Piazza delle Erbe

While most of my grandchildren head off to school today, poor Ash prepares for an operation on his cruciate ligament. Holly (to bring you up to date) did so well with her A levels, and is off to Sheffield University in a week or so's time. Joe continues to work until he heads back to Uni in October. 
Meanwhile Alexa does amazingly well to walk up to Piazza Delle Erbe, where we both buy nice straw hats! It is really hot here! We are glad of a lunch stop under the awning  in this wonderful square. The market is colourful and vibrant. I had a delicious salad of lettuce, rocket, fennel, and artichoke with shavings of Parmesan. After lunch Alexa said she was really tired, and they were happy to walk back to the hotel together. So I did some exploring and went into the wonderful Duomo. It is quite beautifully decorated With frescoes and an almost tromp d'oeil ceiling. It's a welcome quiet and peaceful space after the bustle on the main streets. The queue near Juliet's balcony was pretty long! Funny really as Juliet is just a fictional character.

It was a long and hot walk back to the hotel.

I tune in to a bit of the news...so farewell Boris, the self-styled booster rocket, and hello Liz Truss, the so-called iron weather vane. I am not optimistic. But at least Priti Patel has gone. Though I'm not sure her replacement will be any better. ☹️

Yesterday was a good day mainly because of three encounters with good people! And I didn't venture out of the house! How life has changed!

First off was a man from CAP who has been invited to speak at church on 30th January. What a very nice person he was, and we had a good conversation. I am taking the service so we have planned a little of what will happen, and it was certainly an uplifting meeting. 

In the afternoon Jeff came up and we talked about the services we will do together over the next few months. It is always good to see him and our chat ranged widely. We are so lucky to have him here...he is so passionate about contemplative prayer, and is also such a good pastor, and good friend. 

In the morning I had met up with the CAP man on a Google video call. I hadn't expected to have to put my password in, and as I was in a hurry thought it would be quicker to change my password rather than look it up.Big mistake. I remember that this caused issues last time I did it. A wretched dialogue box kept appearing asking for an app specific password. It was such a nuisance. I rang my 'computer doctor' and he realised it was too tricky to talk me through the procedure. He asked if it was urgent. Well today I have had interactive training for the red cross in which I had to learn how to report cases I will have when I am ready to volunteer on their support line. There was no way I would be able to do this with dialogue boxes all over the screen! He said he would come, but it would be early evening. Bless him, he didn't get here til 9. But he came and sorted it and only charged me £10. He is such a nice young man!!

Today has been an equally positive day. Two lovely trainers, both American, one a Muslim, took me through the red cross system. It was all good, though I will really have to practise, as I wondered whether I would remember it all tomorrow!! Lovely people and very competent. 

At lunchtime I went for a good walk in the sunshine to clear my head, and then came back to go over the Mozart and Haydn pieces that I would be teaching tonight. I was well prepared. And tonight I so enjoyed getting back on my music teacher horse, so to speak. Whether it is Covid safe to be singing when cases are so high, I have no idea! There were quite a lot of people missing tonight. But it was a joy to sing the clear and bright lines of these two classical composers.