The Duke of Wellington, James Bond and a very English crime
Do you remember the scene from the James Bond film Dr. No, where 007 goes to meet the villain in his Caribbean lair and does a double-take on a picture…
Category Archives: Italian Language
Happy to compete and wanting to win. How ‘lefties’ survive in a right-handed world
It’s a curious thing, but even after eons of evolution we left-handers still make up about one-tenth of the world’s population. Is it because we are just ‘ornery’? You would…
We’ll cut ourselves in four and go the extra mile to bring you the best at the Watermill
You’ll find the hospitality the Watermill second to none and we’ll cut ourselves in four to make sure you are well looked after. Not literally, of course, but ci faremo…
Colourful language, or why the Italians go green when they are in the red
Most languages have colourful expressions, and many of them are much the same: we’re green with envy, while Italians talk of verde dall’invidia; if we want to be clear we…
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…
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…