Rain stops play

After a glorious, bright, eye-squintingly clear weekend, today, the day of the annual school trip in montagne, is grey, cool and threatening rain. 

Good for the 100+ newly-planted basil plants, not so good for the eager, packed-lunch dotties who flew down the hill in an excess of expectant energy. Cancellato is a difficult word to spell when you're 6, and an even more difficult one to get over when you're not-quite-5. 

Life's tough.

Out-cooked ... already

A wild, windy, wet and shockingly cold day. 


I first visited Italy about - ouch - 25 years ago. We spent a month lounging about the Cinque Terre, and in our group we counted a rather erudite Dutch artist. Said Dutch artist was designated cook for the group, being the only one who could. Cook. I - the only woman - certainly couldn't. Apart from some great leaps forward in the past 10 years under the tutelage of my dear beloved, whose work may be thinking but whose life is definitely cooking, I still hold the title as the worst cook he has ever met. 

Anyway, said Dutch artist, before leaving us to meet his boyfriend in Marseille showed me how to make a caprese salad, and until now I was very proud to be able to do at least that with a little Dutch artist flair. 

Yesterday evening, I let my daughter loose with the basil, tomatoes and mozarella... I'm now reassessing my frame of reference.

Insalata caprese. By B.

Aged four.

Beautiful visitor

Hot and sultry after teasing us with light rain during our descent first thing this morning. Perhaps tomorrow we'll be treated to a good soaking...

A Little Emerald moth (Jodis lactearia), just out of its cocoon, rests on the door of Carmine Superiore's Chiesa di San Gottardo. A good place to gather strength for tasks ahead.

Carmine backstreet

Twenty-four degrees at 8am, and looking set to be another dry 30+ day again. 

I'm off to make hay before it spontaneously combusts, or it gets so hot that I spontaneously combust. I shall think from time to time of Carmine's shady lanes...

Unexpected colour in one of Carmine's back doubles.

May 2011.

Ciliegi nostrani

Today the sweet cherries came to shining-red, taut and juicy ripeness. 

Carmine cherries. 

No carcinogens, no hormone disruptors, no neurotoxins, no bee toxins. 

No Boscalid, no Bifenthrin, no Carbaryl, no Propiconazole. 

Just C02 and rainwater and sunlight.  

Firm, smooth cherries, straight from branch to mouth. 

My little tree-climbing monkeys didn't leave much left over for jam...

Rough love

Sometimes love can make you feel just a little bit battered.

Especially if the one who loves you is Jakob! Lord of Misrule.

Nineteen degrees at 8am. With a cool breeze in the treeze.

A day for...

Twenty degrees at 8am. Clear skies and biting insects.

A glorious day for building walls and pathways, making hay, carrying logs home from the woods and weeding the garden.

None of which I'm doing.

A spot of colour

Chives in the garden.

Carmine Superiore, May 2011

Quote of the week No. 46: On dogs and other animals

Since the arrival of Jakob! Lord of Misrule, I have probably read more dog-training handbooks than I read babycare books. The latest is by "dog whisperer" Cesar Millan, entitled Cesar's Way (recommended), and the following left me wondering:

"...in order to have a balanced dog, you must provide three things: 50% exercise, 25% discipline and 25% affection..."

What did it leave me wondering? It left me wondering whether it might work for husbands... 

May bulletin

Twenty-eight degrees at 3pm. With a soothing breeze. We expect rain tomorrow.

Here in Carmine today all is quiet but for the tweeting of chicks in their nests, the rustling of lizards in the ivy and the slithering of snakes among the grass. The Easter visitors have for the most part gone away, and the steady stream of tourists has for now slowed to a trickle. 

My own brood of chicks are out in Palazzo Pollo, growing fast. They’ve come to the chicken equivalent of the ugly-wugly acne-greasy-hair stage common to many teenagers. They look as if they are about to expire from some nasty chicken disease, but in fact it’s just their second round of feathers coming in. This brood is particularly pleasing. They seem to have imprinted on me, and when I pay them a visit I am immediately surrounded, pecked and leapt upon. One habitually flies up to my shoulder where he pecks at my grey hairs, and the other day succeeded in stealing a pearl earring. One day I expect to find it again in a roast, like the peasant girl in The Fish and the Ring… I hope so, I had no idea of the price of decent pearls in this part of the world!

In the garden I’ve finally succeeded in planting tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes and basil, and we are already celebrating the first strawberries, cherries and red currants. The roses are a dream this year after a hard pruning in the winter. At San Gottardo their perfume, mingled with melissa and rosemary, filled the church.

Talking of perfume, I was several times at Galzignano, a thermal spa resort near Venice. (Did I mention how much I love spas? I did? Oh. Okay.) Swimming pregnant in the warm spa waters, I found myself surrounded by islands planted with flowering jasmine, and was immediately enchanted. I determined to make Carmine smell as good, and this year have finally augmented our stock of poet’s jasmine by another four plants.

If you happen to pass by while they are in flower – predicted for next week - I hope they bring the enchantment of the Arabian Nights to you too.   

How to get there

After so many days of drought, with temperatures in the mid-20s, we woke to the smell of warm, gentle rain on dry laundry. 

Carmine Superiore, Villaggio Millenario.

Follow the arrows past the cappella and keep going up, and up, and up.

You'll find me at the top.

Raindrops on ... sedums

A minute work of art sheltering against the San Gottardo churchyard wall.

Festa Patronale di San Gottardo, May 2011.

The worst and the best job in the world

Another glorious sunshine day, a day to deck the Chiesa di San Gottardo with first roses and fling the doors open for the San Gottardo mass. 

To all ye who took on the worst paid job in the world, the job with no fixed hours, no holidays, no pay, no early retirement, and definitely no promotion prospects (unless you happen to be Her).

To all ye who opted for a relationship with no chance of divorce. For cold little hands creeping into yours. For unthinking trust and innocent love and small-body cuddles that never end. For the pleasure of seeing the world through the eyes of a child. For the privilege of watching them grow, learn, strive and succeed.

Happy Festa della Mamma! 

Window view, Varzo

It's 7am, Saturday morning. From the window of my study I can see blue skies above - a day for the great outdoors and some serious watering.

Window, Varzo.

No need to water those flowers.

A taste of honey

Overcast and cool. 


Today, we're once again bottling sunshine, an activity that signals late spring. The rubinia trees are in full bloom now. On the south side of Carmine, the woods are full of them, and on Carmine's tiny panoramic piazza, the scent of honey wafting across the valley from them is una meraviglia. This year, the elderflower mix includes a few rubinia flowers - an experiment in pleasure.

San Gottardo

San Gottardo the feast day of the patron saint of Carmine Superiore, has dawned bright, beautiful and dry.

San Gottardo, I should explain, operates in much the same way as St Swithin. They say hereabouts that if it rains on San Gottardo, it will rain for forty days. 

Phew!

Orange

Overcast and damp following last night's rain (wouldn't the world be a great place if the rain always fell at night?). Thank-you, Signor Sindaco, for the chappies I can hear outside my window cutting the knee-high grass on the path down the hill. Now the snakes will have to find somewhere else to lurk.

Now showing in Carmine Superiore: California poppies, sown six years ago, and reappearing every year in technicolor

(like everything California). 

Motherhood means ... No. 29

Motherhood means...


... a feeling of relief on the last day of term with the prospect of 'holiday' stretching before you, and a feeling of equal if not greater relief on the first day of term standing in a house ringing with welcome solitude...

The old trattoria

A beautiful morning, with blue skies and a gentle breeze in the fresh leaves. A good day for the vegetable patch...to see if I can make it less patch and more vegetables.

Remnants of former culinary glory.

Varzo, VCO.

(Close to Iselle, the old borgo of Varzo is worth a detour if you find yourself a couple of hours early for the Simplon Tunnel train.)