Post Thanksgiving

After too much turkey and just the right amount of family

what better thing to do than take a quiet walk on a drizzly day?

This is the trunk of the very, very old wisteria in the grounds of the

General Theological Seminary on 20th Street.

This garden always reminds me of England. Drippy bare branches -- flashes of vivid green.

How the rain drops cling to the roses

and get fatter and fatter!

Then a nice cup of tea.

Tea and Sympathy on Greenwich Avenue

Frost Moon/Empire State Building

It's beginning to get colder....

Here is the frost moon starting its ascent over the Empire State Building....

 Higher......

photos courtesy of Robert Schmid

.

...until it leaps out of sight

On a more prosaic note: we haven't actually had any frost yet, at least not that I've noticed.

Home Again/Ah New York!

After an absence one looks at the same old stuff with new-washed eyes.

American vernacular architecture in Coram, Long Island.

Very bling clothing on 7th Avenue.

And the hat!

New graffiti posters on 22nd Street.

And the people! Handicapped children being taken for a walk in Union Square.

For some reason, this magazine dispenser on the corner of 8th Avenue seems to be smiling.

As is Michael, seen here with the garbage truck driver

whose yellow overalls caught the morning light.

A sign of the season: a detail from one of Berch's paintings

on the window of the SE corner of 9th Avenue and 23rd Street.

ps A super new blog from my friend, fellow Brit, dog owner and artist

  Conan Guy Carpenter.

You will enjoy his sketches of animals and quirky taste in general.

Tourists

We are back home. For some reason remembering holidays is almost as sweet.

Seems a bit sad to eat pizza out of a box outside the Bargello.

Quite a lot of women with orange hair.

What a very large trumpet....

 It's lucky the Loggia has a nice wide stone ledge to rest weary rumps on.

There seem to be fewer pigeons than there used to be, but quite a few have alighted on the statues.

 Oh, oh, oh!

The same shot that several gazillion other tourists were taking at the

same time as me. But you can see why we were entranced.

Stormy day. The little black specks in the sky are birds.

Time to pack my suitcase and get on the train and then the airplane

then the train then the subway.

Then home.

Giulio Giannini & Figlio/Florence

    Food apart, paper junkies come to Florence for the above.

With what astounding greed I eye the window at my favorite paper shop!

All the paper is made on the premises. I want all of it: books, cards, wrapping paper.......

               ........ the little books to write important stuff in.... 

Books I Have Read, Hotels I Have Stayed In and so on and so forth....

     

      And then all those lovely notelets to write all the thank you letters 

for all the presents I have been sent and the yummy dinners I have eaten.....

           

               Then the paper itself!-- looking like the end papers in leather-bound

books in quarto and folio and half-calf and so on....

Send me all of it soonest.

Postcards of Autumn Scenes Around Florence

Feeling a little nostalgic already...

The autumn is so very beautiful here. Well, obviously. 

Milton said the fallen angels were as plentiful as 

'the fallen leaves that fill the brooks in Valombrossa.'

This photo from Piazale Michaelangelo.

The same.

 Ponte S. Trinita from the PV

 From Piazale Michaelangelo.

Look at the sfumato (mist) in the valley.

 Look at the umbrella pines. We leave here tomorrow.....

More About Florence

    When we lived in Florence more than thirty years ago I didn't have a camera and so have very few pictures of those long ago days. I am now making up for lost time.

   
     A  vinaio on via dei Neri. The chianti nuovo has arrived. Quite delicious -- even if the guy in the bar where we have breakfast says it's like spremuta (fruit juice).

    
     Early morning on the Ponte Vecchio before most people have got up.

   
     The fruit and veggies are so fresh and lovely.

    
    The colors just about pop out at you.

   
     If you have eaten your veggies, you certainly deserve cake and lots of it......

   
     Florentines take books and writing and printing and paper very seriously indeed as we all should.
     I have so many pictures they have spilled over here

A Florentine Morning

In Florence....

....cyclamen are very much in season.........

.....as are green cauliflower......

.......I want to eat every single type of pasta.....

 .....but the bread tends to be a bit plain (on purpose, so it doesn't conflict with the taste of other things).

 The shop owner was intent on his paper.
I pretended to be taking photos of the stuff in the window. Oh well.

Lunch at a vinio.  Parma ham on foccacia and lots of local red wine. Yum.