The last of the month

The last day of the month. The last of Italy's three giorni della merla, traditionally the three coldest days of the year. But not this year, according to my extremely scientific observations. Today, it was minus one at 8am, overcast and still.

The last day of the month. The day everyone expected to read illuminating and erudite comments on a novel by a Nobel Prize winner (didn't they?).

So I failed!

So sue me!

I haven't even so much as picked up Grazia Deledda's Reeds in the Wind. It's languishing in the entrance hall, covers curling in the cold air, taking on the smell of damp soil and looking unwanted.

Fact is, I'm spellbound by G.W. Dahlquist's preposterous Victorian Gothic adventure, The Glass Books of the Dream-Eaters which, at a couple of pages a night (I get tired...very tired...) is going to take just a few more nights to finish.

Patience is a virtue.

A gentle retirement

Half a degree above. Sunny, quiet, with a slight breath of wind.

Today the fate of the old king cockerel has been sealed. He will not be taking a tumbril to Madame La Guillotine. He is too beautiful and too gentle of spirit to put him in the pot just yet. We are building him a dowager house from which he can observe the political shenanigans of the princeling next door with a wry smile, and he will see out the rest of his days with a couple of handmaidens and a nice view of the lake.

That's if I can find the energy after a night playing Florence Nightingale again to my little asthmatic...

Regime change for Carmine Superiore!

Three degrees at 9am on market day in Cannobio. Clear skies. Warm sun on my face. The first snowdrops have bloomed in Franco's orchard. And the first deer-damage has been reported.

There has been a coup d'etat in Carmine.

The world of the chicken coop has been turned upside down. The reigning cockerel has been bested by the young blood, a process involving a lot of old blood. Finding the fallen hero, Mama instantly went into her world-famous UN Peacekeeper role, airlifting the fallen dictator out of the war zone - with a very excited B and an overstuffed pack of groceries (but no shoe collection) in tow. His temporary place of exile is the pantry...

...where he immediately ate all the cat food and terrified the kitten so much that he threw himself into his hedgehog impersonation and shot at the speed of light to the far end of the house.

And, what with the bird poop on the pantry floor and the crowing at 6:30am, I'm reminded of a seagull we once knew.

I wonder if 6-kg cockerels like zucchini chutney?

Con bella vista lago

Two degrees at 8am. In places frosty, but also warm in the sun.

"Rustico con bella vista lago..."

Traditional Carmine house, complete with characteristic loggia and granite piode roof. And gifted with a magnificent view of Lago Maggiore and Lombardy beyond.

PS. Sad about John Updike.




Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

The mystery solved

Warm and hazy.

Back in December, I was wondering about a lime green bird I kept bumping into round about Carmine (click here for more), and in the past few days there have been several sightings. This morning's took place in Carmine Inferiore, and gave the game away. The chappie was seen half-way up a telegraph pole...

Yup, the mystery is solved. These boys are not, disappointingly, orioles, but woodpeckers, either green or grey-headed. And there seem to be individuals in and around both Carmines.

I look forward to hearing their tap-tap-tapping which is so evocative of Carmine springs.

Cold cats and cats with colds

A mega six degrees at 9am. Cloudy, with that tantalising pre-spring smell on the air.

All the cats in Carmine have colds. If you were one of those taking a Sunday stroll around Carmine yesterday, you may not have seen our feline friends, but you may have heard the sneezing and the snoring, the wheezing and the coughing. From inside bushes, behind rickety dry-stone walls, from high up on the rooftops and from behind oversized plant pots.

I worry.

The cat infirmary has two new rooms. The pantry remains infirmary ward no. 1, equipped with a luxurious electrically heated blanket, supplied with all the zucchini chutney a cat could ever want and sleeping at present two. But now also the sitting room and the bedroom have been equipped with litter, food and water, and with snuffly tenants.

The mice, are, of course, dancing on the tabletops by moonlight and helping themselves to all the chocolate and nesting materials they can find (rugs, books, elaborately-decorated Christmas stockings...). Even if a cat decides it might have enough energy to go mousing, they can hear its wheezing around the corner and down the lane, and will have leapt commando-style, back into the woodpile before the poor cat has time to blow her nose.

I'd better get on with the ironing.

PS : About that New Year's Resolution...can I have an extension, please?
PPS : Congratulations to AJ for a fantastic school report. We're very proud of you!

Quote of the week No. 14 : International man of mystery

Three degrees at eight o'clock and blow-you-away windy. Sunshine.

Ivern Ball is an international man of mystery. I can't tell you who he is, when he was born, or if he's already dead. I have no information on his profession, religion or gender. The supposed 'he' may, indeed, be a 'she', or even (with a name like that) a racehorse. Or, perhaps, he is part of an elaborate hoax planted in cyberspace by Douglas Adams just before he died.

If you have any reliable information on this supposed person, about half a million people would like to hear from you.

The reason I mention it is that I was quite taken by the following smartass, but thought-provoking, quotation, which is ascribed to him in at least one spot in cyberspace.

"Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it's addressed to someone else."

Now doesn't that sound to you like something Zaphod Beeblebrox would say?

Please don't ever paint this door

via D. Uccelli 21, Cannobio

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

Nature at work

Two degrees at 10am. Cold, overcast but dry.

In yesterday's sunshine, I gave the chickens a few minutes of freedom and took the opportunity to take a short walk through Carmine's lanes and meadows. I was delighted to see that Nature is already at work on spring. There are narcissus and snowdrops in bud, and tiny bright yellow primulas in flower. The hazel is in exuberant mid-display and the magnolias and camellias are on the way.

Meanwhile, the young cockerel had decided to take it out on the cat, a fight ensued, the terrified chickens were scattered up hill and down dale, and my moment of carefree wandering was over.

PS By the end of the day it was snowing again.

Goings on...

A beautiful sunny, warm, blowy day. Ten degrees in the sun at 10am. The wind this morning made the ancient woodstore door creak, and I was suddenly reminded of the days (no, years) we spent with sacking over the many gaps and windows, when the slightest breeze would rampage through the house like a hurricane. How far we've come from the near-ruin we bought!

Yesterday evening, I had a date. Ssshhh, don't tell anyone. I'm madly in love with a ragazzo who's not my husband. We were off to Cannobio's lakeside for a surreptitious pizza before going back to my place.

Driving along the lungolago, we were stopped in our tracks by a river of people, streaming in all directions like the water down Carmine streets in a cloudburst. A Land Rover Defender labelled 'carabinieri' was in attendance (which always means several far-too-big guns), as were two local municipal police officers, and we carefully eased our way through the crush.

So what could this unexpected disturbance be? Was there a man-hunt under way? Was a suspicious parcel being at that moment 'made safe' in the back room of Cantina Ferro, forcing an exodus of drinkers into the streets? Or perhaps the Cannobio crochet circle had just broken up.

The men in the crowd reminded me of the fans exiting Arsenal football stadium after being beaten by Chelsea 2-1 in the last minute - heads down, shoulders sagging, low muttering. On the other hand, the women seemed for the most part vivacious, almost in festive mood, and many flirting gaily with one particular officer who is usually to be found engaged in similar duties with the mamas outside the scuola materna of an afternoon. Curioser and curioser. All in all, it reminded of the Star Ferry Terminal Hong Kong-side at rush hour.

Yes, that was it. The ferry. The very same ferry as pictured coincidentally in yesterday's post and rather hopefully titled The Daily Commute. For many who wouldn't normally be seen dead on a ferry on a work day, this week has been pretty much of a strain. The bad weather brought a landslide on the lake road - the only commutable route through to Switzerland, and work for so many Italians in this area - and it has been closed for several days.

But let's look on the bright side (have you noticed this week's theme?). It has brought some additional revenue for the ferry company. There have been fewer juggernauts on the road to scare the living daylights out of Mama as they barrel round the tight curves. There have been some additional flirting opportunities for our favourite police officer, a few more early morning pre-ferry espressos sold by the nearest caffe', and, most importantly, something to talk about with my date, as we shared our marguerita, sipped on our apple juice and watched the goings on through the pizzeria window.

And just before he dropped into an exhausted sleep last night, my ragazzo gallantly kissed my winter-weathered hand and murmured, "I love you, Mama. Tell me again. What's a landslide?".

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

The daily commute

Two degrees at 8am. Overcast and damp. Cold, cold, cold up to the ankles despite big boots and woolly socks. But you have to look on the bright side. The lichens are having a ball.

Foot ferry, Lago Maggiore

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

Against the flow

As I leapt, steaming, from the shower at 6:30 this morning, the outside temperature was a fraction above freezing, and the inside temperature was a fraction above that. Outside, it was snowing wetly. Inside, I was shivering but still glad that, because we heat with wood cut by our own fair hands, and not gas, we're not being held hostage by the Russians.

The psychologists would have us believe that yesterday was the most depressing day of the year, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to buck the trend and be happy. How could you not be with a scene like this awaiting you after the morning kindergarten run?

Monday morning, Lago Maggiore

And, finally, even without a tv and no newspaper stand here on Sasso Carmine, we know it's Obama's inauguration day - we can hear the circus from here. Many people like to be present at 'historic moments' such as these. Regretfully, the thought of two million people crammed into so small a place as Pennsylvania Avenue, and sharing a loo with 99,999 other people will be keeping me away on this occasion.

Besides, historic is as historic does...

...and, double-besides, somebody's got to feed the chickens.

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

A great way to start the week

It's actually Monday - machines aren't always right. At 8am this morning it was two degrees, damp and cold-toes chilly. In the night we had our first visit from Jack Frost, who painted ferns all over the windows. AJ was ecstatic.

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you to Karin, for so kindly sending me the Lemonade Award. This award is passed to bloggers for showing great Attitude and/or Gratitude. As always, I'm delighted!

The rules of this award:

* Put the logo on your blog or post.
* Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
* Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
* Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
* Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

My choices for the Lemonade Award are:

Braja, the blogging yogi

Dave King, for raising some really thoughtful issues

Gypsy at Heart, for doing my surfing for me

Vicki at Best Posts of the Week, for working so hard

LadyFi and PaddyK, for fascinating blogs but also starting the Strange Shores expat blog carnival

Sonia Marsh, for living through what she writes about

Jacqueline Smith, over there in Jamaica

Bella, for writing so sassy (this will be her 11th Lemonade Award)

Christine, of Strange Pilgram for her Italian experiences

Happy Monday to everyone!

Quote of the week No. 13 : On getting started with that writing project

One degree at 10am. Gloomy and drizzling.

A bone-chilling day.

A day to split oneself a few extra logs and take a snooze in the big red chair, in front of the delightful Charnwood Country 4.




Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), a figure who needs no description.

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working."

Oh really? Damn! Bang goes the snooze.



The image is Picasso, obviously...

Illustrious arrival

Four degrees at 9am. Overcast with a little breeze. This morning, the young cockerel did a curious side shuffle in the opposite direction when he saw me, and his longsuffering friend, a smaller-than-breed, lopsided hen (there's always one in every brood) jumped up on the feed bucket and let me stroke her.

Today, Grazia Deledda arrived. Not physically, of course. I can be fairly certain that she wouldn't make it up the hill. I mean a copy of her most well-loved novel, Reeds in the Wind. Now I really have no excuse but to start on my New Year's resolution, and from a quick browse through I think I'm going to enjoy it...

No-one likes a bully

The digital temperature readout attached to the Farmacia Catalucci in Cannobio this morning told me I was experiencing plus two degrees at 8:30am. I shivered in the car seat, glanced back at the children's red fingers and noses and a question-mark of doubt appeared over my head. Towing B back up the hill at 9:30am, the sun was shining warmly on our faces, making each of the five mandatory bench-stops an exercise in basking. This, and the nostalgic smell of woodsmoke on the air, is one of the reasons I love Lago Maggiore in winter.

In Carmine Superiore the past year, I have had cause to learn a new Italian word to add to my paltry vocabulary : prepotente. It's a noun, and unlike so many other Italian nouns, does not change form depending on the gender of the one you apply it to.

It means 'bully', and a bully is a bully is a bully, regardless of gender, race, creed or colour. Or species.

There has been a lot of bullying going on in Carmine Superiore recently. The bully in question is much like any other bully. He's a guy (although, coming from an all-girls school, I know intimately that the very worst bullies can be girls) whose standing in the pecking order is not what he would want it to be. He has a certain ability and this enables him to take out his bad feelings about himself on others. And other people have allowed his unacceptable behaviour to continue since he was old enough to throw his weight around. This bully can certainly give it out, but like all bullies, he can't take it when he's dealt some of his own medicine.

Carmine's bully-boy struts around the place with his chest puffed out, egged on by his single, solitary, friend. He picks on anyone within range, convinced that he is the centre of the universe and that everybody is out to get him. He is frequently inexplicably enraged, and is often to be found, his neck feathers fluffed, making the most noise and the least contribution to his particular corner of society.

Yes, you've guessed it, today is the day that Mama and the Young Cockerel did battle once and for all.

We have two cockerels among our ten-strong squad of chickens. One is a couple of years older and a couple of kilos heavier than the other. He's the boss. The younger, lighter chappie, one of the very few we bred last year, seems to think that pecking me and clawing me every time I go into the pollaio might relieve his feelings of inferiority.

Today, I had had enough of having to carry a big stick in with me every time I fed the chicks, and of watching my butt every time I bent down to check the laying boxes, and of never turning my back on the bullying wretch. To say nothing of the several times he's attacked AJ and B.

I entered. He eyed me sideways. He pecked his girlfriend and stole a piece of leftover pasta from another. I inched my way past the girlies down to the far end of the run, keeping him in my sights all the time. Convinced he was preoccupied with the remains of a nutella sandwich, I turned my back in order to clean the water fountain, and it was then that he hit me, with his spurs, at roughly calf-height. I dropped the scrubbing brush and went after him, got him in a corner, and, avoiding his beak and his claws I had him by the ankles and upside down in the air. He instantly went limp, and was again looking sideways at me, but this time with a very different expression on his beak. I knitted my eyebrows together, put on my fiercest Mama face and bellowed at him a few meaningless threats. I stood there, wondering what I should do next, and I think he was wondering what I would do next.

Instead of hauling him off to the baita and the chopping block, I gently turned him the right way up and set him down. He bobbed his head at me and headed for the security of the coop as fast as his drumsticks could carry him...

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

Today in 2008, No. 1

Zero degrees. Zero sun. Zero wind. A zero kind of day.

Today in 2008, Mama was flirting with the great god Mammon... click here for more...

Motherhood means ... No. 10

Motherhood means ... realising that potty training is actually language teaching in disguise :

I want to go pee-pee (run! run!)
I am going pee-pee (yikes!)
I have gone pee-pee (oh dear)

If I don't get to the potty right now I will go pee-pee (run, run, run fast!)
If I had got to the potty sooner I wouldn't have made pee-pee in a puddle on the rug (oh dear)

And, the Holy Grail of all potty-training tenses...

If I hadn't got to the potty quickly I would have gone pee-pee in a puddle on the rug (phew! job done!)

Mist and snow

Five degrees below up in Domodossola this morning, but here under the climatic caresses of the lake, the temperature was one degree above. Bright and sunny as yesterday, with a gigantic white waning moon hanging low over the Valle Cannobina. Spotted the first primula in my own garden this morning.

Mist over Lago Maggiore, from Giovanna's garden

Weather report

Zero degrees at 6am (oh yes, we're back on the treadmill...). By midday it was 13 degrees in the sun. Dry. Blue skies with patchy clouds. Snow still lying in the frost pockets and white horses flurrying up the lake.

Quote of the week No. 12 : On taking things too seriously

Minus one at 9am. Bright and frosty.

Garrison Keillor, American writer, satirist and broadcaster, perhaps most famous for his novel Lake Wobegon Days(1985).

"God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny."

Sant'Agata

Minus two at 9am, bright and sunny (thank-you for listening, God), with a hard frost and white horses on the lake. A day, in fact, like the day just before Christmas, when I took this picture.

Sant'Agata in the morning sun, seen from Cannobio

PS. The first primulas have been spotted blooming in Marianne's garden.

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

Carmine books

"A book is a gift you can open again and again."

--Garrison Keillor

The following books are discussed on A View from Carmine Superiore.

de Bernières, Louis : A Partisan's Daughter
Calvino, Italo : The Path to the Spiders' Nests
Clare, Alys : Heart of Ice
Currie, Ron : God is Dead
Dahlquist, G.W. : The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
Deledda, Grazia : Reeds in the Wind
Erskine, Barbara : The Warrior's Princess
Fermine, Maxence : The Black Violin
Gaiman, Neil : Neverwhere
Gregory, Philippa : The Little House
Harris, Joanne : Runemarks
Khoury, Raymond : The Last Templar
Mawer, Simon : The Gospel of Judas
Moore, Clement C. : 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
Murkoff, Eisenburg & Hathaway : What to Expect When You're Expecting
Ray, Jane : The Story of Christmas
Ruiz Zafon, Carlos : The Shadow of the Wind
Rushdie, Salman : The Enchantress of Florence
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr : The Gulag Archipelago
Sussman, Paul : The Last Secret of the Temple
Vargas Llosa, Mario : The Bad Girl
Wardley & More : The Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers and Children
Winterson, Jeanette : The Stone Gods

For lots more book reviews, author features, book news and information, click here.

Nice paint job

Cold and grey early on, becoming brighter later. Temperatures still stuck around zero. Damp, with melting snow.

What happened to our fabulous, sunny winter? The morning light should look like this...

Early morning sun, Verbania Intra

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

New Year's Nobel Resolution

It's actually Thursday January 8th.

The temperature is today hovering just above zero and the two-days'-worth of snow is gently dripping off Carmine's gutterless roofs. Overcast.

A friend-of-a-friend, writer Marita van der Vyver, and author of Reading Space, wrote recently about the new Nobel Laureate for Literature, Jean-Marie Gustave le Clezio. Her post got me thinking. For many years I've concentrated on reading the Booker Prize winners, and last year's 25-book Carmine reading list didn't include a single Nobel laureate. And while I'm relieved to say that I have in the past read several of those on The List, I can count them on the fingers of only one hand : Hesse, Coetzee, Pinter, Beckett, Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Pamuk, Lessing, Fo, Golding, Marquez, Boll, Neruda, Solzhenitsyn...how many hands is that? Oh forget about the hands, it's just not good enough!

So.

It being New Year's Resolution time, I've added one to my list. This is to read one Nobel Laureate per month for the whole of 2009.

I'll be posting the name of the Laureate and the title of the book I've chosen on the first of every month, with a reminder in the sidebar. I'll post my own paltry thoughts on the last day of the month (the vagaries of the Amazon European courier service notwithstanding). If you'd like to read and opine along with me, feel free.

In recognition of the literature of the country in which I now seem to be semi-permanently resident, this month's Laureate is Grazia Deledda, who won the prize in 1926. Born in Sardinia in 1871, Deledda published novels, short stories and a single play. You'll find out more about her here. The novel I've chosen is Reeds in the Wind, translated into English by Martha King.

Watch this space on 30th January for more...

Snowfall in Carmine

"When snow falls, nature listens."

- Antoinette van Kleeff

Carmine Superiore in the snow,

Epiphany 2009

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

La Befana, Epiphany, Twelfth Night

Minus one at 8:30am and snowing beautifully if not all that hard.

Unhappily, this means that this year we will probably not be attending the arrival of La Befana, the Italian witch who puts in an appearance on Epiphany, bringing gifts to the children. In Cannobio, she arrives at the lakeside in a coxless pair from some undefinable point on the lake, rowed by two hunks from the local rowing club, for the delight of a large crowd of expectant children (and their mothers).

The La Befana story, as far as I understand it, is as follows : in Bethlehem lives an old woman, mourning a child who died. When the angels send the shepherds to the stable, they drop in on her and invite her to come with them. In her grief for her own baby she refuses. On the way back to their flocks, the shepherds tell her all about it and she is fired with inspiration. She throws all the toys she has lying around the house into a sack and heads for the stable. Unhappily, she has missed the Holy Family, who are already on their flight to Egypt (if you'll excuse the pun). On her sad journey back home, she distributes the toys to the children she meets.

Here in Carmine it's also Twelfth Night and, as prescribed, we're undressing the Christmas tree and bundling up the cards and giftwrap for next year's craft efforts. As Shakespeare wrote (though not in Twelfth Night), "our revels now are ended" - Christmas is officially over and now it's only a matter of a couple of days before we're back on the slippery slope to kindergarten.

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

Reported conversations No. 11 : Moving house

Minus four at 8am. Dry, with a pink sunrise and a hard frost.

Walking down the hill the other day, we passed the same baita we pass every day...

AJ (aged 4) : Mama, there's a broken house.

Mama : Yes, darling. Look I think someone's using it as a shed.

AJ (lighting up with an idea) : Mama, we could buy it!

Mama : (absent-mindedly) I don't think so, sweetie.

AJ (after a pause) : No, I suppose we couldn't get it up the hill.

Book notes No. 21 : The Last Templar, Raymond Khoury

Minus four degrees at 9am. Bright and sunny. The only clouds I can see are those made when I breathe out. For the last week or so, the hillside has been ringing with chainsaws, a sign that it's tree-cutting season. And today is no exception.


"A sure sign of a lunatic is that sooner or later he
brings up the Templars"...(Umberto Eco, apparently.)

Okay, okay, so Umberto Eco has me classified as a lunatic.

So sue me - join the queue.


This book has been lurking around in my Amazon recommendations list for what seems like decades. And finally, when someone very near and dear to me gave me an enormous Amazon gift voucher for my birthday, I knew the time had come.

The Last Templaris a good read, much in the same vein as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, but with lots more history, theology and archaeology thrown in.

The story starts with the interruption of the gala opening of an exhibition of Vatican treasures by four horsemen in Templar garb wielding broad swords and doing a fair amount of damage, and leads by some fairly gripping leaps and bounds to a reasonably unexpected conclusion on an island in the Dodecanese. Along the way, our heroine tussles with her ambition and our hero suffers a crisis of faith, various documents are discovered and decoded, and not one, but two antiheroes are unmasked. There's a fair amount of blood, rather a lot of gratuitous breaking of fingers and a number of drowning horses. There's also an interesting sub-plot that's skillfully intertwined with the main storyline.

If you like this kind of thing, what makes this book worth reading perhaps more than some others in this genre is Khoury's ability to portray his main characters in three dimensions. No cardboard cutouts, no black and white. An admirable skill.

If you set aside the violence, it's a pretty good book.

But, by God, if the publishers, Duckworth, don't start employing proofreaders soon (my estimate for this job would be a measley 150 squids, kindly note), I'll be donning me chainmail, grabbing the nearest pure white steed and crashing into Cowcross Street to do a bit of damage of me own!

Click this link to buy this book from Amazon now.

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

Ristorante Graziella, Brissago

Minus one at 10am. Damp and cold and grey. Two years ago today the story of Jonathan, Carmine Superiore's favourite seagull, came to a sad end.

To a tiny gem of a restaurant on Brissago's waterfront, Ristorante Graziella, for lunch.

An interesting starter salad including an orange-based dressing, grape halves and pumpkin seeds made a change from the usual four-leaves-and-an-olive, and the fish was sumptuous, caught as it had been in the Lago di Lugano not long before it was on the plate. The alternative main course was a stroganoff that melted in the mouth and tasted somehow familiar, like home-cooking back home. Pudding choices included - did my eyes deceive me? - apple crumble served with homemade ice-cream that had both Mama and B-in-her-best-dress jumping up and down.

Swiss co-owner Bea Graenicher served with elegance, switching effortlessly from Italian to German to English while scoring ten out of ten for common sense when she produced a bib to protect B's best dress. The mystery of the apple crumble was solved with the news that the powerhouse in the kitchen was English cook and co-owner Barry Kingman.

One small criticism is that the decor is slightly lacking in character, slightly too clean-cut. Think about the eminently forgettable faces of the agents who flank the US president and you'll know what I mean. We could also have done with some music to make our conversation a little less public, and to partially camouflage the chidren's rising rambunctiousness towards the end of the meal.

However...

Our guest, himself a chef of some repute and many, many years experience, tells us that he has been a patron of Ristorante Graziella since it opened seven years ago and has never eaten badly here. And if you care about food more than you care about decor, that's quite a recommendation.

Ristorante Graziella
Lungolago, 6614 Brissago
Tel. 091 780 93 19 : 079 516 35 88
Open daily, closed Wednesday. Saturdays open from 6pm onwards.
Seats only 14, so reservations strongly recommended.

Quote of the week No. 11 : On reality

Minus two degrees at 8am. Dry, with a hard frost.

As a sometime writer of guides for travellers, I found this quote from Islington genius Douglas Adams (1952-2001) gloriously ironic :

"The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."

I miss Douglas Adams.

Click this link to buy this book.



Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.

New Year's wishes

Cold and damp, with a scattering of snow from last night. New Year's Eve 2008 was the first in my seven in Carmine with rotten weather. The turnout on the churchyard for the Macagno fireworks was, not surprisingly, poor. At least Carmine's sometime resident owl was back from its travels and having a hoot.

When I was a child I used to calculate and re-calculate the age I would be in the Year 2000. Today, the stunning sunrise that greeted me the first day of the new millennium is a misty memory, and I can't believe I'm now having to calculate the age I was that year.

When B was no more than a dottie in my arms, I remember saying to a friend and colleague that I wouldn't be re-joining the workforce until - gasp - 2009. Well, that year that seemed so far away has arrived with lightning speed. My time as a dedicated housewife and mother has gone in the blinking of an eye.

I wish you a very happy and peaceful New Year. I wish you success in your endeavours and true contentedness in your relationships. I hope 2009 brings you everything you wish for yourself and your loved-ones. And I hope you'll take one teeny-tiny piece of advice from me : don't blink, or you'll miss it.

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.