On the home front: an injured cat, our first grapes, annual parties with three generations of local friends’ families. Around the world: helping an aunt, celebrating our anniversary in Sardinia, attending a wedding in Sri Lanka. I look back on 2007 now and ask myself how we managed to pack so much into a year. …
Traveling in Europe when you live there is as easy as traveling from state to state in America. Excellent trains and freeways make for pleasant trips from point to point. An example was my journey to Scotland to share in the celebration of a friend winning a prize for her novel. I caught a train …
Living in Italy for so many years made it possible for us not to rush seeing famous sites. Spread out over time, such visits helped us avoid the customary tourist schedule of one day here, one day there. Back home, when not attending local open-air operas and village festivals, we hosted guests from all over …
Good news/bad news must have been the theme of our first six months of 2006. Part of Amelia’s ancient wall collapsed, we finally got the upstairs renovation done after years of thinking about it, we lost two dear ones but spent quality time with another, Zack was attacked by a viper, and I had serial …
The last six months of 2005 found us busy with all sorts of at-home chores, events and entertaining, plus a wedding-anniversary visit to Italy’s Maratea Coast. We were also challenged to cope with floods and landslides. Then in December, we were rewarded with a pre-Christmas excursion to the glories of Prague. Here are edited excerpts …
The three months leading into the summer of 2005 were filled to the brim — the unexpected loss of a dear friend, Zack sending Russell to the hospital, attending the Winchester, UK Writers Conference (where we both got encouraging news), watching vipers dance and balloons soar. Here are edited excerpts from letters to family and …
As I read over letters sent to family and friends about our first months of 2005, our lives then seem bustling. Yet I don’t recall them that way. Twenty years bring distance and dimming memories. Yet, here they are, the days of our lives in those faraway places. Leaving Sri Lanka, returning to Amelia — …
One of the great things about living in Italy was all the folks from our past who came to visit. Another was the joys of the changing seasons, as handyman Graziano and I worked together through each one. A scar and a star marked the autumn of 2004, but Russell and I could never have …
Last month, when I was writing about our trip to Dubai, I kept envisioning photos I’d taken. But I couldn’t find them…’til now. Here are a couple, showing Dubai’s love affair with the modern and avant-guard contrasted with a bit of the history that remains — the former palace of the Emir. Now, let’s move …
2004 was such a busy year that I find I have to divide it into three, rather than two, posts just to fit in all the highlights. Here’s the first installment, recalling adventures at home and abroad. [From now on, if any of the posts take place at our house near Amelia, Italy, I’ll no …