I Have Not Been Here

While I am dimly aware of the weirdness of posting someone else's holiday snaps, I justify it on the basis that enjoying these is an accurate reflection of What I Have Been Up To (for those who care), and that, not having any shots of my own, it would be nice to decorate the blog with something other than my deathless prose.
This view from a tower in a Tuscan town pleased me especially because a long time ago in a distant land I had a postcard of this very tower on my bedroom wall. It had been sent me by the quasi-inamorato of the moment who was off in Italy living it up, while I stayed in rainy Oxford perusing more portable gems of Mediterranean civilisation. As I recall, it was pinned up next to a rather nice poster of Prague castle lovingly carted home from a trip round Europe the previous summer, a poster I have since lost. This is particularly sad because all our own photos from that month-long tour were mislaid by the developers. This being in the bad old days of non-digital technology (I show my age here), there was nothing for it but teeth-gnashing and resignation to their loss. Though a sorrow at the time, one might say that it had the silver lining of disposing of the evidence of me aged eighteen in combat trousers and walking sandals (this trip pre-dated the rouge et noir revolution and it was Not A Good Look). Meanwhile, the landmarks we photographed are, to the best of my knowledge, still there for anyone who wants to look at them. Win win, I reckon.