Newsletter, Feb 1st, 2004. January
fears of potato blight?
Cripes! The worst month of them all. Our road a slalom, navigable by day, treacherous by night, to the extent that we don't dare to go out. A string of cancelled dinner parties (hooray!) but the worst bit...frozen pipes. Now one of my autumn promises was to put our water supply pipes underground but I didn't. I didn't because I wasn't sure I could manage the complications i.e. a sort of triple bypass inside a junction box to be inserted into frozen ground to the side of, but not touching, the insane plastic tubing which carries the rainwater away (sometimes) In fact I'd called Angelo our plumber and asked him to do it pronto because the long term forecast had predicted an Arctic disaster week. He said believe me it won't get cold but I'll come over in a week or so and fix it for you. He said. Needless to say we did get hit by aforesaid Arctic blast and I call him and his phone's off as you'd expect. So what do I do? I do it myself with the help of Giuseppe and Renzo (advice, brute strength, and pure wool to go inside box containing triple bypass junction). But this took three days and meant three days of frozen pipes in the morning, which meant no water in the house and thus no water to boil and pour over frozen pipes to thus get water in the house. With me here? So I had to boil water at Bernie's place (now poshly called La Casa Sibilla) and rush back and forth till I hear water running through pipes. And it was minus five all day and my brain got cold. Yes it did and even a hot shower couldn't thaw it out. That feeling of emptiness inside your head; no thoughts, a complete inability to communicate in any rational fashion (so what's new ?..Lili asked) and a sudden intuitive understanding of Tibetan Buddhism. But the job's done and happy we all are, now that the knuckles and knees are healing (slowly). And what with a good roaring fire, a bottle of Rosso Conero, a piece of meta stagionato pecorino cheese, it ain't that bad really once you sealed up inside away from it all, the wind gnawing like an insistent starving rat at every penetrable gap in our doors and windows. In the daytime, from the window, I can see the skiers on the slopes above us. In fact it's been so far a good season for them, several good dumplings of snow and then plenty of sunshine. Not that I dare go up there of course what with the knee and all and last year's broken foot and what's worse I haven't graduated beyond the kiddy's bit because I still haven't mastered the art of stopping. Might try in a couple of week's time though. Worst bit of all is the crocodile lines of children you have to try and avoid on the slopes. They come up in large groups from school in the afternoon; the ski instructors dress up as giant bunnies, or deer, or mice and the kids in ditto outfits and they ski pretty good. Thing is of course, they're small and don't hurt when they crash over and they learn quickly. Now I'm neither of these things and it might account for my grumpiness when a la piste. I love children but not when they ski well. The winter Music season has kicked off at La Fenice but the theatre is still not heated all that well (along with cinemas around here where people keeps their overcoats on and wear thick woolly socks) and we don't feel all that inclined to go and suffer so for music. Beyond that there's very little activity in January. This for many reasons. Principally because it's dangerous to get out and about but also I think because this is a rural community and farmers go underground and hibernate at this time. Well, not literally of course, although they often look as if they have, but there is so very little to do except mend a fence here and there and check on the wine every other day, a glass or two or four. Pickled they are most of the time. Incidentally, the wine we picked the grapes for has turned out to be quite ghastly. We've been plied with bottles of the stuff by Quinto. Problem is it has to be drunk immediately because it has a tendency to turn to vinegar within 24 hours. So Lili took the initiative and poured it all down the sink and suddenly there was a positive aspect to the disappointment on the wine front (we've had a half blocked sink problem for months) and the sink is now cleared (including the pipes down as far as the waste outlet tank) so we can't complain. The only solace to this misery is an escape down to the coast. Not to any of the nearby seaside resorts which are deader than death itself out of season, but to Ancona. Here it's always for or five degrees warmer and there's stuff to do. Not many people know this, but Ancona is an interesting town. Not quite a City but one which has all the ingredients of one, an ethnic mix with Chinese and Indian, even an African restaurant plus good fish restaurants down by the harbour. But it's the harbour itself that I like the most. Massive ships coming in and out from Turkey, Greece, Croatia and all those gorgeous oily smells and seafaring types everywhere who always carry that indifference, almost a distaste for terra ferma. It's got a good theatre and cultural life too. I recommend a visit, I do. Makes a nice day out away from the cold, unforgiving countryside, So that just about wraps up January. Cold and bleak and arid of soul. That's me, Le Marche and the weather at this time of year. Next month will provide cheerier tales, I promise, nearing spring and all. The animals will be happier, we'll start walking and trekking again and soon I'll put me onions in. I will. Four varieties. Get seed potatoes ( red and white) from consortzio, peas I won't bother with this year (Findus f/peas much nicer) and broad beans(?)..I ask you, are they really worth the trouble? Hmm!, the orto! Spring is in my head. But those potatoes worry me.
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Surviving Christmas in Marche with no crackers...
'Twas a White Christmas. Truly was.
I used to love snow...but every year the stuff seems to get more complicated. What I mean is of course is that it's still snow but if you're driving into it as we a were from Reggio Emiglia and it's getting dark and starting to freeze and getting deeper and snow tyres are OK but you're not sure whether to stop and put chains on (which could be messy and give you a heart attack) or carry on and end up in a ditch...well, that's what snow becomes when you get to have to deal with it in a practical way. It carried on for the whole of Christmas and stopped us doing anything, going anywhere.
Bernie the Bolt bowled in from London just in time before it got too bad. Luckily he'd called from the airport. 'Get chains!' I advised but it meant he had to go into Ancona to get them and he turned up at 1.30 am, or I should say he didn't. Or more precisely, almost turned up. He called from our treacherous junction 2k away down the hill. Swiveled across the road he had. This meant I had to get out of my pyjamas put on Arctic gear and negotiate via my telefonino. You see I figured I'd never make it past him unless he somehow managed to swivel back. And probably I'd crash into him if he was stretched right across the road anyway and we'd both be found dead in the morning. It was whipping up a blizzard when he finally called and said he'd manage to do the reverse swivel so I blitzed down the junction and found him puzzling his way through the Italian instructions. Well, I'm afraid I know through the experience of living in these mountain parts that to put chains on you have to lie on your back and stick your nose under the car's nose to get anywhere with these accursed objects (read pleurisy or pneumonia here)...and that means breaking knuckles and mind. But we managed to get them on and off he went, straight into a ditch. Enough said, but he's American...what can you expect. (Said Lili).
The rest of Christmas was on foot. Friends and neighbours walking back and forth from one house to another.... Really old-fashioned if you ask me...and nicer for it. Except for the crackers. Bring Christmas crackers Bernie I'd said but instead he brought crackers, nibblet crackers, tasty crackers. You don't know what Christmas Crackers are Bernie? Nope! But he did bring two Christmas puddings, which Lili refused to cook saying they were abominations and should be buried in the orto. I suggested instead feeding them to the poor starving creatures (like baby birds) out there in the cold but she said I'd have blood on my hands if I did. Wasn't quite sure whose blood she meant so I let it pass.
Most of the Christmas Festivals were impossible for us to get to and it's a pity because Christmas Mass is quite a beautiful event at La Madonna dell'Ambro. But the road there is treacherous and the snow was coming down hard. You might get there but not get back was the wisdom I afforded my eager friends, So we did lots of winter walks instead until the snow got so deep it made walking impossible.
Added to all of which, I'm sporting a sore right arm and can't lift anything heavy without pain. I'd kicked at a snowball (one of Bessie's (dog/snowball obsessive))
But underneath it was solid ice, a frozen puddle, and down I went, a full horizontal clunk. And this is the problem BTW when it snows and freezes, snows and freezes. Hit your brakes and you're a slalom ride. That's what snow is when you have to deal with it.
But the countryside is quiet at this time of year. Quiet except for the occasional whine and splutter of chainsaws and log splitters. There's nothing else the country folk can do at this time except of course eat and drink as much as possible. And so, over New Year we were invited down to Graziella's where the whole population of our hillside was sat at a huge table full of steaming pasta and the oddest dishes. Baby birds was one of the, dozens on a huge plate which was being passed around. Now I'm a bit squeamish about such things but Lili said it's only because they are little for goodness sake, you eat rabbits and pheasants don't you? Yes rabbit but not a baby rabbit I said. What about a baby sheep she said? A lamb for instance? Yes but lamb is lamb I said and doesn't count (already realising I'd lost the argument and tucking in to the baby birds which were in fact adult birds Graziella said, as If I'd know the difference) Lambs don't count but sheep do she said, as they fall asleep. I tucked even deeper into the birds pretending I hadn't heard this one.
Anyway it's all over now and life goes back to normal. Normal means being scared to open the gas bill, cheating on the meter reading for the electricity (there's this computer you call and it does it all automatically) and wishing the phone bill would just hide under all the other bills. I mean really hide.
The orto is a mess of squashed green sludge as the snow has now melted and revealed the aftermath of its flattening weight. I know it's time to put in onions but I can't bear the thought of dragging myself around in the mud quite yet. And anyway there's the tubing for the water to be buried under the ground before the next freeze up arrives and hell I think I'll get Angelo the plumber to do it, the main reason being that I haven't got a clue as to how to do it myself.
As I write this the drizzle is yet again turning to snow.
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I'm a bit upset...about money and Englishness
Giuseppe at the petrol pump tells me this morning was San Bibiana's day and it's a glorious day, so that guarantees us 40 days of sunshine and a wondrously mild winter with an early Spring. Are you sure I ask? And he says well I can't guarantee it (I remind him of his last disastrous Whitsun forecast) and he shrugs and gives me that 'who do you think I am, God?' look.
But it is weirdly mild and the grass won't stop growing and there are still tomatoes ripening in the orto, butterflies and bees and wasps, and yesterday evening, toads and frogs doing their suicide runs on the road back from Sarnano. (We'd been to Perugia, Derda, to look at the ceramics, a monstrous big town business feeding the American market. Don't mention globalization or Starbucks) The frogs and toads just sit there and hop at the last minute either right or left. Frog and Toad, road, soup.
They tell us at the Ceramic factories that since the rise of the Euro they've lost 20% of their income and that there's little money about in Italy (as If we didn't know). Italians don't buy anymore they say. Conversation slides to the inevitable moan, the Euro, and what a con it has been and yes, that everybody says that what was one thousand Lira two years back is now One Euro. (Instead of 50 cents). Give or take a commodity or two though this seems to be true, despite the Govt. assurances of only 2.8% inflation (they pick the products of course to do their calculations on).
Gloomy news but it bites at everybody and the statistics show that Italian families are following the North American and UK pattern of gradually slipping into debt. Personally, I reckon that the changeover to the Euro put people into a type of narcosis here, a bewitchment, which they are suddenly coming out of. It's now common (and this is only a recent phenomenon after two years of confusion) for people to remember the original costs of items in the old Lira currency.
You'd be eating a pizza and someone would suddenly stop and say - do you know, two years ago this cost eight thousands Lira, and it's now eight Euros. Then they'd carry on eating, as if merely talking to themselves.
What upsets me?
You might well ask.
Well, I'll tell you one thing... Read on.
We were at dinner with friends and it happened to be November 5th.
Half the people there were Italian and an English guest had happened to mention that it was Guy Fawkes Day. I don't know if you've ever attempted to explain GFD to an Italian, but explaining cricket's a darn sight easier. No, I'll take that back, let's just say it would be easier to explain chess to a chimpanzee.
'Ah, so you make these men out of rags and straw, dress them up, put them on top of a fire and burn them.
But that's awful. But why?'
'Because they symbolize Roman Catholicism.'
'Why is it you English have been so cruel in History.'
'Us cruel? Shall we talk about the Inquisition maybe?'
Zap! It's going off the rails.
And once the conversation takes off that way you have to try and change it, don't you?
It's all connected with the custom of apple bobbing, I say. Let's go and find some apples in the garden and celebrate autumn.
And this is where I hear the bangs and see the lights in the sky above Monte San Martino.
The English!
And this is what upset me.
Bessie (my dog as you know) who guards the house and runs free at night has a great fear. Fireworks.
She panics and tries to get into the house and under the nearest bed. And if a door is in the way she'll literally bite it down. So we get back and find an eight hundred Euro door in pieces and that faint whiff of gunpowder in the air. Sure enough, it happened that some new English neighbours had decided to celebrate Nov 5th here, in Italy, (a Catholic country what's more).
I wasn't just upset; I was fuming. So cross I was going to go down there and do a ' Now look hear my man, can we have a word' bit (but I didn't) but have since ranted on about this episode for weeks. In fact it's brought out some strange emotional dislike I must have been burying about ex-pat mentality. This may have some connection to having myself been referred to as an ex-pat in some article recently. Look, I could go off on one here but it would bore you. Let's just say that in my mind ex-pats bring their fireworks and their Englishness with them. Enlightened new Europeans integrate into the language and culture of their adopted country.
That's a fair assessment isn't it?
Probably not.
In the meantime, as if by stealth, every house down our valley is being bought by the English.
(Not quite true, 'cos we have Bernie our American neighbour and an integrator).
Seems only Graziella and family remain of the old country folk. This is getting to Lili a bit because she says the English never seem to mean what they say or maybe it's the other way around and that they eat such awful food and that bad habits spread. I suspect she's having a go at me here and ask her if I can fetch some spinach from the garden.
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Trying local delicacies at Autumn food fairs ...meanwhile the wild boar are devouring my veggie patch!
Last night (as if in celebration, but not) we were in Macerata, trick or treating. Well, not just us but hoards of little witches, elves and associated helpers. Ghouls and devils twirling around town. Most of the little darlings preferred money to goods and one little girl, dressed as an elf, had wedged herself into the Bank's cash dispenser (hole in the wall to you) demanding her cut of the take. T'was very warm in town and on the way back we nose dived into a ferocious wind blowing up from the south, the Scirocco. And this morning warm to hot outside when we opened up to the day. And the whole world is veiled in a brown mist. I check on the Internet weather chart (Met Centre, Bracknall) and sure enough, it's blowing up from the Sahara, a fine white sand and it's has already consumed our Mountain View. But they say snow is on its way, but don't they always. I ask Quinto, our neighbour, and he shakes his head in a gesture the meaning of which lies somewhere between 'How should I know?' and 'Why are you always asking me about the weather?' No other nation understands this of us, do they? Our obsession. This and the Royal Family.
I have a friend, Claudia, in Toscana, whom I call Claudia from the North. It's a weather joke I explain.
She still hasn't got it after five years. Not surprised really. What other nation would find it the slightest bit amusing? She doesn't get My Admiral Nelson joke either.
Last weekend was our Amandola local products festival. Diamante in Tavola, or we would say Table Treasures (would we?)
We hadn't realised it was a Saturday night party time thing as well and we went only on the Sunday morning. Missed a treat they say, the town one big night club until the early hours. Just my luck to miss out. Most other years they've held it in the main (re-paved) Piazza but it's been decided that this is to be kept strictly for cars, our lovely new Piazza. You must understand that there is an election coming up and the Sindaco (Mayor) wants back in and that the car lobby is to be wooed and pampered. The Englishman's home is his castle. The Italian's car is his ego.
The Food Fair
So, walking up the hill I had to draw my negative thoughts away from car lobbies because the whole town has been opened up. The cloisters at the top of town (which none of us have ever seen) were full of stalls and so was the new theatre, or old Cinema I should call it which has been lovingly rebuilt for no-one knows what purpose. The butcher was open, the Park Office and all the empty buildings along the road up to La Fenice. An exhibition here, an improvised shop there, quite (I imagine) like times mediaeval. Our teacher friend Elisa takes us in hand and gives us an impromptu tour of the damage the New Town Hall Regime is casting upon our town. Come with me she says, look up there. There used to be a wonderful sundial and it's been knocked down and covered up and nobody cares. And this (going down the hill we are) was the Old Cinema where we went as kids and now they've spent thousands on it and it's left three quarters completed and is of no use to anybody (it is in fact a wonderful space I think and Oh what a treat it would be the have our cinema there instead of the torture chamber at the back of the Crai supermarket.)
Best bit of the Food Fair was below the town, however.
Here we find a team of people from Treviso (our twin town) cooking their local delights. Chap sitting next to me said he and his wife had come all the way down from Macerata to taste the Amandola cuisine and the only dishes worth eating are from the Veniton. Lili (herself from such parts) smugly smiles at this and spends half an hour talking in dialect with the team, which earns us a few glasses of wine and a cake.
Two weeks earlier in Smerillo they held the Festa delle Castagne (chestnuts). Usually thousands of people turn up (from as far as Bologna, they say). But this year it was damp and cold. The first chunk of Siberian air, and there were only a couple of hundred folks. The consequence was that all the little aperitifs nibbles and teaspoonfuls of wine (vino cotto, the local specialty of boiled wine) became whole plate and glassfuls. Just to get rid of it I suppose. It was dark and wet and steamy everywhere and I must admit I'd sampled a few too many of these freebies and by the time we'd got to the end of the village I didn't really care that much about the weather conditions. Lili drove home if I remember. Bad boy!
The same wintry blast left the mountains covered with first real snowfall of winter. It's always an exciting buzz to see the first cars coming into town covered in snow but the excitement diminishes, believe me, as winter takes its grip. Don't want to think too much about that at the moment. Winter that is. Still recovering from last winter's gas bill.
My computer's on the blink and that means trouble in these parts. The printer decides to give up on black and I take it into town to get it fixed. Yes they say, Two days they say, then next week they say, tomorrow they say. Three and a half weeks of this and I pick it up. Its shot they say, can't be mended buy another, they're cheap enough.
An instinct tells me that nobody has even looked at it, so I take the top off and find a piece of rubber blocking the ink cassette. Bingo, fixed in five minutes. But I'm used to this sort of treatment now and I advise others not be too nice to technicians and to look cautiously at fees quoted for any work if your not a local and to take what you're told with a pinch of salt. And when you find someone who is good, stick to them. But, hell, I guess it's the same everywhere, I tell myself. It is isn't it?
Cinghiale
The cinghiale (wild boar) hunting season is well under way but nowadays it just doesn't seem to be as it was. Fewer hunters for one thing. Francesco, my friend from Rome, says he thinks it's the football and Formula Uno on TV which keeps the men away, but I reckon just as responsible is the telefonino (mobile phone). When Bess and I went down for her evening walk yesterday, she wasn't as scared as usual. Less hunters, less guns, fewer dogs, so we managed to get quite close to their famous hut before we turned back. We look down into the valley and there are four of them with telefoninos tacked to their ears. No no, not the cinghiale, the hunters! Although I must say, that they are bright creatures. No no, not the hunters, the cinghiale. The hunt was always carried out with whistles and secret calls like hoots and whines across the valleys. Ancient sounds that I'm sure in some way the wild boar were attuned to. The dance of the hunt. Each to play their assigned part in the ritual of the kill. With the telefonino the magic is gone I reckon and thus the attraction is gone and now fewer cinghiale are shot and that means that there's an awful lot of them around, some too close for comfort (at the bottom of our garden for instance) and not one fig lying on the ground from the summer crop. (They adore figs). It's the hunt, which keeps them on the other side of the Sarnano road, and protected by the National Park, but these days they are coming farther up the valley and snuffling through people's ortos.
Talking of which...
The warm weather has given a late boost to what's left of my crops. The tomatoes are growing again, as are zucchinis and beans. The spinach is overwhelming and the lettuce is going to become lettuce soup if we can get around to cutting it before the first frost.
Lili says she has never heard of lettuce soup and that I've made it up. Anyway she says she can't find it in her recipe book so wouldn't I prefer leek and potato instead.
And a stew. Yes a stew.
It's that time of year.
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Fans of Michael Eldridge can follow his previous adventures in Tuscany in The Physik Garden ... |
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| From Charles Dickens to Armistead Maupin many a good yarn has started life in serialised form. Here we see a Physik Garden space dedicated to serialised fiction. In Tales from the Garden follow the adventures of Ed and Frances in "The Spider Chronicles" by Michael Eldridge | |||||
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© Michael Eldridge 2003; 2004 |
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