Some Melodious Plot

Had to get up early to move the car from the free car park. Still, sunrise ….

Perfect!

It might come down to an ice cream penalty shoot out. :-)

Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir - Grand Passions and their Objects If the only thing of note to come out of watching The  Souvenir , Joanna Hogg's latest film, was a reminder of the existence of the Walla...

Love the Wallace Collection. It has to be raining though to drive you inside. :-)

Love that Rembrandt too.

My favourite though is the Fragonard, which I wrote about in 2019.

somemelodiousplot.blogspot.com/2019/09/joan...

That definitely sounds intriguing, K. Is it happening at Napier and will it be online?

I think Tuscany doesn’t allow you to take a bad photograph. :-)

Siena by Candlelight ‘Everybody looks great at night,  Ain't no trick to look great at night, Everyone has a chance at night, Leaning into the candlelight.’ (Spa...

And to add, the whole inspiration for this Tuscany trip was the National Gallery’s Siena exhibition. Whisper it, but I might prefer Siena to Florence.

somemelodiousplot.blogspot.com/2025/06/sien...

Today’s favourite piece of Tuscany art.

To Siena for the very first time and other than the glorious cathedral, there was Duccio’s ‘Maestà’. The central panel shimmered.

And how it would have looked in totality.

😅

And that thumb and the fingernail.

Simon Schama wrote a magnificent book on Rembrandt and called it ‘Rembrandt’s Eyes’. You can see why. So close to the dying of the light; still so alive.

I did and I exclaimed ‘Ouch!’

Loved Cellini’s Perseus too.

Today’s favourite piece of Tuscany art.

From the Uffizi vaults. My favourite painter and ‘The Rabbi’. It appeared in the final room I visited. And with it, Rembrandt sends art off in a direction leading towards the modern. Controversial, but Rembrandt has more in common with Picasso than Raphael.

Sun setting and the full moon rising over the Tuscan hills. I love the hints of autumn here, and the sun warm but with no sting. Good job, as I left my hat in the post office.

Worst places to have my morning coffee and do my Wordle and Connections.

#Montalcino

Well, that’s a reason to visit Spring in Winter! 😅

I love the other Botticellis I’ve seen … including the one at the National Gallery in London … but this felt like something else … magical, otherworldly, yet strangely closer to home and identifiable.

Anyway, night all! I’m off to hang out with three diaphanous Graces in an orange grove!

The fearful expression on Chloris’s face. Look at those eyes. The sinewy, surprised turn of the neck.

Today’s favourite piece of Tuscany art.

Okay, Botticelli’s ‘La Primavera’ is stunning. Pushing through the crowds to get up close to Cate Blanchett, subconsciously humming ‘The Girl is Crying in her Latte’.

If you’re living on Skye you’ll kind of take those things for granted I guess. I need to play much more JT other than Aqualung.

Italian onion soup. Do you just bung all the accoutrements in? What would Keith Floyd do?

Gilbert White’s world of wonder | The Observer Jenny Uglow's account of a year in the life of an 18th-century curate and his garden is a glorious celebration of curiosity and nature

Philip Hoare reviews ‘A Year With Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer’ by Jenny Uglow.

observer.co.uk/culture/book...

‘I have been younger in October than in all the months of spring’.

Me too! Arriving at the end of September, all ready for the nights closing in.

Love a bit of JT. Hope your brother is hunkered down.

My favourite Māori word - learned from Split Enz and ‘Six Months in a Leaky Boat’ - is ‘Aotearoa’, land of the long white cloud.

Today’s favourite piece of Tuscany art.

At the Abbazia Di Monte Oliveto Maggiore. The frescoes of the Life of St. Benedict by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (il Sodoma, to give him his non-Sunday name). 😮

Glorious and piquant and featuring badgers!

Overheard: “I bet Sade never had acne!”

I’ve got the haircut so they might not let me out. 😅 I love their cowls - all white.

Breezing through the Tuscany hills in the Fiat and listening to the new Taylor Swift. Bound for the Abbazia Di Monte Oliveto Maggiore. Going to hang out with the monks.