iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 5h

It is! The Art Deco Lux Cinema in Turin. 😊😊

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 5h

A little piece of autumn in Tuscany, where we've been waiting all summer to feel cold again. The First Chill

In England, we come alive at the first hint of sunshine. Here in Tuscany, it is the cold that brings us out.
After months of heat, we climb towards Monte Amiata, watching the temperature fall on the dashboard, willing the numbers lower. The woods are deep in fallen chestnut leaves, the damp air as fresh as water running over stones.
The autumn sagre begin. We park below Vivo d’Orcia and tramp uphill, calves burning, breath coming faster. After a summer sheltering from the heat, our muscles are waking up.
Porcini gathered from the forest, earthy mushroom soup served in hollowed-out bread, chestnuts roasting over wood fires. The food is sweet and mellow.
But perhaps the greatest pleasure is simply feeling cold. We pull on our felpe, raise our hoods, draw the strings tight, exchanging the delighted, slightly ridiculous smiles of children.

Castagne.
Eaten roasted:Caldarroste. Also ground into chestnut flour, chesnut mousse and in savoury sugo woth pasta.

Amiata, Tuscany. Autumn 2026
The festivals 'sagre'celebrating autumn and it's foods. A lot of mushroom and chestnut foraging.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Thank you Rosanna. Took so long for me to settle on the word 'fold'so i'm glad you niticed that line. Change of weather colds are doing the rounds. I'm feeling much better. 🤞 ahope you are well. Autumn in italy is my favourite season.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Pleased to see the sun setting on a difficult week. Italy is wonderful but sometimes i feel homesick for England....because it will always be home.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

And this is how it sounds..

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

September in Tuscany. A month of celebrations; wine, olives and less heat.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

A verse about pantry moths. Nothing like a kitchen infestation to bring you back down to earth after a beautiful lakeside holiday. Apparently, we weren't the only ones enjoying a little summer break. 🦋😂

At Ledro, green mountains
shouldered the cool lake.

While we swam,

larvae threaded silk
through crumpled packets,
farina, riso, nocciole,

fine strands marking
their quiet passage.

We came home
lake-clean.

I opened cupboards.

Something beats against plastic.
Caterpillars climb the walls.

Dusty wings in the kitchen.

Ledro, Trentino alto Adige, North Italy.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Fewer words shared lately, but still creating. Italian colours, wide skies and the freedom of getting lost in paint.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The first cool air. Something in me unfurls.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

At work I voluntereered to collect some design samples. 3 hours round trip. It wasn't selfless, I have air-con in the car and stopped here for lunch. Montecatini, Tuscany

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

#PromptCombo for this week's theme #Bestiary: beasts real & imagined from @janpsolivagant.bsky.social Jan I absolutely loved writing this. Thanks so much for a truly wonderful prompt. #poetry #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #PoetsOfBluesky

Before the Tower
Pale granite.
Salt.
Wind.

The Genoese tower
counts ships.

Before it learned
the names of sails,

the hare
measured centuries
by the length of shadows.

It gathers itself
from mist.

A twitch beneath its coat.

Scorched August grass
rises fragrant
as rosemary,

where forgotten bells
still find the hare.

He ricochets
across the hillside,
only the wind
almost keeping pace.

The tower
keeps watch
over the sea.

He watches
the island
return to itself.

When I look back...

the fog

still carries

a heartbeat.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

‪Thanks @phylogeneticsteve.bsky.social this weeks #PoetsOfDoom host A villanelle ish...esque on the theme #relief ...with colours. I have slaved over this but it's been a great distraction. @sonnetsmith.bsky.social @jenthorne.bsky.social @daveashleypoet.bsky.social #writing #prompt

The black sky gathers underneath my ribs.
I fold inward like a flower waiting out the cold.
Still, silver finds a way through every storm.

Swallows swarm low above stubbled wheat,
the pines begin their long shuddering,
The black sky gathers underneath my ribs.

Forget-me-nots bloom behind my eyes,
china blue rememberings and not rememberings,
unmoored.
Still, silver finds a way through every storm.

The green world gathers me back by degrees,
fists unclench; rosemary and rain rise from my palms,
the sky loosens its hold on my chest.
The black sky gathers underneath my ribs.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

the whole beach holding its breath one green sprout among ground mountains under the dunes a thousand others learning the shape of light #Sprout #WildWalkPrompt #prompt #writingprompt #nature

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

birch curtain light passing between trunks the dead planted row after row @completethehaiga.bsky.social #completethehaiga #prompt 156 #tanka

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

summer grasses a spill of milk held in borrowed lead #haiku

Marbled white butterfly. In Italian 'Galatea'
White interrupted. Veined, marked like a stained glass window. Found in the shadowed grasses of a church in Montefollonico, Tuscany

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

In the old town preparations are underway for a community meal. The local pasta 'picci' and ragu is the main event alongside excellent wine. Cooked and served by local volunteers, food is subsidised. No occasion just to eat together outside.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

forest edge — small gods drinking a wild alphabet #Haiku #haiga

Lonicera etrusca (caprifoglio etrusco in Italian), Tuscany.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Early morning walk before the heat kicks in. Comma butterflies basking on trees in patches of light. Experts correct me if i've incorrectly identified this butterfly

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

The walking trail I'm choosing? "Anello del Sentiero della Poesia" The Poetry Trail Loop

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

a disobedience of pears softening on the sill. We waited past the right time for perfect light, perfect words. By morning, sweetness had already bruised. AmpersandAfterDark #prompt 29 @madp03t.bsky.social

Black and white photo of three pears and their shadows.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Small red grenades swing among the leaves, signalling summer in flashes of gloss & sugar. Tumbled into earthenware, staining linen purple. The tongue remembers split skin sweetness, warm juice, the faint metallic bite near the stone. Greedy handfuls eaten, dizzy beneath the tree. #vss365 #signal

Red cherries on the trees. Tuscany, Italy.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Thanks @dragonslayerma.bsky.social for this weeks #PromptCombo #prayer written whilst hiking and pausing at a convent.

In the new cities
every prayer arrives
with a stranger’s address.

Some requests are small.
A broken window.
A hungry child.

Others wake to foreign coordinates
and roads crossing mined fields.

At first people prayed less.
Then in the bluest hour before dawn
the compassionate grew luminous
murmuring from one apartment window to the next.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Whats better than a UK long bank holiday weekend? Celebrating peacefully in Italy whikst they all go to school & work. Early hiking. Happy Monday.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Saturday afternoon cooking. An adaptation of banana loaf. Its always an adaptation as i measure pans & convert english ingredients. No Italian is ever tempted by my banana, carrot or beetroot based cakes..

Banana, walnut and raisins cake. Its not very pretty.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

What a lovely idea. Here's my ideas: Tulips and strawberry flowers. I feel inspired to join you.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

pears on the sill — again their timing #haiku #modernhaiku🍐

A disobedience of pears

Three pears lined up in front of a window, waiting to ripen

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

This week's Alphabet Challenge is "L for layers" My Photo: bar window, Montepulciano, Italy. 🍸 🇮🇹 #AlphabetChallenge #WeekLForLayers #Layers

Glass front of a bar covered in multi coloured writing, sketches and bank notes.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

This week's Alphabet Challenge is "L for layers" layers of hexagonal wax cells built by honey bees Photo: honeycombs at a farm/'agriturismo' in Assisi, Umbria, Italy. 🐝 🇮🇹 #AlphabetChallenge #WeekLForLayers #Layers

Photo: honeycombs in a bowl from an farm in Assisi, Umbria, Italy.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

March mornings. Cold with a distant promise of sun.

chiesa santa chiara, monte san savino, arezzo, tuscany

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

in breath out breath — the ripple @completethehaiga.bsky.social Drawing by Josiah notmetaphor.com/ haiga # 142 #completethehaiga #haiku #haiga #prompt

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

For #PoetsOfDoom Prompt Line....I am a bowl, chipped at the rim. Thanks to hosts @jenthorne.bsky.social @sonnetsmith.bsky.social @daveashleypoet.bsky.social @phylogeneticsteve.bsky.social

$I am a bowl, chipped at the rim. Light leaks through the fracture at dusk. Once cherries lay here, sweet red alarms. Now rain-soaked blossom clings in small drifts after the spring storm— no sweetness. For #PoetsOfDoom 15 March 2026 Prompt Line....I am a bowl, chipped at the rim.$

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Not seen an orchid like that before. Nicely coordinated with the yellow car. 😂 Wild Italian orchid flower ... .

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

spring buds through wire squares tools waiting #haiku

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