Sunshine and shadows

Four degrees in the bathroom this morning - several days now since we performed our toilette in below-zero conditions. There is still snow on the ground, and the water for the chickens and the cats is still frozen in the mornings. There's still no water in one half of the house, and Mama spends more time in the woodshed splitting firewood than doing anything else. 

Sunshine and shadows

Viggiona, a brisk uphill walk through the woods from Carmine.

Autumn colours

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

Carmine window.

October 2011

In Via Giovanola

Phantom window.

Via Giovanola, Cannobio.

Window

Parc Ela, Grigioni.

At Piana di Vigezzo

Finally, finally, through the dark of the pre-pre-dawn, I hear the gentle patter of rain from heaven upon Carmine beneath...

Door with prescription.

Just what we need to get us through the rest of February.


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What lies within?

Vicolo Merzagora 6, Cannobio.

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Albergo window

Seventeen degrees at 8:20am as I shoot past the digital temperature readout trying to make up precious morning minutes. Raining hard. The car smells of wet dog. So do the children. So do I... Mama makes mental note not to dare go inside the caffè today but to have breakfast huddled under the awning with the smokers, and to throw Jakob! Lord of Misrule into the lake for a bath at the earliest opportunity... 

In Alpe Devero. 

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Trouble at the window

Trouble - who for once is not actually making any trouble - eyeing human antics from the bathroom window.

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A good-weather charm

Thirteen degrees at 8:30am. Partly sunny, but last night's crashing thunder storm has left us with sleep deprivation, jangling nerves, and torrents where torrents should not be.

This impressionistic window, photographed in Alpe Devero on a beautiful August day last year, is a charm which I hope will bring some warmer, drier weather.

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Window view: the abandoned baita

Eleven degrees at 8:30am, and continuing wild and woolly for the morning kindergarten run - oh joy! 

Above the howling of the wind and the thundering of the rain, the Mama cat is crouched on my doorstep with a miaow to rend the heart of any mother. I haven't heard her make this noise since a faina took almost her whole litter some years back (for the story, click here). I hope some faina hasn't taken this year's recently-born little ones... 

Now for today's Window View...

Broken window, in an abandoned baita below Carmine Superiore.

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Rainbow flag

Seven degrees at 8:30am, and warm in the sun.

When I first came as a full-time card-carrying resident to Carmine Superiore, the war in Iraq was just beginning. The airwaves were loaded, indeed, overloaded, with claim and counter-claim, Bush and Saddam, WMD real and imaginary.

One of the most potent images in those days was the rainbow flag bearing the word pace, peace. As I travelled to and fro from Carmine to Milan, from Milan to London and back again, I saw dozens of them - colourful, hopeful - draped from buildings ancient and modern, grand and humble. And every time I returned to my new home, I was greeted by Carmine's own contribution to the rainbow protest, hanging from a disused building right on the lake.

As the invasion went ahead and the killing began, the flags continued to flutter in the wind, steadfastly proclaiming a peace that could still be. When Baghdad was taken and Saddam finally executed, most of the flags gradually vanished. Carmine's, though, remained, and as month followed month, year followed year, people continued to die on both sides, and Carmine's flag and the building it flew from became ever more ragged.

Today, this is what you see when you arrive in Carmine Inferiore...

After seven years, Iraq, the cradle of civilisation, lies in tatters, just like Carmine's rainbow flag, and the sadly derelict building it adorns.

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Des Res

Six degrees at 8:30am and overcast.

Caravan, Carmine Inferiore

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