Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. 

Camille Pissarro

Since launching my website I have spent some time going through hundreds of photos that I took while we lived in Italy.

Amongst those were some that I took on a trip back to Italy when we still had our house in Capodimonte, Lazio.  There were a lot of things that we needed to get done, so it was a productive holiday but moments were also taken to just appreciate the surroundings, like the field above with the hay bales.  There was a farmer who had land across from our house.  The landscape had changed as the farmer used to have kiwi vines on his land.

We had a quite large plot of land, and I have often taken photos of the wildflowers that grew including these blue chicory flowers.

But my focus on simple things wasn’t only of the natural landscape.  I have become fond of food where there aren’t too many ingredients.

On summer days there is nothing like the simplicity of a tomato and mozzarella salad with basil leaves.

I used a lot of tomato on that particular trip.

While we tend to have just boiled beans here in England, to jazz it up a little I added some tomato as well.

Raw and cooked we were in tomato heaven.

What is your favourite simple dish?