Now that's a fence....

Scrounging around in my archives for a fence to post today, I came across this photo that I took while in Capri, Italy.  At the time I took this photo, I remember standing there and wondering  whether or not I would be in much better shape or much worse shape if I had had to navigate those stairs every day.  There seemed to be a school at the top so mostly there were youngsters climbing down.  But just the thought of all that climbing right now makes my knee scream in agony.  Hopefully, once fully recovered, that will not be the case.  But in the meantime, it's a good thing I am living in the relative flatness of Central Massachusetts.

Linking to Friday Fences.

The very colorful Isle of Capri...

It is a very grey and raw day here in Central Massachusetts.  I had to get up and get to Worcester for my post-op appointment with my knee surgeon.  He told me that everything is lined up properly on my new 70 to 75% improved left knee.  After all, he said in so many words, there will still be some pain because we're not 15 anymore and nothing could be done about your aching muscles and the bursitis. But now I am free to drive.  I said, "Whoops!  I've been driving for almost three weeks."  He just looked at me.  Then he said that I should take two Advil and come back and see him in two years.  That is, unless I decide that I can't stand to stand on my  95% bad right knee and then I should come back sooner.  Two years is fine with me.  I am happy to hear that all is lined up correctly and in place.  It still hurts a bit especially at night and I will be going to physical therapy until Christmas Eve.  Then I should be free to live my life as I want.  

But driving into Worcester today was just kind of depressing with all the grey.  I decided that when I got home, I would go back to the Isle of Capri for a little while.  I could use a little color in my life.

Living the vertical life...

The villa where we stayed on the Amalfi Coast in Italy was close to the city of Positano.  What a place!  This place is vertical living at its most beautiful.  Here are a few pics from our visit to Positano...

These grow wild around there. 

This is my current Facebook banner.  Isn't she beautiful?  Queen of all she surveys.

Airing My (thoughts on) Dirty Laundry...

Let's face it, if you ever came to my house, you would soon realize that I would never win the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.  But of all the household chores that must be done, I hate doing the laundry the most.  Let's face it.  There is no satisfaction there, because it will never be completely done.  As you sit there folding the stuff, the underwear you are wearing is just the beginning of another load.  It goes on and on and on...  And in my case, I also have to go down into the deepest, darkest reaches of our basement to get to the machines.  Hauling the stuff around and up and down stairs has been a true challenge for me.

Having said all of that though, I have to admit that I find something rather cheerful about seeing laundry hanging on a line.  And we saw a lot of that while in Italy.  People there seem to wash their clothes and then let nature take over.  What a good, green idea!  Of course, the year round climate is more conducive to laundry hanging there than it is here in Massachusetts USA.  But I think that if I ever am able to move my laundry facility to the first floor, I may just start hanging the stuff out.  And I might even take pictures of it.

Colorful day...

It's a beautiful day here in central Massachusetts.  Though we still have snow on the ground, the birds are singing and the snow is melting.  I like snow and winter but this seems to be a little early.  I'm really not complaining though because it is beautiful out and I learned a long time ago about the fruitlessness of complaining about something that I truly have no control over.

My knee seems to be getting better every day.  The major thing I am having a problem with is the fatigue.  Here I thought that by now I would have all my Italy pics gone through and edited and would be starting on other things I have ignored over the last couple of years but no!  I just can't seem to sit here long enough to get a lot done.  Oh, well...best laid plans and all that.

But going with this beautiful day, I decided to post some colorful pictures from our Italy trip.  These were taken at Villa Miragalli where we stayed.  A little of this and a little of that...

My hat likes Italy.

Italian fence...

Here's a little fence on the property of Villa Miragalli where we spent a heavenly week.  It kept us from falling into the sea after drinking that wonderful Italian wine.  Just one of the Villa's many charms.

LINKING TO FRIDAY FENCES.

More fun in Italy...

I said that I would be posting pics of the place we stayed on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, but truth is, I haven't been doing a lot of sitting at the computer because I'm not sleeping too well because of the knee.  But I did get to a few pics and will post them today.  Here are a couple of sea view pics I took right after we got there.  Nice  view, isn't it?  The second is a shot of a cruise ship passing by.  

This is a  photo of our good friend Sean who was with us on this trip.  Sean is the consummate host and is  so good at helping everyone feel at home.  One afternoon, Sean prepared a nice tray of cheese, salami and olives for an afternoon snack.

Sean picked up the first "tray" he found in the kitchen.  That stylish cheese tray just happened to be Greg's iPad.  We got a good chuckle out of it.  I guess that Apple has thought of everything including making this iDevice  do double duty as a serving tray.  Note, that Sean didn't skimp on the wine there.

How about a nice Italian sunset picture to end this installment?

Leaving Rome...

After our whirlwind tour of Rome, Greg and I made our way to the Rome train station to meet our friends to go on to Naples and then to the villa we rented.  

At the Rome train station, this lovely dog stood at attention.  Clearly he was waiting for someone.  Isn't he beautiful?

I have to say that I am jealous of the train system in Europe.  What a civilized way to travel!  I can understand why it is not necessarily cost effective to have such a system in the USA, but I sure wish that weren't so.  We got to Naples feeling relaxed and ready for the next phase of our travel.  I don't have a lot of pics of Naples itself because we didn't spend any time there, but I did take a few out the window of the van we were traveling in.  I kind of like this one because I like the blue and white colors scheme.  And the fact that Bar means Bar in Italian as well as English.

And here is my first real glimpse of the whole of Mt. Vesuvius.

As we traveled along the winding narrow streets to the villa, I saw about a gazillions things I wanted to take pics of.  I had to satisfy myself with just clicking here and there out of the window, which means I didn't get much of anything worth saving.  But I do like this one of the gates.

In the next couple of days, I hope to get to the photos I took of the villa.  What a place!  

I was a bit hasty in my arrivederci to Roma...

One of the things I was unprepared for with this knee surgery is the inevitable fatigue that goes along with it.  So I have been lax at looking through everyone's blogs.  But nothing could stop me from messing around with a few of my photos yesterday.  I realized that I had a few more Rome pics I wanted to share.

Here we are looking down a side street near the Pantheon.  I love those narrow curving side streets.  Just beautiful.

 Like every self-respecting tourist, Greg and I had to go to the Trevi Fountain.  The crowds there were ridiculous and I found myself thinking I would never want to be near that place in the summer.  But it was beautiful.  And we threw our coins in just like we were supposed to.  This is  a shot of one part of the fountain.

On our tour of Rome, Greg and I were taken to a delightful restaurant Sora Rosa where we had lunch outside.  The weather was perfect and the meal was very good.  Here is the bruschetta that  we began the meal with.  Our pasta course followed.  We decided that Pasta Carbonara was about the best thing going and had it a few more times on our trip.  I would say though that this may have been the best we had.

Here we are looking at the Appian Way after a visit to the Catacombs.  I remember reading about the Appian Way in Latin class while in high school but I never thought I would actually see it.  

Now I think I can say "Arrivederci, Roma!"  Until the next time...

Goodbye to Sandy, my bad knee and Rome...

I'm back and glad to report that I would have been back sooner if it were only my knee I had to contend with.  But Sandy came for a visit and we have been without power for the last couple of days.  It came back on today at 1:05 p.m.  Did you hear me cheering? We got off very lucky this time.  Our outage was kind of a freak thing that had more to do with last year's storm that never got completely cleaned up than this one, I think.  I feel for all the people along the East Coast who have had a devil of a time.  I hope things get better soon.

I did have my knee surgery last Wednesday.  Everything went swimmingly.  Of course, the next morning I thought I was going to die or at least never walk again, but when I woke up on Friday, I realized that I hadn't needed to be quite so dire.  By now, I have pretty good motion, am going up and down stairs with less discomfort than before the surgery and am looking forward to graduating to a cane from the walker at some point in the near future.  The power outage didn't help my point of view for a few days.  I was a bear to live with because I couldn't ice the thing down and the swelling was out of hand.  But now, I am able to do what I have to do and things are looking up.  Please be patient with me as I try to catch up with all your blogs.  I'm looking forward to a trip into Blogland.

I haven't had a lot of time to edit photos needless to say with the power outage and normal fatigue after the surgery, but I did get to a few today.  Here are some more shots of Rome, the Eternal City.  

The Forum in the morning.

Looking up in Rome

The Colosseum

Ciao from Roma!  See you all soon.

Ciao! Scavenger Hunt Sunday…

My reentry into real life after our trip to Italy has been a bit on the busy side, so instead of driving myself nuts trying to find new things to shoot, I thought I would look at my pics from our recent trip there to see if I could find good entries for this week’s Scavenger Hunt.  Since I took over 1,000 photos, you wouldn’t think that would be much of a challenge and I will admit, there were entries that jumped out at me immediately for each prompt:  Orange or Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Faceless Portrait, View from the Top, Cozy and Stacked.  Here are my entries:

Orange for Breast Cancer Awareness Month:  or orange peel for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  

Faceless Portrait:  These are our friends Sean and Ellen, two of the eight of us who got together and rented a villa in Italy.  This villa called Villa Miragalli was just beautiful.  Here, Sean is standing at the edge of the infinity pool looking out over the Tyrrhenian Sea and Ellen is just enjoying the view.  I didn’t realize when I took the photo that the light at that moment would make the color of the pool reflect onto Sean’s back.  That’s an odd effect.

View from the Top:  One of the views from our villa.  This looks out toward Praiano, Italy, which you can see on the furthest peninsula.

Cozy:  That’s what I would call the boats they put you in to take you into the Blue Grotto in Capri.  I knew I couldn’t get in and out of the boat so I stayed behind but took this picture of Greg (far right), our friend Fred, the fellow who rowed them into the grotto and a young English woman whose mother also stayed behind.

Stacked:  This is Positano, Italy.  It is a truly vertical city and that gives the impression that these buildings are stacked on top of one another.  In reality, there are roads that run through the layers of buildings there.  Isn’t it beautiful! 

LINKING TO ASHLEY'S SISK'S SCAVENGER HUNT SUNDAY.