Cold, misty, and trying to rain. Carmine lies sleeping, like a cat curled up on a sofa.
New Year is the time when we are urged to think of new beginnings, new resolutions, new good intentions (with which to pave the road to hell, no doubt). But if there are beginnings there must somewhere be endings. As Seneca wrote, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”
Today, I wish you auspicious beginnings, and whatever happy endings your heart desires.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Mid-winter
Cold and overcast. Dry, but with pregnant skies. In Carmine Superiore, the snow that fell before Chrismas (see below) still lies in the angles and frost pockets, and blankets most of my garden.
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
A couple of days before Christmas, 2009
Today is the last day of this year's hunting season, and our freezers are bulging with wild boar and venison. Although I'm still conflicted on the subject of hunting, I'm absolutely clear on factory farming, and I'm glad that for a while we won't be patronising the supermarket meat counter.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Quote of the week No. 33 : paying for it
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it."
Richard Lamm (b. 1935), American politician and accountant.
Richard Lamm (b. 1935), American politician and accountant.
Friday, 25 December 2009
Best Christmas Wishes
May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace,
The gladness of Christmas give you hope,
The warmth of Christmas grant you love.
The gladness of Christmas give you hope,
The warmth of Christmas grant you love.
Colouring by AJ (aged 5).
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Monday, 21 December 2009
AL-KO 5200
Grey, cold and snowy.
And Mama is today saying "thank-you" to our most wonderful neighbours J&R for their idea to joint own the formidable AL-KO 5200, with which she has just transformed one of M's perfectly tidy log piles into an untidy mountain of comfort and joy.
The mantis-like AL-KO 5200 packs a punch of five tons, a couple of newtons more than its predecessor, a five-foot-nothing woodswoman with an ageing axe and incipient spondylosis. The uncomplicated mechanism makes it a cynch to use, even for a partnership of sprogs with a combined age of eight (wearing safety goggles, leather gloves, steel toecaps and hard hats, of course).
And Mama is today saying "thank-you" to our most wonderful neighbours J&R for their idea to joint own the formidable AL-KO 5200, with which she has just transformed one of M's perfectly tidy log piles into an untidy mountain of comfort and joy.The mantis-like AL-KO 5200 packs a punch of five tons, a couple of newtons more than its predecessor, a five-foot-nothing woodswoman with an ageing axe and incipient spondylosis. The uncomplicated mechanism makes it a cynch to use, even for a partnership of sprogs with a combined age of eight (wearing safety goggles, leather gloves, steel toecaps and hard hats, of course).
Long live social ownership! And long live the AL-KO 5200!
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Love winter
Cold and sparkly, with a picturesque mist over a glacier-blue lake.
The chicken water is frozen solid. There are four cats haunch-to-haunch on the sofa (with a feline diplomatic incident every few minutes). The icicles AJ brought indoors yesterday are still frozen in a bowl in the hall.
Up in the woods at 800m as the sun rose, my husband stopped to rest and change his sweat-soaked shirts for fresh ones. By the time he was ready to pack the damp clothes into his rucksack, they were frozen and creaking.
When he returned from his walk in the woods, we took our sheepskins and woolly hats out to the churchyard for a plate of pasta and a glass of Crémant du Jura in the sun.
Don't ya just lurve winter?
The chicken water is frozen solid. There are four cats haunch-to-haunch on the sofa (with a feline diplomatic incident every few minutes). The icicles AJ brought indoors yesterday are still frozen in a bowl in the hall.
Up in the woods at 800m as the sun rose, my husband stopped to rest and change his sweat-soaked shirts for fresh ones. By the time he was ready to pack the damp clothes into his rucksack, they were frozen and creaking.
When he returned from his walk in the woods, we took our sheepskins and woolly hats out to the churchyard for a plate of pasta and a glass of Crémant du Jura in the sun.
Don't ya just lurve winter?
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Morning after the snow
A couple of centimetres of snow underfoot and a wind that whips around the medieval corners of Carmine, sending shivers of snow down off the stone roofs to glitter in the sunshine.
Lago Maggiore, from the churchyard of the Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
after the first snow of the year, 2009
Friday, 18 December 2009
A laugh at Christmas
Minus four at 8:30am. As I left Santa sitting on his sleigh dispensing gifts to some very tired sprogs at the Traffiume kindergarten Festa di Natale tonight, it was snowing, and mine were the first snowy footprints this winter to lead up to the village on the rock.
I know this may be old hat by now, but I want it where I can get at it quickly every time I need an enormous, fall-off-your-chair laugh. The first time I saw this I laughed so much I cried. A short while later, the children, thinking Mama had finally flipped, were found worriedly dialling Telefono Azzurro, Italy's child helpline...
Thursday, 17 December 2009
The weather indoors
Minus one in Cannobio at 8:30am. Frosty and frozen. Blue skies and sunny.
About an hour-and-a-half earlier, at 7am, I clocked 6°C in the bathroom. The children and I grabbed our four layers each and headed for the kitchen to dress, where Mathilda was still humming from a fire that had gone out 19 hours previously.
About an hour-and-a-half earlier, at 7am, I clocked 6°C in the bathroom. The children and I grabbed our four layers each and headed for the kitchen to dress, where Mathilda was still humming from a fire that had gone out 19 hours previously.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Fruit in winter
Minus two and clear skies at 8:30am, with the wind whipping about our ears.
Cachi, Cannobio
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Today, the children wondered at Jack Frost's first masterwork of the year and tapped apart the year's first ice-covered puddles with their boot-toes. The temperature at 8:30am was a big, fat, round zero degrees and the skies are threatening snow.
Yesterday afternoon, every man jack of them under-6s (see yesterday's post) was a star shining bright under the gaze of their doting parents. They did us proud!
Yesterday afternoon, every man jack of them under-6s (see yesterday's post) was a star shining bright under the gaze of their doting parents. They did us proud!
Monday, 14 December 2009
Who'd be a kindergarten teacher!
Two degrees at 8:30am, the coldest morning of this winter so far. Overcast and threatening some sort of precipitation.
Love children? Try this.
Eighty under-6s, the majority under 4, and some still with dummies and comforters.
Eighty butts on the loo.
Eighty jackets on. Eighty scarfs and hats securely in place.
Eighty hopping, jumping, punching, chattering sprogs in line by twos...
And out the backdoor. Through the garden and into the street.
"Stay close to the wall, Arturo! Maria! Carlotta!"
Down the street past doting grandmothers. Past garden watchdogs. Past roadworks diggers.
"Hurry up, Giuliano! Anna! Marisa!"
Across the car park, down the backstreets.
"Look out! Here comes a car!"
Into the school theatre. Christmas tree, decorations, fake gifts in glittery boxes, magnets for little hands, soon footballs for little feet.
Deep breath.
Eighty jackets off. Scarves, hats ditto. Eighty excited little bodies onstage under the lights. Jumping, hopping, chattering, cuddling, arguing, shoving, tongues out, hair pulled. Two over-excited little bodies crying for Mama. A school for card sharps swaps Gormiti cards behind the flats. The curtains aren't working. The music's too loud. The school caretaker is growling incomprehensible dialect.
"Cantate! Forte! Sing! And sing loud!"
"We can't hear you, and if Babbo Natale can't hear you he won't know where to come..."
"Maestra...I need to go to the loo!" "Me too!" "Me too!"
Turkish toilets. How charming. Any one of these under-6s seen one of these before? Didn't think so...Okay, ragazzi think Brussels boy, ragazze just hover (as my mother used to say)...
"Again from the top, wake up! Wake up!"
Lunchtime. Deep breath.
Eighty under-6s looking for their coats, hats and scarves, only a quarter of which are labelled. Help me, maestra, help me! Help me first, maestra, help me first!" No, no Anna has Carlotta's hat and Arturo has Emilia's cardi. Elisabetta has no coat, and Oswaldo's is on upside down.
Eighty under-6s diverted from their task by theatre-style swing-seats - squeak...bump! squeak...bump! Eighty under-6s finally cajoled into lines and pointed in the direction of the kindergarten and food.
"Andiamo, tutti!"
Through the underground car park eighty under-6 voices take up a special tune:
"We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
And a happy new year..."
And the maestra d'inglese smiles a smile big enough for eighty under-6s. She thinks to herself that even if the English Christmas Song is a disaster at this afternoon's Festa di Natale in front of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, childminders and important school officials, even if she ends up wanting to shrivel up and disappear into a hole in the ground, this moment of 'spontaneous language production' has made it all worthwhile...
Love children? Try this.
Eighty under-6s, the majority under 4, and some still with dummies and comforters.
Eighty butts on the loo.
Eighty jackets on. Eighty scarfs and hats securely in place.
Eighty hopping, jumping, punching, chattering sprogs in line by twos...
And out the backdoor. Through the garden and into the street.
"Stay close to the wall, Arturo! Maria! Carlotta!"
Down the street past doting grandmothers. Past garden watchdogs. Past roadworks diggers.
"Hurry up, Giuliano! Anna! Marisa!"
Across the car park, down the backstreets.
"Look out! Here comes a car!"
Into the school theatre. Christmas tree, decorations, fake gifts in glittery boxes, magnets for little hands, soon footballs for little feet.
Deep breath.
Eighty jackets off. Scarves, hats ditto. Eighty excited little bodies onstage under the lights. Jumping, hopping, chattering, cuddling, arguing, shoving, tongues out, hair pulled. Two over-excited little bodies crying for Mama. A school for card sharps swaps Gormiti cards behind the flats. The curtains aren't working. The music's too loud. The school caretaker is growling incomprehensible dialect.
"Cantate! Forte! Sing! And sing loud!"
"We can't hear you, and if Babbo Natale can't hear you he won't know where to come..."
"Maestra...I need to go to the loo!" "Me too!" "Me too!"
Turkish toilets. How charming. Any one of these under-6s seen one of these before? Didn't think so...Okay, ragazzi think Brussels boy, ragazze just hover (as my mother used to say)...
"Again from the top, wake up! Wake up!"
Lunchtime. Deep breath.
Eighty under-6s looking for their coats, hats and scarves, only a quarter of which are labelled. Help me, maestra, help me! Help me first, maestra, help me first!" No, no Anna has Carlotta's hat and Arturo has Emilia's cardi. Elisabetta has no coat, and Oswaldo's is on upside down.
Eighty under-6s diverted from their task by theatre-style swing-seats - squeak...bump! squeak...bump! Eighty under-6s finally cajoled into lines and pointed in the direction of the kindergarten and food.
"Andiamo, tutti!"
Through the underground car park eighty under-6 voices take up a special tune:
"We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
And a happy new year..."
And the maestra d'inglese smiles a smile big enough for eighty under-6s. She thinks to herself that even if the English Christmas Song is a disaster at this afternoon's Festa di Natale in front of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, childminders and important school officials, even if she ends up wanting to shrivel up and disappear into a hole in the ground, this moment of 'spontaneous language production' has made it all worthwhile...
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Reported conversations No. 17: Learning and life
Cold, grey and rainy.
Yesterday's pre-Christmas headless chicken act included having the children fitted with their post-Christmas ski-lessons kit.
Afterwards, AJ : "The first thing you have to learn about skiing, Mama, is that you have to learn to ski."
As Panda reluctantly chugged off into the curvy darkness of the lake road home, Mama thought to herself, "I guess that goes for a lot of things in life..."
Yesterday's pre-Christmas headless chicken act included having the children fitted with their post-Christmas ski-lessons kit.
Afterwards, AJ : "The first thing you have to learn about skiing, Mama, is that you have to learn to ski."
As Panda reluctantly chugged off into the curvy darkness of the lake road home, Mama thought to herself, "I guess that goes for a lot of things in life..."
Friday, 11 December 2009
Postcard from Switzerland
Last night's roaring-in-the-chimneys wind brought not only a coughing fit for AJ but much warmer weather this morning. In Cannobio, 9°C at 8:15am and a bright shiny day.
Riom, Graubünden, on the ancient path to the Julier Pass and the Engadin beyond.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Book Notes No. 28 : The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton
Amid the snows of Switzerland I finally - finally - finished Kate Morton's second novel. It's been waiting, ever so patiently, for me to read it since Amazon delivered it with a flourish, oh, about a year ago. M. immediately cherry-picked it and set about it, and for months I forgot it was even there. Finally, one evening, I came upon it while looking for something worthy to follow J.M. Coetzee's Summertime (of which more anon), and was instantly whirled into the mists of a delightfully solid mystery-thriller. Or maybe it's a love story. Or perhaps a historical novel. Whatever. It's terrifically enjoyable.The story entwines the experiences of two women, Nell and Cassandra - grandmother and granddaughter - as they each try, thirty years apart, to unravel the mystery of Nell's origins. In 1913, Nell is found as a little girl abandoned after a gruelling ocean voyage from England to Australia. She is taken in and raised by a local family until on her 18th birthday, her adoptive father tells her the truth and the world as she knows it falls apart.
In 2005, Cassandra receives the news that her grandmother has left her a cottage in Cornwall, a cottage Cassandra never knew existed. Perplexed, she takes off in search of answers and finds not only the secret identity of Nell and her mother, but also an understanding of the importance of family and the way families - fathers, mothers and children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren - weave together the past, the present and the future.
It's a satisfyingly complex story, with beautifully-drawn and fully-rounded characters. Morton interconnects the form of the fairy tale with the main novel extremely skilfully, the most nightmarish elements of fairy tale - the wicked stepmother, the overpowering ogre, the weak king, the kidnapped innocent - emerging fully into the light in the final pages of the book. Final pages that had me weeping unashamedly into my Chasselas.
A good yarn for long winter evenings that leaves me glad, despite the hard work and the heartache, that I myself took the plunge and made a family.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Motherhood means...No. 19
Motherhood means... after five years, wondering whether and when I will feel secure enough to sleep without the greenish glow of the digital lights from the baby monitor on the bedside table.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Quote of the week No.32 : just think
Five degrees at 8:30am, with a triumphant, choir-of-angels after-the-rain sunrise.
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."
William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), American author of witty aphorisms for such august journals as Reader's Digest. It's not Dante, it's not Goethe and it's not even Wordsworth, but it is to think about.
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."
William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), American author of witty aphorisms for such august journals as Reader's Digest. It's not Dante, it's not Goethe and it's not even Wordsworth, but it is to think about.
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Thursday, 31 December 2009
The Happy End
Cold, misty, and trying to rain. Carmine lies sleeping, like a cat curled up on a sofa.
New Year is the time when we are urged to think of new beginnings, new resolutions, new good intentions (with which to pave the road to hell, no doubt). But if there are beginnings there must somewhere be endings. As Seneca wrote, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”
Today, I wish you auspicious beginnings, and whatever happy endings your heart desires.
New Year is the time when we are urged to think of new beginnings, new resolutions, new good intentions (with which to pave the road to hell, no doubt). But if there are beginnings there must somewhere be endings. As Seneca wrote, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”
Today, I wish you auspicious beginnings, and whatever happy endings your heart desires.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Mid-winter
Cold and overcast. Dry, but with pregnant skies. In Carmine Superiore, the snow that fell before Chrismas (see below) still lies in the angles and frost pockets, and blankets most of my garden.
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
A couple of days before Christmas, 2009
Today is the last day of this year's hunting season, and our freezers are bulging with wild boar and venison. Although I'm still conflicted on the subject of hunting, I'm absolutely clear on factory farming, and I'm glad that for a while we won't be patronising the supermarket meat counter.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Quote of the week No. 33 : paying for it
"Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it."
Richard Lamm (b. 1935), American politician and accountant.
Richard Lamm (b. 1935), American politician and accountant.
Friday, 25 December 2009
Best Christmas Wishes
May the spirit of Christmas bring you peace,
The gladness of Christmas give you hope,
The warmth of Christmas grant you love.
The gladness of Christmas give you hope,
The warmth of Christmas grant you love.
Colouring by AJ (aged 5).
Thursday, 24 December 2009
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Monday, 21 December 2009
AL-KO 5200
Grey, cold and snowy.
And Mama is today saying "thank-you" to our most wonderful neighbours J&R for their idea to joint own the formidable AL-KO 5200, with which she has just transformed one of M's perfectly tidy log piles into an untidy mountain of comfort and joy.
The mantis-like AL-KO 5200 packs a punch of five tons, a couple of newtons more than its predecessor, a five-foot-nothing woodswoman with an ageing axe and incipient spondylosis. The uncomplicated mechanism makes it a cynch to use, even for a partnership of sprogs with a combined age of eight (wearing safety goggles, leather gloves, steel toecaps and hard hats, of course).
And Mama is today saying "thank-you" to our most wonderful neighbours J&R for their idea to joint own the formidable AL-KO 5200, with which she has just transformed one of M's perfectly tidy log piles into an untidy mountain of comfort and joy.The mantis-like AL-KO 5200 packs a punch of five tons, a couple of newtons more than its predecessor, a five-foot-nothing woodswoman with an ageing axe and incipient spondylosis. The uncomplicated mechanism makes it a cynch to use, even for a partnership of sprogs with a combined age of eight (wearing safety goggles, leather gloves, steel toecaps and hard hats, of course).
Long live social ownership! And long live the AL-KO 5200!
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Love winter
Cold and sparkly, with a picturesque mist over a glacier-blue lake.
The chicken water is frozen solid. There are four cats haunch-to-haunch on the sofa (with a feline diplomatic incident every few minutes). The icicles AJ brought indoors yesterday are still frozen in a bowl in the hall.
Up in the woods at 800m as the sun rose, my husband stopped to rest and change his sweat-soaked shirts for fresh ones. By the time he was ready to pack the damp clothes into his rucksack, they were frozen and creaking.
When he returned from his walk in the woods, we took our sheepskins and woolly hats out to the churchyard for a plate of pasta and a glass of Crémant du Jura in the sun.
Don't ya just lurve winter?
The chicken water is frozen solid. There are four cats haunch-to-haunch on the sofa (with a feline diplomatic incident every few minutes). The icicles AJ brought indoors yesterday are still frozen in a bowl in the hall.
Up in the woods at 800m as the sun rose, my husband stopped to rest and change his sweat-soaked shirts for fresh ones. By the time he was ready to pack the damp clothes into his rucksack, they were frozen and creaking.
When he returned from his walk in the woods, we took our sheepskins and woolly hats out to the churchyard for a plate of pasta and a glass of Crémant du Jura in the sun.
Don't ya just lurve winter?
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Morning after the snow
A couple of centimetres of snow underfoot and a wind that whips around the medieval corners of Carmine, sending shivers of snow down off the stone roofs to glitter in the sunshine.
Lago Maggiore, from the churchyard of the Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
after the first snow of the year, 2009
Friday, 18 December 2009
A laugh at Christmas
Minus four at 8:30am. As I left Santa sitting on his sleigh dispensing gifts to some very tired sprogs at the Traffiume kindergarten Festa di Natale tonight, it was snowing, and mine were the first snowy footprints this winter to lead up to the village on the rock.
I know this may be old hat by now, but I want it where I can get at it quickly every time I need an enormous, fall-off-your-chair laugh. The first time I saw this I laughed so much I cried. A short while later, the children, thinking Mama had finally flipped, were found worriedly dialling Telefono Azzurro, Italy's child helpline...
Thursday, 17 December 2009
The weather indoors
Minus one in Cannobio at 8:30am. Frosty and frozen. Blue skies and sunny.
About an hour-and-a-half earlier, at 7am, I clocked 6°C in the bathroom. The children and I grabbed our four layers each and headed for the kitchen to dress, where Mathilda was still humming from a fire that had gone out 19 hours previously.
About an hour-and-a-half earlier, at 7am, I clocked 6°C in the bathroom. The children and I grabbed our four layers each and headed for the kitchen to dress, where Mathilda was still humming from a fire that had gone out 19 hours previously.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Fruit in winter
Minus two and clear skies at 8:30am, with the wind whipping about our ears.
Cachi, Cannobio
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Today, the children wondered at Jack Frost's first masterwork of the year and tapped apart the year's first ice-covered puddles with their boot-toes. The temperature at 8:30am was a big, fat, round zero degrees and the skies are threatening snow.
Yesterday afternoon, every man jack of them under-6s (see yesterday's post) was a star shining bright under the gaze of their doting parents. They did us proud!
Yesterday afternoon, every man jack of them under-6s (see yesterday's post) was a star shining bright under the gaze of their doting parents. They did us proud!
Monday, 14 December 2009
Who'd be a kindergarten teacher!
Two degrees at 8:30am, the coldest morning of this winter so far. Overcast and threatening some sort of precipitation.
Love children? Try this.
Eighty under-6s, the majority under 4, and some still with dummies and comforters.
Eighty butts on the loo.
Eighty jackets on. Eighty scarfs and hats securely in place.
Eighty hopping, jumping, punching, chattering sprogs in line by twos...
And out the backdoor. Through the garden and into the street.
"Stay close to the wall, Arturo! Maria! Carlotta!"
Down the street past doting grandmothers. Past garden watchdogs. Past roadworks diggers.
"Hurry up, Giuliano! Anna! Marisa!"
Across the car park, down the backstreets.
"Look out! Here comes a car!"
Into the school theatre. Christmas tree, decorations, fake gifts in glittery boxes, magnets for little hands, soon footballs for little feet.
Deep breath.
Eighty jackets off. Scarves, hats ditto. Eighty excited little bodies onstage under the lights. Jumping, hopping, chattering, cuddling, arguing, shoving, tongues out, hair pulled. Two over-excited little bodies crying for Mama. A school for card sharps swaps Gormiti cards behind the flats. The curtains aren't working. The music's too loud. The school caretaker is growling incomprehensible dialect.
"Cantate! Forte! Sing! And sing loud!"
"We can't hear you, and if Babbo Natale can't hear you he won't know where to come..."
"Maestra...I need to go to the loo!" "Me too!" "Me too!"
Turkish toilets. How charming. Any one of these under-6s seen one of these before? Didn't think so...Okay, ragazzi think Brussels boy, ragazze just hover (as my mother used to say)...
"Again from the top, wake up! Wake up!"
Lunchtime. Deep breath.
Eighty under-6s looking for their coats, hats and scarves, only a quarter of which are labelled. Help me, maestra, help me! Help me first, maestra, help me first!" No, no Anna has Carlotta's hat and Arturo has Emilia's cardi. Elisabetta has no coat, and Oswaldo's is on upside down.
Eighty under-6s diverted from their task by theatre-style swing-seats - squeak...bump! squeak...bump! Eighty under-6s finally cajoled into lines and pointed in the direction of the kindergarten and food.
"Andiamo, tutti!"
Through the underground car park eighty under-6 voices take up a special tune:
"We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
And a happy new year..."
And the maestra d'inglese smiles a smile big enough for eighty under-6s. She thinks to herself that even if the English Christmas Song is a disaster at this afternoon's Festa di Natale in front of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, childminders and important school officials, even if she ends up wanting to shrivel up and disappear into a hole in the ground, this moment of 'spontaneous language production' has made it all worthwhile...
Love children? Try this.
Eighty under-6s, the majority under 4, and some still with dummies and comforters.
Eighty butts on the loo.
Eighty jackets on. Eighty scarfs and hats securely in place.
Eighty hopping, jumping, punching, chattering sprogs in line by twos...
And out the backdoor. Through the garden and into the street.
"Stay close to the wall, Arturo! Maria! Carlotta!"
Down the street past doting grandmothers. Past garden watchdogs. Past roadworks diggers.
"Hurry up, Giuliano! Anna! Marisa!"
Across the car park, down the backstreets.
"Look out! Here comes a car!"
Into the school theatre. Christmas tree, decorations, fake gifts in glittery boxes, magnets for little hands, soon footballs for little feet.
Deep breath.
Eighty jackets off. Scarves, hats ditto. Eighty excited little bodies onstage under the lights. Jumping, hopping, chattering, cuddling, arguing, shoving, tongues out, hair pulled. Two over-excited little bodies crying for Mama. A school for card sharps swaps Gormiti cards behind the flats. The curtains aren't working. The music's too loud. The school caretaker is growling incomprehensible dialect.
"Cantate! Forte! Sing! And sing loud!"
"We can't hear you, and if Babbo Natale can't hear you he won't know where to come..."
"Maestra...I need to go to the loo!" "Me too!" "Me too!"
Turkish toilets. How charming. Any one of these under-6s seen one of these before? Didn't think so...Okay, ragazzi think Brussels boy, ragazze just hover (as my mother used to say)...
"Again from the top, wake up! Wake up!"
Lunchtime. Deep breath.
Eighty under-6s looking for their coats, hats and scarves, only a quarter of which are labelled. Help me, maestra, help me! Help me first, maestra, help me first!" No, no Anna has Carlotta's hat and Arturo has Emilia's cardi. Elisabetta has no coat, and Oswaldo's is on upside down.
Eighty under-6s diverted from their task by theatre-style swing-seats - squeak...bump! squeak...bump! Eighty under-6s finally cajoled into lines and pointed in the direction of the kindergarten and food.
"Andiamo, tutti!"
Through the underground car park eighty under-6 voices take up a special tune:
"We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
And a happy new year..."
And the maestra d'inglese smiles a smile big enough for eighty under-6s. She thinks to herself that even if the English Christmas Song is a disaster at this afternoon's Festa di Natale in front of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, childminders and important school officials, even if she ends up wanting to shrivel up and disappear into a hole in the ground, this moment of 'spontaneous language production' has made it all worthwhile...
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Reported conversations No. 17: Learning and life
Cold, grey and rainy.
Yesterday's pre-Christmas headless chicken act included having the children fitted with their post-Christmas ski-lessons kit.
Afterwards, AJ : "The first thing you have to learn about skiing, Mama, is that you have to learn to ski."
As Panda reluctantly chugged off into the curvy darkness of the lake road home, Mama thought to herself, "I guess that goes for a lot of things in life..."
Yesterday's pre-Christmas headless chicken act included having the children fitted with their post-Christmas ski-lessons kit.
Afterwards, AJ : "The first thing you have to learn about skiing, Mama, is that you have to learn to ski."
As Panda reluctantly chugged off into the curvy darkness of the lake road home, Mama thought to herself, "I guess that goes for a lot of things in life..."
Friday, 11 December 2009
Postcard from Switzerland
Last night's roaring-in-the-chimneys wind brought not only a coughing fit for AJ but much warmer weather this morning. In Cannobio, 9°C at 8:15am and a bright shiny day.
Riom, Graubünden, on the ancient path to the Julier Pass and the Engadin beyond.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Book Notes No. 28 : The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton
Amid the snows of Switzerland I finally - finally - finished Kate Morton's second novel. It's been waiting, ever so patiently, for me to read it since Amazon delivered it with a flourish, oh, about a year ago. M. immediately cherry-picked it and set about it, and for months I forgot it was even there. Finally, one evening, I came upon it while looking for something worthy to follow J.M. Coetzee's Summertime (of which more anon), and was instantly whirled into the mists of a delightfully solid mystery-thriller. Or maybe it's a love story. Or perhaps a historical novel. Whatever. It's terrifically enjoyable.The story entwines the experiences of two women, Nell and Cassandra - grandmother and granddaughter - as they each try, thirty years apart, to unravel the mystery of Nell's origins. In 1913, Nell is found as a little girl abandoned after a gruelling ocean voyage from England to Australia. She is taken in and raised by a local family until on her 18th birthday, her adoptive father tells her the truth and the world as she knows it falls apart.
In 2005, Cassandra receives the news that her grandmother has left her a cottage in Cornwall, a cottage Cassandra never knew existed. Perplexed, she takes off in search of answers and finds not only the secret identity of Nell and her mother, but also an understanding of the importance of family and the way families - fathers, mothers and children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren - weave together the past, the present and the future.
It's a satisfyingly complex story, with beautifully-drawn and fully-rounded characters. Morton interconnects the form of the fairy tale with the main novel extremely skilfully, the most nightmarish elements of fairy tale - the wicked stepmother, the overpowering ogre, the weak king, the kidnapped innocent - emerging fully into the light in the final pages of the book. Final pages that had me weeping unashamedly into my Chasselas.
A good yarn for long winter evenings that leaves me glad, despite the hard work and the heartache, that I myself took the plunge and made a family.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Motherhood means...No. 19
Motherhood means... after five years, wondering whether and when I will feel secure enough to sleep without the greenish glow of the digital lights from the baby monitor on the bedside table.
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Quote of the week No.32 : just think
Five degrees at 8:30am, with a triumphant, choir-of-angels after-the-rain sunrise.
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."
William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), American author of witty aphorisms for such august journals as Reader's Digest. It's not Dante, it's not Goethe and it's not even Wordsworth, but it is to think about.
"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."
William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), American author of witty aphorisms for such august journals as Reader's Digest. It's not Dante, it's not Goethe and it's not even Wordsworth, but it is to think about.
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