Chestnut season

Fourteen degrees at 8:30 am. Misty but warm. One of the cats has left me a present of a decapitated ghiro. Charming.

The first of October, and autumn is coming on. The chickens are under fire again, and the children and I spend much of our walks to and from kindergarten joyfully filling our pockets with chestnuts. Looking forward to our first castagnata of the season, tomorrow, when at the scuola materna we'll be roasting chestnuts in celebration of grandparents everywhere in the festa dei nonni. I'm only sorry that for one reason or another the grandparents in our lives can't be here.

Book Notes No. 13 : The Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers & Children, Wardley & More

Mostly cloudy but with the occasional sunny interval. People here are starting to talk about lighting fires in the hearth (who has and who has not), using the cucina economica (the wood-fired cooker; who is and who is not) and when they might consider cranking up their central heating.

I just loved breastfeeding my two children. After a stuttery start with AJ, the oldest, things went as smoothly as a smoothie. There was always enough, always at the right temperature and always containing just the right mix of vitamins, minerals, protein and carbs (and occasionally with the slightest hint of Barbera for future reference).

But at four months I knew my number was up. It was time to bite the bullet and start weaning. And this meant not only learning how to cook baby foods, but how to cook full stop.

Luckily for me, the editorial director at Duncan Baird Publishers in London heard my prayers for help and answered them by sending me a copy of their Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers & Children, which they had just published.

Spiral-bound and stoutly-built to withstand the maltreatment it will inevitably receive in a child-friendly kitchen, this book is deliciously illustrated and packed to the gills with no less than 365 recipes plus variations. And a very sensible index, which is vital, but inexplicably often missing in the recipe book genre at large.

The book starts with how to make all that nutritious baby mush - carrot, carrot-and-potato, potato-and-califlower, potato-and-pea, you get the drift - and freeze it in cubes for quick Mama-goddess baby meals. It then goes right on through to the age of six with basic techniques, and all kinds of well-balanced meals for that kindergarten-kid on the go.

Great stuff. Well-edited and beautifully put together as one would expect from a DBP book. And B is in love with one of the little boy models.

Oh, and I like this book in particular for one more reason. It contains no less than 24 recipes involving chicken. And if the younger of our two cockerels doesn't stop attacking me every time I step into the pollaio, he'll soon be ending up in one of them!

Mama's kinder surprise

Fourteen degrees at 9am this Monday morning. Overcast and humid. No wind. At all.


Mama is at the end of her tether.

It's time to take action.

Time to take the war onto the streets, to draw a line and stand firm.

I'm today banning Kinder Sorpresa chocolate eggs. Friends and relatives, I love you all, and am always grateful for your kindness to my children. But please resist the urge to buy these particular treats and give them to my two little angels. Please shop-keepers all, put them on the highest shelf.

And I'll tell you why.

AJ (almost 4) and B (2) can spot the bright red-and-white packaging from 300m. It's one of those life-skills they developed - along with breathing - at the moment of parturition.

They push and shove each other to get to them. They snatch and grab. They slash and burn. They take no prisoners.

They expertly peel off the foil and devour the chocolate egg. But when the chocolate is gone ... that's when the trouble really starts.

My two cherubs scream because they can't get the plastic capsule inside open.

Then they scream because they don't know how to put together the little plastic widget inside.

They whine because I'm too slow in deciphering the sub-linguistic instructions and assembling that little plastic widget for them.

They stamp their pretty little feet and go into a corner to sulk because I can't positively identify the little plastic widget or tell them what it's for.

Then they fight like tiger-cubs, rolling on the ground, biting each other. Half-nelsons, full-nelsons, Chinese burns, hair pulling, eye-jabbing, scratching, finger-stamping. Basically, they do their best to mutilate and murder one another...Over two unidentifiable bits of coloured plastic.

While Mama's blood pressure hovers in the red like a Hollywood nuclear reactor going for meltdown, and no Sean Connery to save me.

So, no more. Dear friends and relatives please take note. KS chocolate eggs will be confiscated at source. The damned plastic widget will be extracted and consigned to the recycling, the chocolate removed to another place. Later, it will be consumed under the covers by torchlight in the obscurity of the Carmine night.

By Mama.

The ristoro

Ristoro di San Gottardo sign. Sadly, the ristoro, once the home of the Gruppo Carmenitt, is no longer in use as a community centre and bar. Once the home of Carmine's priest (I am told) the building is owned by the Church and is in the process of being renovated.

Happy Anniversary!

On 27 September 2007, Louise sat down to write. And she didn't stop. At five in the morning, at 11 at night. She wrote. In between the last few breast feeds and in between nappy changes. She wrote in her head while walking her son up and down the hill for asilo, and she wrote at the computer during precious nap times. She made notes in the car, on the bus, in cafes and on planes. Gradually, as the world turned and the seasons changed, a year went by. And today is 27 September 2008, the first anniversary of A View from Carmine Superiore, weblog, personal notebook and burgeoning portrait of a village.

The original idea was simply to stay sane. As a mother of two very small children rattling around an unfinished restoration project, surrounded on all sides by people who speak a different language (including those two small children), and perched on a now-famous granite outcrop of rock with not much in the way of permanent neighbours, my sanity was in serious peril. Writing every day offered a discipline outside of mothering and housewifery that ensured I took a step back from the daily brouhaha and got to see the funny side (to remember which side the funny side was).

Without meaning to get so serious, I gradually also found myself trying to make sense of living here on top of a rock in a depopulated medieval village with no vehicle access, to try to understand that accidental life-choice I made when I came here to live permanently in 2003.

That's my excuse for adding one more drop in the ocean of, reportedly, 8 million weblogs online.

And I'm sticking to it.

In the past year, the site has received more than 13,000 hits. While the phenomenon of the floating IP address makes it difficult to be totally sure, a painstaking process of scientific triangulation leads me to believe that it is read regularly not only by Carmenites, or by members of my own family, but also by kindly lunatics as far away as Canada, Queensland, New Delhi, Jakarta, New England, Houston Texas and Hobart Tasmania. (Hello, Hobart Tasmania. Why don't you leave a comment? I'm fascinated to know who you are!)

A recent surprise article in the provincial newspaper outed A View from Carmine Superiore from the cyberspace closet, and onto the streets of the region. The response was, actually, wonderful. My 15 minutes of fame. Friends, acquaintances and total strangers approached me on the street, at the asilo, in the supermarket 20km away, even in the cemetery, to tell me they liked what they saw. For a moment there, the glare of publicity was so great I looked out my old 80s RayBans and started to price smoked windows for the Panda. Thank-you neighbours all for so many kind words!


So, as the world turns, the leaves start to change, and the people of Cannobio start to shove their hands in their pockets and complain about the cold mornings, I'll go on writing. Perhaps not at 5am - I am, after all, a year older and I'm starting to need my beauty sleep - but I'll try for once a day. And I hope you'll keep checking in periodically to see how we're doing up here on Sasso Carmine.

Thank-you for reading,

Louise (in RayBans)

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

Motherhood means...No. 7

Twenty-two degrees in the sun at 10am. Breezy and sunny. There are two kittens skittering around the kitchen under the watchful eye of their once-more-pregnant mother (oh dear!). B is ecstatic.

Motherhood means...Not being in the least little bit surprised when it takes Mama and two under-4s two hours to get from Carmine Inferiore to Carmine Superiore. This is signposted as a moderate walk of 15 minutes, but today it involved 19 slugs (live), three slugs (dead), a handful of wild thyme, helping Signora Cesarina collect food for her goat, going to the toilet twice, trying not to scare off a deer, retrieving a lost musical instrument from a terrace six feet below the path, cutting down every tree in sight with a plastic chainsaw and celebrating the return of the prodigal cat.

A shady corner of Carmine

Twenty-four degrees at 10:30am. Sunny with just a few puffs of cloud floating in a line down the lake, as if there were some chap sitting on an Alpine meadow at the top end, puffing on his Dunhill Early Morning Blend.

Discontinued? what do you mean it's been discontinued? As I said, a descent into mediocrity...





I love this particular corner of Carmine most especially. It always seems to me to be a sylvan retreat from all that's ugly and vexed in the world.

This year's Carmine litter

Nine degrees at 7am. Clear skies and sunshine later.

The two kittens that were spotted hidden in the wood pile last month have evaded detection by the local martens and foxes and are now big enough to come out to play.

Tentative winter prediction

This morning we left the house during what seemed like one of those North Sea squalls all too familiar to me from summer holidays on the east coast of England in the 60s. Black skies, metallic-grey lake (or sea, take your pick) driving winds, sneak-under-your-collar rain.

Nothing daunted, we splashed down the hill to the tune of Colonel Hathi's March, and arrived below rather dribbly. We gunned the Panda and found ourselves up to the rims in flood water, battered by falling branches and spearheading a slowly-moving column of German caravanners harrumphing their way north.

On the return journey, the low cloud parted momentarily and there, beyond the confines of Lombardy across the lake, I spotted - No! - Yes. No! It can't be!

SNOW on the Swiss mountaintops.

My feet instantly froze in my walking boots, and B's hand turned red and chilled in mine. And it wasn't all psychosomatic, either.

As M's compatriot at Verbania station and the weight of berries on the cotonester have been telling us, it may be that we're in for a loooong, cooooold winter.

(I love my) Scaldabagno a legna

Fourteen degrees at 8am. Sunny. Clear skies. Always that breeze.

We're now solidly into using our beloved scaldabagno a legna (wood-burning water heater) for the bathtub - in summer we used only the shower. The heater is that long, skinny thing in the cupboard there...

Here are the statistics : less than five kilos of wood, burning for a little under an hour produces 100 litres of bathwater at 80 degrees C. That's bubbles up to your neck and a bit extra for a quick scrub of the kids.

And, as if you hadn't noticed, we're surrounded by woodland offering rubinia, chestnut and oak costing not much more than the sweat of your brow and a certain amount of wood-chopping skill to turn into the pretty little wood pile you see to the left.

Oh, and the water costs about a cent.

No destruction of countryside or 1,000-year-old historic-village streets to lay a pipeline, no fixed monthly cost to pay, no being held to ransom by Russian suppliers of gas.

No contest.

Book Notes No. 12 : Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

Fifteen degrees at about 8am. Cloudy, warm in the sun, cold in the breeze.


Okay, okay, I guess everyone's heard about Neil Gaiman except me.

So he's a New York Times bestselling author. So I don't read the New York Times.

But maybe I should, because Neverwhere was a really good read.



Time for the blurb :

Richard Mayhew's ordinary life is changed forever when one day he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London pavement. From that moment on he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed - a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned (and some fully-populated) London underground stations and sewer tunnels below the city - a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known...

Now, I lived for 20 years (on and off) in London, and so became intolerably intimate with the London Underground system. I spent quite a lot of that time trying to avoid using it, but it still burrowed deep into my soul as a cultural entity that one can never quite escape. I often found myself musing on the strange station names (Elephant and Castle, Angel Islington, Earls Court, Barons Court...), and wondering what happens to a station when it gets closed.

Clearly Neil Gaiman thought similar thoughts, perhaps while waiting for that elusive Last Train Home, or when being made to feel like the Invisible Man by passengers who buffet, push and shove as they pour off a commuter express.

And he has come up with a damn fine fiction to tie it all together, making Richard Mayhew's adventures below the London streets "a dark contemporary Alice in Wonderland" (Minneapolis Star Tribune). It's entertaining but also intelligent. It's right funny in parts and right creepy in others. It's a funky, fast read, full of great ideas. And it's gripping pretty much all the way through.

If you didn't catch the Neil Gaiman express the first time round, I recommend you step on board. It's a fun ride.

Wedding march

Fifteen degrees at 9am, in the shade, rising to 25 degrees as the sun blasted across the rooftops and hit the thermometer.

Clear blue skies with a gentle breeze.


A perfect day for a wedding.

And the Chiesa di San Gottardo in Carmine Superiore, the perfect place.

Eighteen degrees at 10am. Damp and overcast. But sunny later, with the mist rising slowly.

Quote of the week No. 1 : The Sage of Potato Hill

Twenty-five degrees at 11am in the sun, but it's mostly overcast. A strange sort of day. Turn your face first one way and it feels warm, turn it the other way and it feels cool. The floors in the house are starting to feel cold underfoot.

Edgar Watson Howe (1853-1937), American newspaperman, novelist and essayist, known as the Sage of Potato Hill (although I haven't yet uncovered the reason for this). Howe was well-known for his acerbic wit and sour humour. This gem is particularly relevant in a small community like this one:

"What people say behind your back is your standing in
the community in which you live."

Scary thought, that...

That boaring story again

Nine degrees at 9am, leaping to 25 degrees at 10am when the sun hit the thermometer. Clear blue skies once again, but that nasty little wind is still hanging about.

If you've been reading the last couple of weeks, you'll know that we've been repeatedly visited by one of the most destructive forces known to Carmine man.

Wild boar.

They've devastated the terraced prato on which we keep our chickens, done worse in Franco's orchard and have threatened to overturn the fence surrounding Ezio's vegetable garden.

As you know, the gallant chaps from the Polizia Provinciale were called in, and late one night last week, they arrived with their big guns.

Stealthily through the woods they came, quietly took up their positions and started to wait...

They waited...and waited...and waited.

They waited silently, eyes accustomed to the dark, ears attuned to the multitudinous sounds of the woodland at night. The only clue to their presence the scent of a rather charming cologne wafting on the wind.

The boar stayed away.

At about 2am the lads stretched out their stiffened legs. They called it una notte and stomped off home. Since then, we've seen neither hide nor hair of the tusked terrors.

Now I know in Italy, as in most places, you need a licence to keep a gun, and you need to pay lots and lots to actually go out a-huntin' with it. But I'd like to know what I have to do to get my hands on some of that cologne.

It seems to have done the trick.

Book Notes No. 11 : The Path to the Spiders' Nests, Italo Calvino

Ten degrees at 9am. Bright, bright sunshine and very warm, but with a wind that's doing its best to cool everything down.

This morning I'm proud to announce that AJ flew into the arms of his new teacher like a sailor coming home. Phew!

Italo Calvino is, of course, one of the giants of Italian, of European fiction of the 20th century. In his 40-year writing career he wrote much that was ground-breaking, entertaining and thought-provoking.

The Path to the Spiders' Nests was his first novel, written in late 1946, and drawing heavily on his experiences during the second world war. Unlike so much of Calvino's later work, it's a 'realist' novel (you have to be careful with labels around Calvino, hence the inverted commas) that centres around a young boy, Pin, experiencing both the turmoil of the war outside and the turmoil of burgeoning adolescence inside. Pin is masterfully conjured from the backstreets of Liguria, fatherless, penniless, and with that nameless urge to identify, understand and above all grasp the symbols of adult power that we must surely all remember from our own lives.

It's a great read, almost a compulsive read. But it doesn't characterise the later work. What to me is perhaps more interesting is Calvino's own preface to the 1964 edition (printed in the Vintage Books 1998 paperback), where he discusses the literary atmosphere in which it was written, and how the book came out of his own experiences of the partisan life. He says of it :

"This is the first novel I wrote, almost my very first piece of writing. What can I say about it today? I will say this : it would be better never to have written your first novel. Before you write your first book, you possess that freedom to begin writing that can be used only once in your life. The first book already defines you while you are in fact still far from being defined."

Looking at his later work, it's clear that Calvino did not, actually, allow his writing to be defined by this first novel. If you want my advice (anybody? anybody?), forget it's Calvino and read it for pleasure. For pleasure it is. And if you're looking for a more characteristic Calvino experience, check out, perhaps, Invisible Cities or The Castle of Crossed Destinies.

Il rientro

Fourteen degrees at 9:30am. Sunny, but with something threatening just over the horizon. We're promised at least three rain-free days.

At 8am this morning, Mama and two tweenies burst out of the house at the top of the hill in a flurry of name-tags and wundaweb. A lone deer up high in Nadia's garden lifted its head to check out the commotion, nodded and then went back to gently grazing.

Cannobio's Guardian Angel Square was bubbling with life. With excitement. With expectation. The Caffe' Centro was stacked. Inside and out. The car park was a fly-park. The policeman on crossing duty looked the other way.

All it needed was bunting and a brass band.

And perhaps the sindaco in his sash giving a speech.

For today, eighteen wide-eyed 3-year-olds carrying brand new miniature rucksacks were starting at scuola materna, just as AJ did 12 months ago. Eighteen fathers, shocked at the chaos of slippers, overalls, bibs and baby wipes. And bawling. Eighteen mothers, faces set in a rigid separation-anxiety grin. Assorted junior siblings staring from buggies, getting lost in the corridors, half-inching asilo Lego blocks.

AJ, B and I were directed upstairs to the relative peace of the 2nd-year classroom. New year, new room, new teachers.

Ah.

Old problem.

He "thcreamed and thcreamed and thcreamed".

And, having become AJ's best little chum this summer, B suddenly came alive to the situation, and she..."thcreamed and thcreamed and thcreamed" in sympathy.

Mama felt "thick".

Carmine quotes No. 12 : Pigs, potties and piode

Mama dashes into her neighbour's house in hot pursuit of a butt-naked two-year-old in mid-potty-training. She takes the beautiful, handcrafted staircase two at a time to find her daughter in joyful mid-bounce on the bed.

Clambering back down the steps, holding the squirming child under her arm like a baby pig, she apologises for the interruption, and explains her fear that B. will pee on the bed.

Says KK, proprietor, famous for his mischievous grin and his incisive one-liners, even in a foreign language :

"We have that problem with the roof."

Where the chimneys have eyes...

Cold, grey and rainy, with a thundery accompaniment and associated power cuts.

Anybody in Carmine get the feeling that Big Brother is watching them?

Identification needed

Cold and windy. Rain, it seems, overnight. Good weather for the flotilla of white sailing boats racing on the lake.

Here's one of the saints that adorn the external walls of the Chiesa di San Gottardo here in Carmine Superiore. I'm not sure whether it's old San G. himself or whether it's St Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan whose rite we follow here. Or it could be someone else...

Anyone?

By the Chiesa di San Gottardo

Twenty-five degrees at 10am, sunny periods. Feeling surprisingly warm.

By the Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore on just such a day as this 2007

Bruno Albertella

Today at 3pm in Cannobio, the bells of the parish church of San Vittore are being tolled. They are ringing in a final farewell to Bruno Albertella, who sadly died yesterday, after a long illness.

Bruno Albertella (77), who did so much to revitalise Carmine Superiore. Who spent 40 years of his life putting his energies into very little else. Bruno was one of the driving forces behind the Gruppo Carmenitt, which did everything from rebuilding bridges and clearing woodland pathways to organising processions and festivals. And on top of it all, mounted the 1975 celebrations for Carmine's 1,000-year anniversary.

His energy and leadership cannot be overvalued. One only has to look at the gradual disintegration of some parts of the village and the sad absence of community events, to see how much has been lacking since his illness took him away from this work.

I noticed recently that a rose planted on the terrace of the Ristoro di San Gottardo, so long a community centre, has all but died for lack of care. And I begin to wonder whether and where Carmine will find such an amante again.

Our hearts are with Emma, Adriana, Livio and Daniele.

Twenty-four degrees and sunny with clear blue skies. Windy, very.

Reported conversations No. 8 : On children

Raining. Solidly. We are beginning to wonder whether this autumn might turn out to be similar to the autumn of '03. If so, watch out anyone plastering walls or laying cement floors and who expect it all to be dry before Christmas!


Alfredo Cattaneo, ever-smiling overlord of a burgeoning plumbing empire. Architect of the plumbing and guttering in our house (and heartily recommended). Huntsman extraordinaire. Husband to the indomitable Signora Cattaneo, and father to the startlingly lovely Gabriella. Often to be seen racing from project to project on his scooter, or flirting with a rapt gaggle of ladies over 70. A charmer.

"What is life without children?"

(Warming to his theme)

"What would we do without children?"

(Making the leap)

"What do people without children do?"

Mama : (Smiling, thinks) Hmmm...

Eat a meal while it's still warm? Get a whole night's sleep? Read a book, make a phone call, go out for supper? Wear stain-free clothes. Lie in the bath surrounded by candles and smelly incense sticks, dreaming...Salute the Sun...Attend a three-hour candlelit performance of the Tenebrae followed by a harrowing Allegre Miserere...Go on a day-long shopping expedition to Milan...Spend a weekend browsing around Hay-on-Wye...

I don't ask for much.

Twenty-four degrees at midday. Frequent, heavy showers. Humid. No sign of a let-up.

The end of the holidays

Eighteen degrees at 7am, but with a stiff breeze that makes it seem much colder. Raging storms all night, with associated power cuts. (Yes, with the merest sniff of a storm, the lights go out here in Carmine...) Once again, the water is thundering down the hillsides to the lake and the secret streams have reappeared.

In the USA, they say that the weather changes the day immediately following Labor Day, marking the end of summer and making it easier for everyone to get back to work. I have a feeling the same can be said for August 31 here, and the summer is, at least meteorologically-speaking, over.

Pedagogically-speaking, of course, we still have another week before, I hear, we are back in school time. "I hear" only because no-one's bothered to let us parents know when exactly the start of the new term might be. Last year I would have been jumping up and down hyperventilating for lack of this information. This year? I guess I'm just that little bit more Italian in my outlook. You know. Last-minute. On a need-to-know basis only. That's the Italian information society at its best. And perhaps it is better than all that efficiently-British plenty-of-notice, information-overload stuff. Who am I to say?

Psychiatrically-speaking, I'm secretly delighted that this holiday has only one more week to run. If it's a single day more, I think I might have to book a holiday of my own. Perhaps a Georgian country mansion with varied, carefully-landscaped gardens, gravel walkways, lots of wooden benches, a small private room with a view of the sea. I could spend my time wandering around in a floral nightie and purple fluffy slippers, accompanied by a nice young man in a white coat...

Book Notes No. 10 : The Little House, Philippa Gregory

Eighteen degrees at 7am. Heavy showers. Otherwise damp and humid.

Philippa Gregory's The Little House.

What to do when the in-laws get too much...

Philippa Gregory is, of course, best known for her historical novels centring for the most part on the Tudors. The Other Boleyn Girl is probably her best in this genre, telling the story of Ann Boleyn (she of the extra finger and the witchy ways which eventually led her to the chopping block) and the less famous sister who preceded her in Henry VIII's bed. They're great, although after more than a few I started to get tired of them, and I never finished The Constant Princess, the themes had become so tedious.

Time was, though, before Gregory had struck the Tudor mother lode, that she wrote a fairly diverse range of novels, including two set in the modern era : Perfectly Correct (a very funny English farce, which strangely enough reminded me of David Lodge's 'university' tales); and this book, which the Daily Mail dubbed a "psychological chiller".

The story of The Little House centres on two women : Ruth and her mother-in-law, Elizabeth, against whom, it seems, Ruth can never measure up. When Ruth has a baby and together she and her husband decide to move to a cottage at the end of her in-laws' drive, the cracks start to show - in her relationship with her husband, with her control-freak in-laws and in her own sanity.

A fairly simple story that builds from low-key beginnings to a fairly shocking but very satisfying ending. A cautionary tale for mothers- and daughters-in-law everywhere.

A milestone for B

Twenty degrees at 7am (oh yessir, the new term is starting soon and we're getting into practice with the early mornings). And twenty degrees at high noon. Sky jam packed solid with dark, steel grey, not-very-friendly clouds.

The rest of the weather report stars B.

We are celebrating the fact that today, B (now two years one-and-a-half months) walked all the way down the hill.

And, later, all the way back up the hill - in a cloud burst complete with thunder and lightning, and for the last 20 metres through the village up to her little knees in fast-running water, and giggling all the way.

Thanks to Marianne for allowing herself to get drenched while helping us up the hill.

And to B for suddenly finding the wherewithal in those little legs to do all the walking, just in time for the new term. The lessons were fun (no, really - okay don't believe me then), but I'm glad I can now put the back carrier into mothballs.


PS Today, we say a sad arrivederci to our neighbours, Giorgio and Giovanna, who are leaving us after an unusually short summer visit, to return to the bright lights and glamour of the big city. We will miss you, as always.

The boars are back in town

Cloudy-to-overcast today. Twenty-five-and-a-half degrees at 11am. The woodlands are completely still.

The wild boar continue to devastate the prato. As quickly as we put everything to rights, they come back for another round of twilight partying. The Corpo Forestale with their big guns have us on their list. Hope they get here before the boar discover the chicken feed...

Whispers of autumn

Twenty-five degrees at midday. Storms and quite a lot of much-needed rain last night. Overcast, with more rain on the way.

The first of September. Summer is drawing to a gentle close. There are still vacationers in Carmine Superiore, but we can now count their presence in days. In a couple of weeks they will be all gone, but for now we are enjoying an Indian summer, socially-speaking.

We are now eating the Americano grapes that hang from the vine we inherited from Ezio, and who still (thankfully) looks after it. We're eating them quickly before the squirrels get them all. And salads are gradually giving way to autumn vegetables, including, today, our first pumpkin. The chestnuts are beginning to plump up in the woodlands all around us, and the rubinia leaves are already starting to turn yellow. The pear tree we planted in March has a single fruit hanging triumphantly from its branches. Unhappily, it's not "golden".

The sun, swinging back in its arc, no longer shines into our north-facing kitchen window at the end of the day, and neither do we have that precious sliver of sunshine on our tiny terrace for which we are so grateful during the height of summer.

All these changes are whispering one word : "autumn".

Happy birthday, little brother. And good luck big brother. For both of you, today is the day life begins (again). We're thinking of you.