Rosemary in bloom.
Carmine Superiore, February 2011.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Chaos
A gorgeous blue-sky day outdoors in Carmine Superiore. Frost on the ground. By 2pm, the temperature was 20°.
Inside first thing. The washing up is piled high on every surface. The laundry is halted, lying soggy in the basket in mid-process. The sofa has been dismantled to make a sick-bed and the entire cuddly-toy population is scattered underfoot with the sofa cushions. Mama's desk is strewn with homework, half-done colouring pages, accountants' bills, cryptic post-it notes, sick-bed DVDs and half-empty pots of Vicks.
Jakob! Lord of Misrule has found Mama's last remnant of London chic - a scarlet Aran-patterned cashmere sweater - and is gnawing it to bits on the kitchen floor. Mama is already nursing today's dog-bite, and has given up trying to rescue it. Hopefully he'll get bored before destroying it utterly.
Between AJ's night of coughing breathlessness and B's night of sibling jealousy, Mama's night was non-existent. There's not even a fire alight in Mathilda.
Where to start?
Another cup of tea, methinks.
Inside first thing. The washing up is piled high on every surface. The laundry is halted, lying soggy in the basket in mid-process. The sofa has been dismantled to make a sick-bed and the entire cuddly-toy population is scattered underfoot with the sofa cushions. Mama's desk is strewn with homework, half-done colouring pages, accountants' bills, cryptic post-it notes, sick-bed DVDs and half-empty pots of Vicks.
Jakob! Lord of Misrule has found Mama's last remnant of London chic - a scarlet Aran-patterned cashmere sweater - and is gnawing it to bits on the kitchen floor. Mama is already nursing today's dog-bite, and has given up trying to rescue it. Hopefully he'll get bored before destroying it utterly.
Between AJ's night of coughing breathlessness and B's night of sibling jealousy, Mama's night was non-existent. There's not even a fire alight in Mathilda.
Where to start?
Another cup of tea, methinks.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
The church on the rock
Eleven degrees at eleven ayem when I went to pick up a very flushed and cough-y sort of boy from school...
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore.
February 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Friday, 18 February 2011
Carmine spring watch 2011: February birdlife
A sunny day up here on the rock, but with a fair wind humming a contralto line around the highest eaves.
Suddenly, Carmine and the surrounding woodlands are full of birds. Our friends the wrens, the robins and the blackbirds are still scooting around the gardens, and the crows are, as often, making the woods ring. Now the swifts have returned, arcing gracefully and silently around the church tower, settling in a flock from time to time on the sunny roofs to soak up the warmth of the sun on the stone.
In the woods, the creaking of the trees is overlaid by the determined knocking of the woodpecker, and today I see him, flashing his red stripes from tree to tree, tapping experimentally in likely spots like an action hero looking for a secret door in the panelling. I always look forward to watching the woodpeckers choosing a nest-site and rearing their young.
Even the chickens have visitors. A pair of brightly-coloured jays swoop heftily away as I round the corner of our baita. I hope to tempt them back with a little pile of red lentils. Less welcome - the chicken-mangling buzzard. I can see a pair swirling over the baita now, watching and waiting.
Watching and waiting.
Suddenly, Carmine and the surrounding woodlands are full of birds. Our friends the wrens, the robins and the blackbirds are still scooting around the gardens, and the crows are, as often, making the woods ring. Now the swifts have returned, arcing gracefully and silently around the church tower, settling in a flock from time to time on the sunny roofs to soak up the warmth of the sun on the stone.
In the woods, the creaking of the trees is overlaid by the determined knocking of the woodpecker, and today I see him, flashing his red stripes from tree to tree, tapping experimentally in likely spots like an action hero looking for a secret door in the panelling. I always look forward to watching the woodpeckers choosing a nest-site and rearing their young.
Even the chickens have visitors. A pair of brightly-coloured jays swoop heftily away as I round the corner of our baita. I hope to tempt them back with a little pile of red lentils. Less welcome - the chicken-mangling buzzard. I can see a pair swirling over the baita now, watching and waiting.
Watching and waiting.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Strada romana
Four degrees at 8am. Damp with the occasional drizzle of rain, and clouds straggling through the trees.
The 'Roman road', buried in the woodlands near Carmine Superiore. A truly ancient path, laid by the hands of Roman workers? Or a later construction? It doesn't really matter, I know I tread where many, many travellers have trodden before. I pass through the whisps of their ghostly stories, carrying my own, living tale with me. As I set my foot where so many and so diverse must have set theirs, I try to imagine the rich tapestry of their lives intertwined over the centuries. The illiterate peasants, the grim-faced pilgrims, the determined merchants, the lost travelling souls, the criminals dragged here to the gallows. And did San Gottardo really walk this way? Perhaps also San Carlo Borromeo on a pastoral visit, or the piratical Mazzardi brothers, fleeing their nemesis...
I think if only I can walk softly enough, all these ghosts will resolve themselves out of the mist and I will overhear their stories, their Canterbury tales, whispering in my ear, the words made gentle by time, shivering like leaves falling.
The 'Roman road', buried in the woodlands near Carmine Superiore. A truly ancient path, laid by the hands of Roman workers? Or a later construction? It doesn't really matter, I know I tread where many, many travellers have trodden before. I pass through the whisps of their ghostly stories, carrying my own, living tale with me. As I set my foot where so many and so diverse must have set theirs, I try to imagine the rich tapestry of their lives intertwined over the centuries. The illiterate peasants, the grim-faced pilgrims, the determined merchants, the lost travelling souls, the criminals dragged here to the gallows. And did San Gottardo really walk this way? Perhaps also San Carlo Borromeo on a pastoral visit, or the piratical Mazzardi brothers, fleeing their nemesis...
I think if only I can walk softly enough, all these ghosts will resolve themselves out of the mist and I will overhear their stories, their Canterbury tales, whispering in my ear, the words made gentle by time, shivering like leaves falling.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
At Piana di Vigezzo
Finally, finally, through the dark of the pre-pre-dawn, I hear the gentle patter of rain from heaven upon Carmine beneath...
Door with prescription.
Just what we need to get us through the rest of February.
For more Windows and Doors from around the world, click here.
For more Windows and Doors from around the world, click here.
Monday, 14 February 2011
Valentine graffiti
Mild, damp and misty this February 14th.
I hate graffiti. It intimidates me. In underpasses, on abandoned factories and houses, in railway yards, in impossible spots. Graffiti artists mark out their territory in places a woman alone perhaps shouldn't be. Perhaps will regret being. Perhaps goes there anyway.
This place is other. This is not-you. This is us. We are brutal, virile, dangerous. We oppose you. This is our war-paint. Enter at your own risk.
In London, that is.
In Cannobio, jewel of Lago Maggiore, the graffiti on the underpass walls tell a different story.
A love story. A love story all hearts and flowers, and ti amo 4 ever. A love story full of adolescent insecurity, longing and bravado. Strangely, while the anglophone world looks to Italian as the language of passion, these youngsters pepper their pantings with English.
Back in Cannobio, another kind of amorous declaration has appeared. The practice of sealing a relationship with a padlock and throwing the key into a river, down a sheer mountainside or into some other unreachable location, has reached us all the way from China, where it was originally used to seal a bargain made with the ineffable. Step out onto Cannobio's Ponte Ballerino, the footbridge that crosses the Cannobino river and connects Cannobio with Traffiume, and one is greeted by lock after lock, many etched with the stock phrases of eternal love in Italian, German and English. All winking in the sunshine. All, we have to assume, unassailable.
I hate graffiti. It intimidates me. In underpasses, on abandoned factories and houses, in railway yards, in impossible spots. Graffiti artists mark out their territory in places a woman alone perhaps shouldn't be. Perhaps will regret being. Perhaps goes there anyway.
This place is other. This is not-you. This is us. We are brutal, virile, dangerous. We oppose you. This is our war-paint. Enter at your own risk.
In London, that is.
In Cannobio, jewel of Lago Maggiore, the graffiti on the underpass walls tell a different story.
A love story. A love story all hearts and flowers, and ti amo 4 ever. A love story full of adolescent insecurity, longing and bravado. Strangely, while the anglophone world looks to Italian as the language of passion, these youngsters pepper their pantings with English.
Five minutes away in Switzerland, however, the authorities are one step ahead of the graffiti artists. Here, the public loos in Ascona's lakeside playground are pre-graffitified, not with the stutterings of juveniles but with whimsical poetry in French and Italian. Still, even the Municipio has a heart: the theme, as ever, is l'amour.
Back in Cannobio, another kind of amorous declaration has appeared. The practice of sealing a relationship with a padlock and throwing the key into a river, down a sheer mountainside or into some other unreachable location, has reached us all the way from China, where it was originally used to seal a bargain made with the ineffable. Step out onto Cannobio's Ponte Ballerino, the footbridge that crosses the Cannobino river and connects Cannobio with Traffiume, and one is greeted by lock after lock, many etched with the stock phrases of eternal love in Italian, German and English. All winking in the sunshine. All, we have to assume, unassailable.
Happy San Valentino, however you choose to express yourself...
And if you're the architect responsible for the Ponte Ballerino, perhaps you might like to rework your sums for the extra weight...how much love can one bridge take?
Saturday, 12 February 2011
In praise of rosehips
The first overcast and misty day for what seems like yonks. Consequently, the temperature is back to being much more February than April.
One of my favourite herbal teas is rosehip. Last year in the autumn I was pretty hard pushed and failed to take off the rosehips, but they were still there this week when I went out to prune the roses, waiting patiently on the plants, ready dried.
For a decent rosehip tea, crush the dried rosehips and add about two tablespoons to half a litre of boiling water, add honey to counteract the acidity. Some people vary the recipe with either crushed mint or hibiscus flowers.
I understand that rosehips are an excellent source of vitamin C, which I'm renaming 'the February vitamin', and a daily intake of rosehip powder from Rosa rugosa has been shown to reduce inflammation and pain in osteoarthritis. After all this week's garden labouring and dragging of books up the hill, I think I could do with some.
Dried rosehips in an old wooden scale-pan.
For a decent rosehip tea, crush the dried rosehips and add about two tablespoons to half a litre of boiling water, add honey to counteract the acidity. Some people vary the recipe with either crushed mint or hibiscus flowers.
I understand that rosehips are an excellent source of vitamin C, which I'm renaming 'the February vitamin', and a daily intake of rosehip powder from Rosa rugosa has been shown to reduce inflammation and pain in osteoarthritis. After all this week's garden labouring and dragging of books up the hill, I think I could do with some.
Friday, 11 February 2011
Old trash, but no Old Norse
A short while back I was harrumphing over the trash increasingly being dumped along the beautiful woodland footpath, the Via delle Genti, which leads from Cannobio to Cannero through Carmine.
So why, pray tell, don't I get worked up about this bit of old trash?
Answers on a postcard, please.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Dessert
Yesterday we clocked 15° at 3pm. Although this morning's early doggie-doddle-in-the-dark was somewhat chillier than of late, the temperature in the sun at midday hit 19°.
Preventative medicine during February, the fever month.
Delicious dessert for lunch al fresco in the winter sun.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Sunrise with a tree
Another warm and sunny day today, but there is still frost lying in the places where the sun doesn't shine.
As the world turns and the days get longer, the magical time for daily sunrise sensations is coming to an end. Only a week or so ago, my early morning walk coincided with sun-up. Now I'm just too late for the show. So here's what might be one of the last winter sunrises of 2010-2011:
Winter sun rising behind the hills of Lombardy.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Book notes No. 44 : The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman
Today in Carmine Superiore, we are promised by thems-as-know a high of 17°, and certainly the day has started out so Mediterranean that all the windows are open and there's linen and laundry tumbling from every window-sill.
Another Philip Pullman novel. In fact his latest, and definitely for adults, with its provokingly bold red jacket with gold and black lettering (in the UK, anyway).
Oh, it's the Independent that called it "provokingly bold". The Sunday Times called it "a hand grenade made by Fabergé", and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (no less) told The Guardian (who else) that it was a "deliberately outrageous fable". And I think that's a compliment.
Pullman has had a great idea. Give Jesus a twin brother. Call him Christ. And then retell the New Testament as it could possibly have been. Simple? Not that simple. Who is the good man, here? And is Christ really the scoundrel? What is the difference between history and truth, and what is the writer's role in the making of fables that last, that more than last, that inspire millions to belief in the seemingly impossible? In fact, the only thing that could be called simple about this novel is the language and the episodical structure, which so perfectly imitate that of the New English Bible. (I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury considers the Bible a 'deliberately outrageous fable' - you never know these days.)
Pullman's structure, the simple language and this great idea together enable him to explore a host of dualities starting from good (perhaps Jesus) and bad (perhaps Christ), touching on mind-body, death-life, rich-poor, sin and purity, and describing, from the historical standpoint of Year Zero AD a potential Church that could be perfect - the Kingdom of God on Earth - and could just as easily be diabolically corrupt.
It's a small-ish book, but perfectly formed. It is provoking and disturbing and in many ways extraordinary. And I have a feeling it might turn out to be important...
So read it.
Another Philip Pullman novel. In fact his latest, and definitely for adults, with its provokingly bold red jacket with gold and black lettering (in the UK, anyway). Oh, it's the Independent that called it "provokingly bold". The Sunday Times called it "a hand grenade made by Fabergé", and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (no less) told The Guardian (who else) that it was a "deliberately outrageous fable". And I think that's a compliment.
Pullman has had a great idea. Give Jesus a twin brother. Call him Christ. And then retell the New Testament as it could possibly have been. Simple? Not that simple. Who is the good man, here? And is Christ really the scoundrel? What is the difference between history and truth, and what is the writer's role in the making of fables that last, that more than last, that inspire millions to belief in the seemingly impossible? In fact, the only thing that could be called simple about this novel is the language and the episodical structure, which so perfectly imitate that of the New English Bible. (I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury considers the Bible a 'deliberately outrageous fable' - you never know these days.)
Pullman's structure, the simple language and this great idea together enable him to explore a host of dualities starting from good (perhaps Jesus) and bad (perhaps Christ), touching on mind-body, death-life, rich-poor, sin and purity, and describing, from the historical standpoint of Year Zero AD a potential Church that could be perfect - the Kingdom of God on Earth - and could just as easily be diabolically corrupt.
It's a small-ish book, but perfectly formed. It is provoking and disturbing and in many ways extraordinary. And I have a feeling it might turn out to be important...
So read it.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Carmine spring watch 2011: scilla
Today, Carmine Superiore is billowing with intoxicatingly warm air, direct, I assume, from the Mediterranean. It feels like an English summer out there. Can't last, but I think the worst of winter is over.
This week, the first scilla have come into bud, and F.'s orchard is sprinkled with primulas and snowdrops.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Bel vedere
Warm and sunny. Tree cutting and rose pruning. Outdoor lunching. Spotted the first butterfly of the year, in exactly the same place as last year's first butterfly...there's a zoology thesis in there somewhere.
The tiny piazza beside Carmine Superiore's San Gottardo church offers a magnificent view of Lago Maggiore, the coast of Lombardy and the Swiss Alps. It can't be missed - after all, Carmine has only four 'streets', if you could call them that.
This viewpoint is famous, and obvious, although I'm always amazed at the number of walkers who shoot straight through the village without locating either frescoes or panorama.
A not-quite-so-famous viewpoint takes in not only the lake and sights beyond, but also the village itself, with its stone roofs and pretty gardens. My neighbour, G., has made a sign so that you can't miss it...
From here, the great spur of rock on which Carmine is built becomes visible. And from here you get a real sense of why, more than 1,000 years ago someone put his hands on his hips, squinted his eyes against the sun and saw that this would be a good place to build a fortress.
Definitely worth the short climb.
The tiny piazza beside Carmine Superiore's San Gottardo church offers a magnificent view of Lago Maggiore, the coast of Lombardy and the Swiss Alps. It can't be missed - after all, Carmine has only four 'streets', if you could call them that.
This viewpoint is famous, and obvious, although I'm always amazed at the number of walkers who shoot straight through the village without locating either frescoes or panorama.
A not-quite-so-famous viewpoint takes in not only the lake and sights beyond, but also the village itself, with its stone roofs and pretty gardens. My neighbour, G., has made a sign so that you can't miss it...
Definitely worth the short climb.
Friday, 4 February 2011
Survivor
Not many plants survive in my house. But surprisingly this cyclamen has been adorning our bathroom windowsill for several months. It must be the cold weather indoors...
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Bandir gennaio!
What do tin cans, long lengths of string, large numbers of under-10s and spring have in common?
Bandir gennaio! On January 31, all the local kindergarten and schoolchildren banded together with their pushchair siblings to banish January and hasten on the coming spring. Their weapon of choice? The noisiest tin cans available strung onto long string 'tails' and dragged along the old town cobbles.
With excitement. With delight. With giggling, screaming, eye-twinkling pleasure.
For once, they were allowed to make a noise, and, boy, did they rise to the occasion!
PS If today's weather is anything to go by, they must have succeeded. More blue skies, warm sunshine with a little breath of cold air to keep us on our toes.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Book Tiramisu: a recipe
Another bright, bright sunshiney day. Fourteen degrees at 2pm. It was winter days like these that seduced me into leaving The Smoke.
Book tiramisu is, as the name suggests, a great pick-me-up. Pick me up, pack me up, haul me up, open me up and lap me up.
An alternative name for this recipe might be 'How to raise over 1,000 books through 100m vertical without a helicopter, a mule or an obliging Ecuadorian' (and that's another story).
You will need:
1,000 books, miscellaneously and hurriedly boxed, and at the end of a long transcontinental journey deposited finally at the foot of the hill in that mobile storecupboard known as a car
1 large, strong rucksack, clean and empty
1 small 40-something (female) with Welsh pit-pony antecedents
10 tons of patience
1 qualified chiropractor with a sense of humour on stand-by
1. Skip down hill carrying the clean rucksack and beaming with anticipation. You may wish to fill the rucksack with empty barbera bottles or old chicken-feed sacks, for the recycling station at the car park. In which case, trudge.
2. At the car park, search for the mobile storecupboard. Who knows where the über-chef left it last?
3. Once the mobile storecupboard is located, locate the keys. Open the door. Take a deep breath. Open the nearest box. Pounce on a particularly cherished old friend, sit down on the floor cross-legged and start reading. When your butt starts to freeze, come back to your senses and carefully arrange a few of the books in the clean rucksack, filling it evenly.
4. Try to get the rucksack on. Crumple beneath the weight. Open rucksack, remove a few books, read their titles, light up with joy, then remove a few more, replacing with the first books taken out. Read the titles of the second batch of books. Spend at least 10 minutes trying to decide which titles to bring up first and which to bring up later. This is an important step in the recipe and should not be hurried. Remember that you've been apart seven long years, and that they've covered exactly 1313km to be with you today. Twenty-four more hours won't extinguish the flames of your passionate bibliophilia.
5. Look through a few more of the boxes stacked in the mobile cupboard, and grab a crippling armload of old favourites that smell of East End attic and nostalgia, and without which you simply cannot live another minute. (At this point in the process it's crucial not to let any participles dangle.)
6. Slog the whole lot up the hill, stopping at every bench, resisting the urge to resist the urge to start reading.
This could take some time...
7. At home, carefully decant the books onto the kitchen table. Now carefully decant about 4oz of Jura crémant into a crystal glass and taste. Get a roaring fire going in the hearth and drag up a heinous green hand-me-down armchair. With a slightly damp cloth, remove any traces of chicken poop and wine dribbles from the dust jackets and slip cases. Call the chiropractor and make an appointment. Inform the children that at suppertime it's every man for himself, and, trying not to think about how many times you're going to have to schlepp up and down the hill, which will almost certainly curdle your tiramisu, enjoy the midwinter pick-me-up...
The first haul (literally):
Our Bodies Ourselves - Boston Women's Health Book Collective (ah the feminist seventies, awash with mysterious phrases like 'women's collective' and 'orgasm' and 'fondue')
Ancient Greek Literature - Dover et al (from the pre-college summer reading list, along with Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, a revelation in thought for an 18-year-old small-town grammar-school girl)
Untying the Text, A Post-Structuralist Reader - Robert Young (one day I'll make sense of post-structuralism if it kills me, and it probably will)
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolf (book better than the movie - I can't abide Tom Hanks)
Lesbian Images - Jane Rule (blame my thesis supervisor)
English Journey - JB Priestley (must have been a free gift)
The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici - Christopher Hibbert (full of great quotes - e.g.: "He has emblazoned even the monks' privies with his balls...").
African Adventures - H. Rider Haggard (boxed set of three, tough on the shoulders)
Do not disturb.
Book tiramisu is, as the name suggests, a great pick-me-up. Pick me up, pack me up, haul me up, open me up and lap me up.
An alternative name for this recipe might be 'How to raise over 1,000 books through 100m vertical without a helicopter, a mule or an obliging Ecuadorian' (and that's another story).
You will need:
1,000 books, miscellaneously and hurriedly boxed, and at the end of a long transcontinental journey deposited finally at the foot of the hill in that mobile storecupboard known as a car
1 large, strong rucksack, clean and empty
1 small 40-something (female) with Welsh pit-pony antecedents
10 tons of patience
1 qualified chiropractor with a sense of humour on stand-by
1. Skip down hill carrying the clean rucksack and beaming with anticipation. You may wish to fill the rucksack with empty barbera bottles or old chicken-feed sacks, for the recycling station at the car park. In which case, trudge.
2. At the car park, search for the mobile storecupboard. Who knows where the über-chef left it last?
3. Once the mobile storecupboard is located, locate the keys. Open the door. Take a deep breath. Open the nearest box. Pounce on a particularly cherished old friend, sit down on the floor cross-legged and start reading. When your butt starts to freeze, come back to your senses and carefully arrange a few of the books in the clean rucksack, filling it evenly.
4. Try to get the rucksack on. Crumple beneath the weight. Open rucksack, remove a few books, read their titles, light up with joy, then remove a few more, replacing with the first books taken out. Read the titles of the second batch of books. Spend at least 10 minutes trying to decide which titles to bring up first and which to bring up later. This is an important step in the recipe and should not be hurried. Remember that you've been apart seven long years, and that they've covered exactly 1313km to be with you today. Twenty-four more hours won't extinguish the flames of your passionate bibliophilia.
5. Look through a few more of the boxes stacked in the mobile cupboard, and grab a crippling armload of old favourites that smell of East End attic and nostalgia, and without which you simply cannot live another minute. (At this point in the process it's crucial not to let any participles dangle.)
6. Slog the whole lot up the hill, stopping at every bench, resisting the urge to resist the urge to start reading.
This could take some time...
7. At home, carefully decant the books onto the kitchen table. Now carefully decant about 4oz of Jura crémant into a crystal glass and taste. Get a roaring fire going in the hearth and drag up a heinous green hand-me-down armchair. With a slightly damp cloth, remove any traces of chicken poop and wine dribbles from the dust jackets and slip cases. Call the chiropractor and make an appointment. Inform the children that at suppertime it's every man for himself, and, trying not to think about how many times you're going to have to schlepp up and down the hill, which will almost certainly curdle your tiramisu, enjoy the midwinter pick-me-up...
The first haul (literally):
Our Bodies Ourselves - Boston Women's Health Book Collective (ah the feminist seventies, awash with mysterious phrases like 'women's collective' and 'orgasm' and 'fondue')
Ancient Greek Literature - Dover et al (from the pre-college summer reading list, along with Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, a revelation in thought for an 18-year-old small-town grammar-school girl)
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (thanks S.)
The Captain's Verses - Pablo Neruda (bilingual edition - passion and poetry - we were so young)Untying the Text, A Post-Structuralist Reader - Robert Young (one day I'll make sense of post-structuralism if it kills me, and it probably will)
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolf (book better than the movie - I can't abide Tom Hanks)
Lesbian Images - Jane Rule (blame my thesis supervisor)
English Journey - JB Priestley (must have been a free gift)
The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici - Christopher Hibbert (full of great quotes - e.g.: "He has emblazoned even the monks' privies with his balls...").
African Adventures - H. Rider Haggard (boxed set of three, tough on the shoulders)
I Know why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou (and I know why my poor knees creak).
Do not disturb.
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Monday, 28 February 2011
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Chaos
A gorgeous blue-sky day outdoors in Carmine Superiore. Frost on the ground. By 2pm, the temperature was 20°.
Inside first thing. The washing up is piled high on every surface. The laundry is halted, lying soggy in the basket in mid-process. The sofa has been dismantled to make a sick-bed and the entire cuddly-toy population is scattered underfoot with the sofa cushions. Mama's desk is strewn with homework, half-done colouring pages, accountants' bills, cryptic post-it notes, sick-bed DVDs and half-empty pots of Vicks.
Jakob! Lord of Misrule has found Mama's last remnant of London chic - a scarlet Aran-patterned cashmere sweater - and is gnawing it to bits on the kitchen floor. Mama is already nursing today's dog-bite, and has given up trying to rescue it. Hopefully he'll get bored before destroying it utterly.
Between AJ's night of coughing breathlessness and B's night of sibling jealousy, Mama's night was non-existent. There's not even a fire alight in Mathilda.
Where to start?
Another cup of tea, methinks.
Inside first thing. The washing up is piled high on every surface. The laundry is halted, lying soggy in the basket in mid-process. The sofa has been dismantled to make a sick-bed and the entire cuddly-toy population is scattered underfoot with the sofa cushions. Mama's desk is strewn with homework, half-done colouring pages, accountants' bills, cryptic post-it notes, sick-bed DVDs and half-empty pots of Vicks.
Jakob! Lord of Misrule has found Mama's last remnant of London chic - a scarlet Aran-patterned cashmere sweater - and is gnawing it to bits on the kitchen floor. Mama is already nursing today's dog-bite, and has given up trying to rescue it. Hopefully he'll get bored before destroying it utterly.
Between AJ's night of coughing breathlessness and B's night of sibling jealousy, Mama's night was non-existent. There's not even a fire alight in Mathilda.
Where to start?
Another cup of tea, methinks.
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
The church on the rock
Eleven degrees at eleven ayem when I went to pick up a very flushed and cough-y sort of boy from school...
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore.
February 2011
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Friday, 18 February 2011
Carmine spring watch 2011: February birdlife
A sunny day up here on the rock, but with a fair wind humming a contralto line around the highest eaves.
Suddenly, Carmine and the surrounding woodlands are full of birds. Our friends the wrens, the robins and the blackbirds are still scooting around the gardens, and the crows are, as often, making the woods ring. Now the swifts have returned, arcing gracefully and silently around the church tower, settling in a flock from time to time on the sunny roofs to soak up the warmth of the sun on the stone.
In the woods, the creaking of the trees is overlaid by the determined knocking of the woodpecker, and today I see him, flashing his red stripes from tree to tree, tapping experimentally in likely spots like an action hero looking for a secret door in the panelling. I always look forward to watching the woodpeckers choosing a nest-site and rearing their young.
Even the chickens have visitors. A pair of brightly-coloured jays swoop heftily away as I round the corner of our baita. I hope to tempt them back with a little pile of red lentils. Less welcome - the chicken-mangling buzzard. I can see a pair swirling over the baita now, watching and waiting.
Watching and waiting.
Suddenly, Carmine and the surrounding woodlands are full of birds. Our friends the wrens, the robins and the blackbirds are still scooting around the gardens, and the crows are, as often, making the woods ring. Now the swifts have returned, arcing gracefully and silently around the church tower, settling in a flock from time to time on the sunny roofs to soak up the warmth of the sun on the stone.
In the woods, the creaking of the trees is overlaid by the determined knocking of the woodpecker, and today I see him, flashing his red stripes from tree to tree, tapping experimentally in likely spots like an action hero looking for a secret door in the panelling. I always look forward to watching the woodpeckers choosing a nest-site and rearing their young.
Even the chickens have visitors. A pair of brightly-coloured jays swoop heftily away as I round the corner of our baita. I hope to tempt them back with a little pile of red lentils. Less welcome - the chicken-mangling buzzard. I can see a pair swirling over the baita now, watching and waiting.
Watching and waiting.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Strada romana
Four degrees at 8am. Damp with the occasional drizzle of rain, and clouds straggling through the trees.
The 'Roman road', buried in the woodlands near Carmine Superiore. A truly ancient path, laid by the hands of Roman workers? Or a later construction? It doesn't really matter, I know I tread where many, many travellers have trodden before. I pass through the whisps of their ghostly stories, carrying my own, living tale with me. As I set my foot where so many and so diverse must have set theirs, I try to imagine the rich tapestry of their lives intertwined over the centuries. The illiterate peasants, the grim-faced pilgrims, the determined merchants, the lost travelling souls, the criminals dragged here to the gallows. And did San Gottardo really walk this way? Perhaps also San Carlo Borromeo on a pastoral visit, or the piratical Mazzardi brothers, fleeing their nemesis...
I think if only I can walk softly enough, all these ghosts will resolve themselves out of the mist and I will overhear their stories, their Canterbury tales, whispering in my ear, the words made gentle by time, shivering like leaves falling.
The 'Roman road', buried in the woodlands near Carmine Superiore. A truly ancient path, laid by the hands of Roman workers? Or a later construction? It doesn't really matter, I know I tread where many, many travellers have trodden before. I pass through the whisps of their ghostly stories, carrying my own, living tale with me. As I set my foot where so many and so diverse must have set theirs, I try to imagine the rich tapestry of their lives intertwined over the centuries. The illiterate peasants, the grim-faced pilgrims, the determined merchants, the lost travelling souls, the criminals dragged here to the gallows. And did San Gottardo really walk this way? Perhaps also San Carlo Borromeo on a pastoral visit, or the piratical Mazzardi brothers, fleeing their nemesis...
I think if only I can walk softly enough, all these ghosts will resolve themselves out of the mist and I will overhear their stories, their Canterbury tales, whispering in my ear, the words made gentle by time, shivering like leaves falling.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
At Piana di Vigezzo
Finally, finally, through the dark of the pre-pre-dawn, I hear the gentle patter of rain from heaven upon Carmine beneath...
Door with prescription.
Just what we need to get us through the rest of February.
For more Windows and Doors from around the world, click here.
For more Windows and Doors from around the world, click here.
Monday, 14 February 2011
Valentine graffiti
Mild, damp and misty this February 14th.
I hate graffiti. It intimidates me. In underpasses, on abandoned factories and houses, in railway yards, in impossible spots. Graffiti artists mark out their territory in places a woman alone perhaps shouldn't be. Perhaps will regret being. Perhaps goes there anyway.
This place is other. This is not-you. This is us. We are brutal, virile, dangerous. We oppose you. This is our war-paint. Enter at your own risk.
In London, that is.
In Cannobio, jewel of Lago Maggiore, the graffiti on the underpass walls tell a different story.
A love story. A love story all hearts and flowers, and ti amo 4 ever. A love story full of adolescent insecurity, longing and bravado. Strangely, while the anglophone world looks to Italian as the language of passion, these youngsters pepper their pantings with English.
Back in Cannobio, another kind of amorous declaration has appeared. The practice of sealing a relationship with a padlock and throwing the key into a river, down a sheer mountainside or into some other unreachable location, has reached us all the way from China, where it was originally used to seal a bargain made with the ineffable. Step out onto Cannobio's Ponte Ballerino, the footbridge that crosses the Cannobino river and connects Cannobio with Traffiume, and one is greeted by lock after lock, many etched with the stock phrases of eternal love in Italian, German and English. All winking in the sunshine. All, we have to assume, unassailable.
I hate graffiti. It intimidates me. In underpasses, on abandoned factories and houses, in railway yards, in impossible spots. Graffiti artists mark out their territory in places a woman alone perhaps shouldn't be. Perhaps will regret being. Perhaps goes there anyway.
This place is other. This is not-you. This is us. We are brutal, virile, dangerous. We oppose you. This is our war-paint. Enter at your own risk.
In London, that is.
In Cannobio, jewel of Lago Maggiore, the graffiti on the underpass walls tell a different story.
A love story. A love story all hearts and flowers, and ti amo 4 ever. A love story full of adolescent insecurity, longing and bravado. Strangely, while the anglophone world looks to Italian as the language of passion, these youngsters pepper their pantings with English.
Five minutes away in Switzerland, however, the authorities are one step ahead of the graffiti artists. Here, the public loos in Ascona's lakeside playground are pre-graffitified, not with the stutterings of juveniles but with whimsical poetry in French and Italian. Still, even the Municipio has a heart: the theme, as ever, is l'amour.
Back in Cannobio, another kind of amorous declaration has appeared. The practice of sealing a relationship with a padlock and throwing the key into a river, down a sheer mountainside or into some other unreachable location, has reached us all the way from China, where it was originally used to seal a bargain made with the ineffable. Step out onto Cannobio's Ponte Ballerino, the footbridge that crosses the Cannobino river and connects Cannobio with Traffiume, and one is greeted by lock after lock, many etched with the stock phrases of eternal love in Italian, German and English. All winking in the sunshine. All, we have to assume, unassailable.
Happy San Valentino, however you choose to express yourself...
And if you're the architect responsible for the Ponte Ballerino, perhaps you might like to rework your sums for the extra weight...how much love can one bridge take?
Saturday, 12 February 2011
In praise of rosehips
The first overcast and misty day for what seems like yonks. Consequently, the temperature is back to being much more February than April.
One of my favourite herbal teas is rosehip. Last year in the autumn I was pretty hard pushed and failed to take off the rosehips, but they were still there this week when I went out to prune the roses, waiting patiently on the plants, ready dried.
For a decent rosehip tea, crush the dried rosehips and add about two tablespoons to half a litre of boiling water, add honey to counteract the acidity. Some people vary the recipe with either crushed mint or hibiscus flowers.
I understand that rosehips are an excellent source of vitamin C, which I'm renaming 'the February vitamin', and a daily intake of rosehip powder from Rosa rugosa has been shown to reduce inflammation and pain in osteoarthritis. After all this week's garden labouring and dragging of books up the hill, I think I could do with some.
Dried rosehips in an old wooden scale-pan.
For a decent rosehip tea, crush the dried rosehips and add about two tablespoons to half a litre of boiling water, add honey to counteract the acidity. Some people vary the recipe with either crushed mint or hibiscus flowers.
I understand that rosehips are an excellent source of vitamin C, which I'm renaming 'the February vitamin', and a daily intake of rosehip powder from Rosa rugosa has been shown to reduce inflammation and pain in osteoarthritis. After all this week's garden labouring and dragging of books up the hill, I think I could do with some.
Friday, 11 February 2011
Old trash, but no Old Norse
A short while back I was harrumphing over the trash increasingly being dumped along the beautiful woodland footpath, the Via delle Genti, which leads from Cannobio to Cannero through Carmine.
So why, pray tell, don't I get worked up about this bit of old trash?
Answers on a postcard, please.
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Dessert
Yesterday we clocked 15° at 3pm. Although this morning's early doggie-doddle-in-the-dark was somewhat chillier than of late, the temperature in the sun at midday hit 19°.
Preventative medicine during February, the fever month.
Delicious dessert for lunch al fresco in the winter sun.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Sunrise with a tree
Another warm and sunny day today, but there is still frost lying in the places where the sun doesn't shine.
As the world turns and the days get longer, the magical time for daily sunrise sensations is coming to an end. Only a week or so ago, my early morning walk coincided with sun-up. Now I'm just too late for the show. So here's what might be one of the last winter sunrises of 2010-2011:
Winter sun rising behind the hills of Lombardy.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Book notes No. 44 : The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman
Today in Carmine Superiore, we are promised by thems-as-know a high of 17°, and certainly the day has started out so Mediterranean that all the windows are open and there's linen and laundry tumbling from every window-sill.
Another Philip Pullman novel. In fact his latest, and definitely for adults, with its provokingly bold red jacket with gold and black lettering (in the UK, anyway).
Oh, it's the Independent that called it "provokingly bold". The Sunday Times called it "a hand grenade made by Fabergé", and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (no less) told The Guardian (who else) that it was a "deliberately outrageous fable". And I think that's a compliment.
Pullman has had a great idea. Give Jesus a twin brother. Call him Christ. And then retell the New Testament as it could possibly have been. Simple? Not that simple. Who is the good man, here? And is Christ really the scoundrel? What is the difference between history and truth, and what is the writer's role in the making of fables that last, that more than last, that inspire millions to belief in the seemingly impossible? In fact, the only thing that could be called simple about this novel is the language and the episodical structure, which so perfectly imitate that of the New English Bible. (I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury considers the Bible a 'deliberately outrageous fable' - you never know these days.)
Pullman's structure, the simple language and this great idea together enable him to explore a host of dualities starting from good (perhaps Jesus) and bad (perhaps Christ), touching on mind-body, death-life, rich-poor, sin and purity, and describing, from the historical standpoint of Year Zero AD a potential Church that could be perfect - the Kingdom of God on Earth - and could just as easily be diabolically corrupt.
It's a small-ish book, but perfectly formed. It is provoking and disturbing and in many ways extraordinary. And I have a feeling it might turn out to be important...
So read it.
Another Philip Pullman novel. In fact his latest, and definitely for adults, with its provokingly bold red jacket with gold and black lettering (in the UK, anyway). Oh, it's the Independent that called it "provokingly bold". The Sunday Times called it "a hand grenade made by Fabergé", and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury (no less) told The Guardian (who else) that it was a "deliberately outrageous fable". And I think that's a compliment.
Pullman has had a great idea. Give Jesus a twin brother. Call him Christ. And then retell the New Testament as it could possibly have been. Simple? Not that simple. Who is the good man, here? And is Christ really the scoundrel? What is the difference between history and truth, and what is the writer's role in the making of fables that last, that more than last, that inspire millions to belief in the seemingly impossible? In fact, the only thing that could be called simple about this novel is the language and the episodical structure, which so perfectly imitate that of the New English Bible. (I wonder whether the Archbishop of Canterbury considers the Bible a 'deliberately outrageous fable' - you never know these days.)
Pullman's structure, the simple language and this great idea together enable him to explore a host of dualities starting from good (perhaps Jesus) and bad (perhaps Christ), touching on mind-body, death-life, rich-poor, sin and purity, and describing, from the historical standpoint of Year Zero AD a potential Church that could be perfect - the Kingdom of God on Earth - and could just as easily be diabolically corrupt.
It's a small-ish book, but perfectly formed. It is provoking and disturbing and in many ways extraordinary. And I have a feeling it might turn out to be important...
So read it.
Sunday, 6 February 2011
Carmine spring watch 2011: scilla
Today, Carmine Superiore is billowing with intoxicatingly warm air, direct, I assume, from the Mediterranean. It feels like an English summer out there. Can't last, but I think the worst of winter is over.
This week, the first scilla have come into bud, and F.'s orchard is sprinkled with primulas and snowdrops.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Bel vedere
Warm and sunny. Tree cutting and rose pruning. Outdoor lunching. Spotted the first butterfly of the year, in exactly the same place as last year's first butterfly...there's a zoology thesis in there somewhere.
The tiny piazza beside Carmine Superiore's San Gottardo church offers a magnificent view of Lago Maggiore, the coast of Lombardy and the Swiss Alps. It can't be missed - after all, Carmine has only four 'streets', if you could call them that.
This viewpoint is famous, and obvious, although I'm always amazed at the number of walkers who shoot straight through the village without locating either frescoes or panorama.
A not-quite-so-famous viewpoint takes in not only the lake and sights beyond, but also the village itself, with its stone roofs and pretty gardens. My neighbour, G., has made a sign so that you can't miss it...
From here, the great spur of rock on which Carmine is built becomes visible. And from here you get a real sense of why, more than 1,000 years ago someone put his hands on his hips, squinted his eyes against the sun and saw that this would be a good place to build a fortress.
Definitely worth the short climb.
The tiny piazza beside Carmine Superiore's San Gottardo church offers a magnificent view of Lago Maggiore, the coast of Lombardy and the Swiss Alps. It can't be missed - after all, Carmine has only four 'streets', if you could call them that.
This viewpoint is famous, and obvious, although I'm always amazed at the number of walkers who shoot straight through the village without locating either frescoes or panorama.
A not-quite-so-famous viewpoint takes in not only the lake and sights beyond, but also the village itself, with its stone roofs and pretty gardens. My neighbour, G., has made a sign so that you can't miss it...
Definitely worth the short climb.
Friday, 4 February 2011
Survivor
Not many plants survive in my house. But surprisingly this cyclamen has been adorning our bathroom windowsill for several months. It must be the cold weather indoors...
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Bandir gennaio!
What do tin cans, long lengths of string, large numbers of under-10s and spring have in common?
Bandir gennaio! On January 31, all the local kindergarten and schoolchildren banded together with their pushchair siblings to banish January and hasten on the coming spring. Their weapon of choice? The noisiest tin cans available strung onto long string 'tails' and dragged along the old town cobbles.
With excitement. With delight. With giggling, screaming, eye-twinkling pleasure.
For once, they were allowed to make a noise, and, boy, did they rise to the occasion!
PS If today's weather is anything to go by, they must have succeeded. More blue skies, warm sunshine with a little breath of cold air to keep us on our toes.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Book Tiramisu: a recipe
Another bright, bright sunshiney day. Fourteen degrees at 2pm. It was winter days like these that seduced me into leaving The Smoke.
Book tiramisu is, as the name suggests, a great pick-me-up. Pick me up, pack me up, haul me up, open me up and lap me up.
An alternative name for this recipe might be 'How to raise over 1,000 books through 100m vertical without a helicopter, a mule or an obliging Ecuadorian' (and that's another story).
You will need:
1,000 books, miscellaneously and hurriedly boxed, and at the end of a long transcontinental journey deposited finally at the foot of the hill in that mobile storecupboard known as a car
1 large, strong rucksack, clean and empty
1 small 40-something (female) with Welsh pit-pony antecedents
10 tons of patience
1 qualified chiropractor with a sense of humour on stand-by
1. Skip down hill carrying the clean rucksack and beaming with anticipation. You may wish to fill the rucksack with empty barbera bottles or old chicken-feed sacks, for the recycling station at the car park. In which case, trudge.
2. At the car park, search for the mobile storecupboard. Who knows where the über-chef left it last?
3. Once the mobile storecupboard is located, locate the keys. Open the door. Take a deep breath. Open the nearest box. Pounce on a particularly cherished old friend, sit down on the floor cross-legged and start reading. When your butt starts to freeze, come back to your senses and carefully arrange a few of the books in the clean rucksack, filling it evenly.
4. Try to get the rucksack on. Crumple beneath the weight. Open rucksack, remove a few books, read their titles, light up with joy, then remove a few more, replacing with the first books taken out. Read the titles of the second batch of books. Spend at least 10 minutes trying to decide which titles to bring up first and which to bring up later. This is an important step in the recipe and should not be hurried. Remember that you've been apart seven long years, and that they've covered exactly 1313km to be with you today. Twenty-four more hours won't extinguish the flames of your passionate bibliophilia.
5. Look through a few more of the boxes stacked in the mobile cupboard, and grab a crippling armload of old favourites that smell of East End attic and nostalgia, and without which you simply cannot live another minute. (At this point in the process it's crucial not to let any participles dangle.)
6. Slog the whole lot up the hill, stopping at every bench, resisting the urge to resist the urge to start reading.
This could take some time...
7. At home, carefully decant the books onto the kitchen table. Now carefully decant about 4oz of Jura crémant into a crystal glass and taste. Get a roaring fire going in the hearth and drag up a heinous green hand-me-down armchair. With a slightly damp cloth, remove any traces of chicken poop and wine dribbles from the dust jackets and slip cases. Call the chiropractor and make an appointment. Inform the children that at suppertime it's every man for himself, and, trying not to think about how many times you're going to have to schlepp up and down the hill, which will almost certainly curdle your tiramisu, enjoy the midwinter pick-me-up...
The first haul (literally):
Our Bodies Ourselves - Boston Women's Health Book Collective (ah the feminist seventies, awash with mysterious phrases like 'women's collective' and 'orgasm' and 'fondue')
Ancient Greek Literature - Dover et al (from the pre-college summer reading list, along with Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, a revelation in thought for an 18-year-old small-town grammar-school girl)
Untying the Text, A Post-Structuralist Reader - Robert Young (one day I'll make sense of post-structuralism if it kills me, and it probably will)
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolf (book better than the movie - I can't abide Tom Hanks)
Lesbian Images - Jane Rule (blame my thesis supervisor)
English Journey - JB Priestley (must have been a free gift)
The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici - Christopher Hibbert (full of great quotes - e.g.: "He has emblazoned even the monks' privies with his balls...").
African Adventures - H. Rider Haggard (boxed set of three, tough on the shoulders)
Do not disturb.
Book tiramisu is, as the name suggests, a great pick-me-up. Pick me up, pack me up, haul me up, open me up and lap me up.
An alternative name for this recipe might be 'How to raise over 1,000 books through 100m vertical without a helicopter, a mule or an obliging Ecuadorian' (and that's another story).
You will need:
1,000 books, miscellaneously and hurriedly boxed, and at the end of a long transcontinental journey deposited finally at the foot of the hill in that mobile storecupboard known as a car
1 large, strong rucksack, clean and empty
1 small 40-something (female) with Welsh pit-pony antecedents
10 tons of patience
1 qualified chiropractor with a sense of humour on stand-by
1. Skip down hill carrying the clean rucksack and beaming with anticipation. You may wish to fill the rucksack with empty barbera bottles or old chicken-feed sacks, for the recycling station at the car park. In which case, trudge.
2. At the car park, search for the mobile storecupboard. Who knows where the über-chef left it last?
3. Once the mobile storecupboard is located, locate the keys. Open the door. Take a deep breath. Open the nearest box. Pounce on a particularly cherished old friend, sit down on the floor cross-legged and start reading. When your butt starts to freeze, come back to your senses and carefully arrange a few of the books in the clean rucksack, filling it evenly.
4. Try to get the rucksack on. Crumple beneath the weight. Open rucksack, remove a few books, read their titles, light up with joy, then remove a few more, replacing with the first books taken out. Read the titles of the second batch of books. Spend at least 10 minutes trying to decide which titles to bring up first and which to bring up later. This is an important step in the recipe and should not be hurried. Remember that you've been apart seven long years, and that they've covered exactly 1313km to be with you today. Twenty-four more hours won't extinguish the flames of your passionate bibliophilia.
5. Look through a few more of the boxes stacked in the mobile cupboard, and grab a crippling armload of old favourites that smell of East End attic and nostalgia, and without which you simply cannot live another minute. (At this point in the process it's crucial not to let any participles dangle.)
6. Slog the whole lot up the hill, stopping at every bench, resisting the urge to resist the urge to start reading.
This could take some time...
7. At home, carefully decant the books onto the kitchen table. Now carefully decant about 4oz of Jura crémant into a crystal glass and taste. Get a roaring fire going in the hearth and drag up a heinous green hand-me-down armchair. With a slightly damp cloth, remove any traces of chicken poop and wine dribbles from the dust jackets and slip cases. Call the chiropractor and make an appointment. Inform the children that at suppertime it's every man for himself, and, trying not to think about how many times you're going to have to schlepp up and down the hill, which will almost certainly curdle your tiramisu, enjoy the midwinter pick-me-up...
The first haul (literally):
Our Bodies Ourselves - Boston Women's Health Book Collective (ah the feminist seventies, awash with mysterious phrases like 'women's collective' and 'orgasm' and 'fondue')
Ancient Greek Literature - Dover et al (from the pre-college summer reading list, along with Arthur Koestler's The Sleepwalkers, a revelation in thought for an 18-year-old small-town grammar-school girl)
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (thanks S.)
The Captain's Verses - Pablo Neruda (bilingual edition - passion and poetry - we were so young)Untying the Text, A Post-Structuralist Reader - Robert Young (one day I'll make sense of post-structuralism if it kills me, and it probably will)
The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolf (book better than the movie - I can't abide Tom Hanks)
Lesbian Images - Jane Rule (blame my thesis supervisor)
English Journey - JB Priestley (must have been a free gift)
The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici - Christopher Hibbert (full of great quotes - e.g.: "He has emblazoned even the monks' privies with his balls...").
African Adventures - H. Rider Haggard (boxed set of three, tough on the shoulders)
I Know why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou (and I know why my poor knees creak).
Do not disturb.
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