a home away from home...

So I forgot to bring my phone re-charger on holiday and it's been wonderful to have a forced break from the constant need to be online and connected. We started in Pisa adjusting and going to our usual haunts, biking over the bridge to il panificio bolognese, tea with friends at a new tea house, buying erba da'campo (herbs from the fields) from the market to saute with garlic and oil. We drove over the mountains to misty Parma with its suggestive Christmas lights hung in the streets, people in fur coats strolling and lots of family time, cooking and celebrating. Then we went down to Assisi and Orvieto to see friends and relatives and now we're in the Apuane mountains skiing. It's been wonderful to have so many new impressions, of people, places and food. Through it all I have been trying to stay grounded by maintaining a semblance of routine: reading, writing, sketching and painting.