Happy Lupercalia: was this the boisterous precursor to St. Valentine’s Day?
I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning to sacrifice a goat today nor, fun though it sounds, run semi-naked through the city flaying bystanders with strips from the…
Category Archives: Italian Language
I’m no spring chicken but I love this idiomatic poultry
If you love words as I do, and enjoy a little offbeat, quirky, start to your day, then you need to look no further than a recent post on…
Cool and Green, thanks to solar-powered electricity
Cool and Green: Solar power at the Watermill In the last six years our hidden array of photovoltaic panels has produced more than 90,000* KwH, (kilowatt hours) of electricity from…
A ‘Zen’ experience beside a Tuscan river: The Watermill’s bamboo glade
Silently and unseen, the leaves have fallen for more than half a century in our bamboo glade between the millstream and the river, creating a cushioned pathway through the towering…
A bicycle made for two
A tandem bicycle, a friend, and a spark of creativity I don’t know whether you have ever been on a tandem bicycle, but in my experience, you need a good…
It’s bad luck to wish Italians good luck. Cry wolf instead
In our part of Italy most people think that wishing somebody ‘good luck’ is bad news, believing that doing so is likely to have precisely the opposite effect. So when it…
Irresistib-eel!
Yes, when Flavio Terenzoni, our gardener, brought in the pumpkin and the sinuous squash, and when painting tutor Crystal Beshara arranged them in an artistic still-life, Bill couldn’t resist…
The laundry door. A remarkable blend of historic information and contemporary function
You may recollect that a few weeks back we told you about Watermill guest Doug Freerksen’s fascination with ancient artefacts at the Watermill, particularly some of the doors. Doug, from Oak…
Learn Italian in Italy (and laugh at your mistakes along the way)
You could be forgiven, as a beginner Italian learner, for strutting into the bakery and greeting the staff with a confident “Buon pomodoro!” A cheerful attempt at “good afternoon” that,…
Michelangelo’s Tuscany: Artistic Inspiration for Your Painting Holiday
Why does Michelangelo’s Moses have horns? Similarly, why do the four evangelists not mention an ox and a donkey in the Bible, even though Nativity scenes show them? These…
A Scottish Skating Minister and Winter Inspiration for Painting Holidays in Tuscany
We’ve chosen this delightful image of an 18th Century Scottish Presbyterian minister ice skating gracefully on Duddingston Loch to send our Season’s Greetings to all our Watermill friends and…