Matera: City of Culture 2019. This is the view from outside our cave. Yes, we were indeed staying in a cave that have been converted into an air-conditioned hotel. Matera, now a popular destination with tourists was not always thus. In the50s it was described as the City of Shame by the Italians themselves. Grinding poverty and extremely poor if not non existent sanitation meant it had a high mortality rate for a so called civilised country. It had until Mussolini came along, no sewers, and the drains ran down the centre of the Main Street at the foot of … Continue reading Italy’s shame to Italy’s pride

Recent walking trip to Puglia and washday. No need for a washer dryer here, just hang it out on the balcony and when the bell strikes 5pm it will be as dry as a bone. This is Ostuni which was a very pleasant interlude on our trip. Was Zanussi the Italian who invented washer dryers? Also found this little music shop window which made for a reflective image. Continue reading Italian Washer Dryer: Zanussi?

Came across this painting in a small gallery in Puglia. Unlike in a lot of galleries this one was quite happy to allow me to take pictures. There is to me, not a stroke wrong in this lovely vocative painting of a beach scene. Just edited this as the predictive text or whatever it is that interferes with my text put in age instead of take. It’s like being constantly interrupted by a know-all. Moving on! Continue reading Not a stroke wrong

    The guy in the foreground is a Moroccan who spoke near perfect English, his Italian boss is behind him. He spoke no English. This friendly worker was one of a team of men picking the olives with special ‘animated’ rakes and they drop onto the netting below for collection. He was quite happy to be photographed and was even happier to try out his English on me. There are as many Olive Trees in Puglia as there are people in Italy, or so we are told. That’s around 60 million. No wonder they can produce vast amounts of … Continue reading Olive Pickers of Puglia

These are Trulli and are houses in Alberobello in the South of Italy. There are many of these in the town, many given over to a brisk tourist trade and covered in gifts and souvenirs, but they have had the good sense to leave some of them to local inhabitants like these. They are in some cases centuries old and came about as a result of local taxes. They were originally built without any sort of cement between the stones, so a bit like a dry stone wall sort of construction type of thing. They were built like this so … Continue reading Trulli. Which stone first?

In fact he never seems to go away these days. But we are now entering the season where he has something to point at. The odd leaf. Interesting to note that he always wears ear defenders, the rest of us can deal with the racket coming from what appears to be a small Italian motorbike that’s never been serviced on his back. He has never been trained in the ‘use of brush’ which stays firmly attached to his truck looking like an unwanted flagpole. Continue reading He’s back. Leafblower man

Continue reading Shed 13: Plottage and hose.

Continue reading Shed 12: No longer there

Continue reading Shed 11: Orange Isle of Wight

Continue reading Shed 10: Canadian chips

Continue reading Shed 9

Sheds do make a statement and there’s no doubting the statement here. This is Roy’s shed in the North of Ireland with his dog guarding the channel betwixt viewer and Europe. I was at college in Manchester with Roy back in the Sixties. In his holidays he used to be a bus conductor on Ribble Buses working out of Preston. I used to drive a ‘cake’ lorry all over the North West. Cake meaning that is what it carried. People still need cakes so there are lorries carrying them still hither and yon but the bus conductor is an extinct … Continue reading Shed 8: Roy’s Place