I'm sat in our land basking in the Autumn sun in what Sue calls our "mediteranean garden" - a corner set aside for her to try different plants, now sadly bare.  I'm going to be on my travels soon, so I'm experimenting with using my iPhone to make a post. Sometimes the country here is so beautiful I want to stretch out my arms and hug it.

We're on the cusp between summer and autumn here in Puglia.  I love this time of year - it's still warm, but the storms that mark the end of summer have made the country green and lush and the leaves are turning gold.  The air is full of rich smells - bonfires and fermenting fruit.  The market is overflowing with ripe produce such as melons, peaches and prickly pears and the vendemmia or grape harvest is just round the corner. This photo is of stuff I picked from our land during ten minutes of wandering around.  The colours reflect the season so well.  There's a lot to do on the land at the moment.  Right now I'm pruning the fig trees, which haven't been touched for four or five years and are tangled and overgrown.  Whenever I prune trees I have Erminia's dead husband Paolo invisibly at my shoulder whispering advice - "you prune olive trees to look like a wine glass, but figs like an umbrella".  At the time he told me this I had no idea why,...

I had an afternoon flight back to Puglia yesterday and so was able to spend a few hours with dad in the morning before driving from Lincoln to Stansted airport. Dad spends a lot of time waiting for things these days - his carers coming and going four times a day, me bouncing to and fro from Italy and one much bigger thing.  To alleviate the boredom he reads, watches TV and snoozes.  The snoozing is taking up increasingly more time and occasionally he even nods off mid-sentence, sometimes waking with a start and looking round in bewilderment. For me the time with him passes slowly and I catch myself checking my watch every few minutes.  Conversation is difficult because dad is slurring his words quite badly these days and so I invariably have to ask him to repeat what he says, which is frustrating for both of us.  The slurring is worse when he's tired, which is most of the time now. When the time finally comes round for me to go I lean down and give him a hug ...

I'm writing this on the sly while dad watches 'the Third Man" on the TV at a volume which is making my ears bleed.  He resents my tapping away at the computer, but if I don't do something I start to go stir crazy. I'm here with dad in his little suburban bungalow in Lincoln for four days before heading back to Italy.  I keep my sanity by going out in my hire car to the malls of Lincoln and aimlessly window shopping or by running errands and doing "odd jobs" that dad decides he needs doing. Yesterday I noticed that the glass in the display case where dad keeps his medals was cracked and I bought a picture frame with the intention of remounting them and hanging them on the wall.  He seemed pleased with the result as I took a step back to admire my handiwork.  The one on the right with the blue and white stripes was issued by the UN for his service in the Korean "peacekeeping operation" in 1953.  Some things don't change. I thought putt...

As we enter the last week in August I can feel the summer slip away like sand through the fingers.  Feragosto has come and gone and on Sunday our neighbours returned to their apartment in Bari after three weeks in the country.  Erminia refers to them dismissively as "u barese", the people from Bari, foreigners. Yesterday evening she stumped round, plastic bucket in hand, intent on collecting figs from the Bari people's neglected trees.  There's this one tree that has fruit that's especially good for drying she tells me.  I remark that I can see she has lost weight.  Actually she looks fitter and seems more mobile.  "Yes" she says with a frown, "I don't feel like eating anything.  I don't like this heat, it's bad and my brain is tired.  Know what I had to eat last night?  Bread and figs!"  Then she said "when I feel like this I used to go round to see Yanni."  Another frown as she shrugs petulantly. Suddenly, I feel v...

Our friend Rosemary came to visit last week so I've been doing the tourist rounds, finishing yesterday with a trip to Matera, the ancient town in Basilicata often used as a set for biblical epics because of its resemblance to old Jerusalem we are told.  It is quite a sight, a vast collection of medieval stone houses carved into a bowl of rock and criss-crossed with alleys and stairs.  It does look like my idea of the Holy Land, especially in August, as the surrounding country is empty, dry and dusty, the houses are made of sandstone and the Sun is pitylessly hot. Actually I was reluctant to go, I think because the last time I visited, several years back, I was feeling very depressed and so the place is associated for me with bad thoughts.  In the end I was glad we went, it is very beautiful, Rosemary loved it and I amused myself taking pictures of old doors. I waved Rosemary goodbye at Bari Airport earlier today, so now I'm back on my own in our little corner of...

I've been meaning to buy a smartphone for years and finally got myself a second hand iphone on e-bay when I was in the UK a few weeks ago.  Apart from anything else I was curious to see why so many owners seem to find them more interesting than real life.  I'm proud of the fact that it's second hand, it makes me feel less of a victim of consumerism knowing I picked it up at about a third of the price of a new one and without having to enter into a hire purchase agreement thinly disguised as a mobile 'phone contract. Four weeks later I'm attached to it like a baby to its mother's teet.  I use it for my shopping lists and I'm downloading an app a day to regulate my diet, provide me with a fitness programme and all manner of other useful things that I had no idea I couldn't do without.  I even take it running so it can tell me where I've been and how many calories I burned.  At night I go to bed with it playing me to sleep with BBC Radio 4. Now ...