A Mass of Odds and Ends

Whilst the countryside around us puts on a brilliant autumnal show Mogliano has started its programme of winter intellectual activities. This weekend the tiny and perfect Theatre Apollo hosted three days of words and music, and we went to Saturday night’s performance, the local jazz group with mellow versions of all time classics alternating with readings of 20th century Le Marche poetry. An intellectual gentleman fired with Roman oratory zeal introduced members of the local literary society,  expressing his joy at sharing the poetry with us all, kindly resisting the temptation to reprimand the woman in the eighth row who had her eyes shut more often than could be considered polite. The woman in row 8 came away worrying that she had made a serious error agreeing to join the literature group.  The academic year dictates a punishing timetable of early mornings and late nights so all I’ll bring to the group will be a sleepy presence, with no trace of oratory zeal.

It would be ridiculous to try to give the impression that we are all working away here. No, I’ll come clean, it’s just one festa after another. This weekend it was Montappone, the festa of straw hats, culminating in a splendid display of fireworks, photographed here from the snug safety of a friend’s house -we discovered many years ago that local firework displays have scant regard for regulations and after being rained on by burning bits of firework (an intriguing if hot experience, we hadn’t realised quite how much cardboard there is in the average firework) we now tend to watch at a careful distance. We’ve also been to my favourite jazz festival, Fano Jazz, where I had to overcome my neurotic response to change of any kind, a result I am sure of having changed too many things in my life, so that Aldo left me muttering darkly “last year the wine was OVER HERE” whilst he found us comfortable chairs so that I could take these tastefully blurred photographs…

I have worked just a little bit though, photographing a variety of shoes including one pair with the most irresistible soles on their way to London to seek their fame and fortune.

Last week we went to a concert with Petra Magoni and Ferruccio Spinetti of Musica Nuda at Sant Elpidio del Mare. It was a full moon, the evening was hot and the music extraordinary. If you like jazz have a look at her site, www.petramagoni.

The last couple of days we’ve been in Perugia at Umbria Jazz, where the best concerts are to be enjoyed in the Giardini Carducci, with jazz from midday to midnight, people like the Allen Harris Quintet,

seen here in full flow. On returning home for a few days I’ve been surprised to find that our four cats have taken up going for walks, presumably missing my company so much that they feel they need to follow me wherever I go.