Such is the popularity of prosecco that it has far outstripped champagne as Britain’s favourite fizzy tipple. And Aperol spritz is as enthusiastically sipped in the bars of London as in the canal-side cafés of Venice. But, as is often the case, with demand comes deception. The producers of prosecco, a sparkling white wine from […]
Welcome to Dottoressa Lois in the new Watermill newsletter
The Watermill’s packed February Newsletter celebrates the great event of last month for the Breckon family: Lois’ graduation as a Doctor of Philosophy (music) at the University of London. It gives you the lowdown on why Bill spouts portentous poetry out loud most mornings. It also keeps you up to date on all our Watermill […]
How we are making the Watermill Cooler and Greener. Part Two: Electricity
I reckon that you could boil 25,000 teapotsful* (litres) of water in an electric kettle on the amount of electricity we’ve produced from the sun at the Watermill. I hope I’ve got the figures right, and you may think I ought to have better things to do with my time, but I was just trying […]
How we made the Watermill Cooler and Greener in 2023 (Part One: Water)
We have just received the lovely ‘thank you’ video above from the charity Ocean Bottle, with whom we work to try to reduce the amount of plastic pollution in our oceans. (I must say, our contribution seems piffling when compared with the size of the problem, but as they say, every little helps.) We have […]
Looking back and looking forward, in the Watermill’s January newsletter
January, as symbolised by the two-headed Roman god Janus, is a time for looking back and looking forwards; of memories of the last year and plans for the next. And that is just what the Watermill newsletter is doing this month. Our memories include a saxophone Flashmob, rides on vintage Vespas, as our gardener Flavio […]
A morning miaow to make you smile
. On the first day of the year, Lois and I went to the Teatro Verdi in Florence, for a jolly Capodanno concert featuring popular works by the great Italian opera composers such as Puccini and Rossini, with an enthusiastic orchestra, a large soprano, whose voice filled the cavernous auditorium, and a less voluminous tenor, […]
Celebrating Alphonse Mucha, the father of Art Nouveau
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:
Congratulations and thank you. You have helped us stop 40,000 plastic bottles polluting our oceans. (Well, 39,578, to be precise!)
Those of you who have been on a Watermill creative holiday will know that during their stay we lend our guests rather elegant insulated water bottles,. The water itself comes from a clever little dispenser in the communal kitchen, which provides filtered water either chilled or at ambient temperature, fizzy or flat. The reason is […]