The Breckon family (our daughters Lydia and Lara are with us in Florence for Christmas) has just visited the Mucha exhibition here – and what a great show it is, featuring the works of Alphonse Mucha, who might be regarded as the father of Art Nouveau. The exhibition was in the wonderful Ospedale degli Innocenti, […]
Romjul is your last chance to be an Early Bird
There isn’t a word in the English language for those strange days between Christmas and the New Year, where, in our family least, we are never quite sure what day of the week it is! A Twitter wit suggested Twixtmas, which I suppose had his merits, but is just a little twee. The Norwegians call […]
Happy memories!
Gathering material for the Watermill Christmas newsletter, I stumbled across this Christmas card we sent way back in 2011. Didn’t we all look much younger then? (Except for Lois who hasn’t aged a jot!) Here’s another picture taken at the same time:
On the twelth day before Christmas, my true love gave to me… a week of Watermill convivial creativity
Yes, I know, and I know you know, that the 12 days of Christmas refer to the 12 days after Christmas, when your true love will be giving you a myriad of things including the proverbial partridge in a pear tree. But today is the twelfth day before Christmas, so you have little time left […]
An extraordinary view of the Apennine mountains yesterday afternoon
Lois Breckon took this picture of the Apennine mountains, the backbone the backbone of Italy, about 12 miles away from the Watermill, yesterday afternoon as the winter setting sun bathed their snow-covered flanks in glorious red. We do have some amazing sunsets, both winter and summer, here in Posara. Come and see for yourself on […]
An opportunity to take your place on Sylvia’s dynamic knitting holiday at the Watermill
Due to a cancellation, we now have a place in our beautiful Botticelli bedroom on Sylvia Watts-Cherry’s Knitting and la bella vita week, from Saturday 1 June to Saturday 8 June 2024. (To be fair to everyone, we will allocate a place on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis, to the first person who reserves her/his place […]
Eric’s penguin goes fishing this year
Watermill painting aficionado Eric Drewery has just sent us another of his amusing Christmas cards, which feature a penguin enjoying himself at various locations around the mill. In this year’s card, shown above, our friendly penguin is fishing in the river Rosaro. He gets about, that penguin: Last year he was high-wiring across the Rosaro […]
The art of hygge and the hygge of art
I suppose we learned about hygge first-hand during a ‘house-swap’ with our Danish painting tutor Annelise Pio Hansen in the early 2000s, when the Breckon family spent a week or so in Denmark, not only staying in Annelise’s house, but also meeting her painting friends, who entertained us in their homes, making us feel welcome, […]
Truly scrumptious! December’s Watermill newsletter is just out
This edition of the Watermill newsletter is Truly Scrumptious – and eclectic. The heroine of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang rubs shoulders with a ferocious Etruscan monster; a tender Donatello Madonna finds a new home; a Caravaggio angel turns his back on us, as does a man in a black overcoat with a Botticelli goddess on […]
You’ll find paintings of more than 250 children in Pieter Bruegel’s astonishing picture – but you won’t find Wally (or Waldo)!
Do you remember Where’s Wally?, the illustrated puzzle books for children, by Martin Handford, where you had to pick out, in a double-page drawing featuring dozens of people, a boy in red-and-white striped pullover, bobble hat and glasses, the eponymous Wally. (I think the series was called Where’s Waldo in the United States and Canada.) […]