I was in Oslo yesterday on a day meeting, and before and after the meeting I had a book chase, searcing for Frances Mayes' latest book: A Year in the World. I found it at the last bookstore I tried (of course), and then when I came out the the airport in the late afternoon this was the first book I catched my eyes on in the shelves.....:-)
I have loved Mayes' books since Under the Tuscan Sun came out many years ago. I have all her books at our cabin, and read them over and over again, took one of them to Venice last year and followed Frances' footsteps to The Accademia and the Ursula paintings, and have written page after page from our cabin life inspired by her.
Flipping through the pages of her book at the airport, waiting for a delayed plane yesterday, I started to read from the South in Italy chapter, and smiled broadly when she started with Sperlonga - one of my favorite villages in Italy. And of course - now I have to show you my Sperlonga pottery. Bought during several years and several visits.
Here is what Frances Mayes writes: Put Sperlonga on your list. A white village with houses like suger cubes above the sea, arm-wide cobbed streets running under Moorish arches, and outrageous flowers swagging off balconies like bright skirts of ballgowns.
One of the pottery girls in the photo has the name Marta, and we all loved it when my daughter Marta and my mother Marta came into the shop to enjoy her pottery.
Three Martas in the small shop!
My most recent visit was in April this year, but no pottery was bought then. When we came to Sperlonga a little 4 year old British boy was missing. The parents had turned their eyes on something else for just a few second, and the boy was completely lossed. For two hours! The whole village took part in the search, and of course so did I. The last hour I sat on the piazza praying for a save reunion. The whole village could breath freely when the boy in the end was found down at the beach. Then it was siesta time, and my pottery shop was closed.
