Twenty-eight degrees at mezzogiorno. Blue skies and a wind to turn the lake into a mass of spangles, a wind to whip water into foam, a wind to hurl windsurfers to Lombardy in the twinkling of an eye, a wind to make the woods ripple like a kelp bed in a storm.

The Brothers Traversa

Warm, but raining gently. 

Last weekend to Neive, and the vineyards of the Brothers Traversa, perched picturesquely on Canova Hill in the Langhe wine region, about two hours south of Lago Maggiore. Along the winding lake road, through the holiday-season bustle of Verbania, threading through the tunnels south, south. Past the flat rice paddies of Vercelli, now flooded and reflecting the still-snow-capped Italian Alps and studded with herons out fishing. At last we found ourselves among the gentle hills of the Langhe, on the hottest day of the year so far.








We came in search of a wine we had experienced in 2004, at a restaurant in San Giulio d'Orta. Strange how sometimes a wine label stays with you, right down to the address of the vineyard...

We were greeted by Franco Traversa and his collie, Linda, who while we were tasting, taught Jakob a thing or two about doggie manners. We filled our boot with Franco's charming 2004 Arneis, a lovely vivace Barbera - called La Giovincella - which has not yet given me the headache that usually comes with the slightly fizzy reds, and a 1999 Barbaresco for weekends and other special occasions.

Conveniently, the Traversa family run a rather nice agriturismo, from which one may visit not only their own vineyards and those of Neive, but also the more famous villages of Barolo and Barbaresco, which are both within a cork's pop.

Recommended. Merrily.

PS In Cannobio, Traversa wines can be found on sale at the ever-delightful Casa Bava.

How to bottle sunshine

Get up early on a fine day in late May when there is not a single cloud in the sky. 

With the sun just above the mountain crests on the misty far side of the lake, with light dripping down the sides of the valleys, leave home with a large bowl. Choose elder heads with the flowers just opening and place them carefully in the bowl. Be sure not to allow any of that magic dust to escape. 

Soak in fresh, cool Carmine DOC spring water, add sliced lemons warm from the tree, a healthy chunk of brewer's yeast and some sugar. 

Stir gently, weaving in dreams of happiness - your daughter's deep green eyes and your son's naughty smile, your husband's praise, your dog's devotion and your cat's contentment. 

Allow to steep for several days, then pour into bottles. Now be careful, for sunshine is volatile and potent. Pop open the bottles every four hours to release excess magic. Sample every day until just right for you. 

Savour from a champagne flute in the warm evening light with the lake glittering at your feet, the mountains towering dark behind you. 

Bottled sunshine tastes of rainbows, smells of fresh springs, sparkles on the tongue like dancing angels. Bottled sunshine puts a smile on your lips and pleasure in your heart.

Fourteen degrees at 8:30am. And raining. More than a sprinkling. 

Motherhood means ... No. 21

A slightly cooler 19°C at 8:30am. Yesterday's azure skies have been replaced by hazy clouds. A sprinkling of rain on the way, perhaps.


Motherhood means ...

always making sure, when you secretly raid the biscuits, the chocolates, the sweeties or the ice lollipops, that what remains is divisible exactly by the number of children in the house...

Pentecosta

Twenty-one degrees at the morning checkpoint, signalling the arrival of summer, at least in my book.

It's Pentecosta in Cannobio, and we are awash with visitors from Germany, Switzerland, France and the UK. The Cannobio tourism machine has flowed into action, guest houses newly painted, campground lawns newly cut and all casse manned and operational. 

Cannobio is now a city of flowers. Flowers tumbling down from balconies, overflowing planters and gaily fluttering in the municipal flower beds: azaleas, geraniums, delphiniums... And on the roof of San Vittore, the statues have shrugged off their lichen cloaks and are almost visibly warming their stone bones in the healing sunshine.

The lake road is a continuous stream of holiday traffic, and we residents breathe deeply and try our best to be Zen about driving at 20km/h, stopping at every curve, behind an RV labelled on the rear in big red letters RAPIDO.

Back in and around Carmine, the false acacia are in bloom, white and delicate laburnum-like cascades of flowers. A close runner-up to the jasmine, the false acacia grows fast like a weed in untended gardens and bosco alike. Here called rubinia, the hundreds of trees cloak us in a heavy honey-and-vanilla scent. Open the windows on the north side of the house, and soon the bedclothes are enchanted with it. Delicious! 

My garden, once a humble campo, has suddenly this year responded to my planting and nurturing over the past few years, and is now lush with all sorts of flowers, shrubs, fruits and vegetables. All the roses - pink, red, yellow and white, climbers, standards, bushes and creepers - have woken up and are proudly blooming. And yesterday, the children emerged from the far end of the garden, faces aglow with the wonder of nature and little hands full of newly-ripe strawberries. 

These Carmine scenes make me happy and help me along in the Zen department...



Visit Cannobio's spanking new website by clicking here. 
For more posts from around the world, visit My World!

On the lake

Today's temperature in the high 20s. Almost continuously sunny, with a dry and drying wind that has been blowing since Saturday. Good for the EU laundry mountain, but not so good for the newly planted lettuces.

Lago Maggiore with yacht, at the end of a hard day's boating.

Lucky me

Fifteen degrees at 8:30am. Mostly overcast, but some sunshine to brighten our spirits. 

Late last night as I walked through the dark woods home, a shooting star illuminated my way. This morning a black cat graced the my path down, and as I paused in town to tie my son's shoelaces, a blackbird crapped on my newly washed hair.

Good luck coming... Let's hope it's in the form of someone to help me with the mountain of ironing that seems to have appeared in the corner of the dressing room.

Finally!

A heady seventeen degrees at 8:20am! Blue skies, no rain. 

Arriva la bella stagione?

Tomato day

Overcast, but bright, and, significantly, not a drop of rain.

So we seized the day, and planted the tomatoes in the middle of the jungle that was once - before the rain - my garden. Phew! Now just the aubergines, the cucumbers and a few shrubs and herbs to go...

Cold, rainy and deathly dull. 


Will I ever get an opportunity to plant the tomatoes this year?

Busy morning...

This morning as we waded down the hill, it was raining, not hard, but enough to be a nuisance. At noon, after I had taught the children to lie convincingly ("My name's Carlo, and I speak English..."), rescued an injured duck from a kindergarten parapet and organised its evacuation to a vet, and was slogging two feverish and coughing kinder back up the hill, the sun was shining.


Fingers crossed (for the duck and the weather).

A good-weather charm

Thirteen degrees at 8:30am. Partly sunny, but last night's crashing thunder storm has left us with sleep deprivation, jangling nerves, and torrents where torrents should not be.

This impressionistic window, photographed in Alpe Devero on a beautiful August day last year, is a charm which I hope will bring some warmer, drier weather.

For more Window Views, click here.

Book Notes No. 34 : Fludd, Hilary Mantel

Auberon Waugh called Hilary Mantel's Fludd "A faultless comic masterpiece". But it jumped off my yet-to-read pile and into my arms not because of his illustrious recommendation, but because of what seemed to be its relevance to recent weather. I was wrong ... no Noah in sight...


In the northern mill town of Fetherhoughton, remote and backward, Father Angwin the parish priest presides over the souls of the brutish tea-swilling inhabitants. He has lost his faith and replaced it with a strong desire to be left alone, especially by the new-broom bishop. In the nearby convent, a young Irish nun yearns for freedom and a good meal, while the demonic Mother Perpetua plots her downfall.


Into this setting comes an unexpected visitor. He is wrapped somewhat unconventionally in a cloak and carries a black bag. His conversation is learned and his table manners mysterious. Fludd has come to introduce the demonic art of coffee-making, to stir up buried passions, to force confrontations. "I have come to transform you," he says. "Transformation is my business."


But who - exactly - is Fludd, and where will it all lead?


Mantel's short novel is a joy. With great skill, she brings together the mysterious and the miraculous, the commonplace and the extraordinary. The fluffy-slippered townswomen who gossip, arms crossed, on the streetside doorsteps and the bishop who likes to tear around the diocese in his big black car. The bullies in authority and the worms who eventually turn. 


Funny. Imaginative. Striking. 


And first rate.

Rain, rain, go away...

Ten degrees at 8:30am.

It looks like the English song of the week at the kindergarten is going to be:

Festa dei Palloncini 2010

Overcast and still at 6:30am. 

All Cannobio kindergarten fingers are crossed that the predicted rain will hold off this morning for the annual Festa dei Palloncini, the balloon festival with which the Cannobiese celebrate motherhood. 


Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers I know and love. 


PS This is what happened on palloncini day in 2008...

Reported conversations No. 21 : Mad and supermad

Not raining. Emerging from the house I feel like I've gone from the cold shower into the sauna. What a luxurious feeling the sun is after so many days of cold and rain!


B, aged 3, in pink pyjamas adorned with purple cats, and a long chiffon scarf trailing behind, doing the zoomies just before bedtime...


Mama : You do look wonderful! What are you doing?
B : [Jumps off the rocking horse, monkeys her way up to the top bunk and picks up the nearest cuddly creature] I'm rescuing the princess from the witch of Carmine!
Mama : You're not the princess then?
B : [Launches herself down into Mama's arms, jumps to the floor and does a quick circuit of the room] No, silly Mama, I'm not the princess!
Mama : Let me guess - a Winx?
B : [Laughs and jumps back on the rocking horse] No....
Mama : A Gormito?
B : [Purses lips and shakes head, picks up maraccas in one hand, tambourine in the other and gives them a good shaking] No....
Mama : Catwoman? Batman? Robin? Spiderman?
B : [Jumping up and down on the bed until she bangs her head on the top bunk, then launches herself onto the floor, stops dead, grins] No Maah-Maah [sarcasm at 3, God help me at 13] No Maah-Maah, I'm ...... Supermad!

Fishing boat

Eleven degrees at 8:30am, overcast, damp and cold. More rain threatening. Bliss.

Wooden fishing boat, Porto Lido, Cannobio

Water, water everywhere, part 2

A depressing 10°C at 8:30am, as we rolled into Cannobio, both piccolini wet to the knees having waded down the mountain path, recently become a river (see here). By the time Cannobio's 5-6 year-olds had learned the difference between 's' and 'th', the temperature had struggled upwards a mere one degree. But by the time I had taken advantage of a lull between rainstorms to excavate several years' worth of gunk out of some of Carmine's gutters, and directed the flood water back into the culverts, I was starting to feel warmer. 


On that note, if anyone in the two Carmines or, indeed, at the Municipio wants to offer a token of appreciation, I accept fresh Belgian chocolates in lavish quantities. Large-denomination Amazon vouchers are also accepted, to be spent on material to help teach Cannobio's 5-6 year-olds the difference between 'path' and 'river'.

Two awards!

Thanks to Mademoiselle Poirot for this gorgeously-illustrated award. The blurb reads : "A prolific blogger is one who is intellectually productive, keeping up an active blog with enjoyable content." Hmmm...after the last couple of weeks' absence, I'm not sure 'active' is quite true, but I love this award so much I promise to do better, and Jakob! Lord of Misrule promises to help me...!


Please drop by Mademoiselle Poirot. She combines beautiful interior design photography and ideas with anecdotes from London's Greenwich craft market (one of the nicer aspects of London life), where she has a regular stall. You will find her etsy here. 

Being a woman d'un certain age (where's the circumflex on this blessed keyboard?), I really, really do love this award. It comes from Carol, who used to live in exotic Thailand, and is now cosily tucked away in the West Country, in a spot very close to my heart. Her blog's pretty funny - take a look! 

For both of these awards, I'm supposed to suggest hoardes of further recipients, but Jakob! is keeping me rather busy (dog-rain-mud-tics...you get my drift) so why don't you head over to the blogroll in the sidebar - all the entries deserve these awards! 

Window view: the abandoned baita

Eleven degrees at 8:30am, and continuing wild and woolly for the morning kindergarten run - oh joy! 

Above the howling of the wind and the thundering of the rain, the Mama cat is crouched on my doorstep with a miaow to rend the heart of any mother. I haven't heard her make this noise since a faina took almost her whole litter some years back (for the story, click here). I hope some faina hasn't taken this year's recently-born little ones... 

Now for today's Window View...

Broken window, in an abandoned baita below Carmine Superiore.

For more images from around Carmine Superiore, visit the Carmine Superiore Picture Gallery. For more shots of windows and doors, visit Window Views ... and Doors Too!

Water, water everywhere...

Eleven degrees at 8:30am. Raining. Lots. 


The streams are swelling in the direction of the chicken coop, which seems ever in danger of floating away like Noah's Ark. The lake is rising in the vicinity of our little boat, a week ago safely beached, but now in danger of drifting off like Huck Finn's raft on the mighty Mississippi. 


The sentiero is in places under water as I've never seen it before, not because there is more water than ever before, but because there are fewer young, able-bodied people than ever before who are prepared to man a shovel once in a while and dig out the gutters. The septuagenarian who carried out some remedial work in the last day or two has our heartfelt thanks. 


The house smells of wet dog on the ground floor, wet children on the first floor and wet kittens on the second floor. The entrata smells of wet socks. My Wellies, I've discovered, have holes in them. Anybody know where I can buy a puncture repair kit?

Quote of the week No. 38 : On housework

A mere 12°C at 8:30am, after two days of rain (soft rain, hard rain, torrential rain, cats-and-dogs rain). Some sunshine amid the 50% cloud cover adorning the sky in tattered remnants, like net curtains after the kittens have had their claws out.


Now for the Quote of the Week :

"Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day..."

Simone Lucie-Ernestine-Marie-Bertrand de Beauvoir (1908-1986) French philosopher, existentialist, Marxist, Maoist, feminist, social theorist and novelist who enjoyed a polyamorous relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. 

I wonder how much time she devoted to the torture of Sisyphus. Next I wonder whether I would be let off the chores if I had such an expansive name, and could command all those -ists, to say nothing of the terrifyingly intellectual lover...

San Gottardo

San Gottardo and raining. 


I wonder who will come to our patronal festival mass. The sentiero will be damp. The umbrellas and raincoats will be damp. The flowers will be damp. Our souls will be damp.

Azaleas in Carmine

Weather for the last week : changeable. Hot, sunny days. Warm, overcast, humid days. Blue skies. Sudden temper-tantrum tempests. Temperatures from 15° at the 8:30am time check up to about 23° in the afternoons.

Carmine in the meantime has gone all blowsy with azaleas.