All posts by Ann Game

Belonging in Anghiari: Mark Curfoot-Mollington

Belonging, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace

In 2017, I began conducting interviews with people who live in Anghiari. Some were conducted in Italian, some in English, and they were all published in both languages on this blog. While in Anghiari earlier this year I continued this project. These interviews will also be published in both languages. Here is the first of them.

Belonging in Anghiari: Mark Curfoot-Mollington

 Mark/Marco is a 70 year old Canadian who holds Italian residency. While Mark regards Anghiari as his principle home now, he regularly returns to Ottawa, and he spends a few months every year in Cambodia doing voluntary work. Since retiring, he has also had a couple of novels published. In Canada, Mark is an active member of the Church of England; in Anghiari, he has found the Roman Catholic church very welcoming. I interviewed Mark in the apartment, located in the mediaeval part of town, that he and his partner, Ron Price, bought in 2001. Ron died there ten years ago. The interview was conducted in English, and Mirella Alessio transcribed it and translated this edited version into Italian.Mark c-m 2

 

Continue reading Belonging in Anghiari: Mark Curfoot-Mollington →

La Verna in spring

Belonging, Everyday Mysteries, Time and Space

 

la verna1

As my stay in Anghiari draws to a close, it feels as if I have been watching spring arrive in slow motion. Shutters and windows are opening, and every day the landscape changes: the greens get greener, and the light brighter; there are ever more birds and flowers and colours. And, now, leaves are appearing on trees. The forests of beech and ash around La Verna were shimmering with new leaves when we visited there yesterday.

Continue reading La Verna in spring →

Toppole in spring

Belonging, Ecology, Everyday Mysteries, Time and Space

 

toppole1

Yesterday, it was only by chance that we went to Toppole, a small mediaeval hamlet in the hills above Anghiari. A friend who had been visiting family in Padova was here for just a few days, and, as she has never been to Anghiari before, I’d given some thought to the choice of a nearby walk to do. In a distracted state, however, I drove to Toppole instead of the place I’d planned on. In response to my ‘oh, wrong place’ as we turned the last bend, Marisa said ‘don’t worry, maybe it’ll be the right place.’

Continue reading Toppole in spring →

Anghiari flowers

Belonging, Gift and Grace, Time and Space

garden1

We returned from a walk in the hills yesterday with bunches of little flowers picked from bedside the path. Every day more flowers are coming out, and, a few days ago, as I walked along the ridge from Anghiari to Il Carmine, I noticed that bright white patches had appeared amongst the brown of oaks and chestnuts in the distant hills. Blossom, I realized! But perhaps even more noticeable is the appearance of flowers throughout the town.

Continue reading Anghiari flowers →

Tranquillo

Belonging, Care, Everyday Mysteries, Time and Space

20180407_112019_1523612309911_resized

Whilst here, in Anghiari, I have been reading a lovely book called A Philosophy of Walking (by Frédéric Gros). Here are a couple of passages on the experience of time when walking:

Walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found. To walk, you need to start with two legs. The rest is optional. If you want to go faster, then don’t walk, do something else: drive, slide or fly. Don’t walk. And when you are walking, there is only one sort of performance that counts: the brilliance of the sky, the splendour of the landscape. Walking is not a sport. (2014: 2)

Continue reading Tranquillo →

Chiesa della Propositura

Belonging, Care, Gift and Grace

 20180407_171639-1_resized

This is a piece I’ve been meaning to write for a while. Each blog that I have done on arriving in Anghiari over the last couple of years has a reference to bells ringing. I find them such a welcoming sound. And they always seem to be ringing just as I arrive! If you happen to be in the main piazza when they are ringing, they seem to come from a particular direction, you feel certain about it, but, in fact, they are coming from the opposite direction, up the hill behind the piazza, from Chiesa della Propositura, an 18th church, with a lovely Della Robbia behind the alter.

Continue reading Chiesa della Propositura →

Easter in Turin

Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace

I have returned home to Anghiari from a trip to Turin over Easter (la pasqua). I have never been there before, but Mirella, who is working with me on Anghiari interviews, lives there, and invited me to visit.20180331_112138-1_resized

Turin is an elegant city of Baroque architecture, porticos, arcades, ‘terrazzo’ pavements and floors, bookshops, stylish cafés with waiters who treat their work as a profession, bustling markets with stall after stall of fresh local vegetables and cheeses. And yes, restaurants with great local food and wine (chilometro zero)! I am a tourist here, and there is a lot to see. But, what I find most interesting is the encounters I have, in the street, at the bakery, at the markets, on the tram, in bars, restaurants, at concerts …. Every time I venture out. Continue reading Easter in Turin →

Weather, meetings, walking

Belonging, Ecology, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace

20180318_022512-1It has turned bitterly cold, with light snow yesterday here in Anghiari, and snow on the mountains across the Tiber valley (Anghiari is located in the foothills of the Apennines, on a ridge between the Sovara and Tiber valleys). While I have been here before when it has snowed, there is something distinctive about the light in the landscape this time. It’s the spring light, I realize, that is giving a particular brightness to what would normally be a wintery view. If you look again at this photo which was at the beginning of my last blog and imagine snow on the mountains, you might get some idea of this view.

Continue reading Weather, meetings, walking →

Welcome back to Anghiari

Belonging, Everyday Mysteries, Gift and Grace

20180318_022512-1

Yesterday I arrived in Anghiari, and I found, once again, that there is something about this experience of arrival that makes me want to record it. I’m aware that I will say what I have said on other occasions, but each time is new, each time I reexperience the joys of everyday life in this place. In fact, one of the things that I rediscover is that things don’t change here in the way that they do in Sydney, where I usually live. Here there is a sense of continuity in everyday rituals, over years, generations; the buildings remain over centuries; the same people are in the same shops. But, of course, there is also change, and the most obvious, for me on arrival this time, has been the change in season.

Continue reading Welcome back to Anghiari →