Tuscany

It's 13 years since we stayed a week at La Foce, celebrating with our late lamented friend Massimo his 50th birthday. You forget how beautiful Tuscany is, even on a less than 100% sunny evening such as tonight. Here, we are further North than before, looking towards the village of Radicondoli, across a wide valley: there's nothing much between us apart from a very few farmhouses, and indeed nothing that I can at this late hour see to mar the 180 degree view.

We arrived not long after 7 o'clock, met by our kind hosts off the bus from Colle di Val d'Elsa. After traveling all day, to immerse myself in a heated infinity pool overlooking such a view was absolutely delicious.

Guy Edwardes

Cheltenham Camera Club put on a special event this evening, a lecture by the photographer Guy Edwardes. I didn't bother to book a ticket in advance, and when I arrived ahead of time at the Town Hall the room was virtually full, all seats sold. Happily they squeezed me into a hot corner at the back.

I'm glad I went, as Edwardes' work is thrilling, if rather more artificial-looking than the effect I strive for. One of the 300-odd landscape/nature pictures he put up must have been taken from a similar vantage point to the one above. (His result is very considerably better!) My photograph dates from April 1999, and I was standing by the Belvedere at La Foce, Iris Origo's former home in Tuscany.