Summer update

Temperatures in the searing thirties, with a soothing wind, and thunderstorms constantly just under the horizon.
Summer here in Carmine is in full swing just as Enid Blyton would have liked. The gardens and the children are rampant and the vacationing adults are laid back. There's a homemade water-wheel under a waterfall, and a hot dog in the old lavatoio. There are picnics and rowing boats and sailing boats and blow-up rubber boats. And hydrangea blooming everywhere.

Hydrangea, Carmine Superiore.

Summer 2012

The dawn breaks...

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. 

Summer in Carmine

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!

What I did on my holidays No.6

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

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

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

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

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

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.

A blessèd state

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 !*@?#!!!! 

The pleasures of summer in Carmine No. 6

Spending a gentle day messing about on the water...

The pleasures of summer in Carmine No. 5

Picking the first dark, sweet, sun-warmed grapes...

The pleasures of summer in Carmine No. 4

Abandoning our sensible hats and letting the sunshine wash over us like sparkling lake water.

The pleasures of summer in Carmine No. 3

Pink geraniums... 

The pleasures of summer in Carmine No. 2

Caprese salad with basil and tomatoes fresh from the garden.

PS
Today started decidedly cold, but after lunch things perked up and the sun is now beating down on the multiple clothes horses I have laden with newly-washed duvets and pillows.

The pleasures of summer in Carmine No. 1

Walking in the woods, amid the intense green vibration of thousands of plants turning sunlight to food, along the ancient Roman road, under the overhanging craggy mountainside populated by hawks and mountain sheep. 

And accompanied by companion, playmate, and source of endless mischief: Jakob! Lord of Misrule ...

First Monday in August

Warm and overcast. This morning I woke to the patter of tiny raindrops and the hope that it was enough to revive my wilting chilli peppers. But as soon as I hit the bathroom the sound was gone - perhaps it was all a nice dream...

Today is the first Monday in August, the month when all of Italian civilisation grinds slowly but surely to a halt. In Carmine Superiore, we conversely ascend to the height of the social season as each house bids welcome to its owners or to their guests, and our open-door policy brings chatty neighbours at all hours of the day and evening. 

The garden is producing - if you can find anything amid the foot-high grass that I'm feeling just too chilled out to tackle (next year, next year). Tomatoes, aubergines, a second round of strawberries and roses, blueberries, blackberries, chilli peppers and zucchini. The lavender is all but over, but my excuse for not tidying it up and putting it into twee lacy bags is that there are still butterflies and bees hanging about (and I prefer hanging about reading).

The children - a multitudinous and ever-changing cast - have plenty to entertain them : sticks to sharpen into lethal weapons, trees to fall out of, siblings to scar for life, streams to damn, wildlife to catch and cage, cats to torture with love. Younger brothers shoot their older brothers with stones from improvised catapults, older brothers boost younger ones onto high walls overlooking dizzying drops in the hopes of doing away with them. Younger girls trip over bath towels made to serve as princess ballgowns, and the older ones huddle in corners trying to reconstitute lipsticks stolen from mother and then snapped in two. Morning and evening the joyous ring of children arguing, insulting one another, laying down the law and demanding justice, sounds through Carmine's streets and rattles Carmine's stones.

The holidays are here!

Motherhood means ... No. 22 : At the beach

Hot and very heavy. A smattering of rain and some token thunder claps at 4pm, and by 8pm God is doing a fine job of watering my garden for me.


Motherhood means ...


... keeping schtum when Papà comes home from the beach with two hungry children in wet leather sandals and soggy bathing costumes under their dry day clothes, even though Mama made sure he had with him a bagful of towels, beach shoes, healthy snacks and dry underwear...

Lake, island, mountains, sky

Impression of Lago Maggiore, late-June 2010.

Butterfly

By the old washtub, Carmine Superiore.