Welcome Everyone.

Welcome to News From Italy, my blog about our Italian Adventure. Although this blog has now ceased publication I will be continuing to blog and I am sincerely hoping that my many followers here will move with me to Travel Tales blog to follow my next adventures wherever they may take me. The links to my other blogs are:-


I look forward to keeping in touch with you via them, thanks once again for all the support you have given 'News From Italy' over the years.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Our Garden in September - Il Nostro Giardino in Settembre

The end of September it is time once again for me to share some of my favourite garden photos with you. Once again I have had difficulty selecting which ones to share with you, I am trying something different this month, instead of just showing you individual photos I have made some collages.

I looked at last year’s post before I published this one, Our Garden in September 2010 interesting to compare as it was cooler and wetter during September. Those of you that were not reading this blog last year might be interested in reading more there about an unusual fruit we have in our garden, the Jujube, which we knew nothing about until last year.  It has a very interesting flavour a cross between an apple and a date.  I featured the Jujube in another post, Jujube - Italian Bloggers, an idea I never got around to doing any more of last year maybe this winter I will  introduce you to some other Italian Bloggers.

Jujube.

Despite what we thought was heavy watering of our Orto we have for the second year running not done well with our vegetables during the heat of the summer, it seems we really should not expect much to grow really apart from tomatoes and a few salad crops. Spring and Winter seem to be the only times we are going to get much in the way of vegetables, but at least we manage to produce enough for the two of us. As for our fruit crops well they certainly enable us to eat as much fruit as we want all summer long without having to buy any which is a great bonus. We did have to buy melons this year, as ours just did not get going, lack of water again.

The majority of colour in the garden has been provided by the Autumn Daffodil – Sternbergia Lutea and the yellow daisies that reach for the sky plus our various tubs and pots on the terraces.

Autumn Daffodils

Daisies, Plumbago, Lilies, Lantana, Impatiens, Ice-Plant, Cyclamen and Petunias have also given us pleasure with their blooms this month.

Persimmons are starting to ripen and my husband is hoping for a good crop to make some more of the wonderful chutney he made with them last year. The recipe came from another blogger in Italy, some of you may already know him but I shall save it for a post when we harvest the Kaki as the Italians call them. The Pomegranates are probably already ripe enough to enjoy now, I must try one this weekend. The grapes are from just one of our vines and after I took this photo they were turned into fresh grape juice for us to enjoy with breakfast or other times when you do not want wine!  The second fennel crop looks as though it might produce seeds and the kiwis will be picked just before Christmas and last us through until early summer.

Other crops we have enjoyed from the garden this month, all edible except for the giant gourds! Figs, Pears, Quince, Sweet Chestnuts and Walnuts.  We also have apples but very few and all picked, last year we had many more than we could cope with. Apples, Apples, Apples.

Olives and Rosehips rambling up an olive tree. The olives are looking good and the harvest for us should be early November. We are just hoping for a better result than last year’s disappointing harvest. Olive Harvest 2010 - Che disastro! Fingers crossed. We just have to pray no major storms arrive and damage the crop, they just need some gentle rain to swell and time to ripen.

 

The interested gardeners and photographers amongst you will find the full album on Flickr. Our Garden in September 2011 where the photos can be viewed in a larger format. 

Copyright All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection

I hope you have enjoyed sharing this collection of photos taken around our garden this month and remember if you would like to see more views of the garden taken during 2011 please visit the collection of albums at Flickr.com entitled Our Garden 2011

We are enjoying the most gorgeous late summer weather here in Italy and the forecast, for at least the next week, is for it to remain this way with temps in the high twenties centigrade. 

This summer seems to have flown by and I cannot believe it is October 1st tomorrow. October is going to be a very quiet month for posts here on News From Italy as we are going to visit one of our daughters who lives in Hong Kong. We are also travelling to Thailand with her while we are away, so I will hopefully have a lot of photos to share with those of you that are interested on Flickr and Beautiful World on our return.

There will be one more post published before we leave for our trip and as many of you have commented on how much you enjoy my Sunday Song posts I have decided to make it a musical one.

Meanwhile I am also linking this post to as many of the great linky parties that I participate in, that seem appropriate, as hopefully it will provide plenty of opportunity for visitors here during October to do some blog hopping and hopefully discover some interesting blogs, amongst this selection.

Best Posts of the Week, Bloomin' Tuesday, Fertilizer Friday, La Dolce Vita, Mosaic Monday at Little Red House, Our World Tuesday, Outdoor Wednesday, Post of the Month Club, and Potpourri Friday.

Welcome to ‘News From Italy’ to the other participants, thankyou for calling by.

Best PostsCopy_of_001 Our World Tuesday Graphic Outdoor Wednesday: Click on the picture below to learn more...Photobucket

I hope you have found some pleasure in sharing photos from my garden in Italy. I have made so many virtual friends from around the world via this blog, such a friendly network of people. While I am away during October I hope that you will maybe do some blog hopping and discover some new bloggers for yourselves.  Have fun exploring, the wonderful karma of blogging!

Before we leave on our travels, (see back up the page if you missed that bit), I hope to have time to catch up with as many of you as possible because while we are travelling my online presence will be kept to an absolute minimum. I will I expect be signing in to Facebook - News From Italy from time to time; so if you are interested in finding out what News From Italy is up to over the next few weeks please consider becoming a fan of our Facebook Page.

Have a lovely October everyone, where ever you may be in the world and what ever you are doing.   Take Care.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Italy in Books Reading Challenge September 2011

 

The Summer House by Christobel Kent

Italy in Books - Reading Challenge 2011

The Summer House

  • Paperback: 373 pages
  • Genre: Mystery Fiction
  • Publisher: Penguin 2005
  • Source: Purchased Oxfam Bookshop in UK
  • First Sentence : ‘Genova sprawls on the northern Mediterranean between two mountainous spurs that dip into the sea, a snarl of industrial steel, bridges, tunnels and peeling tower-blocks.’
  • Review Quote: ‘Well drawn, Kent manipulates her transplanted inglesi and loquacious locali with unfussy authority’
  • My Opinion : Realistic Italian background.

    Photobucket

    The September post with a list of books that the other people taking part are reading this month has already been posted. September Reviews.

    Another thriller with a realistic Italian background for this months choice, a different author though, but one I have read for this challenge before back in February. A Party in San Niccolo

    The story centres around Rose Fell a divorcee who left a secure job in journalism and family in London to move to a beautiful but isolated village in Italy near Genoa. After a year there she is still finding it a struggle to integrate, however when she is asked by a colleague from the UK if she can write an article about another local her life changes. At about the same time a young girl is found dead on a local beach and another young local woman disappears. Rose finds herself embroiled in this local mystery. Ania, the young woman that is missing was until the time of her disappearance working for the once famous model and film star Elvira Vitale that Rose is due to interview. Elvira and her younger British husband whom she no longer seems able to trust spend every summer in Italy and winters in the UK, hence the British press interest in the couple. The danger that is lurking closer than either of them realise throws these women together.

    To repeat what I said about the last novel I read by this author, there is enough suspense skilfully built into the story that kept me turning the pages to make this a very quick and entertaining read.

    Christobel Kent was born in London in 1962 and now lives in Cambridge with her husband and four children; in between she lived in Florence. She worked in publishing for several years, most recently as Publicity Director at Andre Deutsch. Her debut novel A Party in San Niccolo, was published in 2003. The about the author section in the book I have just read states they have five children. I have not been able to confirm which information is correct.

    This list of titles by her may well be of interest to those of you taking part in the Italy in Books - Reading Challenge 2011

    A Time of Mourning: A Sandro Cellini Novel (Sandro Cellini 1) A Fine and Private Place (Sandro Cellini 2)

    A Party in San NiccoloThe Summer House

    Late SeasonA Florentine Revenge

    Biographical and other information including photos and videos are courtesy of the following websites and from the paperback itself.

    Goodreads - Christobel Kent

    Amazon Author Page

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  • I also post these ‘Italy in Books’ reviews on my other blog
    LindyLouMac's Book Reviews

  • Monday, September 26, 2011

    Notte Bianca a Marta

     

    Last year Marta held its first Notte Bianca which turned out to be a great success so it was repeated again this summer.  I posted about the event last year  Notte Bianca a Marta 2010  and also featured the one held earlier this summer in nearby Capodimonte  Notte Bianca a Capodimonte 2011

    There is actually not an awful lot one can say about these events.  Apart from repeat the history of these evenings for those of you that are new followers of the blog.

    The evening of the fourth of August 2011 was the second white night to be celebrated in Marta.  What are White Nights?  According to Wikipedia in this particular format they are White Night Festivals, all-night arts festivals held in many towns and cities both in Italy and worldwide in the summer and I also learnt there that the first one held in Roma was in mid September of 2005.

    The crowded steps of the Campidoglio in Rome during the 2006 Notte Bianca

    The centre of town was closed to traffic and participating shops, restaurants and other businesses went to a lot of effort to decorate their premises provide food and or entertainment where appropriate.  There were also various market traders and a car club exhibit in the streets which added to the party atmosphere. Also in the squares and at various other locations there was live music varying from pop groups and discos to more traditional accordion music. Also the local band and majorettes marched through the streets. In fact while walking through the streets you hardly left the noise of one entertainer behind before you came across the next one.

    I find it is difficult to explain events such as these with words, so I will let some of my photographs from that evening do the talking with some mosaics to try and recreate the atmosphere.

     

        

     

    I took fifty-three photographs that evening and have not quite shared all of them here with you, if you are interested in viewing the full album or any photos in a larger size you will find them in My Flickr Album entitled Notte Bianca - Marta 2011

    I hope in fact that you will find time to look at the rest of the photos as all the businesses I took photos of had put in so much effort and there was no favouritism intended in the photos I selected to publish. I would have liked to share them all to be fair but it was not feasible so it was difficult choosing exactly which ones to include. I am also certain that I missed some good photo opportunities completely.

    The photographs are all my own.   Copyright All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection

    I am linking this post to  La Dolce Vita and Mosaic Monday at Little Red House the latter where you will find lots of other beautiful Mosaics. Welcome to ‘News From Italy’ to the other participants, thankyou for calling by.

    Friday, September 23, 2011

    Skywatch – September Full Moon

     

    Skywatch Friday

    The beautiful view of the Moon from the lakeside at Marta on the evening of September 13th.

     

     

    This last photo was actually taken on the night of the Full Moon September 12th, but I think the moon photos low over the lake, the following evening are much more interesting, although unfortunately I did not have such a good camera with me, so the quality is not brilliant.

    What do you think which is your favourite?

    Copyright All rights reserved by LindyLouMac Photo Collection

    If you would like to see the photographs full size please visit the collection at Flickr.com in the album entitled Full Moon - September 2011

    I am linking this post to Potpourri Friday at A Potpourri of Life at 2805 and to Skywatch Friday  Welcome to ‘News From Italy’ to the other participants, thankyou for calling by.

    Wishing you all a pleasant weekend and do take a minute or two to enjoy the sky.