I'm back!

Wow, it's been ages! As my baby's end of school year approached my routine became more intense and left me exhausted. What came later, after a brilliant school report, different farewell/birthday parties and an amazing ballet show, was a concentration of days out with her peers. Then a mini holiday and now finally those lazy days at home wandering around the city or the beach and simply just relaxing. 

 It'll be a beautiful summer!

I can't believe Alice is a first grader no more. It seems like yesterday when I was full of fears and doubts about her debut in primary education. So glad those nightmares are far over now and I've got an excellent student at home. She reads and writes now, she learned a lot in her first year. She may even be my bigger fan on this blog soon! :)

When she's around THAT much, though, I'm totally absorbed and can't concentrate writing. I'm confident I'll have plenty of time for myself next week when she starts her summer camp. In the meanwhile, I'm perpetually taking mental notes of course, because that's what writers do all the time. And as a parallel creative act,  camera lenses help me contemplate, describe and define images in an easier way than penning them on a page. The basic acts associated with photography parallel those of writing for me. Framing a subject, setting on the appropriate angle, establishing a focused focal point and choosing the appropriate depth of field is like establishing clarity, unity, balance and coherence in a chapter composition. 

 Rural Vasto

I had the opportunity to take great pics of our first trip of the summer last week. It was all planned around a family gathering we were menat to have in Rome with Alfie's family from Naples. The original idea was to spend a few days with them in a neutral place. Then we added Rome and Florence on our way back home. And I put Abruzzo as a stop over destination on the go. This was the most emotional part of the journey. I had longed to go back so much since last year that I absorbed all I could in those short 2 days there as much as I could. And it's still not enough. Sigh!

Sometimes I feel those mini trips to my region only accentuate my nostalgia rather than attenuating it. I'm planning to go back. For longer. And preferably before the fall. We'll see. I'll soon post an album about Rome and Florence for you to see. I feel this urge not to contaminate the memoirs of my region in this post. I'm technical, I know! he he Stay tuned then, 'cause I'm baaaaack!