The Lay of the Land

Yesterday's geological visit went smoothly. Torrential rain found  me togged up in my wet weather gear. Just before the geologist arrived the rain stopped and sun re-emerged.

It feels that much of the hill land is Tuscany is making a genteel and sometimes not so gentle push to reach the sea or at least sea level. Young mountains composed of soft and often rotten rock combine with rapid rates of erosion to give steep slopes often over-burdened with clay soils. Gravity and water do the rest. With the occasional earth tremor or more to speed things up every now and then.

It is clear there is a tongue of land above one of the fields of the property that is an old landslip. The house itself is anchored to a rocky knoll and the direction of any slippage is away from it. The benefit of all this movement and erosion is that there is a lovely terrace of alluvial soil that is reputed to be a marvel for growing potatoes.

It was fascinating to be with someone who could read all this in the morphology of the land.

David's nails

During the long discussions it turned out that R's family used to be involved in the packing and shipment of works of art. R recounted that  he had helped his father pack up Michelangelo's David - whether the original or a copy was not clear.

As they built the wooden packing around the massive  sculpture R's Dad says to him, 'Careful now. Let's space these nails the exact same distance apart so that they can see how good we are (quanto siamo bravi).'

The self-mocking irony being that underneath the well-placed  artisanal nails was one of the iconic works of the Renaissance by one who was also 'pretty good' (bravissimo).

The photo is a shot out of our bedroom windows. Azaleas of this lovely colour are very popular. And mosquito netting.