I’ve read a few descriptions of what it feels like to drown, and I have to say; I think I’ll refrain from using that particular metaphor, it’s not pleasant and I feel I’ve no right hitching my living breathing wagon to that particular horror.

But after a few months deep inside Italys cultural belly I feel, not like a drowning man, but one starved of the plain walls and empty town squares of my home town.

This self inflicted feast of classical and contemporary art has given me a highly decorative type of cultural gout. 

The tourist traps of Rome, Venice and Florence dragged me in yet again and stuffed me full of Klein blue, frescoes  and gold leaf. 

I’m looking forward to staring blankly at the empty basin of the McKenzie country or the razor sharp horizon of the pacific.