Irregular verbs: a grammar lesson

Here in Carmine Superiore, summer edges day by day towards autumn. The Virginia creepers are flaming, and we've turned the orto over to broccoli and winter salad. The mother deer I see every day in the woods are starting to wean their young, and the cockerels from Easter 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. 

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 learn them. Learn 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.

Today, though, I believe I've come across a new category of verbs 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:

I iron
I have ironed
I ironed
I would have ironed
I did iron
I will iron
I am going to iron 
I am ironing - ironing - ironing...

Know the feeling?

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

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.

Capodanno 2011

A cloudless blue sky, and warm sunshine on heavy frost greets us this New Year's Day. By lunchtime it's such a beautiful day we're picnicking on the churchyard with all of Lago Maggiore shimmering at our feet.

I may have mentioned before that in a past life I spent a fair amount of time on the eastern seaboard of the US of A. On one occasion my new year's hostess was a statuesque Filipina, called Suzy. That night, Suzy's house was alive with friends and relatives from all over. Four generations of family squeezed into her house to share her hospitality, sunshiney smile and great cooking. 

As midnight approached, the talk turned to new year traditions and superstitions, and soon many of the white Americans present had thrown a full purse out onto the front lawn, to be 'found' just after midnight, setting the pattern for luck in the new year. 

Back in the kitchen, Suzy, a generation closer to subsistence than her American-born guests, was filling the rice container. If there was rice in the house as the year turned, there would be enough to feed the family all year round. 

Last night, as I stepped wearily into the dressing room in search of pyjamas, my firework-spangled eyes fell on the overflowing ironing basket. 

And I thought of Suzy...

A happy and successful New Year to all visitors to Carmine Superiore, whether they arrive on the Information Superhighway or on Shanks's Pony. Buon anno a tutti!

Credit: Stitching by AJ, aged 6.

Quote of the week No. 31 : the middle ages

Ten degrees at 8:30am. Wet and slippery underfoot, thick strands of fog above our heads, which are down, watching our feet. A fire salamander day.

Recently, I had cause to spend an unhappy sixty minutes contemplating my own mortality. I had been summoned by telephone to the GP's surgery following some tests, and of course, between the call and the appointment, my mind, armed with all sorts of possibilities kindly supplied by NHS Direct, dwelt in the house of mortal terror. My future in that hour before I heard the words "Beh....niente! (oh....nothing!)" shrank to an imagined couple of years, a couple of months, a few weeks, a few days.

After I heard those words, my life grew and extended itself once more into a full four-score years and ten (that's inflation for you), and today I find myself celebrating what may or may not be mid-life. Plenty of people have had plenty of ruefully funny things to say about mid-life, and it's difficult to choose between them, so here's a selection to make my peers laugh...

"Middle age: when you want to see how long your car will last rather than how fast it will go." - Anonymous

"Middle age is when a guy keeps turning lights off for economic rather than romantic reasons."

- Lillian Carter

"Middle age is when you're faced with two temptations and you choose the one that will get you home by nine o'clock."

- Ronald Reagan

and, finally, my personal favourite...

"Middle age is when you're old enough to know better but still young enough to do it."

- Anonymous

Happy Monday! (And don't do anything I wouldn't do!)

You know you're getting older when...

Please tick the relevant box...

18-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-65
65+

You know you're getting older when... as you finish your investment fund questionnaire and you are asked to place yourself in an age bracket, you are surprised to see that there are more brackets younger than yours than older.


PS Cold mornings and chilly nights. No rain, though. The leaves are starting to turn and autumn is closer than we suspect.

You know you're getting older when...

... the local charmer tells you you're looking younger every day...


PS Two degrees at 8am, bright blue skies, sharp winter sunshine, but cold in the wind and the shadows.

Reported conversations No. 1

Eighteen degrees and sunny. Everything seems to have turned a shade beyond blue today. The lake, the sky, the distant mountains and even the air between.

AJ to Mama : What are these?
Mama to AJ : (Aargh!) Wrinkles, dear.
AJ to Mama : I want to count them.
Mama to AJ : (Yikes!) Okay, dear.
AJ to Mama : One, two ... three ... what comes after three?
Mama : (Phew!)