Sea pictures in a Cannobio car park

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...