Last day

The time had gone so fast and we flew out late that night , so today was our last chance to utilise Jan and Jean to finish off work, and pack up. I was exhausted and decided that I needed to have a slack day and use my last chance to explore the landscape and actually look at what was around the masseria. So with camera in hand I headed off to the no of small stone lane ways that lead away from the masseria. On my adventures I discovered an old truli and wonderful aged doors, as well as multiple images of my favourite aged and twisted tree in the middle of a local field. I spent a lovely few hours walking down lane ways and taking hundreds of photos from landscapes, foliage, fields , trees and rusty wire. Even a mangled old chandelier thrown in the grass.
We spent our last few hours having an early dinner and savouring the last few hours of Mediterranean weather, before heading to the airport , and the dreaded Ryanair, and then on to Stansted airport, London. It was a very late night , and sadly because of the passport control, once I got through to the outer airport everyone had left, so I missed out on saying goodbye. And sadly headed to the Raddison Blue and a nights hopeful rest.

Day three!

Today we worked in the morning and then we drove to lunch in a local township of Polignano del Mare. On the coastline . It was a nice lunch in a seafood restaurant that I had steak in , to avoid my seafood allergies. Mmmmmm!! First steak in months- not quite Aussie beef but a welcome meal!
Then we had a few hours to wander around the very old township , with the mission of finding ancient crumbling walls, peeling paint and other textures , we could translate into stitch. It is also an interesting place, built on cliffs I that are being slowly eroded by the violent seas , leaving interesting caves and rock walls. This area is renowned for the seafood that is freshly caught daily in the region. Sadly I couldn't eat most of it but it looked and small nice.
This towns architecture looked like its had a much more Spanish influence in the architecture, with Spanish style bell towers everywhere .

Puglia day 2

Today we started playing with translating our sketches into mini art works using ironon transfer mediums, and intense and other pigment based crayons, felt pens and watercolour paints, to create backgrounds. From this we had to work out ways to stitch over them using a twisted chain stitch taught to us by jean. The premise was to get us using only 1 stitch in a no of ways and a no. of different stitching mediums.
Today was also my 50th birthday and the girls surprised me with a mini party at dinner, with balloons and Rosa baked a gluten free cake. It was sweet and a nice end to the day.

The V and A period clothing collection

I took hundreds of images and especially the amazing Chiully glass sculpture in the foyer, as well as the period fashion displays.from Victorian through to the 80's and 90's.

More interesting V and A

Whilst browsing and roaming I came upon the ironwork section , and as I love the shapes, forms and patterns of a wide variety of mediums from wrought iron work , to armoury and the most amazing key and lock collection. The intricacy and detail of true masters many in tiny scale. I also came across a young artist who had done a residency with the Vand a and used the ironwork and armoury as inspiration for a collection of knitted artworks / clothing.

The V and A - wow!!

Today Lauren and I headed to the Vand A( Victoria and Albert museum).it was a cold and rainy day but at least we went underground most of the way. While Lauren headed to the new costume exhibition, I whiled my way around the statuary, Asian, steelwork and medieval sections before heading to the fashion. We still only saw about half of it. It was nice having time to meander around on my own , which in all the trip I have had very little time I realised.
I especially loved the contrast between a 13th century staircase paifully reconstructed and placed in close proximity an ultra modern sculpture of stacked white chairs- go figure!!!