Starting to look like a heatwave...
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Monday, 29 June 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Il Sorriso della Provincia
Hot.
To Gattinara and its Chiesa di San Pietro (founded in the 11th century, with a 15th-century façade and 19th-century interior). This little chap is to be found adorning the main door, indicating one of the region's two famous products: wine. Gattinara lies in the Colline Novarese wine region, which is principally nebbiolo for reds and moscato for whites. Politically, Gattinara is in the province of Vercelli, and the town of Arborio is just down the road, so you can guess what the other local product might be.
Round the corner from the church is Gattinara's cantina sociale, where we found what seems to be a very drinkable sfuso - Gattinara 2007, a mongrel mix of nebbiolo, bonarda and vespolina grapes. At 11.5% it's not going to make Mama fall over after a couple of sips, and at 1.30 euros a litre it's not going to break the bank, even if it does break our backs getting 75 litres of the stuff up the hill.
In the entrance to the cantina sociale is a sign proclaiming, "Gattinara, sorriso della provincia". Let's hope after a few months in the cellar it will still be bringing smiles to our faces over here in this provincia too.
PS A further wildlife sighting this week : a large badger, perhaps the same one that we see shuffling about in a certain spot at least once or twice every summer.
To Gattinara and its Chiesa di San Pietro (founded in the 11th century, with a 15th-century façade and 19th-century interior). This little chap is to be found adorning the main door, indicating one of the region's two famous products: wine. Gattinara lies in the Colline Novarese wine region, which is principally nebbiolo for reds and moscato for whites. Politically, Gattinara is in the province of Vercelli, and the town of Arborio is just down the road, so you can guess what the other local product might be.Round the corner from the church is Gattinara's cantina sociale, where we found what seems to be a very drinkable sfuso - Gattinara 2007, a mongrel mix of nebbiolo, bonarda and vespolina grapes. At 11.5% it's not going to make Mama fall over after a couple of sips, and at 1.30 euros a litre it's not going to break the bank, even if it does break our backs getting 75 litres of the stuff up the hill.
In the entrance to the cantina sociale is a sign proclaiming, "Gattinara, sorriso della provincia". Let's hope after a few months in the cellar it will still be bringing smiles to our faces over here in this provincia too.
PS A further wildlife sighting this week : a large badger, perhaps the same one that we see shuffling about in a certain spot at least once or twice every summer.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Everything changes
The first day of the 77-day summer holidays has dawned misty-bright and still.
One June day in 2007, a little boy, not yet three, is sitting on a climbing frame in a hot and dusty garden surrounded by sixty other children. He is terrified and chattering, head down, eyes darting to and fro, frozen with fear. His mother has understood virtually nothing of what has been said in the parent's meeting that has preceded a tour of the kindergarten, and now, a puddle of linguistic isolation all around her, she sees his distress, and wants to weep for herself and her first-born, to snatch him away and run, run, run, to carry him off to a place that may not be so sunny, but where at least she can equip her children to meet life's big events without fear and confusion.
Two years on, a robust little girl runs down the steps on extremely sturdy legs into the same garden shouting "Hooraaaaay!" at the top of her lungs. She vies for a place on the see-saw, scrabbles around for a plastic spade in the sand pit, is introduced to the older children by a confident and sociable little boy, a fluent Italian speaker, her older brother. Occasionally she checks her mother, who, chatting with a gaggle of others, slides her sunglasses quietly down onto her nose so that no-one will see she is on the verge of tears once again. Pride in her son's achievements, pleasure at realising she herself now understands almost everything that is being said, and joy that her daughter has met one of life's big events without fear and confusion.
Everything changes.
One June day in 2007, a little boy, not yet three, is sitting on a climbing frame in a hot and dusty garden surrounded by sixty other children. He is terrified and chattering, head down, eyes darting to and fro, frozen with fear. His mother has understood virtually nothing of what has been said in the parent's meeting that has preceded a tour of the kindergarten, and now, a puddle of linguistic isolation all around her, she sees his distress, and wants to weep for herself and her first-born, to snatch him away and run, run, run, to carry him off to a place that may not be so sunny, but where at least she can equip her children to meet life's big events without fear and confusion.
Two years on, a robust little girl runs down the steps on extremely sturdy legs into the same garden shouting "Hooraaaaay!" at the top of her lungs. She vies for a place on the see-saw, scrabbles around for a plastic spade in the sand pit, is introduced to the older children by a confident and sociable little boy, a fluent Italian speaker, her older brother. Occasionally she checks her mother, who, chatting with a gaggle of others, slides her sunglasses quietly down onto her nose so that no-one will see she is on the verge of tears once again. Pride in her son's achievements, pleasure at realising she herself now understands almost everything that is being said, and joy that her daughter has met one of life's big events without fear and confusion.
Everything changes.
Friday, 26 June 2009
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
San Gottardo builds a church
Twenty-two degrees at 8:30am, with the sun shining and the wind, thankfully, no longer playing havoc with the windows and the washing. The first hibiscus are in flower.
Fresco, Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
In a scene surprisingly similar to that which unfolded when we put a new granite roof on our house, San Gottardo overseas a church-building project, with a demon hanging ominously overhead.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Quote of the Week No. 23 : On martyrdom
Neda Agha-Soltan
"It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr."
--Napoleon Bonaparte
Monday, 22 June 2009
Starter for Ten
Twenty-two degrees at 9am (yup, those late nights catching up with me), and blowy.
Inscription, Cannobio
Translation, anybody?
Translation, anybody?
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Summer solstice garden update
Hot, but with a cooling wind, and the occasional cloud to make the Sunday picnickers feel chilly enough to appreciate the warmth when the sun came out again.
On this solstice day we ate our first apricots and our first cucumber. The raspberries seem as if they may finally be over after about three weeks of fruiting valiantly under sustained assaults by the children (thank-you to Ila for giving us our first canes, two years ago). The blueberries are also fruiting.
The zucchine are not, this year, Defender F1, but still we've started our annual zucchine-with-everything season, and it looks like we'll have to endure the same dietary regime for some weeks to come.
The lavender is still in full flower and giving what seems like an entire hive of bees something to dance about. The tomatoes are doing well, and the chilli peppers are laden with beautiful long, shiny peppers - still green as yet.
What else? The roses and the strawberries are showing signs of coming into a second flower, and the pear trees, the vines, and the leeks are looking good for later in the year. The hydrangeas are good and showy, as ever, and the gladioli and the day lilies are at most a week away.
For the first time in seven years, when we started the long process of turning our little patch of campo into some sort of garden (no Ground Force 48-hour deadlines, heavy diggers, enormous budgets or gardening experts here), I looked around me this midsummer's day and found I liked quite a lot of what I saw.
And my back's killing me.
On this solstice day we ate our first apricots and our first cucumber. The raspberries seem as if they may finally be over after about three weeks of fruiting valiantly under sustained assaults by the children (thank-you to Ila for giving us our first canes, two years ago). The blueberries are also fruiting.
The zucchine are not, this year, Defender F1, but still we've started our annual zucchine-with-everything season, and it looks like we'll have to endure the same dietary regime for some weeks to come.
The lavender is still in full flower and giving what seems like an entire hive of bees something to dance about. The tomatoes are doing well, and the chilli peppers are laden with beautiful long, shiny peppers - still green as yet.
What else? The roses and the strawberries are showing signs of coming into a second flower, and the pear trees, the vines, and the leeks are looking good for later in the year. The hydrangeas are good and showy, as ever, and the gladioli and the day lilies are at most a week away.
For the first time in seven years, when we started the long process of turning our little patch of campo into some sort of garden (no Ground Force 48-hour deadlines, heavy diggers, enormous budgets or gardening experts here), I looked around me this midsummer's day and found I liked quite a lot of what I saw.
And my back's killing me.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Jack fell down, And broke his crown...
After the wild and stormy night whipped banshees around the chimney pots, today is blowy but hot, hot, hot.
Today, the kids are singing :
Today, the kids are singing :
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
Up Jack got and home did trot
As fast as he could caper
Went to bed to mend his head
With vinegar and brown paper.
Why?
Because today in Carmine our very own Jack took a tumble. Neighbour-of-the-month awards go to S. and F.; S. for leaping to the rescue and F. for getting our wounded and very wobbly soldier all the way down the hill in the midday heat and on to the hospital.
Get well soon, Jack! Hope the vinegar and brown paper works.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Carmine Quotes No.15 : What's it all about?
Hot. With a rainstorm at 5pm that drenched all those in the parco giochi, but seemed to have passed by the gardens of Carmine altogether.
A couple of evenings ago, Mama is in the kitchen and AJ, aged four-and-a-half, is supposedly in bed. Mama is feeling surprised that she still remembers every last word of that immortal Burt Baccarach creation 'Alfie' -- "What's it all about, Alfie...". And, with a glance at YouTube, thinks that Jude Law made a pretty good stab at the closing soliloquy in the 21st-century remake of the movie, but Jude Law doing it in Italian is just weird.
AJ creeps around the kitchen door. Listens quietly, and then creeps further in. Finally :
AJ : Mama, who's Alfie?
Mama : Hello darling, you're supposed to be in bed.
AJ : Yes, I know, but who is Alfie?
Mama : Well, Alfie's a man in a movie who didn't know what love is.
AJ : But we can tell him, can't we Mama.
Mama : Okay - what would you tell him? What is love?
AJ : Love is the most beautiful Mama in the world...
Mama is overcome with icky, fingers-down-the-throat Mama-love and fails to put AJ back to bed for at least another hour, which may perhaps have been the whole point...
A couple of evenings ago, Mama is in the kitchen and AJ, aged four-and-a-half, is supposedly in bed. Mama is feeling surprised that she still remembers every last word of that immortal Burt Baccarach creation 'Alfie' -- "What's it all about, Alfie...". And, with a glance at YouTube, thinks that Jude Law made a pretty good stab at the closing soliloquy in the 21st-century remake of the movie, but Jude Law doing it in Italian is just weird.
AJ creeps around the kitchen door. Listens quietly, and then creeps further in. Finally :
AJ : Mama, who's Alfie?
Mama : Hello darling, you're supposed to be in bed.
AJ : Yes, I know, but who is Alfie?
Mama : Well, Alfie's a man in a movie who didn't know what love is.
AJ : But we can tell him, can't we Mama.
Mama : Okay - what would you tell him? What is love?
AJ : Love is the most beautiful Mama in the world...
Mama is overcome with icky, fingers-down-the-throat Mama-love and fails to put AJ back to bed for at least another hour, which may perhaps have been the whole point...
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Fortress Carmine
By the looks of the clear skies and bright sunshine falling on Carmine's ancient walls this morning, it's going to be another hot, dry day.
This house is built on and around the living rock, right next to Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo. In my fantasy of what Carmine was like in the Middle Ages, it stood at the very heart of the ancient fortification. With its dark, low rooms, oversize fireplace, few windows and what to my mind can only have been an arrow-slit, perhaps this was Carmine's first house...
Sightings, two
Twenty-two degrees at 8:30am. Sultry. Hot indoors.
An evening excursion yesterday brought us home at twilight - oh these lovely longest days - to an enormous wild boar in Franco's orchard and a pair of foxes watching the chicken coop as if it was a drive-in movie...
The snake count so far this year is four - and that's four more than last year.
An evening excursion yesterday brought us home at twilight - oh these lovely longest days - to an enormous wild boar in Franco's orchard and a pair of foxes watching the chicken coop as if it was a drive-in movie...
The snake count so far this year is four - and that's four more than last year.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Lilies
A hot 24° at 8:30am. Blue skies and a cooling breeze.
Along the margins of Carmine's meadows and pathways, the lilies are flowering.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Feline epidemic
Twenty-one degrees at 8:30am. Overcast and heavy. Trying half-heartedly to rain.
Cat count : one dead-in-my-arms of poisoning (confirmed); one 'flu victim looking much happier after last week's veterinary intervention when his temperature reached 40°; the Mamma-di-Tutti still snoring and sneezing, but eating, recovering slowly out of her own native grit; one still languishing with neither food nor water, and intent on ripping my arms to shreds rather than ingest antibiotics. We're not quite out of the woods yet.
[PS, don't you just love semicolons? Rather like the playroom when all the toys are put away, a list correctly punctuated with semicolons gives me an immense feeling of contentment. A suitable case for treatment? Probably.]
Cat count : one dead-in-my-arms of poisoning (confirmed); one 'flu victim looking much happier after last week's veterinary intervention when his temperature reached 40°; the Mamma-di-Tutti still snoring and sneezing, but eating, recovering slowly out of her own native grit; one still languishing with neither food nor water, and intent on ripping my arms to shreds rather than ingest antibiotics. We're not quite out of the woods yet.
[PS, don't you just love semicolons? Rather like the playroom when all the toys are put away, a list correctly punctuated with semicolons gives me an immense feeling of contentment. A suitable case for treatment? Probably.]
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Friday, 12 June 2009
Quote of the week No. 22: On kindness
“Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profundity.
Kindness in giving creates love.”
Lao Tse, Chinese philosopher generally considered to be the founder of Taoism. What more can you say? Except that I hereby promise to bear in mind these beautiful words in all my dealings with my children.
PS Hot today -- 33°C at 3:30pm. But there was the shade of a beatiful tree to rest under this afternoon (grazie, Marzia per una bella festa).
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Windows
Twenty-eight degrees at 3:30pm as the cat-ambulance mee-maa'd its way to the emergency clinic (we're praying it's just a touch of 'flu). There's a kind of Englishness to the summer right now. Breezy, changeable, tantalisingly warm at times, depressingly wet at others.
Via Giovanola, in Cannobio's old quarter.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Absent gardener
Nineteen degrees at 9am. Changeable, but at least it's not raining.
In the garden following the storms, devastation reigns. The tomatoes are on their knees, the oleander have collapsed and the chickens are up to their knobblies in mud. The slugs are having a good feast on the courgettes, the basil, and the parsley, and the cuttings a very kind neighbour surprised us with last night are wilting in a bowl of water - planting yet to be scheduled.
And where's the gardener? In her eyrie... working on A Book for the first time in almost exactly five years.
In the garden following the storms, devastation reigns. The tomatoes are on their knees, the oleander have collapsed and the chickens are up to their knobblies in mud. The slugs are having a good feast on the courgettes, the basil, and the parsley, and the cuttings a very kind neighbour surprised us with last night are wilting in a bowl of water - planting yet to be scheduled.
And where's the gardener? In her eyrie... working on A Book for the first time in almost exactly five years.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Monday, 8 June 2009
Lavender
Continuing unsettled weather. Much cooler temperatures. Thunderstorms.
As we await the results of the elections for mayor of our fair città, the lavender is starting to flower.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Quote of the week No. 21 : On postmodernism
Woken at six this morning by a thunderstorm, torrential rain and the cat hiding under the bed.
So who could it be that can leap fearlessly from modernism, to Barbara Cartland Queen of trash, to the postmodern wooing of women?
Umberto Eco (1932-), medievalist, semiotician, novelist and author of works as diverse as : The Name of the Rose, A Theory of Semiotics, The Limits of Interpretation, Serendipities : Language & Lunacy, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna, and The Gnomes of Gnu (The Gnomes of Gnu? The Gnomes of Gnu!).
I like old Umberto Umberto - he always has something startling up his sleeve.
"The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, 'I love you madly,' because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, 'As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly'."
So who could it be that can leap fearlessly from modernism, to Barbara Cartland Queen of trash, to the postmodern wooing of women?
Umberto Eco (1932-), medievalist, semiotician, novelist and author of works as diverse as : The Name of the Rose, A Theory of Semiotics, The Limits of Interpretation, Serendipities : Language & Lunacy, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna, and The Gnomes of Gnu (The Gnomes of Gnu? The Gnomes of Gnu!).
I like old Umberto Umberto - he always has something startling up his sleeve.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Knee-high to a grasshopper
Eighteen degrees at 8am, with rain clouds swagged around the slopes of Monte Giove. The jasmine on the terrace outside the kitchen is in flower (always the last jasmine to catch on to summer), and its perfume is wafting through the house. Hmmmmm...
Found these on my camera the other day. Taken by B. (age almost-3), who has discovered how to switch Mama's point-&-shoot on (which is, let's face it, all you have to do). Interesting to see the world from a 3-year-old's viewpoint. At least, for a doting Mama.
Found these on my camera the other day. Taken by B. (age almost-3), who has discovered how to switch Mama's point-&-shoot on (which is, let's face it, all you have to do). Interesting to see the world from a 3-year-old's viewpoint. At least, for a doting Mama.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
The room at the top
Twenty-five degrees at 8:30am. Sunny with occasional clouds and a nice breeze to help us up the hill...
"Just keep walking a few steps further...not far now...almost there!"
First on the right, Carmine Superiore.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Book Notes No. 24 : Onitsha, JMG Le Clézio
Eighteen degrees at 8am and looking gloomy. Twenty-eight degrees at 11am, sunny and hot. Not having been off the Rock since last Tuesday. This morning's kindergarten run was a bit of a shock to the old ankle...
Anyway, here's the book review :
Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a youth who travels by boat to Africa in 1948 with his Italian mother to join the English father he has never met. Their destination is Onitsha, a busy city on the banks of the Niger. Initially enchanted with this new and exotic world, Fintan gradually comes to recognise the intolerance and brutality of the colonial system.
I chose this of all of Nobel prize-winner Le Clèzio's 30+ novels because of past connections with Nigeria. And I wasn't disappointed. Le Clèzio's Nigeria is the Nigeria I experienced. The stunning contrast between its poverty and its wealth. Its dangerous mystery and its heady generosity. The abrasive relationship between blacks and whites, and the deep abyss between them. Added to this is the desperation of a woman who fits nowhere in this strange new world, and the growing outrage of a boy on the verge of adulthood, learning the harsh realities of colonial life and at the same time coming to understand what it is to be a man.
This novel is brutal, intense, sensual and disturbing. I will never forget it.
Neither will you.
Anyway, here's the book review :
Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a youth who travels by boat to Africa in 1948 with his Italian mother to join the English father he has never met. Their destination is Onitsha, a busy city on the banks of the Niger. Initially enchanted with this new and exotic world, Fintan gradually comes to recognise the intolerance and brutality of the colonial system.I chose this of all of Nobel prize-winner Le Clèzio's 30+ novels because of past connections with Nigeria. And I wasn't disappointed. Le Clèzio's Nigeria is the Nigeria I experienced. The stunning contrast between its poverty and its wealth. Its dangerous mystery and its heady generosity. The abrasive relationship between blacks and whites, and the deep abyss between them. Added to this is the desperation of a woman who fits nowhere in this strange new world, and the growing outrage of a boy on the verge of adulthood, learning the harsh realities of colonial life and at the same time coming to understand what it is to be a man.
This novel is brutal, intense, sensual and disturbing. I will never forget it.
Neither will you.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Festa della Repubblica
Warm and sunny with a gentle breeze.
Today is 2nd June. Republic Day in Italy, and a holiday, which is why I'm at home kicking my heels with two rebellious whirlwinds and a large number of tourists about the place.
But 2nd June seems to have been quite a day through history. As if everyone was finally awake after their winter stupor, the springtime sowing season was over and they were looking around for something exciting to do.
In 1946 the Italians voted for a republic instead of a monarchy and threw the Savoys out. A shame, really - as Turin evidences, they really knew how to do cities.
Coincidentally (or not?), 2nd June is the death date of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1882), who fought so hard to unite Italy into a single state, arguably paving the way for the later republic to become a reality.
It is also the day (597) when Saint Augustine baptised the Saxon king Ethelbert, paving the way for the Christianisation of Britain and arguably the throwing out of all those dreadful beard-wearing Druids, ladies of the lake and a host of wood nymphs. And, coincidentally (or not?), the day 900 years later when King Henry VIII was born, the monarch who changed the face of Christianity in Britain by destroying the monasteries and creating the Church of England.
It is the birthdate of writer the Marquis de Sade (1740, and we all know what that led to), novelist Thomas Hardy (1840) and Johnnie Wiessmuller (1904), the greatest Tarzan of them all. It is the death date for John E. Feisser (1865), the founder of the first Dutch baptist church, for Vita Sackville West (1962) and Rex Harrison (1990). (No connection?).
It is the day in history (1619) when the English and the Dutch signed an accord over the business to be done in the Indies (and boy didn't they do business!), and when August van Sacksen was converted to Catholicism (1697). On this day in 1835, PT Barnum's famous circus started its first US tour and the wonderfully-named Harriet Tubman led Yankee soldiers into Maryland, freeing the slaves (1863). Back in Italy, Marconi patents the radio (1896), and far across the distant oceans, pygmies are discovered in Dutch New Guinea (1910).
And how could I forget?
Today is the anniversary of the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455.
And the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II just short of 1,500 years later.
No connection?
All in all, if you want a quiet day pottering around the garden today, as opposed to being converted to a different religion, discovered, freed, crowned or deposed, ... or having your mind boggled by the secret patterns hidden in chains of whimsical cause and effect, I suggest you keep yer 'ed down!
Today is 2nd June. Republic Day in Italy, and a holiday, which is why I'm at home kicking my heels with two rebellious whirlwinds and a large number of tourists about the place.But 2nd June seems to have been quite a day through history. As if everyone was finally awake after their winter stupor, the springtime sowing season was over and they were looking around for something exciting to do.
In 1946 the Italians voted for a republic instead of a monarchy and threw the Savoys out. A shame, really - as Turin evidences, they really knew how to do cities.
Coincidentally (or not?), 2nd June is the death date of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1882), who fought so hard to unite Italy into a single state, arguably paving the way for the later republic to become a reality.
It is also the day (597) when Saint Augustine baptised the Saxon king Ethelbert, paving the way for the Christianisation of Britain and arguably the throwing out of all those dreadful beard-wearing Druids, ladies of the lake and a host of wood nymphs. And, coincidentally (or not?), the day 900 years later when King Henry VIII was born, the monarch who changed the face of Christianity in Britain by destroying the monasteries and creating the Church of England.
It is the birthdate of writer the Marquis de Sade (1740, and we all know what that led to), novelist Thomas Hardy (1840) and Johnnie Wiessmuller (1904), the greatest Tarzan of them all. It is the death date for John E. Feisser (1865), the founder of the first Dutch baptist church, for Vita Sackville West (1962) and Rex Harrison (1990). (No connection?).
It is the day in history (1619) when the English and the Dutch signed an accord over the business to be done in the Indies (and boy didn't they do business!), and when August van Sacksen was converted to Catholicism (1697). On this day in 1835, PT Barnum's famous circus started its first US tour and the wonderfully-named Harriet Tubman led Yankee soldiers into Maryland, freeing the slaves (1863). Back in Italy, Marconi patents the radio (1896), and far across the distant oceans, pygmies are discovered in Dutch New Guinea (1910).
And how could I forget?
Today is the anniversary of the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455.
And the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II just short of 1,500 years later.
No connection?
All in all, if you want a quiet day pottering around the garden today, as opposed to being converted to a different religion, discovered, freed, crowned or deposed, ... or having your mind boggled by the secret patterns hidden in chains of whimsical cause and effect, I suggest you keep yer 'ed down!
Monday, 1 June 2009
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Monday, 29 June 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Il Sorriso della Provincia
Hot.
To Gattinara and its Chiesa di San Pietro (founded in the 11th century, with a 15th-century façade and 19th-century interior). This little chap is to be found adorning the main door, indicating one of the region's two famous products: wine. Gattinara lies in the Colline Novarese wine region, which is principally nebbiolo for reds and moscato for whites. Politically, Gattinara is in the province of Vercelli, and the town of Arborio is just down the road, so you can guess what the other local product might be.
Round the corner from the church is Gattinara's cantina sociale, where we found what seems to be a very drinkable sfuso - Gattinara 2007, a mongrel mix of nebbiolo, bonarda and vespolina grapes. At 11.5% it's not going to make Mama fall over after a couple of sips, and at 1.30 euros a litre it's not going to break the bank, even if it does break our backs getting 75 litres of the stuff up the hill.
In the entrance to the cantina sociale is a sign proclaiming, "Gattinara, sorriso della provincia". Let's hope after a few months in the cellar it will still be bringing smiles to our faces over here in this provincia too.
PS A further wildlife sighting this week : a large badger, perhaps the same one that we see shuffling about in a certain spot at least once or twice every summer.
To Gattinara and its Chiesa di San Pietro (founded in the 11th century, with a 15th-century façade and 19th-century interior). This little chap is to be found adorning the main door, indicating one of the region's two famous products: wine. Gattinara lies in the Colline Novarese wine region, which is principally nebbiolo for reds and moscato for whites. Politically, Gattinara is in the province of Vercelli, and the town of Arborio is just down the road, so you can guess what the other local product might be.Round the corner from the church is Gattinara's cantina sociale, where we found what seems to be a very drinkable sfuso - Gattinara 2007, a mongrel mix of nebbiolo, bonarda and vespolina grapes. At 11.5% it's not going to make Mama fall over after a couple of sips, and at 1.30 euros a litre it's not going to break the bank, even if it does break our backs getting 75 litres of the stuff up the hill.
In the entrance to the cantina sociale is a sign proclaiming, "Gattinara, sorriso della provincia". Let's hope after a few months in the cellar it will still be bringing smiles to our faces over here in this provincia too.
PS A further wildlife sighting this week : a large badger, perhaps the same one that we see shuffling about in a certain spot at least once or twice every summer.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Everything changes
The first day of the 77-day summer holidays has dawned misty-bright and still.
One June day in 2007, a little boy, not yet three, is sitting on a climbing frame in a hot and dusty garden surrounded by sixty other children. He is terrified and chattering, head down, eyes darting to and fro, frozen with fear. His mother has understood virtually nothing of what has been said in the parent's meeting that has preceded a tour of the kindergarten, and now, a puddle of linguistic isolation all around her, she sees his distress, and wants to weep for herself and her first-born, to snatch him away and run, run, run, to carry him off to a place that may not be so sunny, but where at least she can equip her children to meet life's big events without fear and confusion.
Two years on, a robust little girl runs down the steps on extremely sturdy legs into the same garden shouting "Hooraaaaay!" at the top of her lungs. She vies for a place on the see-saw, scrabbles around for a plastic spade in the sand pit, is introduced to the older children by a confident and sociable little boy, a fluent Italian speaker, her older brother. Occasionally she checks her mother, who, chatting with a gaggle of others, slides her sunglasses quietly down onto her nose so that no-one will see she is on the verge of tears once again. Pride in her son's achievements, pleasure at realising she herself now understands almost everything that is being said, and joy that her daughter has met one of life's big events without fear and confusion.
Everything changes.
One June day in 2007, a little boy, not yet three, is sitting on a climbing frame in a hot and dusty garden surrounded by sixty other children. He is terrified and chattering, head down, eyes darting to and fro, frozen with fear. His mother has understood virtually nothing of what has been said in the parent's meeting that has preceded a tour of the kindergarten, and now, a puddle of linguistic isolation all around her, she sees his distress, and wants to weep for herself and her first-born, to snatch him away and run, run, run, to carry him off to a place that may not be so sunny, but where at least she can equip her children to meet life's big events without fear and confusion.
Two years on, a robust little girl runs down the steps on extremely sturdy legs into the same garden shouting "Hooraaaaay!" at the top of her lungs. She vies for a place on the see-saw, scrabbles around for a plastic spade in the sand pit, is introduced to the older children by a confident and sociable little boy, a fluent Italian speaker, her older brother. Occasionally she checks her mother, who, chatting with a gaggle of others, slides her sunglasses quietly down onto her nose so that no-one will see she is on the verge of tears once again. Pride in her son's achievements, pleasure at realising she herself now understands almost everything that is being said, and joy that her daughter has met one of life's big events without fear and confusion.
Everything changes.
Friday, 26 June 2009
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
San Gottardo builds a church
Twenty-two degrees at 8:30am, with the sun shining and the wind, thankfully, no longer playing havoc with the windows and the washing. The first hibiscus are in flower.
Fresco, Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
In a scene surprisingly similar to that which unfolded when we put a new granite roof on our house, San Gottardo overseas a church-building project, with a demon hanging ominously overhead.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Quote of the Week No. 23 : On martyrdom
Neda Agha-Soltan
"It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr."
--Napoleon Bonaparte
Monday, 22 June 2009
Starter for Ten
Twenty-two degrees at 9am (yup, those late nights catching up with me), and blowy.
Inscription, Cannobio
Translation, anybody?
Translation, anybody?
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Summer solstice garden update
Hot, but with a cooling wind, and the occasional cloud to make the Sunday picnickers feel chilly enough to appreciate the warmth when the sun came out again.
On this solstice day we ate our first apricots and our first cucumber. The raspberries seem as if they may finally be over after about three weeks of fruiting valiantly under sustained assaults by the children (thank-you to Ila for giving us our first canes, two years ago). The blueberries are also fruiting.
The zucchine are not, this year, Defender F1, but still we've started our annual zucchine-with-everything season, and it looks like we'll have to endure the same dietary regime for some weeks to come.
The lavender is still in full flower and giving what seems like an entire hive of bees something to dance about. The tomatoes are doing well, and the chilli peppers are laden with beautiful long, shiny peppers - still green as yet.
What else? The roses and the strawberries are showing signs of coming into a second flower, and the pear trees, the vines, and the leeks are looking good for later in the year. The hydrangeas are good and showy, as ever, and the gladioli and the day lilies are at most a week away.
For the first time in seven years, when we started the long process of turning our little patch of campo into some sort of garden (no Ground Force 48-hour deadlines, heavy diggers, enormous budgets or gardening experts here), I looked around me this midsummer's day and found I liked quite a lot of what I saw.
And my back's killing me.
On this solstice day we ate our first apricots and our first cucumber. The raspberries seem as if they may finally be over after about three weeks of fruiting valiantly under sustained assaults by the children (thank-you to Ila for giving us our first canes, two years ago). The blueberries are also fruiting.
The zucchine are not, this year, Defender F1, but still we've started our annual zucchine-with-everything season, and it looks like we'll have to endure the same dietary regime for some weeks to come.
The lavender is still in full flower and giving what seems like an entire hive of bees something to dance about. The tomatoes are doing well, and the chilli peppers are laden with beautiful long, shiny peppers - still green as yet.
What else? The roses and the strawberries are showing signs of coming into a second flower, and the pear trees, the vines, and the leeks are looking good for later in the year. The hydrangeas are good and showy, as ever, and the gladioli and the day lilies are at most a week away.
For the first time in seven years, when we started the long process of turning our little patch of campo into some sort of garden (no Ground Force 48-hour deadlines, heavy diggers, enormous budgets or gardening experts here), I looked around me this midsummer's day and found I liked quite a lot of what I saw.
And my back's killing me.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Jack fell down, And broke his crown...
After the wild and stormy night whipped banshees around the chimney pots, today is blowy but hot, hot, hot.
Today, the kids are singing :
Today, the kids are singing :
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
Up Jack got and home did trot
As fast as he could caper
Went to bed to mend his head
With vinegar and brown paper.
Why?
Because today in Carmine our very own Jack took a tumble. Neighbour-of-the-month awards go to S. and F.; S. for leaping to the rescue and F. for getting our wounded and very wobbly soldier all the way down the hill in the midday heat and on to the hospital.
Get well soon, Jack! Hope the vinegar and brown paper works.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Carmine Quotes No.15 : What's it all about?
Hot. With a rainstorm at 5pm that drenched all those in the parco giochi, but seemed to have passed by the gardens of Carmine altogether.
A couple of evenings ago, Mama is in the kitchen and AJ, aged four-and-a-half, is supposedly in bed. Mama is feeling surprised that she still remembers every last word of that immortal Burt Baccarach creation 'Alfie' -- "What's it all about, Alfie...". And, with a glance at YouTube, thinks that Jude Law made a pretty good stab at the closing soliloquy in the 21st-century remake of the movie, but Jude Law doing it in Italian is just weird.
AJ creeps around the kitchen door. Listens quietly, and then creeps further in. Finally :
AJ : Mama, who's Alfie?
Mama : Hello darling, you're supposed to be in bed.
AJ : Yes, I know, but who is Alfie?
Mama : Well, Alfie's a man in a movie who didn't know what love is.
AJ : But we can tell him, can't we Mama.
Mama : Okay - what would you tell him? What is love?
AJ : Love is the most beautiful Mama in the world...
Mama is overcome with icky, fingers-down-the-throat Mama-love and fails to put AJ back to bed for at least another hour, which may perhaps have been the whole point...
A couple of evenings ago, Mama is in the kitchen and AJ, aged four-and-a-half, is supposedly in bed. Mama is feeling surprised that she still remembers every last word of that immortal Burt Baccarach creation 'Alfie' -- "What's it all about, Alfie...". And, with a glance at YouTube, thinks that Jude Law made a pretty good stab at the closing soliloquy in the 21st-century remake of the movie, but Jude Law doing it in Italian is just weird.
AJ creeps around the kitchen door. Listens quietly, and then creeps further in. Finally :
AJ : Mama, who's Alfie?
Mama : Hello darling, you're supposed to be in bed.
AJ : Yes, I know, but who is Alfie?
Mama : Well, Alfie's a man in a movie who didn't know what love is.
AJ : But we can tell him, can't we Mama.
Mama : Okay - what would you tell him? What is love?
AJ : Love is the most beautiful Mama in the world...
Mama is overcome with icky, fingers-down-the-throat Mama-love and fails to put AJ back to bed for at least another hour, which may perhaps have been the whole point...
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Fortress Carmine
By the looks of the clear skies and bright sunshine falling on Carmine's ancient walls this morning, it's going to be another hot, dry day.
This house is built on and around the living rock, right next to Carmine's Chiesa di San Gottardo. In my fantasy of what Carmine was like in the Middle Ages, it stood at the very heart of the ancient fortification. With its dark, low rooms, oversize fireplace, few windows and what to my mind can only have been an arrow-slit, perhaps this was Carmine's first house...
Sightings, two
Twenty-two degrees at 8:30am. Sultry. Hot indoors.
An evening excursion yesterday brought us home at twilight - oh these lovely longest days - to an enormous wild boar in Franco's orchard and a pair of foxes watching the chicken coop as if it was a drive-in movie...
The snake count so far this year is four - and that's four more than last year.
An evening excursion yesterday brought us home at twilight - oh these lovely longest days - to an enormous wild boar in Franco's orchard and a pair of foxes watching the chicken coop as if it was a drive-in movie...
The snake count so far this year is four - and that's four more than last year.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Lilies
A hot 24° at 8:30am. Blue skies and a cooling breeze.
Along the margins of Carmine's meadows and pathways, the lilies are flowering.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Feline epidemic
Twenty-one degrees at 8:30am. Overcast and heavy. Trying half-heartedly to rain.
Cat count : one dead-in-my-arms of poisoning (confirmed); one 'flu victim looking much happier after last week's veterinary intervention when his temperature reached 40°; the Mamma-di-Tutti still snoring and sneezing, but eating, recovering slowly out of her own native grit; one still languishing with neither food nor water, and intent on ripping my arms to shreds rather than ingest antibiotics. We're not quite out of the woods yet.
[PS, don't you just love semicolons? Rather like the playroom when all the toys are put away, a list correctly punctuated with semicolons gives me an immense feeling of contentment. A suitable case for treatment? Probably.]
Cat count : one dead-in-my-arms of poisoning (confirmed); one 'flu victim looking much happier after last week's veterinary intervention when his temperature reached 40°; the Mamma-di-Tutti still snoring and sneezing, but eating, recovering slowly out of her own native grit; one still languishing with neither food nor water, and intent on ripping my arms to shreds rather than ingest antibiotics. We're not quite out of the woods yet.
[PS, don't you just love semicolons? Rather like the playroom when all the toys are put away, a list correctly punctuated with semicolons gives me an immense feeling of contentment. A suitable case for treatment? Probably.]
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Friday, 12 June 2009
Quote of the week No. 22: On kindness
“Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profundity.
Kindness in giving creates love.”
Lao Tse, Chinese philosopher generally considered to be the founder of Taoism. What more can you say? Except that I hereby promise to bear in mind these beautiful words in all my dealings with my children.
PS Hot today -- 33°C at 3:30pm. But there was the shade of a beatiful tree to rest under this afternoon (grazie, Marzia per una bella festa).
Thursday, 11 June 2009
Windows
Twenty-eight degrees at 3:30pm as the cat-ambulance mee-maa'd its way to the emergency clinic (we're praying it's just a touch of 'flu). There's a kind of Englishness to the summer right now. Breezy, changeable, tantalisingly warm at times, depressingly wet at others.
Via Giovanola, in Cannobio's old quarter.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Absent gardener
Nineteen degrees at 9am. Changeable, but at least it's not raining.
In the garden following the storms, devastation reigns. The tomatoes are on their knees, the oleander have collapsed and the chickens are up to their knobblies in mud. The slugs are having a good feast on the courgettes, the basil, and the parsley, and the cuttings a very kind neighbour surprised us with last night are wilting in a bowl of water - planting yet to be scheduled.
And where's the gardener? In her eyrie... working on A Book for the first time in almost exactly five years.
In the garden following the storms, devastation reigns. The tomatoes are on their knees, the oleander have collapsed and the chickens are up to their knobblies in mud. The slugs are having a good feast on the courgettes, the basil, and the parsley, and the cuttings a very kind neighbour surprised us with last night are wilting in a bowl of water - planting yet to be scheduled.
And where's the gardener? In her eyrie... working on A Book for the first time in almost exactly five years.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Monday, 8 June 2009
Lavender
Continuing unsettled weather. Much cooler temperatures. Thunderstorms.
As we await the results of the elections for mayor of our fair città, the lavender is starting to flower.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Quote of the week No. 21 : On postmodernism
Woken at six this morning by a thunderstorm, torrential rain and the cat hiding under the bed.
So who could it be that can leap fearlessly from modernism, to Barbara Cartland Queen of trash, to the postmodern wooing of women?
Umberto Eco (1932-), medievalist, semiotician, novelist and author of works as diverse as : The Name of the Rose, A Theory of Semiotics, The Limits of Interpretation, Serendipities : Language & Lunacy, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna, and The Gnomes of Gnu (The Gnomes of Gnu? The Gnomes of Gnu!).
I like old Umberto Umberto - he always has something startling up his sleeve.
"The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows he cannot say to her, 'I love you madly,' because he knows that she knows (and that she knows that he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say, 'As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly'."
So who could it be that can leap fearlessly from modernism, to Barbara Cartland Queen of trash, to the postmodern wooing of women?
Umberto Eco (1932-), medievalist, semiotician, novelist and author of works as diverse as : The Name of the Rose, A Theory of Semiotics, The Limits of Interpretation, Serendipities : Language & Lunacy, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loanna, and The Gnomes of Gnu (The Gnomes of Gnu? The Gnomes of Gnu!).
I like old Umberto Umberto - he always has something startling up his sleeve.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Knee-high to a grasshopper
Eighteen degrees at 8am, with rain clouds swagged around the slopes of Monte Giove. The jasmine on the terrace outside the kitchen is in flower (always the last jasmine to catch on to summer), and its perfume is wafting through the house. Hmmmmm...
Found these on my camera the other day. Taken by B. (age almost-3), who has discovered how to switch Mama's point-&-shoot on (which is, let's face it, all you have to do). Interesting to see the world from a 3-year-old's viewpoint. At least, for a doting Mama.
Found these on my camera the other day. Taken by B. (age almost-3), who has discovered how to switch Mama's point-&-shoot on (which is, let's face it, all you have to do). Interesting to see the world from a 3-year-old's viewpoint. At least, for a doting Mama.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
The room at the top
Twenty-five degrees at 8:30am. Sunny with occasional clouds and a nice breeze to help us up the hill...
"Just keep walking a few steps further...not far now...almost there!"
First on the right, Carmine Superiore.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Book Notes No. 24 : Onitsha, JMG Le Clézio
Eighteen degrees at 8am and looking gloomy. Twenty-eight degrees at 11am, sunny and hot. Not having been off the Rock since last Tuesday. This morning's kindergarten run was a bit of a shock to the old ankle...
Anyway, here's the book review :
Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a youth who travels by boat to Africa in 1948 with his Italian mother to join the English father he has never met. Their destination is Onitsha, a busy city on the banks of the Niger. Initially enchanted with this new and exotic world, Fintan gradually comes to recognise the intolerance and brutality of the colonial system.
I chose this of all of Nobel prize-winner Le Clèzio's 30+ novels because of past connections with Nigeria. And I wasn't disappointed. Le Clèzio's Nigeria is the Nigeria I experienced. The stunning contrast between its poverty and its wealth. Its dangerous mystery and its heady generosity. The abrasive relationship between blacks and whites, and the deep abyss between them. Added to this is the desperation of a woman who fits nowhere in this strange new world, and the growing outrage of a boy on the verge of adulthood, learning the harsh realities of colonial life and at the same time coming to understand what it is to be a man.
This novel is brutal, intense, sensual and disturbing. I will never forget it.
Neither will you.
Anyway, here's the book review :
Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a youth who travels by boat to Africa in 1948 with his Italian mother to join the English father he has never met. Their destination is Onitsha, a busy city on the banks of the Niger. Initially enchanted with this new and exotic world, Fintan gradually comes to recognise the intolerance and brutality of the colonial system.I chose this of all of Nobel prize-winner Le Clèzio's 30+ novels because of past connections with Nigeria. And I wasn't disappointed. Le Clèzio's Nigeria is the Nigeria I experienced. The stunning contrast between its poverty and its wealth. Its dangerous mystery and its heady generosity. The abrasive relationship between blacks and whites, and the deep abyss between them. Added to this is the desperation of a woman who fits nowhere in this strange new world, and the growing outrage of a boy on the verge of adulthood, learning the harsh realities of colonial life and at the same time coming to understand what it is to be a man.
This novel is brutal, intense, sensual and disturbing. I will never forget it.
Neither will you.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Festa della Repubblica
Warm and sunny with a gentle breeze.
Today is 2nd June. Republic Day in Italy, and a holiday, which is why I'm at home kicking my heels with two rebellious whirlwinds and a large number of tourists about the place.
But 2nd June seems to have been quite a day through history. As if everyone was finally awake after their winter stupor, the springtime sowing season was over and they were looking around for something exciting to do.
In 1946 the Italians voted for a republic instead of a monarchy and threw the Savoys out. A shame, really - as Turin evidences, they really knew how to do cities.
Coincidentally (or not?), 2nd June is the death date of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1882), who fought so hard to unite Italy into a single state, arguably paving the way for the later republic to become a reality.
It is also the day (597) when Saint Augustine baptised the Saxon king Ethelbert, paving the way for the Christianisation of Britain and arguably the throwing out of all those dreadful beard-wearing Druids, ladies of the lake and a host of wood nymphs. And, coincidentally (or not?), the day 900 years later when King Henry VIII was born, the monarch who changed the face of Christianity in Britain by destroying the monasteries and creating the Church of England.
It is the birthdate of writer the Marquis de Sade (1740, and we all know what that led to), novelist Thomas Hardy (1840) and Johnnie Wiessmuller (1904), the greatest Tarzan of them all. It is the death date for John E. Feisser (1865), the founder of the first Dutch baptist church, for Vita Sackville West (1962) and Rex Harrison (1990). (No connection?).
It is the day in history (1619) when the English and the Dutch signed an accord over the business to be done in the Indies (and boy didn't they do business!), and when August van Sacksen was converted to Catholicism (1697). On this day in 1835, PT Barnum's famous circus started its first US tour and the wonderfully-named Harriet Tubman led Yankee soldiers into Maryland, freeing the slaves (1863). Back in Italy, Marconi patents the radio (1896), and far across the distant oceans, pygmies are discovered in Dutch New Guinea (1910).
And how could I forget?
Today is the anniversary of the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455.
And the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II just short of 1,500 years later.
No connection?
All in all, if you want a quiet day pottering around the garden today, as opposed to being converted to a different religion, discovered, freed, crowned or deposed, ... or having your mind boggled by the secret patterns hidden in chains of whimsical cause and effect, I suggest you keep yer 'ed down!
Today is 2nd June. Republic Day in Italy, and a holiday, which is why I'm at home kicking my heels with two rebellious whirlwinds and a large number of tourists about the place.But 2nd June seems to have been quite a day through history. As if everyone was finally awake after their winter stupor, the springtime sowing season was over and they were looking around for something exciting to do.
In 1946 the Italians voted for a republic instead of a monarchy and threw the Savoys out. A shame, really - as Turin evidences, they really knew how to do cities.
Coincidentally (or not?), 2nd June is the death date of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1882), who fought so hard to unite Italy into a single state, arguably paving the way for the later republic to become a reality.
It is also the day (597) when Saint Augustine baptised the Saxon king Ethelbert, paving the way for the Christianisation of Britain and arguably the throwing out of all those dreadful beard-wearing Druids, ladies of the lake and a host of wood nymphs. And, coincidentally (or not?), the day 900 years later when King Henry VIII was born, the monarch who changed the face of Christianity in Britain by destroying the monasteries and creating the Church of England.
It is the birthdate of writer the Marquis de Sade (1740, and we all know what that led to), novelist Thomas Hardy (1840) and Johnnie Wiessmuller (1904), the greatest Tarzan of them all. It is the death date for John E. Feisser (1865), the founder of the first Dutch baptist church, for Vita Sackville West (1962) and Rex Harrison (1990). (No connection?).
It is the day in history (1619) when the English and the Dutch signed an accord over the business to be done in the Indies (and boy didn't they do business!), and when August van Sacksen was converted to Catholicism (1697). On this day in 1835, PT Barnum's famous circus started its first US tour and the wonderfully-named Harriet Tubman led Yankee soldiers into Maryland, freeing the slaves (1863). Back in Italy, Marconi patents the radio (1896), and far across the distant oceans, pygmies are discovered in Dutch New Guinea (1910).
And how could I forget?
Today is the anniversary of the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455.
And the coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II just short of 1,500 years later.
No connection?
All in all, if you want a quiet day pottering around the garden today, as opposed to being converted to a different religion, discovered, freed, crowned or deposed, ... or having your mind boggled by the secret patterns hidden in chains of whimsical cause and effect, I suggest you keep yer 'ed down!
Monday, 1 June 2009
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