A View from Carmine Superiore

Carmine's winter flowers, No. 2

2012-01-28T09:00:00.001+01:00

A barely pink rose.

Carmine Superiore, January 2012.

Carmine's winter flowers, No.1

2012-01-26T18:12:00.000+01:00

Another bright day, and still no rain. But with a cold wind that chills right up to the knuckles.

Bucaneve in Franco's orchard.

Carmine Superiore, today.

In the crowd

2012-01-23T20:52:00.000+01:00

The weather at Lago Maggiore is still dry and warm for the time of year. Eight degrees in Cannobio today, with a strange, pearly mist across the lake.

A little face in the crowd.

Brissago, January 2012

Cats in the pantry

2012-01-17T14:52:00.000+01:00

Finally, the winter has dropped below zero. The chickens' water was frozen yesterday for the first time this time, and there are icicles in the stream, a bit like this.

Four Carmine cats at their post in the pantry. Second from the left is Mamma di Tutti, who has mothered more than 20 kittens in her long life. She's a tough nut, but now has difficulty eating and breathing and has lost so much weight I fear she may not see the summer. I'll do my best for her.

Silence, solitude and a bite on the line

2012-01-13T22:43:00.001+01:00

Continuing what has been a surreal winter with warm weather and bright sunshine. No rain to speak of, and no snow this side of the Alps.

Early morning, Lago Maggiore

Winter 2011-2012

Sundowner

2012-01-07T17:12:00.000+01:00

The sun falls below the skyline.

Brissago in winter.

New Year 2002

2012-01-01T14:44:00.011+01:00

Happy New Year! Our worryingly dry and warm winter continues into the new year. Dazzling sunshine, with a slight chilly breeze and whisps of mist among the snow-naked mountains.

Ten years ago, New Year 2002. Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization. In Argentina, Eduardo Duhalde was chosen to be president, the fifth in less than two weeks. In New York, Michael Bloomberg succeeded Rudy Giuliani as mayor. Had they been alive, J.D. Salinger, J. Edgar Hoover, E.M. Forster, Joe Orton and Paul Revere would have celebrated their birthdays, and Kiri Te Kanawa and Nigel Mansell probably did. In twelve European countries, millions of people woke up to a new currency.

In Carmine Superiore, in the bright winter sunshine, two young-ish people paced the tiny piazza, heads together in muttered debate. From time to time, their gaze fell speculatively on one another, then strayed out to the vast expanse of the lake with the mountains beyond. Finally, they smiled, shook hands and embraced. For ten years ago, on 1 January 2002, M. and I took the decision to buy the ruin that fate had dropped into our laps. Come what may.

That decision changed everything. As you might imagine it would. But Carmine Superiore is a mite unusual, and so this was not simply a change of place. It was a change of life, and a change that changed us. In 10 years, Carmine Superiore has knocked me - for I can speak only for myself - into a different shape. The list of things I can now do - don't think twice about doing - that I couldn't do on 1 January 2002 is for me ever-surprising. I can chop a tree down, split the wood and light a fire. I can raise chicks out of eggs generation on generation, and I know how to subdue a rambunctious cockerel. I'm also pretty hot with the coop-maintenance wire-cutters. I can drive a car. On the wrong side of the road. I can speak enough Italian to give birth to two Euro-sproglets, and get them into the school system. I can pilot a boat and manage a knuckle-headed gun-dog, even though sometimes it seems he is managing me. I can raise abandoned kittens and home flightless baby seagulls. I can build vegetable patches and grow produce for Africa. And I can circle them with dry-stone walls of my own creation.

And please, let's not forget what it takes to conquer The Hill, through the pregnancy days, the toddling days, the tantrum days, the carry-me days and the asthma days. The thigh-deep snow days, the supermarket days, the wine-buying days and the helicopter days. And, of course, the happy day my book collection started to arrive. Forget the gymn. This was body-sculpting Carmine-style. The me of today, admittedly ten years older and very much greyer, is a far-cry from the me that sat day-in day-out at a screen with a view of the Thames. While these days my back may buckle under the weight of two cases of wine, in general I've never been so fit.

Any fear of creepy-crawlies and all things yuk that may unaccountably have survived six months in Africa in the 90s melted away entirely in those magical ten years. Bedroom-sharing scorpions, spiders, beetles and slugs. Cat-kill rats, disembowelled mice and downed birds. And snakes. And let's not forget the things that go bump in the dark. The many nights I've spent entirely alone in a broken-down ruined house in an ancient village with no road, with ghosts medieval and modern trailing their woes around the walls, with the howling wind battering at the shutters and the unimagineable calling from the shadows... That little scared-of-the-dark girl of 40 years ago would stare unbelieving at the middle-aged woman stalking unthinkingly through the woods on a moonless night.

The decision to take on our Carmine ruin brought with it, of course, the commitment to live among the Italians. I guess being an expat in any country where one is required to live daily life in a different language brings with it its own challenges. In ten years, I have had my fair share of incomprehensible conversations - most notably in the labour room, in radiology, in paediatrics and in gynaecology, with the avvocato, with the maresciallo and with the notaio. Involuntarily, and rather surprisingly, though, I've found myself an expert in the short, sharp denuncia, if in no other skill. While I've suffered regular ritual humiliation on the part of more than one under-educated shop assistant, health worker or common-or-garden racist, I've benefited immeasurably from the patience and understanding of the vast majority of Italians I know. I've ditched my English reserve in favour of communication at all costs, and found that a rueful smile and a talent for pantomime go a long way.

In these ten years I've had occasion to discover the self-destructive power of envy, the ultimate futility of pride and the absolute necessity for patience in all things. I've become intimately acquainted with the wee small solitary hours in which the great Sasso Carmine squatted like a troll in the darkness while I nursed a sleepless baby. Nights when I've reached deep down inside for a reserve of energy I didn't know I had. I've passed many sleepless nights in dark imaginings and many glorious sunny days in simple contentment.

Who would have thought that a great old house, window frames hanging off their hinges, nest-stuffed chimneys, doors held closed with piles of rocks, and a sieve-style roof...a colony of dung-beetles keeping the entrance-hall clean, a pride of felines making it dirty, and a tribe of dormice scrabbling in the eaves... who would have thought that this great old house would have the power to bring about so much change?

"Not I", said the cat...

Buon natale

2011-12-24T22:53:00.002+01:00

May these few special days be serene and joyful.
May we all use them to pause and think.
And may we all find something special under the Christmas tree...

Merry Christmas
Buon natale
Fröhliche Weihnachten

Solstice sunrise

2011-12-23T21:30:00.000+01:00

Lago Maggiore

December 2011

Nine am

2011-11-28T10:24:00.001+01:00

Bright, cold and dry at Lago Maggiore this Monday morning.

Nine am. Breakfast served. Children gone. Dog run. Chicks fed. Wood hauled. Stufa lit. Beds airing. Laundry out, laundry in.

After the early-morning flurry, I confront the post-weekend wreck of the kitchen. Jerry Seinfeld's words come to mind:

"A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have the top for it."

Oh yeah, Jerry, very funny. Now think one five-year-old and one seven-year-old both armed with watercolours, various fresh fruit, glue, cotton wool, pine cones and glitter. Oh yes, and Swiss army knives. If you can imagine mixing the topless blender with the Sorcerer's Apprentice, then I think you have it about right.

I think I'll go put on my short spotty housewife's dress and high heels and use the vacuum cleaner to murder a couple of spiders...

http://www.123rf.com

Carmine thoughts

2011-11-21T10:18:00.002+01:00

A cold and hazy Monday morning. Frost at the laghetto at 8am.

Feeding the chicks and hauling in firewood early this morning, it struck me that, perhaps because I'm here most of the time and most of the time alone, I think of Carmine as a living, organic entity.

And that it's entirely possible that others don't see it this way.

In fact, it's entirely possible that if the authorities heard of it I might be sectioned and my children taken away for their own safety.

Setting that uncomfortable idea aside, another thought took its place - that Carmine demands of people much more than people, mostly, are prepared to give. (Perhaps that's why I find myself mostly alone in Carmine.) But in return, Carmine transforms lives.

And in general, I thought - as I cleaned up doggy dirt in the entrata, disposed of the cats' Monday dead-mouse-tribute, split firewood for Mathilda, shoved allergy-raising-dust-mite duvets in the washing machine, and boiled a kettle of hot water on the wood-burner for the washing up - that has to be A Good Thing.

Doesn't it?

2011-11-17T10:47:00.000+01:00

Bright but cold in the mornings. Five degrees at 8am and the first patches of frost spotted yesterday. By lunchtime, though, the sun is warm enough to sit out with a sandwich, my back against the sun-warmed stones of the church.

Welcome Mathilda!

2011-11-15T09:15:00.001+01:00

A bright and sunny autumn day with colourful leaves swirling through the branches, and the sunshine warming the stones of the Chiesa di San Gottardo.

The two dotties are both at home sick, so I have inaugurated Mathilda a day early this year.

Welcome Mathilda!

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the 11th year

2011-11-11T10:22:00.001+01:00

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

John McRae

Monday morning

2011-11-07T09:25:00.000+01:00

Twelve degrees at 8am as we slithered and slid down a wet-leaf-slick sentiero. Still raining, but very lightly.

I'm off and out with me fan-rake for a spot of community service.

Spring thoughts in autumn

2011-11-06T08:55:00.002+01:00

Raining and autumny. The rain that has brought floods to Genova has here created thundering torrents where before, after so long a dry spell, there were only tiny dribbles of streams. The sentiero is again flooded in places, and yesterday, the chicks were up to their feathery knickers in water.

Visitors.

Fiera Degli Allevatori. Cannobio 2011.

Next year in Carmine?

Rain

2011-11-04T12:05:00.001+01:00

Twelve degrees at 10am as I dawdled my way towards a capucchino and a brioche. Raining. Steadily but not spitefully. And the fire salamanders are in love, and are copulating among the fallen leaves.

I love the autumn rain in Carmine. I love to walk out under the woodland canopy, to hear the rain on the leaves above me, to smell the rain in the soil under me. And not be wet. And not be cold.

I love the mist that drifts in with the rain. I love the way it caresses the treetops and sometimes shrouds Carmine completely, arranging itself over the stone rooftops like the soul of a woman in love reaching out and enveloping the form of her beloved.

I love my wood fire, a single light, a wine-dark glass winking at me, a sofa, a book and the sound of the rain dripping from the ancient eaves.

And silence.

The end of the world as I know it?

2011-11-01T16:33:00.005+01:00

A typical autumn day. Coldish. Dampish. With sunshine enjoy at lunchtime and a tittery little breeze to snaffle the leaves off the trees.

alamedainfo.com

In San Jose, California, there is a very strange building. It's known as the Winchester Mystery House, and was built by Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Rifles fortune. The story goes that she became unbalanced by the deaths, first of her daughter and then of her husband. A cooky Boston spiritualist (is there any other kind?) explained that their deaths had been brought about by the spirits of all those killed by Winchester rifles, and to avoid herself being the next victim she must build a home for them. As long as this building was under construction, Sarah Winchester would never fall prey to the spirits that haunted her.

Now I know what it's like to live in a house where the building work never seems to finish, but unlike me, Sarah Winchester didn't want the round-the-clock work to come to an end, and in fact she was able to perpetuate it for 38 years. The house is a labyrinth of corridors, secret passageways and apartments. There are numerous chimneys, turrets and towers. There are staircases that go nowhere, doors that open onto blank walls, windows that open, not onto the outside, but into yet another corridor. The house has 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms and 6 kitchens. The whole stands as a weird monument to a woman convinced that her actions could fend off the inevitable.

And so it is here in Carmine. Not with the restoration of this big old house, even though I'm sure there is the odd Winchester or two on the premises. And not with the infestation of vengeful spirits, although after spending Hallowe'en alone here last night, I do wonder.

No.

I'm talking about the laundry.

The laundry?

Yes, the laundry.

Laundry, laundry everywhere. My house is full - and is always full - of laundry at all stages of the process. In the dirty baskets and the clean baskets. Wet laundry of every size, shape and colour hanging from every available hanger - and believe me, I collect laundry horses the way Sarah Winchester collected tradesmen.

What I'm getting to is this. Do you think that if I ever got through the laundry...such that there is not a single sock languishing under a bed, nor a single pair of shreddies hanging limply from the washing line, nor a single shirt in the queue for the starch...if I ever got through the laundry, do you think something dreadful might happen?

Might a great tsunami whip across Lago Maggiore and drown us all? Might Monte Carza suddenly erupt, burying us all in ash and preserving us for posterity? Might this 1,000-year-old house come crashing down around my ears? Might the dead buried not 50 metres away in the piazetta by the church rise up and engulf us?

Might the world come to an end? ...

Tell you what. If I promise not to risk the end of the world by finishing the laundry, will you promise not to look sideways at the overflowing ironing baskets next time you come to my house?

It's a deal.

Sunday morning

2011-10-30T09:35:00.000+01:00

Another beautiful bright, dry day in Carmine Superiore. But while summer lingers in the sunshine on the churchyard, winter is edging through Carmine's narrow alleyways.

Sunday morning view from the Chiesa di San Gottardo,

Carmine Superiore.

Season of sunrises

2011-10-27T09:18:00.002+02:00

Cold, hazy and damp. But the torrential rain of the last couple of days seems to have gone away. We're all sending our best wishes to our neighbours in Liguria and Tuscany...

Autumn is now in full swing in Piemonte. Varicoloured leaf displays, snow on the Alps and as I walk Jakob! early in the morning I crunch across carpets of acorns and chestnuts.

From now until spring, I have my own secret season, which I think of as the season of sunrises. During this season, my camera-carrying comings and goings coincide with some spectacular early-morning displays. And today was the first.

Lombardy sunrise.

October 27, 2011

Plus ça change...

2011-10-25T14:47:00.003+02:00

Cold and raining. The latter is good for the garden. The former is good for... ? Fill in the blank if you can. I can't.

Seven years ago, give or take a few hours, I gave birth to my son, AJ. He arrived amid chaos. The House on the Rock was still only half-restored. There was no hot water in the kitchen, no water at all in the bathroom. The entire upper third of the house was still unplastered, and unelectrified - unexplored you might even say. Our very own heart of darkness. And the place had not much in the way of heating either.

In the weeks and months that followed through the chill of the Carmine winter, AJ slept with us on a mattress on the floor.

As much as tiny babies do, that is.

Which isn't much.

Of that time I remember mostly the cold at night. I remember sitting up in bed in the wee small hours, propped against a freezing external wall, with his little body at the breast or in my lap, cocooned in a blanket. I remember marvelling at M's ability to snooze on through vigorous smacking of infantile lips and vigorous attempts at burping, which I now recall never, ever succeeded. Oh, and the cholic.

I remember feeling that I was the only person alive that was awake at that moment. In the darkness of 3am, not a light lit. Not a waking soul to share the responsibility of this little life with. I remember the only thing that kept me going through the sleep deprivation all ordinary parents share was the fact of this little boy. Just the fact of him.

In the wee small hours of last Sunday night in bed, I'm cold, disastrously tired and awake. I'm propped against a freezing external wall. I've got pins and needles but I'm riveted to the spot by the warm weight of a not-so-small body asleep upright on my lap. I'm riveted by the desire not to wake my asthmatic son into yet another fit of uncontrollable coughing. I'm marvelling through gritted teeth- so-to-speak - at M's ability to snooze on through lights off and on, the too-frequent application of spray medications, the making of cups of tea to keep me awake and drinking chocolate to make him sleep. The inevitable fits of uncontrollable coughing that make me feel I should be heading down The Hill towards Pronto Soccorso.

I'm feeling that I'm the only person awake in the inky blackness of this night. Not a waking soul to share the responsibility of this not-so-little life with. And I know that the only thing that keeps me doing this is the fact of this growing child. Just the fact of him.

Happy birthday, AJ. Truly, an indisputable fact of my life.

Autumn colours

2011-10-24T20:36:00.001+02:00

Five degrees at 8am. Starting bright but ending cold, grey and frankly rather too English for my liking.

Carmine window.

October 2011

Rays

2011-10-16T09:15:00.000+02:00

Heather and sunlight.

The Belvedere, Carmine Superiore-Cannero.

In Via Giovanola

2011-10-14T19:16:00.000+02:00

Phantom window.

Via Giovanola, Cannobio.

Wise words

2011-10-09T09:00:00.003+02:00

Today, I am attending the 25th wedding anniversary celebrations of my oldest friend.

Twenty-five years of marriage is a long time these days, and I admire her and her husband for seeing it through, together, in a world when so many couples just don't bother to fight when the going gets tough. There will be a service at the little Norman church in her village in England's West Country, at which she and her husband will renew their vows in preparation for the next 25 years. They have done me the honour of asking me to read the lesson. Given my marital record, I'm not entirely sure the request wasn't either ironic or didactic, or, knowing her, a little bit of both:

Colossians 3.12-17

“As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

"...clothe yourselves with love...and be thankful". Amen.

And my hearty congratulations to C & N : May we all have the pleasure of coming back to celebrate your Golden Wedding when the time comes.

Translators' gaffes No. 1: Come to Cannobio - where the wildlife is

2011-10-05T10:41:00.001+02:00

Sixteen degrees at 8am. They tell me these beautiful, sunny, dry Indian summer days are just about over, and autumn is waiting at the turn of the week.

I idly picked up a Cannobio accommodation brochure the other day, and my editor's eyes alighted on this particular description:

“...The flats are all endowed with equipped kitchen, autonomous heating, ample private balcony or terrace, sat-TV, parking, pier and boas...”

Perhaps visitors might be more than a little wary of this residenza, what with the heating with a mind of its own and something squirmy waiting at the pier...

Book notes No. 47: Farewell Waltz, Milan Kundera

2011-10-02T07:41:00.008+02:00

Farewell Waltz has, like far too many books, been languishing on my Amazon wish list for a long, long, long time. Its salvation from wish list oblivion had its seeds in the small French town of Salins-les-Bains, where I found myself curing in the famous salt waters at the end of August.

Part-way through my session, I realised that I was surrounded by lady octogenarians, all bingo wings and flower-sculpture bonnets de bain, oo-ing and oh-la-laah-ing their way through an aquarobics session. And my sauna-high brain instantly connected to that immortal scene in the Hollywood version of Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being involving Juliette Binoche, Daniel Day-Lewis, and a number of women taking a fitness class beside a Communist-era spa-pool. Minus the flower-sculpture bonnets de bain.

That I should later finally choose to 1-click on Farewell Waltz was, then, inevitable. And that I should enjoy it so much that I stayed up very late, and in the morning shunned company over my cappuccino to finish it, was also inevitable.

Farewell Waltz is a dark comedy involving a small number of characters connected to a Communist-era spa some distance from Prague. Ruzena, a spa attendant, is pregnant, and has decided that a famous jazz trumpeter with whom she had a one-night stand, is to be named the father in preference to her adoring no-hoper boyfriend. Klima is the poor musician so accused, and he is married to the disastrously beautiful and equally disastrously jealous Kamilla. Dr Skreta is a spa gynaecologist famous for his miraculous cure for infertility. Jakub, whose past has seen him both government-sanctioned executioner and victim, is leaving the country for good, and is in town to say goodbye to his ward, Olga, the daughter of a friend he sent to his death. Then there is Bretlef, a rich American who is at once saint and Don Juan.

Oh yes, and a little blue pill.

Kundera, as usual, beautifully tangles his characters into moral, social, political and emotional knots and still finds time for some trenchant social comment and a spot of jazz.

But there is more. About one-third of the way through the book Kundera stopped me dead in my tracks with his elucidation of something we in Carmine have been wrestling with over the past couple of years - something I thought I could never hope to understand. In the passage in question, Jakub, the character who has suffered so much under Communist rule, but who has also made others suffer, is wrestling with the exact same question:

“The old men merged in his mind with prison guards, examining magistrates, and informers who spied on their neighbours to see if they talked politics while shopping. What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will. The desire for order is at the same time a desire for death, because life is a perpetual violation of order. Or, inversely, the desire for order is the virtuous pretext by which man's hatred for man justifies its crimes.”

And now I have it straight.

Sea pictures in a Cannobio car park

2011-09-29T10:09:00.002+02:00

A bright, warm and sunny autumnal day. For two weeks now, no rain. Watering like a mad thing.

This morning in the car, once free of the children and their obsession with 'The Five Findouters' audio mysteries, I'm listening to the immortal Dame Janet Baker sing Elgar's Sea Pictures Op. 37. I pull into the car park as she starts in on the sublime 'Sabbath Morning at Sea', from the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (how much more English can you get?), and I can't tear myself away. I am immobile in the driver's seat, windows open, ancient cassette player vibrating (not quite, but almost) like the drum-&-bass trunk of some city pimp. I am gazing across Lago Maggiore, which glitters in a very Italianate way in the morning sun, and I am dreaming of the sea, as sometimes we English must.

In the parking space beside me I notice with the small part of my being that's not drenched in musical salt spray, a dark blue Twingo has arrived. In the driver's seat is a short man in his mid-60s, who glances at me with a twinkle that gives me to understand he was not always pear-shaped and male-pattern bald. I also shortly become aware that instead of immediately going about his business, he, too, has become caught up in the drama of Dame Janet's ineffable mezzo and is soaring with her across the lake, so to speak.

We reach the climactic "He shall assist me to look higher, he shall assist me to look higher", and now the tears are streaming down my face (note to self - must stop being moved to tears by great art in public car parks). He glances at me, can't fail to see the tears, and smiles a gentle smile. As the moment dies away, we are both still for a moment, and then the man leans slowly across.

"Una meraviglia," he says, quietly, "Una meraviglia!"

He twinkles again, then gets out of his car, and disappears from my day.

And I am left with the strange sensation that something has happened, but I can't quite put my finger on what...

I had a little nut tree...

2011-09-26T07:30:00.002+02:00

Sixteen degrees at 8am. Bright sunshine. And up here on The Rock, a gentle laundry-drying breeze.

The other day in Conad Supermarket, Cannobio. Prime walnuts, price €8.95 per kilo. Price includes first class shipping by Noberasco some 11,000km from Argentina.

Part of what's wrong with the world.

Today in Carmine Superiore. Just-fallen walnuts, price €0.00 per kilo. Price includes a breath of mountain air to pluck them from the tree, 15 minutes gathering, first class transport 300m down the hill from the prato, and a day on the windowsill drying in the autumn sun.

Part of what's right with Carmine Superiore.

Open House, Tile Kiln Studios

2011-09-24T07:27:00.000+02:00

Passing through north London today or tomorrow? Pop by at Tile Kiln Studios, Highgate, for the 11th annual Open House. Featuring the work of friends Jazmin Velasco, Colin Moore, Danielle Eubank, Tom Crew and Mychael Barratt.

Three colours

2011-09-19T08:00:00.001+02:00

Seventeen degrees at 8am, although the raging wind leaves us feeling more like seven. After a weekend of stormy weather, there is snow on the highest of 'our' Swiss Alps...

Red, yellow and blue.

Brissago marina, September 2011.

Quote of the week No. 50 : On Patience

2011-09-16T10:03:00.003+02:00

Nineteen degrees at 8am, with a good cooling breeze. Could do with a bit of rain.

Living in Carmine Superiore these last few years, I have learned many things. How to light a fire, how to pluck a chicken, how to walk quietly in the woods, how to save a life, how to find my place in the family I made. Most particularly, I have learned patience.

I live in the land of Leonardo, who wrote:

“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.”

Powerless to vex your mind... Yes.

Written in water

2011-09-15T06:35:00.000+02:00

A name written in water.

Porto Lido, Cannobio.

Yesterday.

2011-09-13T17:55:00.003+02:00

A shocking 35°C registered on the digital thermometer at the farmacia at 3pm today.

Is that possible? Or does the farmacista have an overstock of antiperspirant he wants to get rid of...

Stay tuned for more posts at A View from Carmine Superiore, the blog that isn't afraid to ask the Big Questions.

September 11, 2011

2011-09-11T09:10:00.008+02:00

On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people died. God bless all those souls, and keep their families.

Every day since then, some 16,000 children have died of hunger.

Every day.

Every day, 16,000 mothers weeping over a small, broken body.

Every day, a tragedy more than five times greater than 9/11 enacts itself over and over and over again.

9/11 - 10/11 - 11/11 - 12/11 - 13/11 - 14/11 - 15/11 - 16/11 - 17/11 - 18/11 - 19/11 - 20/11...

Every day, the crime of death by hunger perpetrated against the innocent, the most vulnerable, the tiniest.

Do these 58 million slow and painful deaths get blanket news coverage?

Are they commemorated in grand ceremonies year on year on year?

Does anyone build vast and lavish memorials to these dear little souls?

Shame on all of us.

www.bread.org

Biou!

2011-09-10T18:01:00.004+02:00

This weekend, our friends from the House of Bava are beginning grape-picking.

In Arbois, France, where I recently spent a very happy couple of days recharging my batteries, the grape harvest is celebrated in a very special ceremony in early September every year. The first of the grapes are used to make the Biou, an enormous bunch of grapes made up of dozens of smaller ones. The Biou is paraded in the streets to general celebration, carried by four local winemakers and accompanied by two fiddles. The Biou is then hung in the ancient parish church of St-Just as an offering to God (and I suspect as a throwback to a more pagan ritual).

Gilles Thouyard's 1988 stained glass depiction of the Biou.

Eglise St-Just, Arbois

Good luck and buon lavoro to all our friends in the wine industry who are harvesting their grapes about now. We look forward to schlepping a few cases up the hill and popping those corks in years to come!

Thursday already

2011-09-08T13:29:00.000+02:00

Hot and sunny. Below 30°, which is fine by me.

Wildflowers.

Forêt des Moidons, Jura, France.

Seems almost solarized...n'est-ce pas?

Monday morning

2011-09-05T10:26:00.001+02:00

After yesterday's torrential rain. Hot, sunny with clouds.

I've said it before, and I trust nobody will blame me if I say it again. I love Monday mornings.

In Carmine.

No bathroom sprint, no emergency dash with the smoothing iron, no where's my briefcase, travelcard, keys. No traffic cough. No underground crush. No "Mind the gap". No train cancelled. No mobile ringtones. No bad-tempered queues. No litter streets. No roaring trash trucks. No blaring sirens.

Not late, dirty-fingered, tired already.

Just this...

Monday morning in the sacristy.

Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore.

Casa Chiera

2011-09-04T16:39:00.000+02:00

Warm and raining. And raining. And raining. And raining...

Casa Chiera, Carmine Superiore.

In the rain.

Wedding wishes

2011-09-03T08:23:00.002+02:00

Bright skies at 8am, promising a beautiful wedding day.

Today the Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore, welcomes Nora and Michi, and all their guests.

"Serenità, felicità e complicità vi siano compagni per tutta la vita."

First fruits

2011-09-02T10:04:00.002+02:00

Twenty degrees at 8am. Bright, warm, humid, with a breeze.

That breeze? It's bringing down the first sweet chestnuts and littering our prato with walnuts. I'm off for a bit of a forage. Beats cleaning the kitchen floor...

Reported conversations No. 28: Home alone

2011-09-01T20:58:00.002+02:00

Still hot and steamy after this morning's cloud burst - the first of many, I fear, perfectly timed for the school run.

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.

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.

B.: "Mama, you and Pappi can't go away together without us!"

Mama (seeing a romantic weekend away-from-the-hill slipping through her fingers, and trying not to sound too desperate): "Why not darling, I think it's a great idea..."

B.: "No, you can't go away without us!"

Mama (staying cool, but giving herself away with the unconscious Enid-Blyton-speak): "But why ever not, dear?"

B. (speaking slowly as to a particularly dull dullard): "Because we can't - reach - the - pasta - machine."

Mama (guffawing into the washing up, thinks): I could always leave it on the bottom shelf...

Pic: justinsomnia

2011-08-30T20:58:00.000+02:00

Another hot summer day, starting at 19° at 8am, rising to 33° at 3pm. But the rubinia are already turning yellow with the shorter, cooler nights. Perhaps we'll see an early autumn?

The dawn breaks...

2011-08-29T14:00:00.002+02:00

Seventeen degrees at 8am with a pleasing breeze and blue skies. A scorching 30° at three.

On June 16, 2011, Mama is sitting with a cold cup of tea at the kitchen table. The house is a chaos of toys, childrens' clothes and peanut husks. The dog's barking, the kids are trying to murder one another, the cats are mewing to be fed something palatable and the washing machine is lumbering its way towards a breakdown. Mama knows how it feels.

That was the first day of the 10-week summer holidays, 2011. The whole period had been planned with the precision of the world's first female field-marshal going into battle (obviously, with something to prove). A course here, a trip there, judicious use of treats, regular homework every day, and a leetle solo spa trip for Mama at the end of it all, just to recharge the batteries. On June 16, 2011 at 10am, it didn't seem as if it was going to work...

But we all survived, possibly despite the field-marshal's planning, to see this dawn break on the new term:

The summer ebbed and flowed about us. A hot June was followed by an astonishingly cold and wet July that did for the amateur tomato crop from Cannero to Brissago, but did better for the hard fruit that, as I write is ripening promisingly on the trees. August was hotter than usual, just to make up for July.

Holiday-makers came and went. Tidal waves of children pounded the cobbles. They insinuated themselves into seats at other people's lunch tables and learned how to pluck a chicken, make friends with feral cats, turn basil into pesto, spin linguini out of flour and eggs, and hit a tin can with a catapult at 30m.

Our little church was visited by ravening hordes of tourists, especially for the new Porte Aperte project, which we started this year. One enterprising 13-year-old, hearing that the tour was being given in English or Italian, but not German, spotted the gap in the market, wrote his own tour and in a couple of days earned a small fortune for the maintenance of the church. Bravo!

Today, though, Mama sighed a sigh of relief at 6:30am as she walked the dog, watched the dawn and gathered her wits. She felt a momentary pang of guilt as she looked forward to being child-free, to a good, long, tummy-taming walk in the woods, a peaceful hour weeding the garden, and the sight of the carpet minus a single peanut husk.

The pang soon went away.

C'est pas la lessive...

2011-08-26T17:27:00.002+02:00

...c'est l'art.

Unexpected art installation in the charming French winemaking town of Arbois.

Quote of the week No. 49

2011-08-18T09:00:00.001+02:00

"Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."

-- Nathaniel Hawthorn

Pic: Val d'Err, Grigioni

Reported conversations No. 27: someone trying to tell me something

2011-08-16T09:24:00.005+02:00

Mostly blue skies, with the land still damp from a brief but bombastic thunderstorm two nights ago. Thirty-three degrees at 3pm - a bit of a shock after the cool stone walls of Carmine Superiore.

Showing a group of visitors around the Chiesa di San Gottardo the other day, with the children close at my heels. A kind-looking German woman, ready to be charmed, asks in halting Italian: "And are these your grandchildren, dear?"

Ouch! Perhaps I should just give in gracefully and let the hairdresser low-light my grey out of existence after all? Then I could at least pretend I'm not old enough to be my kids' grandmother.

Later...

AJ cuddles Mama in the summer-sunshine garden. AJ pinches more than an inch and remarks: "Mama, you feel like a teddy bear".

Oh poop! Where are the bathroom scales? Too much pasta, polenta and parmiggiano, and not enough puff-puff up the hill. Soon-turning-50 panic settling in to a spot just above the spare tyre.

But then, just last evening...

The whole family is poring over a satirical cartoon in The Economist, and Pappa is trying to teach the children (and Mama, I suspect) something about debt, credit and the value of money in your pocket, when B. flicks to an ad on the back cover:

Pappa, interest piqued by a pair of long legs and some high-end luggage, asks: "Who's that?"

B., my 5 year-old angel, replies: "It's ... Mama!"

Oh, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you! Now I know what daughters are for.

A little night music

2011-08-04T08:46:00.002+02:00

Spagna e dintorni - Francesco Cuoghi, chitarra barocca e chitarra - Giovedì 18 Agosto, ore 21:00. A rare opportunity to experience the unique atmosphere of the Chiesa di San Gottardo and the view of Lago Maggiore by night. Oh yes, and hear some beautiful classical guitar.

Summer in Carmine

2011-08-03T09:26:00.002+02:00

To visit the Chiesa di San Gottardo at Carmine Superiore, and to hear the stories behind its unique frescoes, contact Pro Loco Cannobio (Cannobio's tourist information office) for an appointment, or email me louise[at]carminesuperiore[dot]it.

You can reach Carmine Superiore from the lakeside strada nazionale in about 10 minutes. However, parking at lake level in Carmine Inferiore may prove difficult. An alternative is to take a bus from Cannobio or Cannero, or to walk. From Cannobio it's about 90 minutes and from Cannero (the easier route) it's about 60 minutes. Sensible shoes recommended.

Carmine Superiore is a favourite place for a picnic. May I mention, however, that there is no municipal refuse collection, and there are no public toilets. Please be prepared to take all your trash home when you leave - a small sealable freezer bag is useful for used toilet tissue and feminine hygiene items. Please don't leave us to pick up after you.

Happy summer!

Quote of the week No. 48

2011-07-26T09:00:00.003+02:00

"It is at the edge of a petal that love waits."

- William Carlos Williams

Driftwood

2011-07-23T13:23:00.000+02:00

After the storms of recent weeks, the modest shingle beach at Carmine Inferiore, which we call our own, is piled high with driftwood. One particular tree-trunk has been tied to the shore. It still bucks and canters with the waves - a sea-horse offering magical rides to little imaginations, and a plethora of textures to young photographers...

Photograph by AJ, aged 6½.

Quote of the week No. 47

2011-07-22T09:31:00.001+02:00

Beside the footpath, Savognin.

"I think it annoys God if you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice."

- Alice Walker, The Colour Purple.

Window

2011-07-18T17:03:00.000+02:00

Parc Ela, Grigioni.

What I did on my holidays No.7

2011-07-17T09:38:00.001+02:00

Watched the mountainside melt away in a sudden storm, leaving only a rippling, jagged edge of Norway spruce visible amid the roiling fog.

What I did on my holidays No.6

2011-07-16T09:00:00.001+02:00

Marvelled once more at the brilliance of the person who saw that Savognin's enormous car park was crammed to bursting in the ski season but became a deserted wasteland in the summer, and suggested filling it with meltwater from the River Surses, adding a couple of kid-sized rafts, three pedaloes, some non-endangered wildlife, four barbecues, a kiosk, a playground and a pile of sand.

Must have been a mother.

What I did on my holidays No.5

2011-07-15T09:00:00.006+02:00

Discovered exactly how wonderful it is to spend a few days alone with my daughter, including allowing her to instruct me in her favourite occupation of collecting wildflowers and arranging them.

Happy birthday, B-B. What a fascinating little person you've become in only 5 years.

What I did on my holidays No.4

2011-07-14T09:00:00.002+02:00

Renewed my acquaintance with Grigioni's heart-expanding sky, breathed its clean air and relished the fresh produce of its wide, steep landscape.

What I did on my holidays No.3

2011-07-13T09:00:00.002+02:00

Introduced my daughter to things cold, wet and slimy...

... in the form of ~~a juvenile Alpine salamander~~ an Alpine newt (see comments).

No room for squeamish girlies in Carmine Superiore.

What I did on my holidays No.2

2011-07-12T08:45:00.000+02:00

Raided the cellar for a bottle of crémant de Bourgogne, and settled myself on the terrace to enjoy the evening light show over Piz Toissa (2657m).

What I did on my holidays No.1

2011-07-11T09:00:00.006+02:00

Six hours hiking at between 1200m and 2000m in and around Val d'Err, Grigioni, with local pharmacist and herbalist Astrid Thurner, learning about hundreds of species of Alpine plants: the culinary, the medicinal, the terribly rare and the breathtakingly beautiful.

Thanks to Ruth for really making my day by translating into English from the Swiss-German when my Latin binomials deserted me, and for joining me in spontaneous, delighted laughter at the sheer exuberance of Nature at her creative best.

Smiling Madonna

2011-07-03T09:00:00.000+02:00

Basilica San Vittore,

Verbania Intra.

Reported conversations No. 26 : When I grow up

2011-06-30T09:00:00.002+02:00

A little 4-year old voice pipes up from the back of the car the other morning on the school run...

B.: Mama, when I grow up I'm going to be rich.

Mama: Sounds good to me. And how are you going to manage that?

B.: I'm going to put all my toys in a hankie and leave home. Can I take Trouble with me? He is my cat after all...

Mama: Yes, you can take Trouble with you [thinks: one less cat in the bed in winter].

B.: Then I'm going to get some elves to make something really good and sell it. Then with the money I can make more and sell it. Then with that money I can make more and everyone will come and buy it, even the king. Then I'll have enough to buy sausages to eat and more things to sell.

Mama: Sounds like a good plan.

B.: And you know what? If any trolls try to stop me I'll just head-butt them over the side of the bridge and into the stream.

Eyeing her very self-satisfied four-year-old in the rear-view mirror, Mama turns over ideas for the Next Big Thing in management trends, and wonders whether "A princess, a cat, some elves and a billy goat: management by fairy-tale in the 21st century" might work on the NY Times bestseller list...

Wine dark See

2011-06-29T10:08:00.000+02:00

Saturday afternoon at Lago Maggiore,

June 2011.

With apologies to Homer.

In Intra

2011-06-27T09:00:00.001+02:00

The narrowest door in Intra.

June 2001.

Motherhood means ... No. 30

2011-06-24T08:01:00.001+02:00

Motherhood means ...

... worrying whether I should be worrying that there is always a little bit of washing powder left in the container when I add the next bagful.

Perhaps another glass of fizz is in order.

A blessèd state

2011-06-22T09:33:00.005+02:00

After three days of glorious sunshine and temperatures in the high 20s, today is overcast and threatening a little rain.

Good. I won't have to water the garden. But there is everything else.

Only two days into the 10-week summer holiday and my clean and tidy ideal home is a thing of memory. I'm drowning in cardboard-box tanks that fall apart when you move them, plastic-bottle contraptions that prove Boyle's Law, but soak everything in the process, and stuffed animals at all stages of mutilation spilling their innards from bedroom to study to churchyard and back. I'm up to my ankles in super-scratchable boxless DVDs, and up to my eyes in indecipherable swap cards.

The cats have colonised the bedrooms, the dog is a dark vortex of insanity in the entrance, and the chicks have developed a suicidal desire to fly the coop through any gap in the wire and offer themselves to the waiting fox. Or buzzard.

And under cover of last night's darkness my beloved husband has returned from his many wanderings. How do I know? Every drawer and cupboard door is open. The place is strewn with shoe polish, toothbrushes, dirty shirts and revolting conference baggies. And every time I try to cross the entrance I trip over the booby-trap boots.

A blessèd state, wife-and-motherhood. And now I know why my grandmother always used the word 'blessèd' to mean !*@?#!!!!

Madonna with sunburst

2011-06-19T08:47:00.000+02:00

After days of showers, heavy and otherwise, today is bright and breezy. No excuses - it's time to repair the damage in the garden.

One of my favourite Madonnas.

I love her sunburst halo.

Via Roma, Cannobio.

Rainbow over Lago Maggiore

2011-06-16T09:00:00.001+02:00

Nineteen degrees at 8am, but promising hot, steamy and showery later.

Photo by AJ, aged 6

From Carmine Superiore, June 2011.

The holiday before the holiday

2011-06-13T08:45:00.008+02:00

It's mid-June, and the mothers hereabouts are staring down the barrel of 10 weeks of summer holiday. The prospect is so scary that this mother has been taking pre-emptive action. This week, Mama has been on a pre-holiday holiday. Children, husband and dog have all been packed off to the tender mercies of Oma - where they have been enjoying a strict Prussian regime of ice-cream, the cellar's best Riesling and some rather good bones.

And Mama has been on holiday. Did I already say that? Yes? Nota bene.

And what lovely things did Mama get up to alone in Carmine with only a rabble of cats and a chuckle of chicks for company? I'll tell you what she got up to.

She cleaned 55 panes of glass and 8 mirrors. She swept, vaccuumed and mopped 11 separate floors plus stairs and hallways. She wet-dusted every surface, including ceiling beams, picture frames, the insides of cupboards and the very highest shelves. She raked out four grates and disposed of the contents and choked on the dust.

She sorted, bagged, carried down the hill and dumped a grand total of 23 bags of old clothes, toys and straight trash (and, yes, she was counting, through gritted teeth). She spent two days solid fishing unmentionable objects from under beds, separating the Duplo from the Leggo, reuniting jigsaw pieces with their sets and sellotaping broken boxes back together. In those days she pondered many of the great children's-bedroom mysteries, such as where the enormous pile of plastic, pastel-coloured ponies had materialized from, and whether her son's collection of cat-gift bird wings (minus the birds) constituted a health hazard.

She archived winter duvets and aired summer duvets; she stripped, laundered and made up five beds. She washed and dried (in teeming rain) four dog blankets, and seven rag rugs. She ironed for England, including pressing 11 shirts to hot-cotton perfection, 6 of them with fussy French cuffs. She discovered that if the laundry hampers and the ironing baskets are empty at the same time (which they normally never are), she needs 100% more space in the wardrobes than she now has.

Of course, having spent so much time on her own, Mama has a few secrets...a few little sins to confess. She has done things that she should not have done ("Where did that 5-litre jar of two-year-old age-browned pickled cauliflower go, darling?" And "Mama, what happened to that plastic Spongebob Squarepants I had? I've never looked at it before, but I want it - NOW!"). And she has not done things that she should have done ("Honey, did you pick up my suits from the cleaners?" And "Oh Mama, have you designed my party invitations, yet?" And "Why didn't you eat the lettuces before they bolted?").

So as this Monday dawns, and the husband, the son, the daughter, the dog, several cases of Alsatian fizz, rather too much stinky French cheese and hundreds of books make their way south, Mama is left with a vague recollection that somebody at some stage mentioned a holiday...

The Madonna in Marconi

2011-06-12T09:00:00.004+02:00

Madonna and Child

Via Marconi

Cannobio

Half asleep in polka-dot pyjamas

2011-06-11T08:09:00.005+02:00

Six am.

Through the open window comes a squawking and a cackling and a familiar ringing cry from the hen house. Having lost four of my beloved chicks in recent days, I'm out of bed and doing the chicken-house sprint before you can say foxy-loxy. Barefoot in polka-dot pyjamas and still half-blind with sleep.

Could it be the buzzard, perhaps? Yesterday I witnessed an extraordinary sight - a jay, howling excitedly, wheeling and turning in pursuit of a massive buzzard - following the contours of Carmine's terraces and out of sight over the lake. Seconds later the jay was back, without the buzzard, and howling victoriously.

I know, it's the fox! I can't remember closing the chicken-house door yesterday, my skirt gripped to my waist and bulging with eggs. Did I? Oh God! I'm prepared for a litter of corpses and a drift of soft baby down.

As I reach them, the cockerel begins to crow an all-clear. In a corner of the prato, under the trees, next to the wood pile, I sense rather than see a massive, majestic red stag. He is motionless for a moment, eyeing up the polka-dot pyjamas. Slowly bowing his hefty antlers in haughty disapproval, he drifts away into the damp gloom.

I let myself into palazzo pollo, counting as I go. The big guys are easy. One cockerel. Check. Seven fat girls. Check. The flock of youngsters are harder to count as they fly to me from all corners of the enclosure like Trafalgar-Square pigeons to a tourist. Stand still! Okay. Seventeen. Check.

From out of the undergrowth one of the cats stalks angrily and sits herself down to wait with a humph. She's staring at me out of cool green eyes. Still sulking that I evicted her last night and passing judgement on the polka-dot pyjamas.

The netting is down, and I spend a few minutes fixing it back up - adept these days with the wirecutters (who'd have thought?). The chicks surround me, some on perches, some on the ground at my feet. Some try to sit on my shoulders, and I gently brush them away, remembering the several pairs of pearl earrings they've stolen right out of my ears in recent weeks. They're understandably attracted to anything that to them resembles grain.

The out-loud laugh that bubbles up I cut short, with a furtive glance around - am I destined for mad old lady-hood?

As I work I realise my little ones are being more than usually attentive this morning. To my knees.

I look down.

It seems they like the polka-dot pyjamas if no-one else does, and if I'm not careful I shall be bare-footing it back to the village with them in tatters and my mad lady status well and truly confirmed...

There is an angel...

2011-06-09T13:43:00.001+02:00

...in Guardian Angel Alley.

Vicolo Angelo Custode

Cannobio

In the hedgerow

2011-06-08T12:33:00.000+02:00

Still showery, but much, much brighter. I have high hopes for hay-raking...tomorrow.

Wild strawberries in flower.

Carmine Superiore.

Rainy day

2011-06-06T10:27:00.002+02:00

Warm, but raining hard with the occasional clap of gratuitous thunder. And thems as know say it'll be doing the same all week.

Wave ta-ta to hay-making, bid adieu to raspberry-picking and send a permanent good-bye to the basil as it falls prey to an army of damp-loving slugs. Say hello to permanently wet laundry, buongiorno to muddy wellies, and ciao to those pretty little fungal blooms in the corner of the sitting room where the village well used to be.

I love the sound of it, though, on the great stone roof. I love to sit at our highest window up under the eaves and watch the woods deepen in colour. I love to see the sheets of rain range across the silver lake. And I love it when Carmine is enveloped in cloud, and there's nothing in the world beyond me and the ancient stone.

Brooding

2011-06-05T10:19:00.002+02:00

Still raining, but with the occasional pause accompanied by a shaft of sunlight, just to lull the unwary into a false sense of meteorological security.

Red sky in the morning,

Shepherd's warning...

Morning view from Carmine Superiore.

Weather report

2011-06-04T09:51:00.001+02:00

Looks like the rain has set in for the next few days. The house is very dark today, and everything seems damp.

A shame for the Pentecost campers.

Three-fold curse with postscript

2011-06-03T16:21:00.008+02:00

Overcast and humid with occasional shower and hot sunny spells.

To the person who came into my garden in the last couple of days and stole one of my new jasmine plants, I curse you thus:

As the jasmine in other gardens perfumes the air with romantic dreams, may this plant give off the foul stench of sewage and roasting Nescafé.

As the plant takes root and grows vigorous, may your bad conscience take root, grow vigorous and spoil your enjoyment of Gardener's Question Time.

As this jasmine cost the princely sum of nine euros, may you lose nine times nine times nine times nine euros-worth of tender green things to the slugs, and juicy red things to the birds.

Oh yes, and if you just yanked it out and threw it in the hedge out of pure spiteful malice, may all your own efforts toward beauty in life be hauled out by the roots and hurled into the gutter, there to rot in a putrid mass. Amen.

Now I'm going to take off my pointy hat, make a cuppa and feed Greymalkin and Paddock.

Olive branch

2011-06-02T13:53:00.001+02:00

Madonna del latte, detail c. 1400,

Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore

Rain stops play

2011-05-31T09:36:00.002+02:00

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

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

Life's tough.

Out-cooked ... already

2011-05-27T06:33:00.003+02:00

A wild, windy, wet and shockingly cold day.

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

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

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

Insalata caprese. By B.

Aged four.

Beautiful visitor

2011-05-26T09:00:00.004+02:00

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

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

Carmine backstreet

2011-05-24T09:00:00.003+02:00

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

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

Unexpected colour in one of Carmine's back doubles.

May 2011.

Ciliegi nostrani

2011-05-22T09:00:00.004+02:00

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

Carmine cherries.

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

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

Just C02 and rainwater and sunlight.

Firm, smooth cherries, straight from branch to mouth.

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

Rough love

2011-05-21T06:21:00.000+02:00

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

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

2011-05-20T09:17:00.001+02:00

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

A day for...

2011-05-19T11:34:00.001+02:00

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

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

None of which I'm doing.

A spot of colour

2011-05-17T06:41:00.000+02:00

Chives in the garden.

Carmine Superiore, May 2011

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

2011-05-15T08:17:00.000+02:00

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

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

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

May bulletin

2011-05-13T18:54:00.001+02:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to get there

2011-05-11T20:56:00.000+02:00

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

Carmine Superiore, Villaggio Millenario.

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

You'll find me at the top.

Raindrops on ... sedums

2011-05-10T08:30:00.000+02:00

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

Festa Patronale di San Gottardo, May 2011.

The worst and the best job in the world

2011-05-08T09:34:00.003+02:00

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

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

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

Happy Festa della Mamma!

Window view, Varzo

2011-05-07T07:07:00.001+02:00

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

Window, Varzo.

No need to water those flowers.

A taste of honey

2011-05-05T07:55:00.001+02:00

Overcast and cool.

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

San Gottardo

2011-05-04T08:33:00.001+02:00

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

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

Phew!

Orange

2011-05-03T09:40:00.001+02:00

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

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

(like everything California).

Motherhood means ... No. 29

2011-05-02T09:00:00.000+02:00

Motherhood means...

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

The old trattoria

2011-05-01T08:51:00.001+02:00

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

Remnants of former culinary glory.

Varzo, VCO.

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

The beauty of rain

2011-04-29T14:28:00.000+02:00

Raining. Finally. And you can just smell the soil sucking it up thirstily.

Raindrops on clematis buds.

Carmine Superiore.

Quote of the week No. 45 : On guests

2011-04-28T08:01:00.000+02:00

Coolish and overcast. Damp after light unaccustomed rain.

There is, I'm told, a Russian proverb which goes like this:

"The guest has not to thank the host, rather, the host should thank the guest."

After a week in which Carmine Superiore has been visited by hundreds of intrepid walkers, and our house in particular has been graced every day by the presence of guests who arrived from the length and breadth of Europe, the day promises to be a quiet one.

Before 'normal' life resumes (it's all relative), I'd like to say thank-you in the Russian way to all who came to our home, and made our Easter so happy and, having mixed business with pleasure, so productive.

And thank-you to all who came to Easter Mass, for which the church of San Gottardo, jewel of Lago Maggiore, was heaving at the seams.

Spasibo!