Cold, bright and sunny, and with a wind that's kicking up a spray down at the lake.

Quote of the week No. 34 : On self-determination

Dry, overcast and wintry. Minus one at 8:30am. I giorni della merla, day two.

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), American politician, orator and freethinker.

"Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence.

Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result."

Minus one at 8:30am. It's one of those unusual days where there is a low-lying mist, but blue skies and strong sunshine above. The pearly light makes me think of the shining of angels' wings.

A plague upon our heads

Zero degrees at 8:30am. But the bright sunshine is warm enough to take our lunch, of pasta homemade with our own eggs, out to the churchyard beside the Chiesa di San Gottardo, where spring thoughts come unbidden and we start to make plans for the garden.

As all mothers know, the first few terms in the kindergarten hothouse for microbes are a litany of sickness. If it's not a cold it's the 'flu, if it's not the 'flu it's a tummy bug. From about October well into the following spring (okay, summer) everybody in this family has been for the last two years either sickening, sick or sicker. And sometimes all three at the same time. And more so since I took the rather rash decision to say 'yes' to the school board's kind request to introduce Cannobio's under-6s to my own mongrel language, which clearly also includes doing the business with 30 dribbling noses and a box of Kleenex.

But a week or so ago, there seemed to be a pause in the frantic round of temperature-taking, food and drug administration, disinfection of vomit-spots and all those secret pleasures of motherhood. It was as if an angel had passed over, raising a shining hand to still the storm, and Mama looked around the kitchen, slightly mystified. Two children, four Carmine cats. No coughs, retches, sneezes. No floppiness, no hot foreheads, no flushed cheeks. No aching limbs, no deathly pallor.

I was just starting in on the biggest sigh of relief I could raise, and thinking about opening a bottle of crémant du Jura to celebrate, when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of something disturbing. There it was again in another part of the room. And again...and, oh my God, again.

Scratching.

B., eyes glued to Cinderella was scratching the back of her head vigorously. The Big Cat, Trouble and the Girl Cat were all in various yoga asanas, scratching, gnawing and nibbling.

Bugger! Dammit! And blast! Because Mama was doing it too - just the scratching that is (the yoga is next year's New Year's resolution).

So, Mama headed off to the herbalist for Paranix spray (recommended) and declared a girls' night in with B. The first ever, considering that Mama isn't very girlie, and B is only three. We ponged out the bathroom with ylang-ylang, we sprayed and waited. We shampood and we lathered, lathered and rinsed. And we finished off Mama's stock of fancy Joe Mallone shampoo to celebrate being female and to help us forget the ambient air temperature in the bathroom was 4°C. And then came the fifteen minutes of B-torture with the fine-tooth comb. And about an hour for Mama, whose hair is again longer than it ought to be for a woman of a certain age.

Soon, the itching had stopped and the scratching abated. And now all that remained was for Mama to spend a couple of days lurking around the village like a Stephen King loony-lady with a syringe full of anti-cat-flea serum. Not that I'm casting aspersions on the cats, I just thought I might as well get the little jumpy-jumpies that were bothering the cats as well while I was in the mood. Oh yes, and the other thing that remained was the mountainous plague-pile of clothes and bedding waiting to be laundered at 60°.

Phew. Panic over. As you were. Mama saves the day again.

Yesterday, I turned up at my first kindergarten class of the week and was greeted by the usual group of little bodies hurtling towards me for a welcome hug. As I leaned down, my loose hair brushed several little heads. Inwardly I smiled with nit-free contentment as I worked through our weekly flashcard contest to start the morning off, when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of something disturbing...

Sunset

Minus one at 8:30am, and Kellogg's frosty. But the sun is shining, the skies are blue and the bone-aching damp is disappearing fast.

Alpine sunset, seen from downtown Locarno.

For more images of Carmine Superiore, Cannobio, Lago Maggiore and beyond, visit The Carmine Superiore Picture Gallery

Today is yesterday's weather-twin. One degree at 8:30am, and not a single who-dares-wins ray of sunshine penetrating the damp folds of clouds that are sagging over the valleys.

Book notes No. 30 : The Constant Mistress, Angela Lambert

I picked up a Penguin paperback edition of Angela Lambert's 1994 novel, The Constant Mistress, in a second-hand bookshop almost a year ago and it has been lying in a pile of similar second-hand treasure ever since. What made me choose it to follow Henry Porter's political thriller, I don't know. The two books couldn't be more different.

The front cover sports a quote from Beryl Bainbridge, writing in the now defunct Woman's Journal. Its says, "A compulsive read ... funny, observant and very real". Hmmm. I can't help wondering whether in fact dear Beryl got this book mixed up with advance proofs of Bridget Jones's Diary, and here's why.

The story of The Constant Mistress revolves around 44-year-old Laura, a woman with only months to live. On being handed the death sentence, Laura, who has never married, but has enjoyed a very active love life and a pretty successful career, brings together a dozen of the men who have shaped her emotional, sexual and professional life and announces that they are to play an important part in her last months.

With this device, Lambert goes on to look back at Laura's life through her many and extremely diverse loves, from studenthood and publishing in the glory days of the 1960s to international trade in the 1990s. And with it come meditations on love, family, fidelity, passion, domesticity, loneliness, promiscuity and children.

And a mystery. For Laura has a secret.

At the same time, Lambert unflinchingly describes Laura's illness, hepatitis C, which rapidly distorts her once-lovely body, and creepingly robs her of her energy, focus and sense of self.

Beryl, this book is not "funny". Wry, perhaps, yes. And this makes it not as dark as my outline would suggest. It is full of beautifully sketched characters, some you immediately fall madly in love with, and some you itch to strangle. And Laura herself is a real tour de force. There is no sentence wasted, and Lambert's descriptions of people and places are so true to life that I felt at times transported back to my old haunts in London publishing, particularly in the 1980s.

I would urge any woman who came of age in that short window of time between the invention of the Pill and the appearance of AIDs (and Bridget Jones) to seek out a copy of this book - although signs are it's unhappily now out of print (what are Penguin thinking?).

That's if you don't mind finding yourself weeping helplessly as I did through much of the second half. On the train, in parked cars, on the plane, over a solitary lunch, or cuddled up by the wood burner with a favourite cat.

I promise it will speak to you amid the Kleenex.

Cold day

Grey, cold, misty and humid.

And don't let me forget that wind. The kind of wind that hides until you're committed to the path down and you think you're okay without a hat, then sears you around the ears.

Even at 3pm, there's still a thick crust of ice on the chickens' water, and the willow sticks M. bundled up yesterday and left in the brook have become decorated with icicles.

The locals have their hands in their pockets, dewdrops on their noses and home-and-fireside in their downward steps.

We're heading for the giorni della merla, and don't we know it!

Apricot sunrise

Cold, gloomy and resentfully damp. Today we cut the willows that grow beside the brook. M. discovers a sudden enthusiasm for teaching himself to weave willow baskets. I locate a good hiding place in the dressing room, where I spend the rest of the day pretending to reorganise his city shoes.

Winter sunrise across Lago Maggiore,
seen from Carmine Superiore.

Little glimmers of joy

Zero at eight. Overcast. Damp. Hibernation-weather.

Amid the horror and the nightmare that is Haiti, two stories to warm the heart.

A 22-day-old baby, Elisabeth Josaint, is rescued alive and well after eight days in the rubble. A baby, alone without food and water, without the comfort of other human bodies around her. For eight whole days. The people of Jacmel say she's a miracle.

I'm inclined to agree.

And this mother, a week with barely a morsel to eat nor a drop to drink, starts her labour in the devastated streets, but collapses before she can get to the hospital. A BBC reporting team drive her there, and after an emergency operation, a healthy baby boy is born: a new life.

Please click here to prove how grateful you are that it isn't you, by giving generously.

Minus one again at 8am, rising to 11° at midday. Bright sunshine and clear skies.

The length of a cock crow

Minus one at 8am. Starting clear with a pretty hard frost.

January is the month when we occasionally reflect on that fateful decision to live in a stone house and heat it with wood... Still, the hazel is loaded with catkins, the primulas have started to appear and each day is longer than the last by the length of a cock crow (as they say hereabouts). Time to be busy with seeds...

Image : Ben Terrett, Noisy Decent Graphics (and Kellogg's)

Let us pray

Hands folded in prayer

Fresco detail, Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore

Kreativ blogger award

What a lovely way to start the year! Bev, not far from me here in Italy, has nominated me for this great award. Bev's blog, Romancing Italy, is all about her expat life here, and the love affair that brought her to this fair country. Take a look!

The instructions for this award are as follows:

1) Thank the person who sent the award. [Thanks, Bev, I really appreciate it!]
a) Copy the award to my blog [Above]
b) Link to their blog [Above]

2) List seven things people don't know about me

i) I adore cheesecake
ii) I hate book launches
iii) I also hate book fairs, especially Frankfurt
iv) I was once accepted for VSO
v) I spend a disproportionate amount of time chasing chickens
vi) If I don't have a cup of tea within 20 minutes of waking up you'd better hope it's because I'm going back to sleep
vii) I love reading etymological dictionaries

3) Nominate seven bloggers for the award
a) Link to those blogs
b) Leave a comment to let them know of their award

i) Strange Pilgram
ii) Tlalocland News
iii) On a Quirky Quest with Lady Fi
iv) Gutsy Writer
v) Suburb Sanity
vi) Joy inthe Burbs
vii) Family Fountain

Have a good day!

Book Notes No. 29: The Dying Light, Henry Porter

Zero at eight. Hazy sunshine, with pink sunrise strands over the snow-capped Alps. The first primulas have started to appear.

Has this ever happened to you? Somebody mentions an old friend, say, or some topic of interest, and over the next couple of weeks the same subject arises again and again in different contexts? I'm sure it has. And many times. In fact, this kind of thing is so common that Swiss psychologist Carl Jung gave it a name : synchronicity.

Recently, I experienced just such a network of interrelated coincidences. First, I read in the news that in Britain the local councils, the equivalent of the Italian comune, have trebled the numbers of CCTV cameras on the streets, despite the clear evidence that they do nothing to deter crime, or indeed to help in the prosecution of criminals. I was none too surprised to find my own home town in the top ten, having more than four cameras per 1,000 residents. The Outer Hebrides topped the list with more than 8 cameras per 1,000 residents. With a population of just over 26,000, that's a staggering 208 cameras.

And they're not cheap.

And surely the Outer Hebrides has nothing more than a bunch of sheep to safeguard...?

Then one day, I was listening to BBC Radio 4 over a cup of tea. A segment came on about a new piece of equipment being tested by the Manchester Police Force - ominously called a 'drone', but in fact a small radio-controlled flying gadget with a camera mounted on it. The Manchester Police Force are ecstatic. Now they can spy on whoever they like whenever they like, without the cost and rigamarole of calling out the local helicopter squadron. Those who like to take an innocent stroll at odd times of the day or night are not so sure.

Later that day, a friend was complaining about New Labour's new biometric ID card, currently compulsory only for immigrant workers and foreign students, but already being offered to British citizens, who despite decades of resistance seem actually to be taking them up voluntarily thinking that by doing so they might in some obscure way be helping to solve Britain's benefits-fraud problem. And worse, its tie-up with the new DNA super-database, which includes DNA information even on people who have never so much as asked a policeman for directions, let alone been arrested or prosecuted.

My mind really started ticking when I saw that our local computer shop here in Italy is displaying a sophisticated range of surveillance equipment for private use, and then that it seems to have become à la mode to mount a sweet little webcam on the handlebars of one's motorcycle, of all things. What could it be for? I asked myself. I could only reach the conclusion that bikers far and wide have finally admitted to a vanity we all knew they possessed in buckets. They have found a way to watch themselves breaking the ton with the sun sparkling on their opaque Darth Vader visors (or dog ends from passing motorists getting stuck in their Lynyrd Skynyrd beards, depending on nationality, age and engine capacity). In the meantime, however, they record the activities of any person who comes within range of the parked machine.

And finally, I read a review of a new novel called The Dying Light (published in the US as The Bell Ringers, I believe), by Britain's self-styled guardian of liberty, Henry Porter, whose name rang a definite bell in that part of my dim and distant memory that related to my early days in the world of London publishing, but that's another story altogether...

The synchronicity was too strong to be ignored. My mind, working on its own, quickly grouped these events by meaning as Jung describes and forced my One-Click-Ordering hand. I bought the book, despite not being a huge fan of the thriller genre.

Here's the blurb. 1.) Former intelligence officer dies in bomb attack. 2.) Estranged soulmate inherits his house, lots of dosh and some disconcerting messages from beyond the grave. 3.) Said soulmate finds herself and a lot of other people under surveillance and in some instances under attack. 4.) All is gradually revealed and the dènouemont rages to a breathtaking finale.

Unputdownable! Really.

The author's note makes it clear, if it is not clear enough by the last page, that while the story is a fiction (bound for Hollywood, perhaps?) the structures within British society that would enable the given scenario to become a reality are already in place. One merely needs to project forward a few years. Spy drones, spy cameras, human spies and computerised spies. It all adds up to a Big Brother-style society in which ordinary people acquiesce in the slow and silent theft of their liberty because they think they are being made more secure.

And as Benjamin Franklin once wrote : "Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither".

A nighttime visit

Two degrees at 8:30am. Overcast, damp and shivery.

Our garden has been visited again, this time by not one but by what seems like an entire team of destructor machines. Sus bloody scrofa, no doubt after the young bulbs that are starting to shoot just below the surface of what used to be a nicely terraced grassy hideaway and is now looking more like a pile of overgrown rubble.

Hmmm...time to call in the boys in green and their delicious aftershave...

Reported conversations No.17 : the problem with similes

Two degrees at 8:30am, rising to four degrees at 11am. Grey and drizzly. The promised snow dusted the rooftops of Sant'Agata at 450m asl but dared no further.

Mealtimes in the big house on the hill are a bustling chaos. Four people and any number of cats in the same few square metres, all tripping over each other in an effort to get somewhere too fast.

M., like some devilish alchemist, is at the helm of the wood-burning cucina economica, on which lie various copper pots all bubbling away, with an ancient water kettle in the centre flipping its lid as it boils. B is usually to be found skittering around at floor level tidying up dolls, building bricks, miscellaneous parts of Transformers, and reams and reams of paper. She's popping everything into her doll's pram (that's pee-ram in this house because it's used to ram every piece of furniture, door jamb and human leg in sight). AJ is quite sensibly counting out knives, forks, glasses and plates and putting them on the table in the hopes of 50¢ for his bulging piggy bank. Mama is officiating at the table, "no, the knife on the right, darling, fork on the left..."

The other day, amid the call and response of instruction, backchat, conversation and inter-sibling insult, a little voice pipes up :

AJ : "B., you have to be careful of the paper"
B : "Why? Why you be careful da paypurr?"
AJ : "Because it will cut you. (Taking on Mama's best maestra tone) You see it's sharp."
B : "Da paypurr sharp?"
AJ : "Yes, B. it will cut you."
B : "Paypurr for drawin', paypurr not for cuttin' "
AJ : "Believe what I say, B. You have to be careful of paper. Paper can be as sharp as a fork..."

Sponge-cake, anyone?

A lonesome one degree at 8:30am. Starting bright and sunny. Ending overcast and damp.

But let's look on the bright side. After a moulting-season pausa and a looooooong cold-weather sciopero, the chickens (sadly depleted to only 14 following hawk strikes on two successive days) have started laying again. And Mama needs to get baking again.

[Click here for last year's sparrow-hawk drama, same month, same modus operandi, same perpetrator?...]

Good intentions

Two degrees at 8:30am. Sparkling sunshine, sparkling waterfalls, sparkling eyes of the kindergarten kids fresh from the Christmas holidays and ready to show off their favourite Santa gift.

And it looks like I'm taking that paved road to hell...!