tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22244662669749639372024-03-13T13:14:28.404+01:00A View from Carmine SuperioreThe mountains & the lake, people & places, children & chickens, frescoes & felines, barbera & books.Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.comBlogger1200125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-17618080223090340082013-03-30T21:20:00.001+01:002013-03-30T21:20:08.694+01:00Early Easter<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In Carmine this year, Easter has come early. The chicks are hatching and the ewe is heavy, the daffodils are dancing and the camellias are dropping. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3yUQsXuwFM4/UVdImRkrwOI/AAAAAAAADsY/jaIemok6ZQw/s1600/camellia+mosaic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3yUQsXuwFM4/UVdImRkrwOI/AAAAAAAADsY/jaIemok6ZQw/s400/camellia+mosaic.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Happy Easter from the House on the Rock!</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-49128998311990087832013-03-03T07:28:00.003+01:002013-03-03T07:28:32.601+01:00Editor's choice No.4: A mallard in spring, early March 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Another gorgeously warm spring day awaits today in Carmine Superiore. Ten days over ten degrees and we put our firewood axes away and declare spring with a sigh of relief...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In 2011, this mallard was celebrating spring by making his own work of art...</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hIcnFfO_D0I/UTLssVXESdI/AAAAAAAADsI/M4hzQyy5SBQ/s1600/duckgreenboat2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hIcnFfO_D0I/UTLssVXESdI/AAAAAAAADsI/M4hzQyy5SBQ/s1600/duckgreenboat2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cannobio, Porto Nuovo, March 2011.</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-88605002457281773902013-02-05T10:57:00.004+01:002013-02-05T10:57:45.874+01:00Flashback: February 5th 2010<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>In Carmine Superiore, today, there are dazzling blue skies and the temperature is definitely warm for the time of year. On this day in February 2010, however, it was a different story...</i></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-of12Pu0WzLs/URDXRz_dnhI/AAAAAAAADr4/DbPqOQ3TmcI/s1600/SPietasnow.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="345" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-of12Pu0WzLs/URDXRz_dnhI/AAAAAAAADr4/DbPqOQ3TmcI/s400/SPietasnow.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cannobio's Santuario della S. Pietà in the snow, February 5th 2010.</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-19063511374400793242013-01-29T11:02:00.002+01:002013-01-29T11:02:39.875+01:00Views from Carmine Superiore No. 1: Cloudline<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4VGwswcH_VY/UQed2tysZSI/AAAAAAAADro/yQMr0wDgiDE/s1600/cloud+line+Dec2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4VGwswcH_VY/UQed2tysZSI/AAAAAAAADro/yQMr0wDgiDE/s400/cloud+line+Dec2010.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Clouds cross in front of the mountains in Lombardy, just across the lake.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A view from Carmine Superiore,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Winter 2010-2011.</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-30629491312949146812013-01-21T12:59:00.001+01:002013-01-21T12:59:28.273+01:00Editor's choice No. 3: Carmine Conversation, 1st September 2011<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The idea that Mama and Pappi might at some point in the near future take a break alone, together, sans brood, was some days ago mentioned at the family dinner table. Floated gently on the waters of the family psyche.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">B., aged 5, obviously takes a while to digest new ideas. Only this morning did her considered opinion on the matter bubble up to the surface of her little pond.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">B.: "Mama, you and Pappi can't go away together without us!"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Mama (seeing a romantic weekend away-from-<a href="http://carminesuperiore.blogspot.com/2007/10/una-piccola-complicazione.html">the-hill</a> slipping through her fingers, and trying not to sound too desperate): "Why not darling, I think it's a great idea..."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">B.: "No, you can't go away without us!"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Mama (staying cool, but giving herself away with the unconscious Enid-Blyton-speak): "But why ever not, dear?"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">B. (speaking slowly as to a particularly dull dullard): "Because we can't - reach - the - pasta - machine." </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wOeiHZ7CqSM/Tl_TTCmRUoI/AAAAAAAADdg/nqE2SJnIHjQ/s1600/imperia-pasta-machine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wOeiHZ7CqSM/Tl_TTCmRUoI/AAAAAAAADdg/nqE2SJnIHjQ/s320/imperia-pasta-machine.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Mama (guffawing into the washing up, thinks): I could always leave it on the bottom shelf...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Pic: <a href="http://justinsomnia.org/">justinsomnia</a></span><br />
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Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-50005795868157488582013-01-13T09:00:00.000+01:002013-01-13T09:00:02.640+01:00Editor's choice No. 2: 8th October 2007, Strange Goings On<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">In the balmy nights of Carmine summers, when the residents sleep with open windows, and lightning streaks silently across the skyline, strange things sometimes happen.<br /><br />A few months ago, on just such a night, I awoke at about 3am. I lay awake, straining my ears to try to separate out the gentle sounds of Carmine Superiore’s slumber. A resident’s snoring, the running of the streams, the woodland owls, the snuffle of a wild boar, the far distant humming of a goods train across the lake in Lombardy. What had woken me? Did one of the children cry out in sleep?<br /><br />The first alien sound I identified was the rattling of a ladder. Perhaps my neighbour, then, had arrived. Well-known for leaving his keys behind four hours away, he was more than twice seen extracting a ladder from its cradle and insinuating himself into his house by unexpected avenues.<br /><br />Then I heard something else.<br /><br />Voices.<br /><br />Strange. Statistics would have us believe that by this late hour burglars have already slunk off to their beds, and besides, no self-respecting burglar would be making this kind of noise – would he? (For statistics also tell us that the vast majority of burglars ARE men.)<br /><br />I felt for my specs, got up, went over to the window as quietly as possible, and looked out. Ah. First I located the ladder sound. A light breeze was rattling the ladder strung to a wall in the next-door garden. It wasn't some masked man heaving it up the hill after all.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="background-color: white;">And then the voices took up my attention. Two people were sitting together on the bench way up the path. They sat by the signpost under the light of the ‘street’ lamp (well, it’s hardly a street), just where the path splits : up for Molinesc and Cannobio, down for Carmine Inferiore.<br /><br />Two people sitting on the bench, chatting and laughing. A canoodling couple, perhaps, out on an amorous adventure.<br /><br />As I watched, one of the figures stood up and I drew in my breath sharply. A man. Definitely.<br /><br />Definitely, because in the words of David Byrne he was <a href="http://youtu.be/pcp9KLMrwdY">buck naked</a>.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">The other stood up too. Not a woman, but another man. Also starkers. I smiled an involuntary smile of disbelief and continued to watch as they jogged along towards the nucleus of the village, passing the end of ‘our street’ and up the great broad steps towards the church, where they were no longer visible.<br /><br />There was much whooping and shouting in the churchyard, before I once again heard the patter of naked feet. And saw them streaking back past the house and on up by the gardens. Reaching a rocky incline, they slowed before disappearing under the canopy of trees, leaving my incredulity as the only sign that they had ever been there.<br /><br />HAD they ever been there? If not, what does my vision say for the state of mind that conjured it? Was I overcome by the erotic stillness of the summer evening? Or rendered momentarily insane by the triple stresses of child-rearing, house-painting and daily hill-walking?<br /><br />If what I saw was real, and two high-spirited blokes had come jogging around Carmine that night, having left their clothes under a riverside rock perhaps, or in a neat pile on some bar-stool, WHAT on earth were they doing? And why? When they could have been tucked up in bed (or sprawled on the floor) with the world spinning happily and the beginnings of a hangover headache mustering up in their temporal lobes.<br /><br />If you can enlighten me, I’d rest happier in the knowledge I hadn’t momentarily paid a visit to La-La land. </span></span>Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-2117109890538516312013-01-11T23:08:00.002+01:002013-01-11T23:08:33.586+01:00Editor's choice No. 1: 27th June 2009, Everything Changes<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">One June day in 2007, a little boy, not yet three, is sitting on a climbing frame in a hot and dusty garden surrounded by sixty other children. He is terrified and chattering, head down, eyes darting to and fro, frozen with fear. His mother has understood virtually nothing of what has been said in the parent's meeting that has preceded a tour of the kindergarten, and now, a puddle of linguistic isolation all around her, she sees his distress, and wants to weep for herself and her first-born, to snatch him away and run, run, run, to carry him off to a place that may not be so sunny, but where at least she can equip her children to meet life's big events without fear and confusion.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms'; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Two years on, a robust little girl runs down the steps on extremely sturdy legs into the same garden shouting "Hooraaaaay!" at the top of her lungs. She vies for a place on the see-saw, scrabbles around for a plastic spade in the sand pit, is introduced to the older children by a confident and sociable little boy, a fluent Italian speaker, her older brother. Occasionally she checks her mother, who, chatting with a gaggle of others, slides her sunglasses quietly down onto her nose so that no-one will see she is on the verge of tears once again. Pride in her son's achievements, pleasure at realising she herself now understands almost everything that is being said, and joy that her daughter has met one of life's big events without fear and confusion.<br /><br />Everything changes... </span></span>Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-26207541184957454352013-01-03T23:48:00.003+01:002013-01-03T23:54:18.416+01:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NJRbkqv8B7c/UOYKkEEu0PI/AAAAAAAADrY/eaYFQk_Wcqs/s1600/carmineonhillcrop2_Stenciler_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NJRbkqv8B7c/UOYKkEEu0PI/AAAAAAAADrY/eaYFQk_Wcqs/s400/carmineonhillcrop2_Stenciler_2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">“Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>---- Leonardo da Vinci</i></span></blockquote>
<br />Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-4056645640221245742012-12-20T08:22:00.001+01:002012-12-20T08:22:38.854+01:00December sunrise<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Cold, dry, and with snow and ice still making the sentiero an obstacle course.The bathroom temperature is hovering steady at 5°C.</i></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aIjjAv5WuAs/UNK8hMbRA7I/AAAAAAAADrI/VHDZ2xF6MMg/s1600/DSC_6627.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aIjjAv5WuAs/UNK8hMbRA7I/AAAAAAAADrI/VHDZ2xF6MMg/s400/DSC_6627.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This morning's sunrise, from Carmine Superiore.</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-83909454842936063292012-12-16T09:36:00.000+01:002012-12-16T09:36:08.109+01:00Medieval Sunday in Italia bella<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today, Carmine looks a little as it did at Christmas in 2009...</span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dfcIAAkhJec/UM2Gi-5AIbI/AAAAAAAADq4/PIP0i6SJb28/s1600/Carminesnow2009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dfcIAAkhJec/UM2Gi-5AIbI/AAAAAAAADq4/PIP0i6SJb28/s400/Carminesnow2009.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">...and the Sunday soundtrack is the music that would have been heard in the courts and cloisters of northern Italy around the time San Gottardo was built ...</span><br />
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Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-48782245913921240572012-12-12T09:44:00.001+01:002012-12-12T09:44:41.966+01:00<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>A fraction below 5°C in the bathroom this morning. Cold, bright and dry. The laghetto is frozen and there are icicles forming in the streams. </i></span>Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-32211314021737596442012-12-07T14:32:00.001+01:002012-12-07T14:33:14.824+01:00First snow 2012<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>One solitary degree at 8:03am. Frost in the frost pockets where the cold air tumbles down the sides of Carmine's ramparts. Ice cubes in the chickens' drinking water. And now there is a dusting of snow on the palms, and a pile of cats on <a href="http://carminesuperiore.blogspot.it/2007/11/ecco-mathilda.html">Mathilda</a>.</i></span>Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-78416594523229395352012-11-26T10:25:00.001+01:002012-11-26T10:26:41.446+01:00Knowledge of things nearly eternal<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A mild and misty Monday morning. </span></i><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qglFKqisraM/ULM01RwqmqI/AAAAAAAADqU/-3bIesBksRA/s1600/Rachel_Carson_Yearbook_Port.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qglFKqisraM/ULM01RwqmqI/AAAAAAAADqU/-3bIesBksRA/s1600/Rachel_Carson_Yearbook_Port.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today, standing at my favourite morning spot, the mountains behind me, the woods full of wildlife surrounding me and the cries of the seagulls almost the only clue to the presence of the great lake below me, a snatch of a quotation came to me out of the autumn mist, and sent me running home to Rachel Carson. Not for the more famous <i>Silent Spring</i>, but for her first book, <i>Under the Sea Wind</i>, and this passage:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be. These things were before man ever stood on the shore of the ocean and looked out upon it with wonder; they continue year in, year out, throughout the centuries and ages, while man's kingdoms rise and fall."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'd say that just about covers it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Portrait: http://www.chatham.edu/host/library</span><br />
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<br />Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-91429401138675123152012-11-19T11:19:00.000+01:002012-11-19T11:20:56.469+01:00What's kindling in Carmine...<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cold, dry and hazy. </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The five degrees in the bathroom and the fire burning in our beloved <a href="http://carminesuperiore.blogspot.it/2007/11/ecco-mathilda.html">Mathilda</a>, has signalled the start of our Carmine winter.</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zeZfQPf0QyU/UKoGWQwPlzI/AAAAAAAADp8/UPL4NygbgkM/s1600/DSC_6595.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zeZfQPf0QyU/UKoGWQwPlzI/AAAAAAAADp8/UPL4NygbgkM/s400/DSC_6595.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Perfect kindling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I suspect that <i>falcetto </i>will be in my hand rather a lot of the time in the weeks to come.</span></div>
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Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-76530909023929753802012-11-12T10:29:00.001+01:002012-11-12T10:30:02.837+01:00Nature making art No. 7<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>After two days of thundering rain, the skies are once more blue and the sun is warming Carmine's ancient bones. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And nature is making art again...</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RyBTgN1_3U0/UKDBG0DQehI/AAAAAAAADps/MGB-px9VCpw/s1600/Leaf+mosaic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RyBTgN1_3U0/UKDBG0DQehI/AAAAAAAADps/MGB-px9VCpw/s400/Leaf+mosaic.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Raindrops on autumn leaves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Carmine Superiore, 2012.</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-28258477966751034632012-11-11T09:00:00.000+01:002012-11-12T10:30:26.600+01:00Remembrance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-74AFWwkLi1o/UJ6n6tRUU-I/AAAAAAAADpc/18hO0HBCMWM/s1600/poppies_neive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-74AFWwkLi1o/UJ6n6tRUU-I/AAAAAAAADpc/18hO0HBCMWM/s640/poppies_neive.jpg" width="428" /></a></div>
<br />Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-23829105261540729932012-10-25T11:04:00.002+02:002012-10-25T11:05:35.899+02:00Nature's supermarket<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>This morning at the Belvedere the sun rose in a cocoon of autumn mist, foretelling a change in the warm and bright weather we've been having. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It will be a wild supper in Carmine Superiore tonight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Parasol mushroom the size of a dinner plate and weighing 250g, from Nature's Supermarket, free of charge.</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-26087619324222030942012-10-18T10:29:00.000+02:002012-10-18T10:29:34.883+02:00Wetday wildlife<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Cloudy with the occasional sunny patch that I hope is going to sanitize the duvets and dry out a just-washed feather pillow, although somehow I doubt it. Wet underfoot and definitely autumnal.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last night's rain added to the mild weather makes this a Fire Salamander day...</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WQeBMs_tiUc/UH-9MgMdZlI/AAAAAAAADoc/bfC8ynPW6kI/s1600/SALAMANDER_MOSAIC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WQeBMs_tiUc/UH-9MgMdZlI/AAAAAAAADoc/bfC8ynPW6kI/s400/SALAMANDER_MOSAIC.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Carmine Superiore, October 2012</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-55886743214257820972012-10-11T10:52:00.000+02:002012-10-11T11:00:23.247+02:00A little visitor<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>The last few days have been autumny, but still often hot - by which I mean about 27° of hot. Today started with a pink sunrise on a blue background but now I'm about to put the laundry out it's threatening rain.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the sitting room today is a cardboard box labelled OSPEDALE in B's 6-year-old scrawl. What's inside? No broken china dolls mummified in sellotape, no unstuffed stuffed animals and no headless Barbies (although they would all be headless if I had my way, but it seems Mamma's wishes don't count). Inside is a jamjar lid of cereals and another of water. Oh yes, and this little chap, if you can find him among the folds of my fleece...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I found him yesterday evening in the centre of a menacing circle of five Carmine cats. Snatching him from their jaws, we made him comfortable and hoped he would survive the night. He did, but when I took him to a new home away from Cat Country and close to a ready supply of chicken feed and an enormous bed of hay, he skittered straight back inside my sweater. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He's a bit wobbly on his feet, which makes me suspect nerve damage. But I'm hoping for the best, and will try him again in his new home tomorrow. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the meantime there's a sign on the back door: No Feline Bullies Allowed!</span>Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-58950536166075940342012-10-04T10:09:00.000+02:002012-10-04T10:17:04.380+02:00Plus ça change...<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Misty, drizzly and rainforest steamy. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I feed my sheep the fat chestnuts I've just gathered in the woods, the monsoon weather brings a memory of our little house in Zaria, northern Nigeria, during a gap between rainstorms. The guard is leaning on the gate, lazily disputing with another man in Niger French. Dauda is out back, singing to himself a faintly familiar gospel tune as he prepares lunch. And a herd of skinny white cattle is passing under the avenue of mango trees beyond the fence. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My ram's head comes up for another handful of the pocket-warm shiny nuts and I see in my mind's eye the head of a white cow come up to steal a golden, juicy mango from a tree. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I make my way back to the house, there are fire salamanders on the path, and in Zaria that day I found a chameleon in the garden, shedding his skin. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's easy to remember my life in Zaria as a great adventure - and easy to forget that my life in Carmine, while different, is really just the same. </span>Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-48622362267379212802012-09-25T10:08:00.001+02:002012-09-25T10:08:14.249+02:00The great Carmine autumn migration<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cool and damp. Rain later. Probably just as I am descending <a href="http://carminesuperiore.blogspot.it/2007/10/una-piccola-complicazione.html">The Hill</a>, having decided against an umbrella.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Carmine cats have noticed the change in the season, and are busy organising their indoor nests for the winter. Somehow there seem to be more this year. I have gained one very thin and very hungry blacky, a caffé-latte with only one eye, a rather bad-tempered fluff-ball tabby and a marmalade bruiser who's less confident than he looks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And it seems that various members of a less ... <i>tactile</i> species are thinking along the same lines. This morning I evicted three of these fellows before 9am, and am remembering <a href="http://carminesuperiore.blogspot.it/2008/10/carmine-creepy-crawlies.html">India...</a></span><br />
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Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-60194283975239785702012-09-24T10:41:00.002+02:002012-09-24T10:43:25.164+02:00From dreams to reality<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I dreamed last night of a boat crossing from a small rocky island to the mainland in high seas, grey and menacing. I woke this morning to a Carmine swamped and isolated from the world in a sea of fog, and rain cascading from the gutterless stone roofs above. The children in their colourful wellies and carrying gay umbrellas plunge down into the mist, their chattering voices fading into the abyss. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Autumn has arrived, and as I walk the Hound of the Baskervilles along the woodland trail, I remember another rainy autumn, <a href="http://carminesuperiore.blogspot.it/2008/01/four-degrees-at-830am_16.html">when I found myself thankful that I am not made of sugar</a>...</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MicpgXY20ns/UGAcnQFU5uI/AAAAAAAADmI/LWQeKF-XImw/s1600/Rain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MicpgXY20ns/UGAcnQFU5uI/AAAAAAAADmI/LWQeKF-XImw/s1600/Rain.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Casa Chiera, Carmine Superiore.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the Rain.</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-53402546877650088892012-09-20T10:53:00.000+02:002012-09-20T10:58:28.514+02:00Irregular verbs: a grammar lesson<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Here in Carmine Superiore, summer edges day by day towards autumn. The Virginia creepers are flaming, and we've turned the </i>orto <i>over to broccoli and winter salad. The mother deer I see every day in the woods are starting to wean their young, and the </i><a href="http://carminesuperiore.blogspot.it/2012/04/easter-delights.html" style="font-style: italic;">cockerels from Easter</a><i> are starting to bully me when I come to feed them. Still bright and hot, at least at midday, but today there's a gusty wind that bodes a change in store. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One of the many things students of English - or indeed any language - find difficult is the irregular verb. Of course, there are many wonderfully simple regular verbs: I love - you love - he loves. But how on earth does one hook on to the irregular verbs? I am - you are - he is are as far away from I be - you be - he bees than one can get. As I have in the past told teenagers in terror over their English exams, you just have to <i>learn</i> them. <i>Learn</i> them by heart along with your compound verbs. You know, insert them into your long-term memory - if you have any memory cells left after the Friday-night binge drinking, the Saturday-night ecstasy and the Sunday night weed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today, though, I believe I've come across a new category of verbs </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">that no student of English will find in any grammar book. I've decided to call them the housewife verbs, and they include 'to clean', 'to dust', 'to launder', 'to tidy', etc. What's strange about them is that, if you are a housewife, these have only one person in any tense:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I iron</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I have ironed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I ironed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I would have ironed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I did iron</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I will iron</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I am going to iron </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I am ironing - ironing - ironing...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Know the feeling?</span><br />
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Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-50947410735624467892012-09-06T13:31:00.000+02:002012-09-06T13:54:25.788+02:00Scandal!<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A hot day, but fresh all the same. The daily temperature range is about 10° starting in the upper teens.</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We were surprised a couple of days ago to receive a visit from a representative of the local health authority carrying what translates as an 'exposé'. For me the word conjures up red headlines from The Sun with a half naked woman on the front page, and lots of monosyllables expressing indignation, horror, shock and ridicule - in bold and italics and sometimes even underlined so that you don't miss them. Lurid goings on in the back rooms of the Houses of Parliament, shocking treatment of bald lesbians, the naked romps of princes of the realm in the back rooms of casinos ... you know the kind of thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So the exposé we were confronted with was rather dull in comparison. Not a single prince's buttock in sight. It was <i>our </i>activities that had been exposed! We were (wait for it, wait for it) keeping sheep. Or perhaps that should be "<i>keeping </i><b>sheep</b>!" Scandal! Exposed at last! <b>Shock</b>! <b><i>Horror</i></b>! They were <b><i><u>keeping sheep</u></i></b>! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Well, your honour, this is hardly the Piazza del Duomo, now is it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, our friend from the veterinary service examined Max and Moritz, who were unusually helpful. They didn't stamp on his toes, try to butt him down the hill or snaffle large-denomination banknotes out of his pockets. While they stood to attention, he took a blood sample and pronounced them very healthy, well-fed, being kept in optimum conditions and with all the necessary identification, permissions and paperwork (in triplicate and signed by the Pope). He was perfectly happy about the sheep but pretty pissed off about the absence of naughty goings-on behind the <i>baita</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">10/10 Phew!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And even Max is smiling (just):</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2wJ6LkU50fs/UEiIbwVrhEI/AAAAAAAADlg/rhf6Zs4VVOE/s1600/Max.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2wJ6LkU50fs/UEiIbwVrhEI/AAAAAAAADlg/rhf6Zs4VVOE/s320/Max.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2224466266974963937.post-56097503396024678522012-09-05T17:27:00.001+02:002012-09-05T17:27:47.084+02:00Evidence?<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>After a couple of days of humid and hot weather it is at this moment chucking it down and rumbling ominously. Today's midday temperature was 28° but it's gone suddenly cooler...</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Could there be pixies at the bottom of my Carmine garden?</span></div>
Louise | Italyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00463696606000861953noreply@blogger.com2