SUMMERTIME MEMORIES

Margaret Cameron • June 29, 2020

Listening to the rain beating down and the wind blowing made me think back to this time last year. I put together a few of my favourite shots taken last summer in Venice, places I walk past on each trip to the supermarket. Just looking at them made me feel warmer.

My street in Venice. I set off with the very best of intentions, pulling my shopping buggy along Fondamenta di Gaffaro toward the Zattere and the Conad supermarket ...

... but I usually get distracted. A cappuccino stop in a little calle near Campo San Barnaba beckons. They also serve the coldest prosecco in town, so I'll be back here later this evening. And how do they keep those petunias looking so darn good all through a blistering Venetian summer?

Back to business, and I walk along Fondamenta di Socorsso, nearing the supermarket. This isn't the sort of thing I see on the way to Coles Floreat.

Lots of canals means lots of steps. Pretty, although pulling a shopping buggy up and down them is hard work. Different from loading everything into the car. But hey, who's complaining?

The flower seller on Calle Zane is a fixture on my shopping-day list.The scent of jasmine in late spring/early summer fills the whole neighbourhood. Geraniums do well on my window sill.

And then home through Campo Santa Margherita, balancing flowers on the groceries, hoping I don't upend the lot on the next set of steps. Some have other things on their minds.

It's only June, and winter seems to have lasted for months. September can't come soon enough. Overseas travel doesn't look likely this year or even next, so any thoughts of a Venetian summer have to be put aside. Thank goodness for photos and memories.

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THE WORST JOB IN THE WORLD?

By Margaret Cameron • October 27, 2021

Gondolas and Venice are inseparable. Think of one and the other immediately follows.

VENICE BELONGS TO THE WORLD

By Margaret Cameron • October 12, 2021

The petrochemical plant at Port Maghera has been responsible for significant pollution and damage to the fragile lagoon ecosystem. It is justifiably held by many Venetians to be public enemy number one. Just as concerning is the impact of climate change and rising sea levels for a city built on water. Worrying issues indeed, and there is another problem - sometimes overlooked, often discounted - of equal significance. arm photo here to side of text. Venice belongs to the world. And the world agrees, it seems, if tourist numbers are anything to go by. Visitors from all parts of the globe descend on the city each year, totting up more than twenty-five million visitations. This represents an environmental impost to a geographically small area, and massive disruption in the day-to-day lives of its fifty-five thousand residents. Look at it from their point of view. Their city is consumed by tourists.

IT'S FOR REAL!

By Margaret Cameron • September 29, 2021

After all this time and writing and research, all those edits and redrafts, countless workshops and mentoring sessions, I can now say that it's official. My manuscript, 'Under a Venice Moon' will be published by Hachette Australia in April next year. I'm both delighted and grateful. More news to follow when I come down to earth!