I’m off on another adventure this morning! I spent yesterday orienting myself in Watford, having never ventured out on my own in such a place as this. I did well to go out on my own and discover places and things. I bought myself some lunch and sat out in the center to eat it…mango drink and a chicken caesar salad….listened to the voices of people…accents…languages and marveled that I was even a part of the scene. I wrote postcards while pigeons with rosey legs and feet strutted nearby, seeing if I had even a wee bit left for them. The Londoners find these to be pests, but for me there is little context and I enjoy the experience of their varied markings and their obvious interest in what I’m doing.
This morning, after a nice cup of coffee, I’m heading out on the line myself. Hmmm…absolutely don’t know what this will be like. I need to get myself to Waterloo Station and meet my artist-friend in good time. Then there will be a bit of a compromise go on because I want to see Ophelia in the Tate Britain because she was away visiting other countries when I was last here…and I know that there’s also a big Salvador Dali exhibit at the Tate Modern. It should be an interesting discussion.
There is a certain etiquette required on the tube, as well as an understanding for reading schedules and meeting connecting trains. It’s always a jostle of bodies as sometimes it feels like this city is where everyone in the world congregates to a center. I’m elated and wary at the same time.
Tonight, at 4 in the morning we head for a flight into Palermo. Georgio of our bed and breakfast will meet us off of our connecting train and we will spend three days adventuring Sicily. I have brought a companion book along for this journey, one shared some time ago by a friend.
The book is titled Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes, the author of Under the Tuscan Sun. In it, there are wonderful tidbits of information about a holiday shared with her husband in Sicily. In these chapters she writes that Galileo said, “Wine is light, held together by water.” In Sicily inconspicuous yellow road signs point to countless vineyards.
I know that I wish to visit Motepulciano where three reserve wines were named after a poet who ‘made it big’ in the area, Poliziano. The three wines are Le Stanze, Ambrae and Elegia…San Biagio is the church I would like to see there…positioned at the end of a cypress-lined drive and built in golden stone that apparently glows in the warmth of afternoon light. Ahhh….there is so much that I anticipate. Finally we have made our reservations to spend two nights in Assisi at St. Anthony’s convent.
Time for that coffee and my shower and the next adventure.
