Not an entirely successful day. I slept badly, to begin with – that’s unusual. I’m normally very good at sleeping. Then I got up too late to make breakfast before my 8 a.m. Italian lesson. When C. came to walk me around the garden, I couldn’t even make it to the garden gate. The weather is still sizzling hot here, although it has dissolved into thunderstorms in the south of England. It’s hot in Rome, too, and my tutor had had her second vaccination yesterday. We didn’t exactly sparkle.

 

Helen is urging me to get another trainer. I’m resisting. It takes up a whole morning of every week. It’s fairly expensive.

 

Helen’s husband David is here from Greece. He’s finished quarantining and they have all gone off to Kikrmichael. He will be going back to Thessaloniki with a couple of his sons next week – but will be here again in September. They came to call on their way north. They are going on to the Glenlivet distillery (wherever that is: somewhere north) on Monday to see and photograph Helen’s big mosaic in place.

 

Comments

 

I’m glad to hear that Elsie Dinsmore hasn’t been entirely forgotten. It is interesting that she is free to download on Amazon – her family were slaveowners. I would have thought the books were about as Incorrect as it was possible to be, in 2021. Perhaps things aren’t as bad (censorship-wise) as I imagined, or maybe Amazon doesn’t know what’s inside.

 

Tamar, my bath has excellent handrails, and isn’t – like many another bath, like the one Helen has installed in Kirkmichael – too steep to get into. The problem is more my lack of flexibility.

 

Andrea has posted another episode of Fruity Knitting. It’s time I picked up those socks again (at least) and spent an hour with her.