Returns!

Finally, I am back at Tana Lepre after a long Friday afternoon drive out of Rome, which is swamped with pilgrims come for Pope’s John Paul’s beatification. It has just rained and the air is sweet and green and, as the sun is about to set beneath cantilevered silver clouds, there is an explosion of song by birds I’ve never heard before. And this!

Last year I threw a few California poppy seeds on the bank in the front of the house. These are the result! They are the color of Italian egg yolks.

Already the cuckoo is mocking me from its tree.