Dear Friend,

The novel coronavirus:
Italy is NOT a no-go area;
the Watermill IS open for business

Some of our guests have expressed concern about the effects of the novel coronavirus in Italy. Lois and I are monitoring the position daily, but currently there is absolutely no reason why you should not come to enjoy your creative week with us. Italy is NOT a no-go area; the Watermill IS open for business. We are looking forward to welcoming you here for our inspiring teaching, our beautiful setting, our delicious food and wine, and our warm and welcoming hospitality.

The Watermill is in Tuscany, the historic Italian region whose capital is Florence. The latest advice for Tuscany, as of 3 March (and updated daily), comes from the official Tuscany tourism agency, based on the latest official Italian government findings and pronouncements. Tuscany is NOT classified as an area at risk. The exceptional controls and measures that Italy adopted at the start of the outbreak in China now means that it is able to trace all cases extremely quickly, more efficiently and precisely than is possible in other parts of the world. You can read the travel advice for yourself by clicking here.

A friend of a friend, the eminent Italian lawyer Stefano Maffei, and PhD from Oxford, made the following statement yesterday: "Many of the reports in the press and TV and on social media are highly inaccurate and distorted, so it is important now to view the situation calmly. Italy remains a safe and fully functioning country. You may have read that Italy registered a very high number of COVID-19 cases. True, but this is because the Italian Government opted for a unique policy of mass-testing around the Country. Italy tested in the last week more patients than all the other European countries combined. You may have heard that some cities were cordoned off. True, but quarantine applies to around 0.1% of the Italian population, in two small areas south of Milan and south of Padova. Yes, some people died. But they all suffered from serious diseases before they caught COVID-19. Statistics suggest that cases will sharply decrease starting March 10th." He continues:"Please be rational and follow reliable news reports on Italy, before you cancel your travel plans for 2020."

Despite the concerns, Watermill creative course bookings continue to come in apace and some 230 people have now reserved their places on our creative courses this year. Our total capacity is 250/260, so as we always say at this time of year, if you’d like to enjoy a creative course here, now is the time to book. There are notes on availability of courses below. Incidentally, if you see a course that you like but it is currently fully booked, don’t despair. There are often cancellations, so let us know and we will put you on a waiting list and tell you immediately a place becomes available.

At the Watermill itself, we are well on the way to finishing our winter and spring tasks of restoring and renovating the buildings. The frantoio roof is now completed, and we are in the process of knocking a hole in one of the walls to reveal fascinating views over the mill gardens and the millstream gurgling beneath. See the story, A delightful hole, below. We have also completed the installation of air conditioning units in all our bedrooms, suites and public rooms and in the next week or so we will be commissioning this system. All will be powered by our hidden array of photovoltaic cells, using the sun to generate electricity.

In this newsletter there are also stories on:

• A delicious hole in our frantoio
• Coolery and Greenery proceeds according to plan
• Painterly evocations of the Watermill’s history
• Amazing paintings from photographs
• Knitting yarns bred, spun and hand-dyed in Italy
• Why goosebumps are a sign of good writing
• Figs are cool on our Italian language course

Happy reading....

The pictures above and below this introductory section are top left: collage of creativity and calm: some of our painting guests show off their work; the Watermill gardens and the riverside; Top right: Sketches from some of our delightful locations by Watermill guest Robert Christopher. Bottom Left: inspiration and conviviality: a collage of some of our creative writing guests; Bottom Right: learning Italian under the dappled sunlight of the vine verandah.

Let’s make our Brief Encounter longer,
at the Watermill:
Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson

Bring a partner: there's plenty for them to do

They don’t have to participate in the course, but they will be able to enjoy the wonderful hospitality of the mill and, whenever they want, to come out with you to our beautiful locations.

We also offer a range of Alternative activities for partners on all our courses, as well as a generous £GBP 250 discount if they share a room with you.

A delightful hole

Soon the wall on the left
will have a delightful hole!
Picture: Alistair Macfie

Our skilful and passionately committed renovating builders, Nico and Daniele, have done a wonderful job reconstructing the roof of the old frantoio (the olive press) but in the last day or so they’ve enjoyed knocking things down! They’re making a hole in the far wall of the frantoio, looking out to the campi, the Watermill gardens that run alongside the Millstream.

We will be putting large French windows into the delightful hole they are constructing, while beneath your feet, in the fullness of time, there will be a glass floor where you will be able to see the Millstream bubbling beneath you. We don’t know how good you are visualising the end result of Work in Progress, but we think our hole is going to become delightful.

Coolery and Greenery proceeding according to plan

As we said above, our plan is to make the Watermill Cool and Green is continuing apace. We have now installed air-conditioning units in all our bedrooms and public rooms (the dining room, the sitting room and the studio) and we will be commissioning the new system in the next week or so. All the units to keep you cool will be powered by our array of photovoltaic cells, installed last summer, which are already making more than enough power to ensure that we are self-sufficient in electricity.

You'll have to work hard to see our photovoltaic panels which are on the south-facing roofs of the 19th century mill and on the studio, looking out towards the river. You can hardly make then out in the picture of the south façade, on the left above. The picture on the right shows the panels in place on the 19th century mill.

The latest snapshot from our handy little photovoltaic app shows that by lunchtime on February 29, we had already generated overall nearly 9000 kWh of electricity since we installed photovoltaic panels in June last year. We’ve done the sums and we reckon we should be able to generate some 14,000 kWh in the whole year. This should be considerably more than our consumption, even with all those new air-conditioning units. More than that, we have already saved some 6.3 tons of carbon dioxide production and we will more than double that in the full year. So, come and join us and be Cool and Green.