Love, Poetry and Revolution - Thursday 31st July 2025

A post before July ends! Amazing! July has been incredibly busy socially and has sown seeds for the remainder of my life, hopefully.  I have long harboured an ambition to become a writer.  Writing always comes second to living life, so I don't think I have what it takes. It's not an all-consuming passion.  It's never too late (?)

Q and I spent ten days in Italy early in the month.  The original plan was a week's holiday split between Venice and Florence, returning to Bologna (where we started) for an NGO conference that Q had to attend for a week.  Sadly, Q's actual job needed her back at work earlier, so we left Bologna early on Wednesday morning of the second week.

I had travelled to Italy intending to ask Q to marry me, to which end I had purchased a temporary ring to seal the deal.  Where and when to propose? I had Venice in mind as I love the city and think it's a romantic place to propose. On the assumption I would propose there, I had a few places in mind: maybe the Ponte di Rialto or on the canals whilst on a gondola.

In the end, the location I chose was the 'Ai Mercanti' restaurant, which we ate at on the same day we did our gondola trip.  The mood had already been set.  Q said yes, and we planned to get a ring proper when we were in Florence on the Ponte Vecchio, which is laden with jewellers. We are now planning a wedding for this time next year.  Good job I'm retired.

Q's daughter joined us for the weekend in Florence, so she became the first person to know we'd got engaged.  I told my sons immediately afterwards, whilst we were still sat in the cafe, where we began to share the news.

I also started to teach myself music at the start of the month, learning my way around the piano keyboard with a view to picking up a polyphonic synth over the next year or two.

Back to wedding planning!

Black Bossa Sabbath Nova /  'Paranoid'  / (Single)