Up at the villa

I'm conscious that I haven't posted since my mother's funeral, that fracture in the year that couldn't be mended or ignored.

We're in Italy now, at my Bellagio residency - thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation - on the shores of Lake Como. It's our second full day here, and I'm writing this in my studio in the Villa Maranese, one of the various historic buildings on the grounds here. I need to work rather than write a blog post today, so I'm just going to post some pictures that Tom has taken. The yellow Villa Serbelloni is the main house, and twice a day we clamber up there, through the terraced gardens, for meals. (We have a picnic lunch down here, on a little table outside my studio.)

The rust-coloured house is Villa Maranese, where we're staying. Our neighbours are the novelist Aimee Phan and her lovely husband, the poet Matthew Shears.

Out in the grounds today the gardeners are harvesting olives and raking leaves. Tom has been down into the town with Matt, and brought me back a little cup of stracciatella gelato. In the evenings, before we go up to the villa to hear one of the other residents give a presentation, or after we've returned to the room after drinks and dinner, I send my father an email with pictures and news. Lots of pictures, not much news. My father sent me a reply yesterday saying the thing I think all the time: that my mother would have loved to read the emails, to see the pictures. When I got news of the residency, back in May when I was home in Auckland, she was so happy.

So here are some pictures, and not much news.