This week it was my Birthday and I am way , way older than I think I am, though now that I am going to yoga every week, I also feel lots younger than I did. It's nice not to creak.
This is not my first birthday in Italy. The first one was one of those special ones and I celebrated, unintentionally ,in style.
I remember it rained, but as I had texted everybody on my phone to tell them to text me cause it was my birthday and they wouldnt want me to be lonely, I had messages all day. Have not felt as popular since.
Then in the evening we had arranged to go out for a meal in a local restaurant with a couple of friends. We had gone in and booked a table two or three days before, so we arrived about 8pm after having tried to go to the william wallace bar for a drink first. ( we didn't know it never opens before 9pm).
So we walked in to this enormous ballroom , with long lacy curtains at the windows, a polished wood floor and one table set for four in the middle. We were a bit taken aback and at first thought maybe we hadn't made ourselves understood, but no, the table was for us. So we sat down and waited for a menu. Along came the first course. We wondered when some other diners would come in, assuming it just must be some sort of peculiar Italian tradition to just set up tables as people arrived. ( there were chairs and tables pushed up against the wall at one side)
So while we waited for the menu , thinking that the starter must have been sort of freebie, the second course arrived, along with a bottle of prosecco.
It's quite disconcerting to be sitting in the middle of a ballroom not knowing what is going on. There was no menu. Course followed course and gradually it dawned on us that they had opened specially for us and no one else would be coming in. I think there were 7 courses. And like good little children we ate them up. By now I was beginning to see the funny side of it and had stopped feeling quite so weird.
It was the most unusual and special birthday meal I have ever had (and the most expensive).Sitting in the middle of an empty ballroom I felt like it was just the greatest start to the next decade of my life. And who knows what would happen next.
Anyways , apart from it being my birthday this week, what about the trullis!
Trulli s are little round houses with conical roofs which you can find in Puglia. And as I am probably going to to two markets in Ostuni and Martina Franca (In Puglia) I thought I would have a go at painting some , and better still selling some. So last week I hung out the car window on the way to the market and photographed as many as possible. Which was not easy as most had their backs to the road and often we couldn't stop as the road was so narrow. However I managed to get some photos to use . So this week I got going and have managed three so far, despite, plumbers, missing electric bills , the post office having 300 people in the queue after it had been shut for 4 or 5 days , painting all the pipes in the shower room to look like gold, trying to find the source of the damp smell, moving a large sofa from the country house to my studio : meaning it took all morning to move all the rest of the furniture round to make it fit and painting all the bits on the wall that had previously been hidden , and fitting in a lovely meal with friends to celebrate my birthday.
so now I am done.
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