Today was one of those days where I had much I wanted to do ... one of those days when my body said, ‘hey Di, you’ve got a cold. Stop trying to do it all ...’
And when I was stubborn and tried to go on, the lovely Francesca gave me a choice and I accepted her idea for tomorrow, and went home, and climbed back into bed.
It’s been like that today. A little here, a little in bed.
And so, a photograph from other days here in Genova.
Coughing is all I do these days ... since 25 October, to be precise.
Well, the cold, not the coughing. The coughing is the last of it, I’m hoping.
I’m horrible at looking after myself.
And I don’t like taking medicine. I never have. Try not to do it.
But last night, I was awake and coughing for most of the night.
I don’t speak Italian well enough to describe my symptoms. And I have this HUGE imagination which needs a native language, or a native language listener. I tell complicated stories when I describe things ... in my New Zealand English which, to some ears, is an excruciating kind of English.
I now have 3 different kinds of medicine from 3 different Italian pharmacies, medicines that I will probably never take because I’m not quite sure what they are.
So, a huge thank you to Paola and Simon who gifted me an exquisite collection of ‘happy birthday’ red wine bottles that have entirely replaced all medicines.
Tonight’s Fret, Barbera D’Alba ... superiore 2008, was truly divine.
I had to miss my jazz/cooking evening. I couldn’t go out. Last night I didn’t sleep much between attempting to cough everything out. Tonight finds me quietly destroyed, with big black rings under my tired eyes.
And I know ... how can you sympathise with me while I am here in Italy. I understand.
But anyway ... a smiling ciao from the kiwi, loving living here in this exquisite Italian city.
The photograph below ... a reflection discovered between the cobblestones here in Genova. If only I didn’t have to look quite so odd when taking these photographs. I’m that foreign creature, stalking reflections in puddles in Piazza de Ferrari.
I have spent the evening in fine company ... watching the dvd documentary of Genovese singer, Fabrizio de Andre.
It has subtitles.
I love it.
Well yes, this isn’t the first time I have watched Effedia - Sulla Mia Cattiva Strada which translates as On My Own Bad Road.
He was storyteller, a singer, a good man. I like hearing him talk ... sing, tell his stories.
German director, Wim Wenders, raves about him. I am in good company.
A favourite place in the centro storica, here in Genova.
Just after 3am, I woke to a noise that sounded remarkably like a big building collapsing. The boom of it echoed through the caruggi, the narrow alleyways here.
I lay there, not really wanting to think about what it might have been. Soon after, it happened again. Thunder? I got up to look and discovered yes, thunder, lightning and heavy rain. I went back to bed hoping that the flash floods of last week had cleared streams and pathways so that this torrential rain might cause less problems ... then realised it may still be a case of a lot of water cascading down from the hills above the city, overflowing streams and streets ... and I hoped not.
I lay there, listening, hoping that this was more about the sound and the fury of a storm and less about many mm’s of rain in a short period of time.
5am, I woke up to the crashing of thunder and wondered if it was the same storm or a new one.
6.50am, I gave in and got up. The storm continues and is incredibly noisy. Perhaps it is trapped between the high hills of Genova and the sea. It’s not going away.
I remembered Cinque Terre were concerned about this next lot of heavy rain, I don’t know if Genova needs to be too but it doesn’t seem like the best kind of weather for a city so recently hit by serious flooding.
Genova’s Righicam gives you a peek in at the weather and the weather forecast it links to tells me that there is a 100% chance of rain until 11am, easing to a 90% chance of light rain from about 5pm.
So, today one might be sure in the knowledge that it’s going to rain. Reassuringly ... surprisingly, I can hear people in the alley below. Hardy souls out with umbrellas on their way to work I guess. It’s still dark, except for those moments when lightning fills the sky.
Kate, an American who has been living in Cinque Terre for years, posted an email she initially began writing for friends and family ... after realising they seemed to have no idea of how bad things are here in Italy. So many Americans have wandered through, and fallen in love, with Cinque Terre that she and other American bloggers living in the area were disappointed by the lack of coverage the devastation in their area is getting. They’re encouraging donations to Red Cross
I have to admit to being worried if Cinque Terre is receiving the rain we’ve been having here in Genova these last few hours, and yet I don’t want to be alarmist. This isn’t my country and it’s not my landscape. Unlike the corners of New Zealand I lived in, I don’t know the area well enough to understand whether it can cope with the rainfall we’re having right now. I guess it’s just a matter of waiting and seeing, hoping that those in authority here in the city get the warnings out this time and no more lives are lost because the 10-20% of Genova that is down low or situated in the flat places may be taking a hammering now.
I took this photograph down at the ruin of the ancient temple yesterday.
We’ve been lucky, I said. We’ve been able to live by what we love. And to live painting, as we have, wherever we have, is to live passion and imagination and connection and adoration, all the best of life - to be more alive than the rest.
Extracted from The Passion of Artemisia, by Susan Vreeland.
I have loved the world in reflections since those days when I was a small child traveling to my Nana and Grandad’s house in Invercargill.
The swampy creek that ran alongside State Highway 1 over near Berwick was almost always a place of perfect reflections. No one realised probably but I was contemplating that world so perfectly reflected, wondering if it might be another world, a parallel world perhaps, a magical world.
These days, I have discovered I can go some way to photographing those worlds reflected in puddles. And I love it. The rain stopped for a while today, the sun came out and voila, there we all were, out on the beautiful streets of this city.
So ... here’s a little of the beauty I find in Genova, in reflection.
It seems that we have a stubborn zone of low pressure spinning round and round over us ... she writes, probably not quite getting it right. It looks like we might have rain here until Tuesday ... so frustrating. It’s not particularly cold but wet ... oh so wet.
Meanwhile I wasn’t really sure what we might find outside this morning but the bakery was open and so we had the best kind of focaccia breakfast. Then we were off into the alleyways in search of water supplies. Shops were open, people were out and about, and slowly I was able to line up reality and seperate it from the flood chaos we had viewed online.
We went down into the Centro Storico because we knew one of our lovely Genovese friends had been considering spending the night in her shop, worried about water damage. It was good to find her safe and well.
And so it has been another day of quiet sadness, here in Italy, thinking about those who have died in the flash flooding during this last week. I’ve been following Kate’s news from Cinque Terre, on her blog called Little Paradiso. Today she wrote of another American who experienced the floods there. Christine is blogging of her experience in the floods last week and the ongoing worries they have about this weather that just keeps spinning round over top of us all.
Meanwhile, a photograph snapped out on Piazza San Lorenzo ...umbrellas are required.
The flooding is rather serious here ... 3 rivers have broken their banks and already 5 people are confirmed dead, with 3 missing.
We’re up on the hill here in the city and, as far as I know, there are no rivers close by ... We have bought supplies and hope that the rain stops soon but already noted that via XX Settembre is closed down by the covered market. Rain is predicted for a couple more days. There have been some impressive ‘Fiordland rainforest’ downpours througout the day, the difference being that Fiordland New Zealand sits on glacial moraine and drainage is rather efficent. Here the rain all runs down off the hills that surround Genova ... down into the homes and streets that lead to the sea.
It’s 18 celsius, with a warm wind blowing, as I write this at 17.11. It’s disturbingly dark ... daylight saving ended at the weekend, and there is this odd sense of not being sure of what is happening in the city, beyond what I’m reading in the English newspaper found online. It was like this in Istanbul when the city was closed by two huge snowfalls but somehow, this is different. I am realising, once again, that I didn’t prepare for stuff like this.
You will get a sense of it perhaps when viewing one of the early slideshows of the flooding.
I was sitting here, minding my own business at 6.50am, when the sound of the rain registered.
It’s heavy rain out there. I wandered on over to Stefano’s RighiCam and clicked on the 10 day weather forecast. Seems we’re in for some rain here ... and some more rain too, actually.
People are hoping that those living in Cinque Terre will be okay during this series of deluges. You can keep up with news in English from Cinque Terre via Kate Little at Little Paradiso who, in this particular post, lists others who are also writing of the flooding there last week.
Meanwhile, it’s good weather for writing a book, I’m thinking ...
There are the ‘right ways’ of taking photographs and then there’s the ‘fooling around’ ...
This was the latter ... the fooling around. I took this handheld, low-light, high ISO but I wanted to capture the snails.
I can imagine I might fall down the stairs often if I lived here. The ceiling was exquisite. There were snails involved ... painted snails.
Or I might be so distracted, my camera and I, that we would be perpetually late for dinner.
A huge ‘Grazie!’ to Francesca for showing us around this beautiful palazzo here in Genova.
I love looking down as I walk the streets here ...
See what I mean?
Yesterday, we walked a million miles alongside the Ligurian Sea ...
Okay, those who know Corso Italia will know that walking from Boccadasse back to the city of Genova is just over 4kms however ... if you factor in my cold, the fact it was veryvery hot, and the glare of the sun which, while beautiful, was fairly intense without sunglasses, I think you will understand my claim of a million miles.
Actually, the first time I saw this sea, I was too long out of New Zealand and my eyes filled up with tears. It’s my home away from home sea. It’s the sea I love best in these days.
Meanwhile, my body is a bit mad with me. I still have this stinkin’ cold ... probably because I didn’t take the Acetilcisteina EG medicine the pharmacist gave me ... I can already hear my sister explaining why we should take medicines given. My sister, Sandra, is a nurse and knows stuff about the why of drug relief. Meanwhile I’m of the ‘read and flee it’ variety, specially if the contra-indications are grim. Actually this drug seems to be an all-round good guy but who knows ...
Alternatively, I buy the medicine, as if an entirely responsible adult and seem to imagine that is enough. Having it in the house, close by, voila ... !
Osmosis!
Anyway, still feeling kind of miserable and messed up in the mornings ... I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes eating Clementines, blowing my nose and really kind of wishing I had started taking the Acetilcisteina EG all those days ago.
The pharmacist said ‘10 days!’
I said, ‘You mean take it for 10 days?’
He said, ‘Yes, at the same time preferably.’ And I think he said something about before or after food too.
But, once upon a time, back in New Zealand, my lovely doctor did say that colds pass after 2 weeks with medicine, or last a fortnight without medicine.
I’ll let you know ...
The Ligurian Sea is a part of the Mediterranean Sea positioned between the northwestern coast of Italy, the southeastern coast of France, and to the north of the islands of Corsica and Elba.
The western boundaries of the sea are an estimate at best, as mapping accuracy depends on where the sea actually ends, and there are many opinions for same.
The distance from Pisa to Nice is 251 km (156 mi), and from Genoa to Elba is 207 km (129 mi). The max depth is estimated at more than 2,850 m (9,300 ft.).
Called “Mar Ligure” in Italian and “Mer Ligurienne” in French, Genoa and Livorno are its chief ports and the sea is well served by regional ferries.
Sourced, The World Atlas website.
I imagine that the person parking their bike might not have been as excited as I was about this quiet space here in the city of Genova.
I love the colour and textures of that pale golden building. I love that I always find this particular space by chance, while wandering on my way someplace else.
Light is everything here. There is the way the city looks in that deep rich late afternoon autumn light. I photographed a few city buildings last week, simply because the light had changed how I remembered the cityscape along via XX Settembre. I get excited over a blue-sky day and the promise of light in those difficult to reach parts of this tightly-built city. Then a stormy sky promises quite another effect, as the beautiful roofs quietly reveal their full beauty against a backdrop of clouds.
Loving Genova ...
This photo ... I couldn’t resist taking it while on my way to the supermarket this morning. I love this city and its warm colours.
A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape.
Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking
The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human; the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown …
Theroux
Sourced from Steve McCurry’s photography blog.
Sometimes the photographs, I take here in Genova, are a simple celebration of being back in this place that I love. It’s not always easy living here, without language, without anything resembling huge amounts of money, without family ... but I keep coming back. My camera loves me for it. My photographer’s eyes appreciate it too.
I find something of New Zealand in the sea and the hills. I enjoy the quiet kindness of the Genovese met along the way. These days, I am reading my way into their history. Steven Epstein’s book covers the period between 958-1528. Titled ... Genoa and the Genoese, it captures something of the complicated and rich history of this Italian city that so few people I know seem to know.
Hanna came with me this time and she surely fell for the city, hoping her plane might be cancelled ... just for a few days. There was so much more she wanted to see, and do, and photograph. I watch it happen… everyone who comes here with me has fallen under the spell of this city so far.
It’s good to be back.