carnivale - aother reason for avoiding it). The weather is very variable - there can be aqua alta, wind and snow (I hope) and balmy spring days with some warmth in the sun. It is of course less crowded. I enjoy this blog about Venice, and this post which I have linked to before, is my favourite.  I've been writing about feeling a bit nervous about my plans for 2020. Among other things I plan to finish editing my novel, live for a month in Venice, and start work on a big solo exhibition. 15 - 20 large paintings. Date is being decided.... No pressure then, as they say! Gulp. I have been shredding more notes.  Tonight I sat at my desk reading Colette's Earthly Paradise in the light of the lamp, drinking coffee from a favourite cup and eating a Tesco's Finest Spicy Dark Chocolate Ginger biscuit, and I chanced upon the wonderfully funny piece where, as an old lady she is being interviewed by a very young journalist who, seeking perhaps the secret of her success asks about her notes... What notes? When I am gone they won't find a single one. Oh, I tried! But everything I made a note of became as sad as a dead frog's skin, as sad as a plan for a novel. Trusting to the advice of writers who did make notes, I made some notes on a sheet of paper then lost the paper. So i bought a notebook, one of the new spiral ones, and I lost the notebook, after which I felt that I was free, forgetful, and prepared to accept the consequences of that forgetfulness.  This is how the inside of the desk drawer now looks. It makes me so happy! To quote Colette again (I think she is my all time favourite writer).... ..I am so happy I am almost ready to start feeling guilty about it.   Another part of my start to the day. It keeps me mindful, sometimes with just a sentence or two, sometimes more. I like this am/pm format (from Paperchase). It simplifies my day by stopping those thoughts which sometimes rattle around all day long - by putting them on paper I clear my mind. At the end of the day I have sometimes, without realising it, resolved them. It's a process. I keep the notebooks for a while, but not forever. This one has occasional prompts, soft focus photographs and gentle humour...  My word for the year is gently and it is working very well for me. Is your word helpful to you? If not, remember you can change it. I go for a walk in tne forest of Fontainebleau. I get green indigestion. i must get rid of this sensation into a picture. Green rules it. A painter paints to rid himself of feelings and visions. I've always liked this quotation (and have quoted it before I know). I am paraphrasing him when I say I visited Venice. I must process the feelings and sensations. A writer writes to.... I plan to write more blogposts about Venice and alternate with posts about gardening, which is grounding me nicely, and becoming somewhat urgent. Open Day is seven short weeks away. This morning was warm and sunny and I planted seven white lupin 'Noble Maiden', pulled (most of) the not-so-black leaves from the ophiopogon nigrescens and admired the primroses.  of editing. Actually I think the challenge is not so much in the editing as in remembering that, at this point, what I've done is a beautiful experiment, nothing more or less. So experimenting with fine tuning/tweaking/altering/fixing/adjusting could be just as much fun as the writing was, though with the company of my Inner Editor (see this post). A chapter by chapter analyisis is the next step. Gently does it! I love my word for 2018. How is your word working for you? (Remember you can change it if it isn't....) |
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