We must be doing something right! We have just had this lovely Trip Advisor review, from Sharon O’Rourke, one of our American guests on Debbie Abrahams’ knitting course last week. She writes: “After 3 years of delays due to Covid 19, I was able to reserve a week long knitting workshop hosted by Debbie Abrahams […]
A beastly masterpiece thousands of years old
For our latest ‘one-stop Uffizi’ venture [1] Lois and I went neither to the Uffizi, nor concentrated on one of the 15th and 16th century masterpieces gathered together in that treasure trove of art. Instead, we ventured to the Museo Archaeologico, to see a sculptural masterpiece that is not 500, nor 600, but the best […]
Potential side-effects of a glorious week-long creative course at the Watermill
I’m sorry to have to report that, as can be seen by the picture above, a week-long stay on a Watermill creative course in the glorious unspoiled Tuscan countryside can have deleterious side-effects. It doesn’t last long, however, and happy memories soon replace the regret of departure. There is another solution, of course, book a […]
Our ears are burning: wonderful praise from two guests on a last week’s Watermill painting course
We have just had some marvellous feedback on TripAdvisor from two of our guests who were with us on Mary Padgett’s painting course last week. It is really good to know that our efforts are appreciated. Our thanks to Lynne Roche and Jeffra Ruesink for their fulsome reviews which have sent our sensitive British ears […]
Catch up with the Watermill’s May newsletter
Medically inspired knitting; the soporific effect of Venetian gondolas; and, a heart-warming story of creative writing that runs in the family, why our mulberry trees have just had a short back and sides….it’s all in this month’s newsletter! Please click here for more.
Seventeenth century superheroes: taking the ruff with the smooth
Have you ever thought what our fictional superheroes might have looked like in the 17th century? Well, French photographer Sasha Goldberger has, and he has produced an amusing series of photographs imagining those superheroes as sitters for 17th-century Flemish portraits. We are grateful, as ever, to the online DailyArt magazine for bringing them to our […]
A blooming marvellous evocation of Florentine pride
One of the lesser-known, but annually impressive, sights of Florence is the Iris Garden, next to the Piazzale Michelangelo. Here are displayed an immense variety of different coloured irises, the symbol of the city. My friend Pasquale and I visited last week to see the show and watch the people, particularly the crocodiles of bright-eyed […]
This is where we won’t be this summer!
Come the summer months, many Italians head for the seaside, il mare, leaving their hot and crowded cities for (slightly less) hot and (slightly more) crowded beaches. Yes, the seaside is packed with serried ranks of umbrellas lined up in military formation. It is, no doubt, great sociable fun, with seaside bars and restaurants, discos […]
A cheerful, yet watery, start to our creative season
Wow! No sooner had our guests for our first creative week of the season arrived, that the Tuscan heavens opened. (That’s not quite true, we managed a couple of hours of sunshine and a walk along the riverbank and millstream, but by the end of the evening, the rain was torrential. And today it seems […]
The geraniums tell us that it is D-Day minus one
It has been ‘all hands on deck’ for the past couple of days as the Watermill team put the finishing touches together, ready for the first of the season’s creative courses. We are delighted that, at long last, we are about to begin a full season of inspiring and convivial painting, creative writing, knitting and […]