Italy ( part 5 )...A Farewell Colour Mix

Our trip to Italy was a real punctuation mark to the end of the Summer...the season was definitely moving on and somehow the changeable weather made the holiday what it was.

We couldn’t control things...which is surely what a break should be, and once we realised that we didn’t really have to do anything, just sitting in beautiful surroundings and eating good food was enough.

On our last night, Francesco the co owner of Villa Arcadio came to talk to us after our meal.

He didn’t really speak English, so the other owner Jaane, had a son who brilliantly translated ( ...and who had also picked figs and grapes for me earlier in the week for my arrangements! )

Francesco had bought the derelict 16th Century monastery in 1996 and obviously had a dream to build this amazing hotel, and had asked Jaane to be part of it.

He goes to the market in Brescia at 5am every morning to choose and buy the food for the restaurant.

He chose the interiors, the paint colours, the plants, the art, the ceramics...even the beautiful blue Venetion glasses on the tables.

He was a self confessed aesthete, who strove for harmony within the hotel, the gardens and the restaurant...and he had succeeded.

We chatted about painting and said he said he felt the same towards colour and texture as I did, and completely understood how they reflect the senses...

...He confessed to owning one of the amazing vintage Riva boats...partly, he said, because when he first saw it he thought it was so beautiful he just wanted it inside the house to look at!

This wasn’t an absent hotel owner; this was a man who had made this hotel his life... 

He said he’d always enjoyed having friends to stay and eating good food and wine when he lived on a farm, and that was the type of atmosphere he wanted in the hotel.

And although this hotel was personal, it wasn’t intrusively personal...we were able to keep ourselves to ourselves, whilst at the same time feeling wonderfully welcomed...

...and also a big thankyou to Mr and Mrs Smith.com who made sure we had a fantastic lake view from our bedroom, wonderful wine, and basically made Villa Arcadio very difficult to leave!

Italy ( part 1 )... Rain and Colour

The thing which is very easy to forget when you go on holiday is that there’s a massive amount of pressure on enjoying yourself and it all being amazing...

With the wealth of social media around it generally seems that everybody’s life is always amazing, which then just adds to that pressure that your holiday has to be perfect...

We arrived at our hotel near Salò, by Lake Garda, on Friday evening, and the following morning the view basically looked like a scene from all the Lake District holidays of my childhood...very, very wet!

We love walking and hadn’t hired a car, in favour of the 40 minute walk from the hotel into Salò town...we hadn’t really bargained for massive rain, although thankfully we had packed cagoules! 

We convinced ourselves that it was actually brilliant, as it meant that there weren’t as many people about...we found a circuitous route into town, which led us into an Italian market where the fruit and veg were impressively and organically mishap-en, and the cured meat and cheese stall looked like something from a travelling fairground...

However by about 3 o’clock, the whole community of cafes and restaurants seemed so downcast and apologetic about the rain; shrugging and pulling sad, confused faces, that the melancholia started to spread...

“We’re in Italy, it can’t rain”...we said from behind waterproof hoods ( which seemed to be leading a lot of water directly into our faces and down our backs...)

We sat in a cafe until we couldn’t quite hear the canopy being pummelled as hard as it had been 20 minutes before, and decided to walk back...

By the time we were walking up the final steep hill, the rain had miraculously stopped, the sun was out, and we arrived back at the hotel...baking and knackered!

And this is basically when we realised how lucky we were to be staying at our hotel; Villa Arcadio. Although, at this point we still hadn’t really worked out how to relax in this complete oasis, and not worry about going on holiday excursions!

The next day was brilliant sunshine...

I desperately wanted to go to the Isola del Garda which apparently had amazing gardens, and as there was only one day of the week when a boat left Salò for the Borghese Cavazza home, we took another excursion... this time in the heat!

The gardens really were beautiful...*

*more photos from the trip to the Isola del Garda will appear in the other ‘Italy' posts 

and...apart from a rather rude, tall British man who pushed in front of me in the boat queue and then stood with his rucksack in my face as if I wasn’t there...we had a genuinely lovely time.

...and the glass of wine on the balcony at the end of the tour is a brilliantly thought through detail!

As we were out and about, we decided to take the ferry over to Garda town...

We walked around the crowded backstreets, had a large ice cream, and I got told off by a boat man for standing in the wrong line ( although my ruck sack was not in anyone’s face I hasten to add... ).

Returning to Salò, we walked back up the steep hill, which is when and where I collected various plants and wildflowers, and we arrived back at the hotel...baking and knackered!

My table arrangements are always a type of meditation which relax and calm me down, so I started to arrange on our bedroom window sill...

...and then ventured into the hotel corridors...and found this wonderful old table

That evening over beers, and some utterly amazing food at Villa Arcadio, we decided that there would be no more excursions...

The hotel and it’s setting was incredibly beautiful, it was so comfortable and relaxing, the staff were really fantastic...and even the non-English speaking gardener gave me the thumbs up for my table composizione when he saw me with some fig leaves...

This was our holiday; we both needed to stop

and so we started to relax a teeny bit...

Thursday...

I am very excited today, combined with being very busy, very scruffy, still in my pyjamas and justifying to myself that cleaning the house actually keeps me fit, and is basically a work out!

Tomorrow I am being taken to Italy for a week by my partner...my son is in Germany for a fortnight so we decided to get away together!

So, as I said, I’m very excited!

In the process of clearing out cupboards before I go away, ( having a house sitter makes you clear out cupboards and hoover under the bed... ) I came across some sort of 'love postcards’ belonging to Beryl and Jim.

I’ve had them a while, as I originally found them when I was helping to clear her house after she died. The response to her diary last week was so generous and lovely, I thought I’d share another piece of her everyday life with a holiday related postcard...

Beryl, ( my Granny ), was away on holiday in Tenby, Wales, at the time, and as there was no texting, Jim ( my Grandpa ) was obviously sending postcards from home as they were quicker than letters...

A postcard from Wednesday, September 5th 1935 (posted at 5:45pm ):

Hello Budd,

Thanks so much for your letter received today dinner time.

Love, I’m so lonely, I am going out to the Empire tonight ( alone ).

The front of this card reminds me of our Wed & Saturday teas, does it you?

Will write letter later.

Please enjoy yourself.

Bye Bye, Love

xxx PENGUIN

P.S I leave Coventry at 2.56 Friday afternoon, don’t worry.

...I know love letters are a wonderful and romantic thing, but these short and sweet postcards with everyday details completely bowl me over...

Bring back postcard romance!

Friday...

There is definitely something medative ( if not a bit obsessive ) about my flower arranging ritual...

Last night I started having an arrange on a plank of wood outside, here in Cornwall, but it wasn't deep enough to get more distance in a shot...

...so I used the chair, which I have done before a couple of times...

...but by which time the light was going meaning the image wasn't sharp enough for my liking ( as was my head to be honest after the first pint of beer in 2 weeks! )...

I decided to leave it until the morning...

There had been a light rain in the night which meant the flowers were all still fresh!

...and then my eye caught the book on the shelf*

...it seemed a bit too bold though and I also wanted to compliment the title so added some of my collected pebbles and shells...

...and stood on tip-toe!

* fyi... You may wonder how I come to be in Cornwall so much and with so many familiar props...the secret is to have a partner you don't live with, who is a writer and who has to have a place to work alone... unless he's looking after The Cheeks!

Wednesday...

So basically I should be packing the car now, but I’ve got a bit of a pink thing going on at the moment....don’t ask why; it’s just what I feel more drawn to this week, so I took a tea break to create more pinkness before driving for 7 hours with 2 teenage boys!

At this point of fiddling I made a little loop video on Vine when I add the milk, which you can see here...

Also this week there’s an interview with me on the lovely ‘Tales From the Wild ‘ blog if you fancy a few still life tips as well as more photographs...

Holiday posts probably to follow soon!