Always the same, isn’t it? Start a new blog. Write like a madman, regularly. Then it stops, and before you know it, the timestamps on posts are three years old.
However, in this case, I have an excuse for the recent hiatus. I was on holiday in Italy for two weeks, and genuinely offline; the house where we were staying is at the top of a long windy road right up at the end of a valley. Amazing for stargazing, not so good for mobile signal. The “No Service” indicator was on for most of the trip, and to be honest, was more than welcome.
I love going to Italy, particularly Piemonte. It’s not touristy, and is an absolute haven for those who like their food and wine. One of my favourite red wines in the world comes from a vineyard just outside San Marzano Oliveto – Franco Mondo. It was a treat to witness the vendemmia (wine harvest) of the moscato grapes by Valerio Mondo. We got to taste both the moscato and barbera grapes straight from the vine, followed by a relaxed tasting of the wines they are used to produce. There was a magic to that I can’t quite describe. When Valerio poured the chilled moscato d’asti it was just a delight to make that immediate connection with the vineyard a couple of hundred yards away.
Other than that, it was just an endless stream of relaxed times… the deliciousness of Aperol Spritzes in the garden at sunset, stargazing – minds blown by the Perseid Meteor shower, the finest pizza, ice cream, foods of all kinds… the market in Nizza, the sunshine, swimming in the river, kids collecting fresh figs from the trees for breakfast. It all feels like a lifetime ago but it’s coating the inside of my soul and will be there for some time to come.
Now I’m back in Forest Hill, road works going crazy out there. The grind of blades against concrete is the soundtrack to this sunny day, but it will take a lot more than that to annoy me right now. Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is playing, and I can feel the summer breeze through the window. I’m just about to start a geek musician adventure of trying to create some of my own plugins using Max for Live, but I need my brain to accelerate from the snail’s pace it has adopted during the holiday. Somehow I don’t think that will be today.