Buon natale da Siena

To hell if it looks pretentious, and in any case we feel a bit reborn ourselves, for at least three reasons: 1) getting away from blighted Blighty, 2) doing it by train, rekindling happy memories of Interrails past, and entering France/crossing Paris on the very last day when it was possible to do so and 3) seeing Italy again, the country I love more than any other, after a painful two-year-plus absence. Thus the first glimpse of an Alpine rock-face before Chambery.

Impressions of Torino in detail must wait, but what a glorious, spacious city, and how amazing to see the Alps so clear from so many streets. This was new, and seemed miraculous to us. Then on to Firenze, and the impact of Baptistery and Duomo was so different from previous visits (not sure why).

Now we're in the bosom of friend Sophie's warm and welcoming home in Siena. With her friend Pia joining us, the Swedish tradition of a big feast on the eve was adopted, and before that I managed to slip out to an intimate service at 6pm that had taken my fancy, in the district of the Oca (goose) contrada (Palio connections to be explained some other side). 

I think I did well, because the Oratory of St Catherine which belongs to Oca isn't usually open. It's a jewel, with Neroccio di Bartolomeo's statue of the saint very much central, putti by Sodoma above and finely detailed scenes from the life around the wall. Not right to photograph during the service, so the few shots I took were on departure, but you can see how lovely it is. 

Later we strode out for Midnight Mass in the Duomo, so very different from when J and I attended 34 years ago. Then the building was packed, and Italians stood around and smoked or showed off their fur coats. This was a very sombre affair. The old ladies certainly weren't out - not the right time. But it IS so refreshing to be in a country where vaccine passes admit you to restaurants, museums, trains and places of entetainment. Masks on the streets, too. Why didn't our hapless government ever do all of this?

Season's greetings: sacred and profane

Two images to wish you a reflective day and a better 2021. The first is a detail of two Nativity panels from the magnificent medieval east window of St Peter and St Paul East Harling, greatest glory of our walk this year for the Norfolk Churches Trust. Between four of us we raised £2,700 - but the real achievement was being able to do it, and finding two-thirds of the churches open, with careful social distancing rules fully observed.

The second is a detail of our alternative presepe - Gloria alla Josephine Baker. Yes, we have some bananas. It's a fairly international scene including Czechs, Swedes, Italians, Indians and a famous Spaniard.

I doubt if you'll be short of things to watch, and the day is beautiful, so walk while it's light if you can, but this is what we saw this time last year - a consummate concert performance of Tchaikovsky's glorious score for The Nutcracker conducted by the adorable Yannick Nézet-Séguin. I used portions of it in one of my classes for the 19th century segment of the Russian Music course on Zoom, and again in the one-off session on The Nutcracker I held on Monday, to try and atone a bit for the fact that some students were bereft of the live Nutcrackers they'd planned to see. Today we'll finally catch up with Balanchine's Nutcracker - a quick dip shows that he does the crucial tumescing-Christmas-tree sequence justice, AND includes the usually excised Mother Gigogne number.

Enjoy the day and switch off from all dire news from the outside world. We meet again for two hours on the complete Sleeping Beauty score on the afternoon of the 30th - let me know if you'd like to join. More on next term anon.

Christmas, Hanukkah - and Tabaski

Much has been made of the coincidence of the Christian and Jewish holidays today. In the name of interfaith peace and goodwill, I also wanted to go back to 25 December 2007, when we happened to be staying with our enterprising friend Sophie in her (then) new mud hotel in Djenné, Mali, and Tabaski, African Muslims' version of Eid al-Adha, shared the same day as our Christmas. Thus the photo of Djenné's men in their finest boubous praying outside the adobe wonder of the Great Mosque, which I take the liberty of repeating from one of my earliest blog entries back in January 2008.

It's a reminder, too, to get on with my reading of the Quran, which so far - two-thirds of the way through Book One - has revealed nothing but tolerance and welcoming of other religions on the grounds that we all share the same God. Plus some liberal ideas on divorce.

Owing to a postponed operation - one of the many in the current NHS crisis - Sophie is still with us in London, and later we'll be heading over the parks via other chums in Bayswater to share the big lunch with her and former attendees of her Tuesday soirées at another mutual friend's.

Salaam, and here's a medieval Virgin and Child from the east window of Merton College Chapel, taken after an Oxford Lieder Festival concert which we attended with Sophie's godmother Juliette (she's actually younger, a bit), her partner Rory and her mother.