Milan, 5 September 2017
We had come to Venice to celebrate the 65th birthday of two dear friends. They had invited a number of us from their past to share in this celebration. So there we were, some twenty in all, all slightly geriatric, stepping off the bus-boat onto the island of la Giudecca and gathering at a restaurant by the edge of the wide canal which separates this island from the rest of Venice.
As we sipped our aperitifs and later seated ourselves around two tables ranged along the edge of the canal, vast cumulo-nimbus clouds hovered to the north of us.
By the time we had finished the entrées (tris of raw fish, chopped fine, with sauces) and were tucking into the risotto cooked in a shellfish sauce, the sky had turned dark and menacing and the restaurant owner was worried that gusts of wind would carry his shade umbrellas away.
By the time we finished the main course (tuna seared briefly in the pan), the epicenter of the rain clouds sat above the campanile in St. Mark’s Square.
Once coffee was served, after a pannacotta for dessert, the clouds were dissipating and sunshine was breaking out again over Venice.
We said our goodbyes, promising, as has been the custom with these birthday parties, to meet again in five years’ time (and ignoring the little voice inside us emitting the hope that we would all still be of this world then), and went our separate ways. Ours took us through St. Mark’s Square, where the rain clouds to the west still looked menacing
but no rain fell on us as we threaded our way through the alleys back to our hotel.
__________________
Photos: all ours
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Abellio
I like writing, but I’ve spent most of my life writing about things that don’t particularly interest me. Finally, as I neared the age of 60, I decided to change that. I wanted to write about things that interested me.
What really interests me is beauty. So I’ve focused this blog on beautiful things. I could be writing about a formally beautiful object in a museum. But it could also be something sitting quietly on a shelf. Or it could be just a fleeting view that's caught my eye, or a momentary splash of colour-on-colour at the turn of the road. Or it could be a piece of music I've just heard. Or a piece of poetry. Or food. And I’m sure I’ve missed things.
But I’ll also write about interesting things that I hear or read about. Isn't there a beauty about things pleasing to the mind?
I started just writing, but my wife quickly persuaded me to include photos. I tried it and I liked it. So my posts are now a mix of words and pictures, most of which I find on the internet.
What else about me?
When I first started this blog, my wife and I lived in Beijing where I was head of the regional office of the UN Agency I worked for. So at the beginning I wrote a lot about things Chinese. Then we moved to Bangkok, where again I headed up my Agency's regional office. So for a period I wrote about Thailand and South-East Asia more generally. But we had lived in Austria for many years before moving to China, and anyway we both come from Europe my wife is Italian while I'm half English, half French - so I often write about things European. Now I'm retired and we've moved back to Europe, so I suppose I will be writing a lot more about the Old Continent, interspersed with posts we have gone to visit.
What else? We have two grown children, who had already left the nest when we moved to China, but they still figure from time to time in my posts. I’ll let my readers figure out more about me from reading what I've written.
As these readers will discover, I really like trees. So I chose a tree - an apple tree, painted by the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt - as my gravatar. And I chose Abellio as my name because he is the Celtic God of the apple tree.
I hope you enjoy my posts.
http://ipaintingsforsale.com/UploadPic/Gustav Klimt/big/Apple Tree I.jpg
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