And cheers! I'm drinking a glass of fizz for Easter, after a 40-day drought, and it's delicious. I raise my glass to you, my cyber-friends, but in particular to Braja, and to her recovery.
Showing posts with label Lent 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent 2009. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Azaleas
Rain overnight, and the rising sun greeted a warm mist over the lake. Last night we slept with the windows open and the sound of the Carmine's running streams trickling in.
We are awash with places to go, and people to feed, water and bed down.
Meanwhile...
...slowly but surely, the camellias are giving way to the azaleas.
PS Today is the last day of Lent! Click here to know what it means for me.
We are awash with places to go, and people to feed, water and bed down.
Meanwhile...
...slowly but surely, the camellias are giving way to the azaleas.
PS Today is the last day of Lent! Click here to know what it means for me.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Springwatch 2009 (again)
A strange, uncomfortable day. An open-window day, but overcast with the occasional drop of rain.
With the fall of the cherry blossom, early spring deepens towards Easter. (Now how did that happen? Only two more months to the long summer holidays!)
Carmine Superiore is almost full, with the usual suspects taking up their usual Eastertime activities - clearing and planting their gardens, doing a spot of light home maintenance, bringing in wood from the forest, hauling provisions up the hill, undertaking pest control, and most importantly settling in for some fairly arduous gossip (of which there is plenty).
And all around us there is four-legged rustling in the woods and meadows. The wild boar are once again causing havoc in the outlying meadows. They dig for bulbs and roots and wallow in any place offering a spot of mud. Moves are afoot to give them a welcome they're not expecting later in the year - more of that later in the year!
Last year's frequent visitor, the lone deer, is more and more often sighted up in Ezio's meadow, visible from the kitchen window. There's something comforting about seeing her gently grazing away up there in the quiet early mornings. I take it as a sign of a good day to come.
Talking of signs, there are signs of the marten everywhere, in the form of little piles of doo-doo ("Don't step in the doo-doo, darling"). The Mama cat, who is at the pity-me-pity-me-and-give-me-fish stage of her spring 2009 pregnancy had better hide her little ones good and proper. Martens usually eat only berries and fruit, but they can wipe out a litter in short order - kitten blood is a marten treat.
Of course, the place is crammed with nests, just out of sight, but noisy with chicks of all kinds. Our own two-week-old bionda piemontese chicks, have mastered pecking about and are now working on flying. I can hear the occasional ping from the bathroom as one of them hits his head on the heating lamp. Unhappily, there are now only three of them. Last night brought a scene of French Revolutionary character, when I discovered one hobbling about on its elbows having developed clubbed feet. It happens. Having determined there was only one thing to be done, M. did it (it takes a Prussian), while Mama wept over her remaining round-and-fluffies.
One animal curiously missing from Carmine this year, though - at least from this particular house - is the mouse. I've seen no mice and not a single solitary sign (read doo-doo) of a mouse since sometime last year, when the combined efforts of the cat and M's chocolate-baited traps put an end to all the scurrying about. Although I did catch last year's girl-kitten practising with a pair of AJ's rolled-up socks the other day, so perhaps she knows something we're just about to find out.
And finally, Mama is looking forward to her Easter glass of crémant on Sunday...
With the fall of the cherry blossom, early spring deepens towards Easter. (Now how did that happen? Only two more months to the long summer holidays!)
Carmine Superiore is almost full, with the usual suspects taking up their usual Eastertime activities - clearing and planting their gardens, doing a spot of light home maintenance, bringing in wood from the forest, hauling provisions up the hill, undertaking pest control, and most importantly settling in for some fairly arduous gossip (of which there is plenty).
And all around us there is four-legged rustling in the woods and meadows. The wild boar are once again causing havoc in the outlying meadows. They dig for bulbs and roots and wallow in any place offering a spot of mud. Moves are afoot to give them a welcome they're not expecting later in the year - more of that later in the year!
Last year's frequent visitor, the lone deer, is more and more often sighted up in Ezio's meadow, visible from the kitchen window. There's something comforting about seeing her gently grazing away up there in the quiet early mornings. I take it as a sign of a good day to come.
Talking of signs, there are signs of the marten everywhere, in the form of little piles of doo-doo ("Don't step in the doo-doo, darling"). The Mama cat, who is at the pity-me-pity-me-and-give-me-fish stage of her spring 2009 pregnancy had better hide her little ones good and proper. Martens usually eat only berries and fruit, but they can wipe out a litter in short order - kitten blood is a marten treat.
Of course, the place is crammed with nests, just out of sight, but noisy with chicks of all kinds. Our own two-week-old bionda piemontese chicks, have mastered pecking about and are now working on flying. I can hear the occasional ping from the bathroom as one of them hits his head on the heating lamp. Unhappily, there are now only three of them. Last night brought a scene of French Revolutionary character, when I discovered one hobbling about on its elbows having developed clubbed feet. It happens. Having determined there was only one thing to be done, M. did it (it takes a Prussian), while Mama wept over her remaining round-and-fluffies.
One animal curiously missing from Carmine this year, though - at least from this particular house - is the mouse. I've seen no mice and not a single solitary sign (read doo-doo) of a mouse since sometime last year, when the combined efforts of the cat and M's chocolate-baited traps put an end to all the scurrying about. Although I did catch last year's girl-kitten practising with a pair of AJ's rolled-up socks the other day, so perhaps she knows something we're just about to find out.
And finally, Mama is looking forward to her Easter glass of crémant on Sunday...
Monday, 30 March 2009
Bulletin : Mama's zero-proof Lent
Nine degrees at nine am. Mercifully not raining for the Monday morning descent, but threatening. The famous four are fine, doing very good impersonations of those round, fluffy chicks you see on Easter cards and in childrens' books. Steady as she goes on Lent tea-total...although there was a wobble the other night when my husband, the angel in our kitchen, confronted me with a 10-year-old bottle of Michel Lafarge Volnay, to accompany a celebratory supper of roasted venison with pumpkin and dried plums, garnished with roasted garlic.
Until that moment, I hadn't quite realised exactly how much of a sadist M. actually is...
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Terza di Quaresima : the third Sunday in Lent
As a teenager I was in love with John Keats. I was as much in love with him as he was with Fanny. As much in love with him as he was with Love itself. I blushed at his sexual imagery, I bathed in his sensual descriptions, I lay despondent with him in "embalmèd darkness", listening to the song of the nightingale. I memorized entire swathes of his sublime poetry just for fun (okay, for exams). I knew it would come in useful one day.Like this, for instance :
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth....
[John Keats Ode to a Nightingale]
Oh yes, I misspent my youth in this glorious young man's company.
And what do I get these days? Especially these days in Lent when I've sworn off alcohol just to prove a point?
No beaded bubbles winking at me. No sunburnt mirth. No taste of Flora. And definitely no purple-stainèd mouth.
No.
I get the instruction booklet for the juicer and a couple of droopy carrots.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Reported conversations No. 13 : abstinence and family life
A bright, clear dawn, with rosy fingers over the snow-capped mountains. Another gardening day! Lent without alcohol is going, well, okay...
M : Aperitivo time! Shall I get you sparkling apple juice?
L (mumbled under breath) : Zarking fardwarks!
M : I'm opening a bottle of Michel Lafarge Volnay to complement supper tonight - grape juice for you?
L (louder) : Zarking fardwarks!
M : And maybe a Sauterne to go with the apple crumble? I guess you'll pass, eh?
L (losing it, shouts) : Didn't you hear me? Zarking bloody fardwarks!
M (thinks) : My mother always warned me against marrying a Douglas Adams fan ...
For more on giving up swearing for Lent, connect here.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Ten rules for life (in Carmine)
A disappointing three degrees at 8:30am after a night of pitter-patter raindrops. I notice that this time last year the apricot was in bloom. This year the buds are huddled under the bedcovers like a 4-year-old after a late night at the piscina.
Congratulations to Franco, by the way - the first narcissi of the year are blooming in his orchard. They're looking a bit wet.
P.S. Lent day 5, nothing embarrassing to report.
Back in the middle of February, Jeanne, over at The Raisin Chronicles, set out her ten rules for life. They made me laugh, I guess because I recognised so many of them to be true from my own experience.
On the Monkey-see Monkey-do principle, I thought it would be interesting to think about the rules of life ... in Carmine.
Here they are...
1. Never buy what you can't carry up the hill, you, yourself, alone, before it a.) rots in the car (in the case of exotic fruit), or b.) becomes obsolete (in the case of satellite dishes, computer equipment, and home entertainment centres).
2. Never invite houseguests between the months of October and April - the toilet seats are too chilly, and the guest room too draughty.
3. Don't ever make friends with Carmine cats. They eat too much, take liberties with the bedding and all you get for your pains is a little pile of something aromatic on the pantry floor.
4. Always say 'yes' to offers of second-hand furniture from your Carmine neighbours. This way, you get new furniture without having to carry it up the hill, and the woodworm colony in your house gets an infusion of new genes.
5. If you're planning a delivery of building materials, always warn your neighbours in advance to shut their windows - helicopter rotors kick up a storm of dust for which you'll never be forgiven.
6. Don't expect house calls from doctors, the police, or DHL. There's nowhere to land the air ambulance, heavy artillery is too awkward to tote up all those steps, and besides, according to DHL, Carmine Superiore doesn't even exist.
7. Don't gossip about your neighbours in the summertime when all the windows are open. Carmine walls have ears.
8. Everybody is the centre of his own universe, and everyone who has a house in Carmine has a story to tell - of romance, of passion, of how they came here, why they stayed, the renovations they screwed up with their own bare hands... Always be ready to listen if you want them to listen to you.
9. Take out the best health insurance you can afford. At some point you're going to need new knees, new hips and a couple of shiny new titanium intervertebral disks. Alternatively, sneak into the church as often as possible and pray to S. Gottardo, whose patronage covers at least problems with legs and might stretch to backs if you drop a large denomination note into the offerte box.
10. Do make sure to schedule a lunchtime aperitivo in the sun by the church at least once a week. That view of the lake is part of the reason you came here, the bubbles will take your mind off your aching back, and no-one will overhear the latest neighbourhood gossip except S. Gottardo and You-Know-Who.
Congratulations to Franco, by the way - the first narcissi of the year are blooming in his orchard. They're looking a bit wet.
P.S. Lent day 5, nothing embarrassing to report.
Back in the middle of February, Jeanne, over at The Raisin Chronicles, set out her ten rules for life. They made me laugh, I guess because I recognised so many of them to be true from my own experience.
On the Monkey-see Monkey-do principle, I thought it would be interesting to think about the rules of life ... in Carmine.
Here they are...
1. Never buy what you can't carry up the hill, you, yourself, alone, before it a.) rots in the car (in the case of exotic fruit), or b.) becomes obsolete (in the case of satellite dishes, computer equipment, and home entertainment centres).
2. Never invite houseguests between the months of October and April - the toilet seats are too chilly, and the guest room too draughty.
3. Don't ever make friends with Carmine cats. They eat too much, take liberties with the bedding and all you get for your pains is a little pile of something aromatic on the pantry floor.
4. Always say 'yes' to offers of second-hand furniture from your Carmine neighbours. This way, you get new furniture without having to carry it up the hill, and the woodworm colony in your house gets an infusion of new genes.
5. If you're planning a delivery of building materials, always warn your neighbours in advance to shut their windows - helicopter rotors kick up a storm of dust for which you'll never be forgiven.
6. Don't expect house calls from doctors, the police, or DHL. There's nowhere to land the air ambulance, heavy artillery is too awkward to tote up all those steps, and besides, according to DHL, Carmine Superiore doesn't even exist.
7. Don't gossip about your neighbours in the summertime when all the windows are open. Carmine walls have ears.
8. Everybody is the centre of his own universe, and everyone who has a house in Carmine has a story to tell - of romance, of passion, of how they came here, why they stayed, the renovations they screwed up with their own bare hands... Always be ready to listen if you want them to listen to you.
9. Take out the best health insurance you can afford. At some point you're going to need new knees, new hips and a couple of shiny new titanium intervertebral disks. Alternatively, sneak into the church as often as possible and pray to S. Gottardo, whose patronage covers at least problems with legs and might stretch to backs if you drop a large denomination note into the offerte box.
10. Do make sure to schedule a lunchtime aperitivo in the sun by the church at least once a week. That view of the lake is part of the reason you came here, the bubbles will take your mind off your aching back, and no-one will overhear the latest neighbourhood gossip except S. Gottardo and You-Know-Who.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Chick-rearing 2009 : preparation
Lent without alcohol day 3 : no problem. (Click here for more.)
Still damp and warm-ish. Starting to think about moving back into the unheated rooms in the house. It'll be nice to spread out again.
With this feeling comes the start of the chicken-breeding programme for this year. Those surplus eggs will be in the incubator shortly!
Now, where is the incubator?
Still damp and warm-ish. Starting to think about moving back into the unheated rooms in the house. It'll be nice to spread out again.
With this feeling comes the start of the chicken-breeding programme for this year. Those surplus eggs will be in the incubator shortly!
Now, where is the incubator?
Monday, 2 March 2009
Carmine-on-the-Hill
Lent on the wagon, day 2 : okay so far (for an explanation, click here).
Eight degrees at 8:30am. Damp and misty. A day totally unlike the one pictured below, but not totally unlike the one pictured here.
Eight degrees at 8:30am. Damp and misty. A day totally unlike the one pictured below, but not totally unlike the one pictured here.
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
"We're going up there?"
Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.
Sunday, 1 March 2009
What are you giving up for Lent?
Cold, grey and fairly foggy. Damp on the ground. Rain later.
Some years ago I spent the best part of a year in northern Nigeria, in Hausaland. Land of mud palaces, bitter poverty, fleeting moments of political power and the ever-ready muezzin with his call to prayer.
My stay spanned Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer, roughly equivalent to the Christian Lent. Ramadan was an experience. The year I was there it coincided with the hottest part of the year just before the rainy season began, and with certain political moves by the IMF that had ordinary Nigerians queueing for days (I kid not) for petrol.
It was brutal.
For everyone.
We woke before daybreak to eat a meal that had been prepared the night before and drink as much water as we could before our bodies screamed enough. Then, feeling like tanked-up camels, we would go back to bed for another few hours as the first call to prayer of the day sounded and the shutters went down on food, drink, smoking and all other bodily pleasures.
As the Koran commands, we were all sitting in our places in the evening when the muezzin called his last round of the day and as soon as prayer was finished, we broke our fast first with dates and then with a slow, full meal of unbearably hot meat stew and pounded yam. I came quickly to adore dates.
As non-Muslims, we were not required to fast, but any bending of the fasting laws we were asked to keep to ourselves. I opted to drink water during the day and would creep to the kitchen for a sly glass every so often - most often at prayer times, when everyone else was otherwise occupied. I didn't eat, but I smoked throughout.
My then-husband, though, had a worse time. I don't think he'd mind my saying that he was fairly addicted to alcohol. He found Muslim Nigeria hard enough, having to slope around in dark corners in search of a discrete beer, but at Ramadan, even the ultra-dangerous backstreet bars were closed and he went almost insane. His art, for artist he was and is, went into a manic multicolour phase to prove it.
Why am I telling you all this? Partly because it's good to reminisce. Nigeria was tough, but a very important life-experience. Partly because today is the start of Lent (if you live in Ambrosian Carmine), and I've decided I can't live without chocolate - my usual Lenten fast - and I'm going to quit alcohol instead.
I've chosen alcohol because it should be possible for me to go the whole 40 days. Easier than chocolate anyway. And a million times easier than tea, to which I am totally and unashamedly addicted.
I'm not a big drinker. In fact, anything beyond a couple of glasses of Burgundy or Barbera in any 24-hour period makes me so physically sick I've come to believe I may be allergic to alcohol. I quit drinking spirits the day I found I was pregnant with AJ and I never went back, not even when tempted with a peaty Island Malt proferred by one of London's most celebrated whisky connosseurs. I was married for seven years to someone who preferred the bottle to his wife. Happily, he went on the wagon the day I left him and has never gone back. But the experience has left me with an extreme abhorrence of drunkenness - even the 'happy drunk' variety - which means I haven't stepped into a pub in what seems like decades.
But I do enjoy a quality wine that ages nicely and doesn't give me a headache, and I'm prepared to drive all the way to Burgundy and back a couple of times a year in search of a predictably good drinking experience. Or Sizzano, or Asti. And, more to the point if you live in Carmine, I'm prepared to heft a couple of cases onto my back for the long walk up. So perhaps I will miss my mealtime tipple and my weekend aperitif after all.
If my Lent resolution is anything like my New Year's Resolution - yes, it's now March 1st and I still haven't finished January's Nobel book, let alone February's - I won't get much further than Tuesday. But we'll see how we go. And I'm going to bore you every day with a bulletin to let you know how I'm doing - perhaps shame at failing will keep me on track.
So what have you given up for Lent?
Some years ago I spent the best part of a year in northern Nigeria, in Hausaland. Land of mud palaces, bitter poverty, fleeting moments of political power and the ever-ready muezzin with his call to prayer.
My stay spanned Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer, roughly equivalent to the Christian Lent. Ramadan was an experience. The year I was there it coincided with the hottest part of the year just before the rainy season began, and with certain political moves by the IMF that had ordinary Nigerians queueing for days (I kid not) for petrol.
It was brutal.
For everyone.
We woke before daybreak to eat a meal that had been prepared the night before and drink as much water as we could before our bodies screamed enough. Then, feeling like tanked-up camels, we would go back to bed for another few hours as the first call to prayer of the day sounded and the shutters went down on food, drink, smoking and all other bodily pleasures.
As the Koran commands, we were all sitting in our places in the evening when the muezzin called his last round of the day and as soon as prayer was finished, we broke our fast first with dates and then with a slow, full meal of unbearably hot meat stew and pounded yam. I came quickly to adore dates.
As non-Muslims, we were not required to fast, but any bending of the fasting laws we were asked to keep to ourselves. I opted to drink water during the day and would creep to the kitchen for a sly glass every so often - most often at prayer times, when everyone else was otherwise occupied. I didn't eat, but I smoked throughout.
My then-husband, though, had a worse time. I don't think he'd mind my saying that he was fairly addicted to alcohol. He found Muslim Nigeria hard enough, having to slope around in dark corners in search of a discrete beer, but at Ramadan, even the ultra-dangerous backstreet bars were closed and he went almost insane. His art, for artist he was and is, went into a manic multicolour phase to prove it.
Why am I telling you all this? Partly because it's good to reminisce. Nigeria was tough, but a very important life-experience. Partly because today is the start of Lent (if you live in Ambrosian Carmine), and I've decided I can't live without chocolate - my usual Lenten fast - and I'm going to quit alcohol instead.
I've chosen alcohol because it should be possible for me to go the whole 40 days. Easier than chocolate anyway. And a million times easier than tea, to which I am totally and unashamedly addicted.
I'm not a big drinker. In fact, anything beyond a couple of glasses of Burgundy or Barbera in any 24-hour period makes me so physically sick I've come to believe I may be allergic to alcohol. I quit drinking spirits the day I found I was pregnant with AJ and I never went back, not even when tempted with a peaty Island Malt proferred by one of London's most celebrated whisky connosseurs. I was married for seven years to someone who preferred the bottle to his wife. Happily, he went on the wagon the day I left him and has never gone back. But the experience has left me with an extreme abhorrence of drunkenness - even the 'happy drunk' variety - which means I haven't stepped into a pub in what seems like decades.
But I do enjoy a quality wine that ages nicely and doesn't give me a headache, and I'm prepared to drive all the way to Burgundy and back a couple of times a year in search of a predictably good drinking experience. Or Sizzano, or Asti. And, more to the point if you live in Carmine, I'm prepared to heft a couple of cases onto my back for the long walk up. So perhaps I will miss my mealtime tipple and my weekend aperitif after all.
If my Lent resolution is anything like my New Year's Resolution - yes, it's now March 1st and I still haven't finished January's Nobel book, let alone February's - I won't get much further than Tuesday. But we'll see how we go. And I'm going to bore you every day with a bulletin to let you know how I'm doing - perhaps shame at failing will keep me on track.
So what have you given up for Lent?
Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.
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Showing posts with label Lent 2009. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent 2009. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Happy Easter!
And cheers! I'm drinking a glass of fizz for Easter, after a 40-day drought, and it's delicious. I raise my glass to you, my cyber-friends, but in particular to Braja, and to her recovery.
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Azaleas
Rain overnight, and the rising sun greeted a warm mist over the lake. Last night we slept with the windows open and the sound of the Carmine's running streams trickling in.
We are awash with places to go, and people to feed, water and bed down.
Meanwhile...
...slowly but surely, the camellias are giving way to the azaleas.
PS Today is the last day of Lent! Click here to know what it means for me.
We are awash with places to go, and people to feed, water and bed down.
Meanwhile...
...slowly but surely, the camellias are giving way to the azaleas.
PS Today is the last day of Lent! Click here to know what it means for me.
Friday, 10 April 2009
Springwatch 2009 (again)
A strange, uncomfortable day. An open-window day, but overcast with the occasional drop of rain.
With the fall of the cherry blossom, early spring deepens towards Easter. (Now how did that happen? Only two more months to the long summer holidays!)
Carmine Superiore is almost full, with the usual suspects taking up their usual Eastertime activities - clearing and planting their gardens, doing a spot of light home maintenance, bringing in wood from the forest, hauling provisions up the hill, undertaking pest control, and most importantly settling in for some fairly arduous gossip (of which there is plenty).
And all around us there is four-legged rustling in the woods and meadows. The wild boar are once again causing havoc in the outlying meadows. They dig for bulbs and roots and wallow in any place offering a spot of mud. Moves are afoot to give them a welcome they're not expecting later in the year - more of that later in the year!
Last year's frequent visitor, the lone deer, is more and more often sighted up in Ezio's meadow, visible from the kitchen window. There's something comforting about seeing her gently grazing away up there in the quiet early mornings. I take it as a sign of a good day to come.
Talking of signs, there are signs of the marten everywhere, in the form of little piles of doo-doo ("Don't step in the doo-doo, darling"). The Mama cat, who is at the pity-me-pity-me-and-give-me-fish stage of her spring 2009 pregnancy had better hide her little ones good and proper. Martens usually eat only berries and fruit, but they can wipe out a litter in short order - kitten blood is a marten treat.
Of course, the place is crammed with nests, just out of sight, but noisy with chicks of all kinds. Our own two-week-old bionda piemontese chicks, have mastered pecking about and are now working on flying. I can hear the occasional ping from the bathroom as one of them hits his head on the heating lamp. Unhappily, there are now only three of them. Last night brought a scene of French Revolutionary character, when I discovered one hobbling about on its elbows having developed clubbed feet. It happens. Having determined there was only one thing to be done, M. did it (it takes a Prussian), while Mama wept over her remaining round-and-fluffies.
One animal curiously missing from Carmine this year, though - at least from this particular house - is the mouse. I've seen no mice and not a single solitary sign (read doo-doo) of a mouse since sometime last year, when the combined efforts of the cat and M's chocolate-baited traps put an end to all the scurrying about. Although I did catch last year's girl-kitten practising with a pair of AJ's rolled-up socks the other day, so perhaps she knows something we're just about to find out.
And finally, Mama is looking forward to her Easter glass of crémant on Sunday...
With the fall of the cherry blossom, early spring deepens towards Easter. (Now how did that happen? Only two more months to the long summer holidays!)
Carmine Superiore is almost full, with the usual suspects taking up their usual Eastertime activities - clearing and planting their gardens, doing a spot of light home maintenance, bringing in wood from the forest, hauling provisions up the hill, undertaking pest control, and most importantly settling in for some fairly arduous gossip (of which there is plenty).
And all around us there is four-legged rustling in the woods and meadows. The wild boar are once again causing havoc in the outlying meadows. They dig for bulbs and roots and wallow in any place offering a spot of mud. Moves are afoot to give them a welcome they're not expecting later in the year - more of that later in the year!
Last year's frequent visitor, the lone deer, is more and more often sighted up in Ezio's meadow, visible from the kitchen window. There's something comforting about seeing her gently grazing away up there in the quiet early mornings. I take it as a sign of a good day to come.
Talking of signs, there are signs of the marten everywhere, in the form of little piles of doo-doo ("Don't step in the doo-doo, darling"). The Mama cat, who is at the pity-me-pity-me-and-give-me-fish stage of her spring 2009 pregnancy had better hide her little ones good and proper. Martens usually eat only berries and fruit, but they can wipe out a litter in short order - kitten blood is a marten treat.
Of course, the place is crammed with nests, just out of sight, but noisy with chicks of all kinds. Our own two-week-old bionda piemontese chicks, have mastered pecking about and are now working on flying. I can hear the occasional ping from the bathroom as one of them hits his head on the heating lamp. Unhappily, there are now only three of them. Last night brought a scene of French Revolutionary character, when I discovered one hobbling about on its elbows having developed clubbed feet. It happens. Having determined there was only one thing to be done, M. did it (it takes a Prussian), while Mama wept over her remaining round-and-fluffies.
One animal curiously missing from Carmine this year, though - at least from this particular house - is the mouse. I've seen no mice and not a single solitary sign (read doo-doo) of a mouse since sometime last year, when the combined efforts of the cat and M's chocolate-baited traps put an end to all the scurrying about. Although I did catch last year's girl-kitten practising with a pair of AJ's rolled-up socks the other day, so perhaps she knows something we're just about to find out.
And finally, Mama is looking forward to her Easter glass of crémant on Sunday...
Monday, 30 March 2009
Bulletin : Mama's zero-proof Lent
Nine degrees at nine am. Mercifully not raining for the Monday morning descent, but threatening. The famous four are fine, doing very good impersonations of those round, fluffy chicks you see on Easter cards and in childrens' books. Steady as she goes on Lent tea-total...although there was a wobble the other night when my husband, the angel in our kitchen, confronted me with a 10-year-old bottle of Michel Lafarge Volnay, to accompany a celebratory supper of roasted venison with pumpkin and dried plums, garnished with roasted garlic.
Until that moment, I hadn't quite realised exactly how much of a sadist M. actually is...
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Terza di Quaresima : the third Sunday in Lent
As a teenager I was in love with John Keats. I was as much in love with him as he was with Fanny. As much in love with him as he was with Love itself. I blushed at his sexual imagery, I bathed in his sensual descriptions, I lay despondent with him in "embalmèd darkness", listening to the song of the nightingale. I memorized entire swathes of his sublime poetry just for fun (okay, for exams). I knew it would come in useful one day.Like this, for instance :
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth....
[John Keats Ode to a Nightingale]
Oh yes, I misspent my youth in this glorious young man's company.
And what do I get these days? Especially these days in Lent when I've sworn off alcohol just to prove a point?
No beaded bubbles winking at me. No sunburnt mirth. No taste of Flora. And definitely no purple-stainèd mouth.
No.
I get the instruction booklet for the juicer and a couple of droopy carrots.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Reported conversations No. 13 : abstinence and family life
A bright, clear dawn, with rosy fingers over the snow-capped mountains. Another gardening day! Lent without alcohol is going, well, okay...
M : Aperitivo time! Shall I get you sparkling apple juice?
L (mumbled under breath) : Zarking fardwarks!
M : I'm opening a bottle of Michel Lafarge Volnay to complement supper tonight - grape juice for you?
L (louder) : Zarking fardwarks!
M : And maybe a Sauterne to go with the apple crumble? I guess you'll pass, eh?
L (losing it, shouts) : Didn't you hear me? Zarking bloody fardwarks!
M (thinks) : My mother always warned me against marrying a Douglas Adams fan ...
For more on giving up swearing for Lent, connect here.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Ten rules for life (in Carmine)
A disappointing three degrees at 8:30am after a night of pitter-patter raindrops. I notice that this time last year the apricot was in bloom. This year the buds are huddled under the bedcovers like a 4-year-old after a late night at the piscina.
Congratulations to Franco, by the way - the first narcissi of the year are blooming in his orchard. They're looking a bit wet.
P.S. Lent day 5, nothing embarrassing to report.
Back in the middle of February, Jeanne, over at The Raisin Chronicles, set out her ten rules for life. They made me laugh, I guess because I recognised so many of them to be true from my own experience.
On the Monkey-see Monkey-do principle, I thought it would be interesting to think about the rules of life ... in Carmine.
Here they are...
1. Never buy what you can't carry up the hill, you, yourself, alone, before it a.) rots in the car (in the case of exotic fruit), or b.) becomes obsolete (in the case of satellite dishes, computer equipment, and home entertainment centres).
2. Never invite houseguests between the months of October and April - the toilet seats are too chilly, and the guest room too draughty.
3. Don't ever make friends with Carmine cats. They eat too much, take liberties with the bedding and all you get for your pains is a little pile of something aromatic on the pantry floor.
4. Always say 'yes' to offers of second-hand furniture from your Carmine neighbours. This way, you get new furniture without having to carry it up the hill, and the woodworm colony in your house gets an infusion of new genes.
5. If you're planning a delivery of building materials, always warn your neighbours in advance to shut their windows - helicopter rotors kick up a storm of dust for which you'll never be forgiven.
6. Don't expect house calls from doctors, the police, or DHL. There's nowhere to land the air ambulance, heavy artillery is too awkward to tote up all those steps, and besides, according to DHL, Carmine Superiore doesn't even exist.
7. Don't gossip about your neighbours in the summertime when all the windows are open. Carmine walls have ears.
8. Everybody is the centre of his own universe, and everyone who has a house in Carmine has a story to tell - of romance, of passion, of how they came here, why they stayed, the renovations they screwed up with their own bare hands... Always be ready to listen if you want them to listen to you.
9. Take out the best health insurance you can afford. At some point you're going to need new knees, new hips and a couple of shiny new titanium intervertebral disks. Alternatively, sneak into the church as often as possible and pray to S. Gottardo, whose patronage covers at least problems with legs and might stretch to backs if you drop a large denomination note into the offerte box.
10. Do make sure to schedule a lunchtime aperitivo in the sun by the church at least once a week. That view of the lake is part of the reason you came here, the bubbles will take your mind off your aching back, and no-one will overhear the latest neighbourhood gossip except S. Gottardo and You-Know-Who.
Congratulations to Franco, by the way - the first narcissi of the year are blooming in his orchard. They're looking a bit wet.
P.S. Lent day 5, nothing embarrassing to report.
Back in the middle of February, Jeanne, over at The Raisin Chronicles, set out her ten rules for life. They made me laugh, I guess because I recognised so many of them to be true from my own experience.
On the Monkey-see Monkey-do principle, I thought it would be interesting to think about the rules of life ... in Carmine.
Here they are...
1. Never buy what you can't carry up the hill, you, yourself, alone, before it a.) rots in the car (in the case of exotic fruit), or b.) becomes obsolete (in the case of satellite dishes, computer equipment, and home entertainment centres).
2. Never invite houseguests between the months of October and April - the toilet seats are too chilly, and the guest room too draughty.
3. Don't ever make friends with Carmine cats. They eat too much, take liberties with the bedding and all you get for your pains is a little pile of something aromatic on the pantry floor.
4. Always say 'yes' to offers of second-hand furniture from your Carmine neighbours. This way, you get new furniture without having to carry it up the hill, and the woodworm colony in your house gets an infusion of new genes.
5. If you're planning a delivery of building materials, always warn your neighbours in advance to shut their windows - helicopter rotors kick up a storm of dust for which you'll never be forgiven.
6. Don't expect house calls from doctors, the police, or DHL. There's nowhere to land the air ambulance, heavy artillery is too awkward to tote up all those steps, and besides, according to DHL, Carmine Superiore doesn't even exist.
7. Don't gossip about your neighbours in the summertime when all the windows are open. Carmine walls have ears.
8. Everybody is the centre of his own universe, and everyone who has a house in Carmine has a story to tell - of romance, of passion, of how they came here, why they stayed, the renovations they screwed up with their own bare hands... Always be ready to listen if you want them to listen to you.
9. Take out the best health insurance you can afford. At some point you're going to need new knees, new hips and a couple of shiny new titanium intervertebral disks. Alternatively, sneak into the church as often as possible and pray to S. Gottardo, whose patronage covers at least problems with legs and might stretch to backs if you drop a large denomination note into the offerte box.
10. Do make sure to schedule a lunchtime aperitivo in the sun by the church at least once a week. That view of the lake is part of the reason you came here, the bubbles will take your mind off your aching back, and no-one will overhear the latest neighbourhood gossip except S. Gottardo and You-Know-Who.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Chick-rearing 2009 : preparation
Lent without alcohol day 3 : no problem. (Click here for more.)
Still damp and warm-ish. Starting to think about moving back into the unheated rooms in the house. It'll be nice to spread out again.
With this feeling comes the start of the chicken-breeding programme for this year. Those surplus eggs will be in the incubator shortly!
Now, where is the incubator?
Still damp and warm-ish. Starting to think about moving back into the unheated rooms in the house. It'll be nice to spread out again.
With this feeling comes the start of the chicken-breeding programme for this year. Those surplus eggs will be in the incubator shortly!
Now, where is the incubator?
Monday, 2 March 2009
Carmine-on-the-Hill
Lent on the wagon, day 2 : okay so far (for an explanation, click here).
Eight degrees at 8:30am. Damp and misty. A day totally unlike the one pictured below, but not totally unlike the one pictured here.
Eight degrees at 8:30am. Damp and misty. A day totally unlike the one pictured below, but not totally unlike the one pictured here.
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
"We're going up there?"
Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.
Sunday, 1 March 2009
What are you giving up for Lent?
Cold, grey and fairly foggy. Damp on the ground. Rain later.
Some years ago I spent the best part of a year in northern Nigeria, in Hausaland. Land of mud palaces, bitter poverty, fleeting moments of political power and the ever-ready muezzin with his call to prayer.
My stay spanned Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer, roughly equivalent to the Christian Lent. Ramadan was an experience. The year I was there it coincided with the hottest part of the year just before the rainy season began, and with certain political moves by the IMF that had ordinary Nigerians queueing for days (I kid not) for petrol.
It was brutal.
For everyone.
We woke before daybreak to eat a meal that had been prepared the night before and drink as much water as we could before our bodies screamed enough. Then, feeling like tanked-up camels, we would go back to bed for another few hours as the first call to prayer of the day sounded and the shutters went down on food, drink, smoking and all other bodily pleasures.
As the Koran commands, we were all sitting in our places in the evening when the muezzin called his last round of the day and as soon as prayer was finished, we broke our fast first with dates and then with a slow, full meal of unbearably hot meat stew and pounded yam. I came quickly to adore dates.
As non-Muslims, we were not required to fast, but any bending of the fasting laws we were asked to keep to ourselves. I opted to drink water during the day and would creep to the kitchen for a sly glass every so often - most often at prayer times, when everyone else was otherwise occupied. I didn't eat, but I smoked throughout.
My then-husband, though, had a worse time. I don't think he'd mind my saying that he was fairly addicted to alcohol. He found Muslim Nigeria hard enough, having to slope around in dark corners in search of a discrete beer, but at Ramadan, even the ultra-dangerous backstreet bars were closed and he went almost insane. His art, for artist he was and is, went into a manic multicolour phase to prove it.
Why am I telling you all this? Partly because it's good to reminisce. Nigeria was tough, but a very important life-experience. Partly because today is the start of Lent (if you live in Ambrosian Carmine), and I've decided I can't live without chocolate - my usual Lenten fast - and I'm going to quit alcohol instead.
I've chosen alcohol because it should be possible for me to go the whole 40 days. Easier than chocolate anyway. And a million times easier than tea, to which I am totally and unashamedly addicted.
I'm not a big drinker. In fact, anything beyond a couple of glasses of Burgundy or Barbera in any 24-hour period makes me so physically sick I've come to believe I may be allergic to alcohol. I quit drinking spirits the day I found I was pregnant with AJ and I never went back, not even when tempted with a peaty Island Malt proferred by one of London's most celebrated whisky connosseurs. I was married for seven years to someone who preferred the bottle to his wife. Happily, he went on the wagon the day I left him and has never gone back. But the experience has left me with an extreme abhorrence of drunkenness - even the 'happy drunk' variety - which means I haven't stepped into a pub in what seems like decades.
But I do enjoy a quality wine that ages nicely and doesn't give me a headache, and I'm prepared to drive all the way to Burgundy and back a couple of times a year in search of a predictably good drinking experience. Or Sizzano, or Asti. And, more to the point if you live in Carmine, I'm prepared to heft a couple of cases onto my back for the long walk up. So perhaps I will miss my mealtime tipple and my weekend aperitif after all.
If my Lent resolution is anything like my New Year's Resolution - yes, it's now March 1st and I still haven't finished January's Nobel book, let alone February's - I won't get much further than Tuesday. But we'll see how we go. And I'm going to bore you every day with a bulletin to let you know how I'm doing - perhaps shame at failing will keep me on track.
So what have you given up for Lent?
Some years ago I spent the best part of a year in northern Nigeria, in Hausaland. Land of mud palaces, bitter poverty, fleeting moments of political power and the ever-ready muezzin with his call to prayer.
My stay spanned Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and prayer, roughly equivalent to the Christian Lent. Ramadan was an experience. The year I was there it coincided with the hottest part of the year just before the rainy season began, and with certain political moves by the IMF that had ordinary Nigerians queueing for days (I kid not) for petrol.
It was brutal.
For everyone.
We woke before daybreak to eat a meal that had been prepared the night before and drink as much water as we could before our bodies screamed enough. Then, feeling like tanked-up camels, we would go back to bed for another few hours as the first call to prayer of the day sounded and the shutters went down on food, drink, smoking and all other bodily pleasures.
As the Koran commands, we were all sitting in our places in the evening when the muezzin called his last round of the day and as soon as prayer was finished, we broke our fast first with dates and then with a slow, full meal of unbearably hot meat stew and pounded yam. I came quickly to adore dates.
As non-Muslims, we were not required to fast, but any bending of the fasting laws we were asked to keep to ourselves. I opted to drink water during the day and would creep to the kitchen for a sly glass every so often - most often at prayer times, when everyone else was otherwise occupied. I didn't eat, but I smoked throughout.
My then-husband, though, had a worse time. I don't think he'd mind my saying that he was fairly addicted to alcohol. He found Muslim Nigeria hard enough, having to slope around in dark corners in search of a discrete beer, but at Ramadan, even the ultra-dangerous backstreet bars were closed and he went almost insane. His art, for artist he was and is, went into a manic multicolour phase to prove it.
Why am I telling you all this? Partly because it's good to reminisce. Nigeria was tough, but a very important life-experience. Partly because today is the start of Lent (if you live in Ambrosian Carmine), and I've decided I can't live without chocolate - my usual Lenten fast - and I'm going to quit alcohol instead.
I've chosen alcohol because it should be possible for me to go the whole 40 days. Easier than chocolate anyway. And a million times easier than tea, to which I am totally and unashamedly addicted.
I'm not a big drinker. In fact, anything beyond a couple of glasses of Burgundy or Barbera in any 24-hour period makes me so physically sick I've come to believe I may be allergic to alcohol. I quit drinking spirits the day I found I was pregnant with AJ and I never went back, not even when tempted with a peaty Island Malt proferred by one of London's most celebrated whisky connosseurs. I was married for seven years to someone who preferred the bottle to his wife. Happily, he went on the wagon the day I left him and has never gone back. But the experience has left me with an extreme abhorrence of drunkenness - even the 'happy drunk' variety - which means I haven't stepped into a pub in what seems like decades.
But I do enjoy a quality wine that ages nicely and doesn't give me a headache, and I'm prepared to drive all the way to Burgundy and back a couple of times a year in search of a predictably good drinking experience. Or Sizzano, or Asti. And, more to the point if you live in Carmine, I'm prepared to heft a couple of cases onto my back for the long walk up. So perhaps I will miss my mealtime tipple and my weekend aperitif after all.
If my Lent resolution is anything like my New Year's Resolution - yes, it's now March 1st and I still haven't finished January's Nobel book, let alone February's - I won't get much further than Tuesday. But we'll see how we go. And I'm going to bore you every day with a bulletin to let you know how I'm doing - perhaps shame at failing will keep me on track.
So what have you given up for Lent?
Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008, 2009. All rights reserved. Please ask first.
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