goodbye

I want to say goodbye to two friends, both young and full of life and energy. Marina died yesterday after a long brave attempt to hang on and come back to us. her sister has written a lovely goodbye too http://be-reckless.blogs.com/be_reckless/2008/11/marina-finally-traveling-again.html.
Goodbye, too, to Gaby. You too were too young to go.
Lili and I wish you both buon viaggio

Truffles and fairies

Do you know what a fairy looks like?
No no, I mean a real fairy!
...They're tiny with little wings and they whisper honeyed phrases like 'Would you like a warm marshmallow?'.
No, please! Quite wrong!
So here, to enlighten you is a picture of a whole bunch of them up in the Sibillini mountains, where, legend has it, they seduced poor young shepherds in fields as they lay.




How do I know this? Well, it's all described, along with other wondrous information, in our new Museum, at the top of the old town in Amandola.
But don't they look delicious? Most probably they all work in local bakeries in the daytime and go searching for poor young shepherds at night which would explain why the latter always look so knackered as I drive past in the mornings..and why shepherding seems to be so popular around here.
But before you rush to sign up for a career of shepherding hereabouts, I should add that these fairies had/ have goats legs and that the poor young shepherds were/are bewitched forever.
Hmmm! Now I think about it, it explains a lot, I mean about the strange nature of some folks about here. Haven't seen any nymphs with goats legs though. Our local bakery girl certainly hasn't got them because she goes to the same Pilates class as me. And I certainly would have noticed, believe me.
Hey! Look! There's a figure behind the Sibyline fairies. Cripes! It could be the devil. Now that is weird!
Oh and here's a picture of our museum. Most impressed I am, most impressed.




Anyway, I was in town to visit the 'Diamante a Tavola' fiera, our local yearly Truffle bash where I bought two jars of marmalade and one of Dog Rose jam. There who should I meet but the President of the local Truffle Society (one step down from God) who tells me that local truffle hero Bernie was up foraging last weekend (of course he got the wrong weekend), and only one small trufflette to boot(read his article on http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/10/white-truffles-amandola-italy) not that it made much difference because this year they are so scarce, that even his very miniscule find would have won a prize......the summer having been too hot and the Autumn rains arriving far too late. Yep, this year they are so scarce and this means they're gonna be costly.

Here are some photos of the fair with small truffles.






Nice weather, nice atmosphere, mediocre marmalade. Mountain living at its best, before the snows arrive.

24hour cops

You've heard of a sleeping policeman?
Sure you have.
So what do you think this is?
A Darlek.
No, don't be daft..
It's a 24 hour cop. That's what it is...that's what they call them. No, That's not true, that's what they probably would call them if they thought about it, which I'm sure they don't. It's what I call them, maybe it'll stick.
But they are sprouting up everywhere. In towns, outa town, some blue, some orange, some red but all innocuous.
What they do is film you as you drive past (thinking they are just waste bins)... well, you might until you get a speed fine in the post. Yep, any speed over 50KPH and you're done for













And this little piece of living participatory street art below is entitled ' An assasinated 24 hour cop'
Wasn't me what dunnit, honest, but the artist, whoever she was, has the full support and gratitude of most of us locals ( except maybe the town policeman, the human one )
You'll find it on the road to Macerata just north of Sarnano.
Hoot as you pass.

Synchronised divinity

I was going to write a blog about synchronised swimming (see sketch below with me on left teaching my 2012 Olympic hopefuls) at the lake at Fiastra..











......but a friend told me that he had a water diviner coming round to search for water on his land, and..well... I've always fancied myself as a bit of a hot shot water diviner, but I'm always willing to take a step back and learn from others...so I zoomed over to friend's restored mill near Mogliano and met Paulo, the water diviner. Oh, you know, we shot the breeze about our divine experiences, compared twigs, the sort of things we diviners do together when we meet, which is about every half century.
Just kidding really. But I did have crack at it when I lived in Tuscany and after hours wandering aimlessly over swampy fields, I did discover that my twig was twitching, called the digger and we dug two metres down and woosh, out it suddenly came and the well became the water supply for my wondrous veggie patch.
Paulo taught me more than these remembered basics however. You talk to your diving stick (in your mind he said) and it tells you where to go and shoots back when a source of water is found. That day he found two underground streams converging and chose to locate the future well at that point. He said the water is 50 metres down but I find that hard to believe because my inner voice said 10, but we'll see when they dig. (if they ever do, because the source is unfortunately in the neighbours field, bad luck that)
I asked him how he knew the depth to be 50 metres. Same process, he said, I just ask the stick at every stage, 10, 20, 30 metres and so on and it says yes when it's the correct depth.
Does it ever trick you I asked?
Only when it's in a bad mood, he said.

I'm thinking 'I believe the song and not the singer'
Hmm


Paolo at work.... great job, great job.

First we'll take Manhattan

Having a bad technology day!
In fact I'm nervous about using the computer. Lili says I'd best go back to bed. It started with the washing machine which did strange and lurid things to my posh new beach shorts. Now what do I care about beach shorts? But these were extra swish and I don't mind telling you I cut quite a dash in them (not that I could ever see them, says Lili, over my beer belly) Hmm.
Then this morning I tried to download some images from my telefonino onto my computer.
Zilch! No connection. Try with battery recharger... Zero! Then it dawns on me I'd dug it out wet from the beach bag at Altidona yesterday (somebody had put a bottle of water next to it, the same somebody who made my beach shorts metamorphosize)
And it's hot and everything is wilting in the garden and the promised storm was just an electric one with ten drops of rain
























The telefonino images were of the Leonard Cohen concert which we zoomed over to Lucca to see. It was great, and you felt like it was historic to be there. It was worth the ages it took to get there (a two hour pizza lunch en route for the ladies, you understand), then the hysteria and crushing at the entrance of the concert, then getting lost on the way back and ending up in Orvieto, so deep we were into singing Leonard's songs. So they were the photos...I guess now lost forever along with my telefonino. Oh No!















So here are some more images of the electric storm and the weird orange light that made us look like Martians.
















Tonight there' a Tango festival in San Ginesio, but Lili says we best stay home until it passes.

Animals, babies and sunsets

I've always considered photographing the above categories strictly taboo, especially babies, especially friend's babies; although I must confess to having broken the animal part of the taboo with Tikka and Marina. Went out with friends to dinner at Mogliano yesterday evening and didn't have my camera, although my feeling when leaving home was to take it with me...however there was this gorgeous African sunset the like of which I have never seen. Had my telefonino however and look!
























I never go to Mogliano that often and have never been to this restaurant ever but who should come in but two old friends from Ascoli. We'd parted on bad terms some seven years ago but here we were hugging each other and thus obliterating the past.
So, life is full of surprises.
They had a new baby with them and I wish I'd taken its photo. Taboos and grudges are useless concepts, aren't they?
This week I've been invited out to lunch and to dinner in the evening just about every day. Word has got out that Lili is away on a workshop (what again you ask?) Yes and for Italians this means this poor man is going to starve. Who's gonna cook for him and shop for him? Fridge is empty and the house is a mess. Animals are dropping with hunger and the garden has become a jungle full of wild beasts such as snails and black squirrels. None of this is true (except the black squirrel part), but what is it about women that makes them want to believe we can't cope? As I write this my friend GG calls and says he's heard I'm on my own and his wife says we should meet for a pizza in town tonight.
I say great, 'cos I'm starving and I've run out of baked beans and chips and I don't think I can cope.

Two black mice and one white

Two black mice, one white; a green crocodile, a pink elephant and a white ball. Her play times (of at least an hour) each day. And she checks that all her toys are there. These exercise sessions are essential for her paralysed arm according to our vet, who tells us this evening that she may put a metal plate in Tikka's paw to straighten it. We're not sure though, don't want to distress her. On the subject of distress, I was bringing my paintings back from the Perugia show yesterday evening when the car went dead on me. Sunday evening. 9pm in the middle of nowhere and the other side of the mountains. Went back today to retrieve it. Thankfully car intact and all paintings inside. 31C and frying in the heat I was and I was helped by angels to get the car to a place of safety. Real angels.






Witchcraft tips







In the evening of the full moon, wander down to the forest with Bessie for protection and collect handfalls of wild rose petals from the wood below the hunters lodge, yellow ginestra flowers from a little lower down (but don't wander too far, dear). Then, when you are safely home, soak them in cold spring water from the magic fountain at Rustici, over night under the light of the full moon. In the morning splash your body, in particular your hair and head with the cold flower infused water...and this will sharpen your mind and body and protect you from spells and periods of depression.

Witchcraft

Witchcraft.
Funny, I've only just remembered that I did my thesis at Art College on Witchcraft. Don't ask me why, just something that fascinated me at the time. Not by chance then, you might say, that I find myself living in one of the witchiest places in Europe.
Here are some witchy things to contemplate.
Fred.
This is Fred










Fred emerges at this time every year and frolicks with the fireflies, eats then too I imagine. How old is Fred would you say? Twelve years old possibly, maybe ten?
Forget it, you'll never get near it. He's 164.
None of our seven animals take any notice of him because of his invisibilty. this BTW is Lili's notion, i.e that he only makes himself visible to us as a kind of thank you for bringing him back to the World after he'd made that dreadful mistake (being in the wrong place at the wrong time... in the cattle stalle when they were laying the floor in 1850)
I'd written about this rospo miracle some years back but seeing him on our doorstep last night makes it worth a retell,
I was digging out some crumbling brick tiles from the floor of the old stalle
(now my studio). Dave was giving me a hand and there were two or three bricks which were in pieces but difficult to dislodge. We tried bashing and levering not to no avail, so we had to prise every broken bit out with a screwdriver. I'd taken out the whole of one brick and was removing the mortar beneath when I saw an eye open within the mortar dust; then a slight movement and then 'Yipes!' And we watched, mesmerised, as a toad pulled himself out of the debris, shook himself, gave us both a cursory glance, and wandered out of the door into the garden and into the 21st Century.
That's Fred.

videos and assassins

Today I've been out in the garden aligning my sacred stones. Now what else would you do on the solstice?

Up at dawn I was, at 5.30 to check my alignments and listen to the bird song (what bird song? Socksie has eaten most of them...we twigged this when we saw him with a different bird in his mouth at any one time. He is, in short, an assassin and we don't know what to do about it)
Well, eager ears, my dawn stone alignment proved to be a complete success, by which I mean that I can confirm that our planet still is tilted at the same angle and hasn't change its orbit around our sun.
Not so with my westerly alignment at sunset. It was out by 7 degrees. Now this means, either we are heading towards Mars at a rate of thousands of K per second, or that Lilla (Socksie's sister) had jumped on it (as was her habit during the winter for some unknown reason) and Lili had just just stood it up again not respecting my cosmic organisation. Anyway, both deny it.
So equipped with just a garden fork, and under my barked instructions, Lili hopped from left to right as I set my sights from my main mini Stonehenge stone against the westering one, dipping as it was at that moment under the Sibillas' torso.
A passing outsider might have mistaken her movements for a solsticial pagan dance ritual ( Aaah! ..so legends and myths are born I hear you whisper)
But success, westering stone re- aligned and cosmic order (at least in our garden) restored.
Apart, I should emphasise, from the murder of birds, mice , bees and butterflies which is going on faster than Americans eat hambugers. (I mean, are we not feeding them at home that they behave so?)

Summer's here at last. Arrived on same mid summer day after weeks of rain and low temperatures. Now we get 30C by day and it looks to stay that way for a while. And look at the lavender!


And the profusion of butterflies. The live ones that is , not the fallen one-winged victims of Tikka's right paw. Bees a-buzzin too and a heady mixture of a thousand scents fill the air.
Everything good in the garden.
And in the fields around us, Quinto, Graziella and Renzo are cutting and bailing hay.
I like the noise they make and to hear them shouting to each other.
You ask about Tikka.









Still no feeling in her left paw, so we will try another trip to the vets, just to see if anything can be done, although she is getting around just fine. We just worry about when the sheep dogs do their weekly raid and that she might be outside alone in the garden and not be able to escape fast enough. She can't climb trees you see. Built her a ladder though, although when they attack, they are fast and brutal. Bessie does her best as her guardian, but she's getting on in years. Our garden, our garden.

Hey! Look at these
http://turismo.comune.perugia.it/canale.asp?id=465


http://sette-bello.blogspot.com/2008/06/portrait-of-artist-as-young-man.html

Now, if you're in Perugia Sat 21st or 28th, I'll be there at the show and I'll buy you a coffee and a cake

June deep green

Just look at that green! It's supposed to be summer in Le Marche and I should be out there watering for an hour every evening, relaxing after dull day and lit up rouge by the glow of the westering sun, with a bottle of beer and a packet of crisps. But it has rained for almost two weeks now and the only life form getting any benefit on our property are the trees and plants, oh and a worm or two I would imagine and of course a fish would too(if we had one). Hmm, other pluses too now I think about it; reservoirs full, water bills bearable, no dust in the house from passing cars and a great year for trout (which you can fish for E10 a day up near Franco's place on the river Ambro just below the Abbey)
Tomorrow we have to drive across the mountains to Perugia to put up my show of paintings so I do hope it's not bucketing down like it is at this very moment.








You were asking about Tikka
We scoured all the websites for info about nerve damage and made endless trips to the vet but poor Tikka still has no feeling in her left paw. Seems it depends on what sort of damage there is to the nerve, poor mite. So if anybody out there has any info on this front?

Tikka

OK, you guessed it!
Our home is rapidly becoming a hospital for pets.
But what other option did we have. We were driving to Ortezzano to dine with friends (at the Osteria 'La Rosa dei Venti' (highly recommended .. really excellent)... and as we passed Comunanza, I saw a little black shape moving in the road; it was getting dark and there were quite a few cars on the road and as we drew close I could see that it was a kitten so I instinctively swerved off the road and parked and managed to stop the cars as we rushed across the road to save the poor little thing.
So here she is. Vet says her sciatic nerve has been stretched and so she is paralysed in her left leg, poor mite, but the feeling could come back with massage, Reiki and vitamins.
So our animal farm now consists of Bessie, Forch, Eva, Marina, Lilla, Socksie and now Tikka (or could be Treacle)

Most of the cat tribe are ignoring her, except for Socks, who is always asleep anyway and wouldn't know if you'd put a tarantula next to him- See pic!














(Bessie likes her though and wags her tail enthusiastically and is thus adored which means she gets fed extra)

Best advice? Keep off the roads as much as possible around this time of the year. Fact is, people dump kittens. They do. Too mean to get females doctored and too lazy to find homes for the offspring. Makes me mad it does!

Pizzas and pilates

Would you buy a pizza from this man?
I think not.


And was it Ralph Waldo Emerson who said 'There is truth, then there is journalism'?
Probably not, although it was the sort of thing he would say.
But, whoever said it, obviously had pizzas in mind.
Don't know what I'm talking about?...Read this
http://sette-bello.blogspot.com/
Yes, you've guessed it. it's the weekend of the world famous annual Sant'Ippolito pizza competition.
Now, if ever there were a travesty of the truth, it's this little tale above; a demonic manipulation of the true story, the actual chain of events on that sunny afternoon in Bernie's backyard.

I know what you're gonna say 'Sour grapes'....But I never use 'em, only stone ground olives (are there such things?), and a speck of spek, but I can understand the confusion.
But as my old dad used to say 'A pizza speaks a thousand words'

So, it's enough to look, indeed gaze (ten minutes minimum) in wonder at my masterpiece.











Here you see true art; not only culinary art, but contemporary visual art.
OK I'm too late to enter the Tate competition this year I know, but, come on, you've gotta wonder at its splendour.
Oh, not that I could've entered it anyway, I ate it! So very very delicious it was.
Edible art!
Yes!

...and the Pilates?
After six months of stretching, bending, twisting and contorting my poor body, it's screaming 'enough, no more!'
And me, being the only man in a class of twenty women, I suffered the most. Because the teacher, Roberto, couldn't touch twist and bend the bodies of the ladies as he could mine (being male and all). So I'm more flexible but ache in the places that I used to play and have given myself a summer break. Gardening's gonna be my main exercise until Autumn and swimming and walking and Qi Kong and table tennis (for which, sadly, you don't need twenty women), oh and proper tennis if I can find an opponent, which is doubtful because I'm crap at it.
Massimo might give me a game though, if his toenail is better.

The cuckoos are back

And not only the winged variety.
You think I'm writing about the latest Italian election, don't you? Now look! I don't ever write about politics, do I? Well, I do sometimes when things political nauseate me, so get this, dear reader, just get this.......
What's Berlusconi's first act as Prime Minister, on his first day in office? He invites his mate Putin down to his weekend millionaire's playground in Sardinia to watch a troup of young dancing girls. And what's more, he's trying to flog Alitalia to him. You've gotta laugh at the man, especially when you think of poor old Prodi who used to spend his evenings swotting over Italy's accounts, trying to find ways of getting the country out of debt.
Bring on the dancing girls, that's Berlusconi's solution.
Let's just dance all those silly problems away!

So this is a photo of my new orchard by way of diversion, just so's you don't get bored.
(And you can guess from the long shadow that I'm either a giant or it's 5 mins before sunset).
Trivial?
You bet! but it's because of this fear I have of Italy drifting into mindless triviality.
You see, I have to be it to understand it, because from the outside looking in, it makes no sense to me. Or maybe you can make it easier for me by explaining to me (someone?).... why Italians have put Berlusconi back in power with a solid majority. I just don't get it.
Depressing.
And here's a footnote, just in case you wonder in which direction we might expect our Govt to take.........http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/30/italy

Blackout/Whiteout

Get ready to faint!
Can you imagine a world where you switch your computer on to write another nonsense blog and nothing happens, just a blank screen? (Oh but I bet you can though, eh?, hmmm)
Alright then, a world where you switch on the TV to watch the Texas Primaries and nothing happens (Yes you can imagine that too! Oh!).
Well then...coupled that with no central heating, no chess games with your vista chess programme (it's a genius)..And, to make matters worse, the bread machine hasn't finished its cycle and produced a sort of concrete bun.

You make bread?

Yes I do, look....They say it's the best bread you can find in Sant Ippolito

If I may allow myself a wee boast.



Sadder still, missing your morning tea and only two biscuits Michael you're on a diet.
Yes of course we have a blackout but still I went through all the actions all the same., switching things on and off unconsciously.
So, The electricity lines were down and the snow fell for one whole day up to 40cm.
Trees where down everywhere too and the shrubs in our garden crushed.
It was the Bora, that freezing blast from the dreaded Balkans which picks up moisture from the warmer Adriatic and dumps it on us in the form of snow.

Poor Marche.

ski day

Beautiful Springlike day, clear open skies without the slightest wind. Nipped up to the mountain above Sarnano and treated myself to a morning's skiing. Just me on the slope, just me! What a privilege. Ok I know it was just the kid's slope and I know I must have looked like a drunken caterpillar skewering my way down but hey! who was there to watch? Just the ski instructor who had only me as a customer. He let me eat my cheese and prosciuto panino and drink my coke on his terrace.
And I read my book 'Winter in Madrid' and soaked up the sun.


Here are some pictures..











By the way, did I ever tell you how I learned to ski? No? It was in the Rockies with a Zen ski master.
I learned a lot about Zen. Not too much about skiing though (still have the head scars)

Super Tuesday

This morning. Bessie barking like mad and confronting a sheep dog as a local shepherd artfully guides his sheep past our early flowering marigolds. A medieval scene.
It's Super Tuesday in the US and Carnival time here. I'm checking the primaries results on the internet and all I can here is sheep bells. And the news comes up that Italy is to go to the polls again. What? This is a disastrous decision meaning another weak government blackmailed by minority parties.
Who bribed who?. I'm asking myself.
Get the picture?
Understand why I feel confused and perplexed?





And this is yesterday evening in Sarnano. the whole town gets blocked while the carnival passes through. I suppose the western theme had something to do with Super Tuesday. Do you think so? Or the state of the Italian Govt? Or the speed of Italian trains?








On Sunday I went up to Padova where Lorenzo and I had an opening for one of our Red&Blue Art Factory shows..back on Monday after staying overnight. Couldn't face the drive so took a train. Have you ever traveled by train in Italy? Hmmm! Wanna talk medieval again? (See how the themes are overlapping in my mind?)
It's the same day that Spain announces its spectacular new rail system. Two hours from Barcelona to Madrid. And if the train is more than two minutes late you get a full refund!! Can you imagine Trenitalia ever offering that.... the economy would collapse overnight (if it hasn't already)
There's me trying to get to Padova from Porto San Giorgio on the coast. It's Sunday morning and I arrive 15 mins beforehand having wasted half an hour trying to get some cash from a hole in the wall.... Tried three, none working.
There's a herd of customers by the ticket office which is closed with a hand written message on window which says we open at 11 o'clock with an arrow pointing left and the words 'use the machine'
But nobody knows how to. One after the other we try, dialing up destination, class of ticket etc to be instructed to then dial 'OK'. But there isn't an OK button and the train is about to arrive---- Look I say, let's all just get on and explain the situation to the inspector and pay at the other end. They all turn to me as one and say 'What are you crazy and be fined 50 euros?' Oh he'll understand I say. 'No he won't..we've been fined before in the same situation'
Then suddenly pops up a young lady from the town who says 'Hey that's the OK button bottom left, the one with nothing on it...the letters have worn away' So hurriedly we get out tickets, me last of all as the train pulls in and I get one only to Ancona because one of the ladies in the queue advised me not to try and get a ticket all the way as she lost E50 on one of these machines a week before. Oh my!
So on the train I am and it's ten minutes late already and I'm doubting if I'll have time to get a ticket for Padova at Ancona.
Then (of course) arrives a ticket inspector who sneers at my ticket and says I have to pay a E50 fine because it isn't stamped.
I explode!
I say, you should be ashamed!
'Trenitalia is a disaster. It symbolises everything that's wrong with this country and you should be ashamed working for such a crank organisation. there were twenty people
trying to get a ticket this morning, the ticket office was closed, the machine didn't work, the train is late and I probably won't have time to get a ticket to Padova and now you're saying I have to pay a E50 fine?
'It says so on the rules he says'
And service , I say, do you know what service is? All these people paying money and treated like this?
I'm only doing my job he says, and you're foreign aren't you (as if this is an explanation for the difficulty he is experiencing)
What's that got to do with it I shout?
OK, OK, he says and signs my ticket and lets me off the fine.
On the station at Ancona (I just managed to get my ticket in time) I see an poster saying 'Travel by train and make a smaller carbon footprint' and feel an urge to scribble something apt and rude over it...but have no time.
A great time in Padova..nice opening with lots of people.
And when I get back (to cut a longer story short), I stop at the ticket office at Porto San Giorgio on the way out and say to the guy behind the triple strength attack- proof glass 'Look the ticket office was close yesterday morning and there were lots of people trying to get a ticket from this machine here and the OK button is obliterated and it caused a lot of difficulty for people'
'It wasn't closed' he says.'This ticket office wasn't closed'
I lose it again until he finally confesses that true it was closed and what's more the OK button is obliterated, did you know that?
I'll fix it he says.
I wonder, I'll check next time I pass.
Obama's ahead in the first counts and Italy is without a government.
The sheep are settled happily in a nearby field and Graciella and Quinto are up a tree cutting there vines.
I say I think it'll snow next week.
(it's wish talk because my daughter and grandson are here and I want to take him skiing)

Post script



And guess what happened when the sheep came back later in the afternoon?
Socksie (that's him on right) nearly got murdered by three sheep dogs. He was cornered and made a break for it but ran into the herd of sheep: made a swift turn about but straight into the dogs who were so suprised they hesitated and he luckily made a leap for Bernie's tree and just escaped a snapping mouth. So Lili gave him Reichi and he's calmed down but we have had to lecture him on the evils of the outside world (Marimmana dogs in particular)

Christmas Carols

Just look at this stuff!
Dreaming of a white Christmas were you?


We get back from a weekend in UK and whammo! Straight into half a metre of the white stuff (Oh, it's snow I'm talking about here)
Yes, Christmas shopping in London where we saw marvellous things. We saw The Queens' collection of Italian art at Buckingham Palace (well, not actually IN the Palace but in The Queen's Gallery on the side), an exhibition of Futurist Art in Islington, then to Camden market, where we got a Chinese meal for two quid, and finally the new St Pancras station where we had champagne in their new bar there in sub zero temperatures (only the English, I said to Lili.... only the English would conceive of ,and enjoy, anything quite as daft) we stayed with our friends Sheila and Tony who fed us quails eggs and huge breakfasts. Then we zoomed up to other friends, Franca and John, near Cambridge, and arrived in their quaint little village of Brinkley just in time for the Carol Service in the church opposite.
Lili was quite intrigued at the thought of attending an activity in an Anglican church (being of the Papal ilk herself) but I don't think any of us were prepared for what we experienced.
It was odd, very odd indeed.
And this is what happened...
There we were, the congregation, adults, families with kids of all ages, packed within ancient oak pews, all of us clutching our carol song sheets, ready to sing our hearts out, as we English love to do and suddenly, from the back of the church and obviously in a rush arrives the vicar, a lady vicar, a vicarette, carrying a tatty cardboard box which she plonks on the floor beside the alter.
'I suppose you're all wondering why I'm not dressed in my usual vicar's attire' she asks 'and dressed in this coat? Well, maybe you think I'm bonkers, or absent minded, but it's not either of these. I'm dressed to go out because tonight we are going on a journey'
The congregation exchange nervous glances (no mince pies?, out in the freezing cold?). 'We are going on a journey to Bethlehem, to be at the birth of baby Jesus'.
(phew, a metaphorical trip, ok, ok, ok.)
'Let's think first about Mary', she says, 'Now she was only twelve years old when an angel came to her alone in her room one evening and asked her if she'd mind giving birth to the Son of God. "That would be just fine" Mary said, "Oh thanks, but don't tell your mum just yet" said the angel, and then disappeared.'
'Now', says our vicarette, directing her questions at a couple of young girls in the front row, 'What would you feel if your mum and dad had gone off to Tesco's to do the shopping and an angel turned up in your room and asked if you wouldn't mind giving birth to a divine babe? And you were just twelve years old?'
Nervous giggles from the girls and a few muffled grunts.
'You'd be really scared wouldn't you?'(more giggles and shuffles)
'And would you tell your mum and dad? No, because the angel tells you to keep it a secret between you and God?'
'Let's here say a prayer to Jesus for all the young people who have to make hard decisions in their lives'
We pray,
And then sing a carol 'Away in a manger'
'And poor Mary, can you imagine going all the way to Bethlehem on a donkey in her condition? Not a lovely warm BMW! And being only twelve years old, and arriving there and finding all the hotels full?'
'And what about the shepherds?' she asks 'The angel flies up to them on the hillside and declares the imminent arrival of Jesus to them and asks them to go down to Bethlehem at his birth. What must they have thought?' (adults beginning to exchange increasingly nervous glances)
She then drags out the Tesco's cardboard box she'd hidden under the altar and asks the children to come out and put the little shepherd figures into the box along with the manger.
'And then poor Joseph, what must he have thought when the angel told him his 12 year old betrothed was pregnant not with his baby, but with God's? Would one of the children like to come out and put Joseph in the box, uhm.. manger?'
Little boy hops out and bungs Joseph in Tesco's box.
'Now I would like all the children to come up and meet Joseph' (increasingly reluctant children forced by parents to go to front of church)
'Now what sort of job did Joseph have, children?'
'Fireman', one says, 'TV producer' says another.
'Well, he worked with wood, what would that make him?' 'A lumberjack' says a little boy.
Vicarette somewhat impatiently tells them no he was a carpenter.
And so on with more carols and prayers to baby Jesus for all shepherds, carpenters and lumberjacks who have difficult decisions to make in their lives.
Finally (and by this time the congregation are in a state of suppressed mass panic),
She says 'And guess who I've got in my pocket? Yes baby Jesus, I've been keeping him safe and sound and warm all day' And she lugs him out (in the shape of a little cloth mummy) and drops him on the church floor (oh crikey!)
Then she asks a little boy to take BJ and put him gently in the manger (Tesco's cardboard box) 'But don't drop him', she says.
A finally a prayer for the animals in the manger who must have wondered what an earth was going on (what about us in the congregation, I'm thinking, we'd like to know what's going on)
And then we sing 'Oh little star of Bethlehem', a quick prayer to BJ and then outa there, most of the parents rushing home for a quick brandy and on to Google to ask how old Mary was when she had BJ.

Wanna know? try this link, (but not if you're Catholic)

http://www.able2know.org/forums/about1970-0-asc-0.html


Phew, glad to be back safe and sound in the land of a million nativity scenes (presepe where Joseph and Mary are both thirty years old at least, the animals and shepherds are all happy in their respective positions and the three wise men haven't been forgotten and are also inside the Tesco's box, ......I mean manger).


Look!

I'll leave you with a picture of a snowman I made yesterday in the garden.
I've made him look about twenty one years of age, although he's probably only eleven.

snow on 16th Nov

Yep! Lots of it















And here's one next morning! OK, you've got it... this is the other side of the two halves of Italy. Green lizards versus fine wines (and chocolates).

Bad Italy day

Bad Italy days happen periodically and nowadays more frequently.
Is it because I'm getting older and grumpier, or because they are getting worse? (they being them). Both, Lili tells me, with always the aside 'This is Italy, for goodness sake, you know it's like this, get a grip'
Ok, what am I talking about specifically?
Uhmm, how about yesterday for example?
Weather forecast is for snow arriving later and Lili has to get to Rome for her Tantric workshop.
I've already made an appointment to get snow tyres put on, so I drive into town, at the appointed time of 9.30, only to find the Gommista, the tyre depot, completely chockablock with locals. and then the usual routine......(Oh my goodness).... there's this unspoken communication going on. Twenty men, twenty cars and nobody saying anything to anybody. Look, everybody knows Italians don't like to queue but when they do it with cars, it's just, it's just.... deadly. And it's not just men driving/darting into the workshop as soon as one car departs from a ramp but some are driving in and doing a self service routine, jacking up own their cars, even using the workshops bolt guns (and thus holding up any semblance of progress). Then I see Massimiliano, our earth moving man, and say for heavens sake what's going on here, who goes when and how? Michael, he says, you just have to push and not be English, otherwise you'll still be here this evening. So I try assertiveness, go up to the boss and say I'm driving onto the ramp next.
OK?
Sure he says.
Oh!
So there I am (car that is) up on ramp and he duly sets about seeing to all the other punters.
I get away an hour and a half later, and it's beginning to snow.

Next stop the Anagrafo.
I shouldn't have done this, I should have gone home. Why would I want to punish myself so!
The background story....
Up until this year, non- Italian EU citizens wanting to live in Italy have had to apply for a Carta di Soggiorno. With new more universal EU laws coming into effect, this excruciatingly soul destroying process has been replaced by one of simple registration at the Anagrafo of one's local comune.
Simple?
Oh yeah?











Lizards at work (in confused state)













There is no doubt in my mind that the creature who runs the Anagrafo office is a six foot lizard, an alien being. Sure he has (almost) the appearance of being a human being, but don't be fooled.
His sole purpose on this planet at this time is to make miserable the lives of non-Italian residents, me being one of them.
So, my Carta di Soggiorno has just expired and, as these documents legally no longer exist, I naturally assume that, as I am already a resident here from nine years back, that all is in order and I just have to do nothing.
Naive, or what?
This week I get a letter from the six foot lizard telling that as my Carta di soggiorno has expired that I must report to his office within 20 days and with every possible document proving my identity (which they already have remember), otherwise my name will be expunged from the Comune records.
What? Hmm. Hence my visit.
There' a young guy working for lizard who does all his counter confrontations for him. Lizard controls him of course, because everything you say (or plead) has to be reported to lizard who is constantly sending telepathic messages to young man (who could in fact be a baby lizard I'm beginning to think).

It goes like this..
Why have you sent me this rude letter?
Because your Carta di Soggiorno has expired.
But the Carta di Soggiorno no longer exists, how could I renew it?
It's the new law and you have to apply all over again.
For what?
For legal residence.
But I've been legally resident here for nine years, had a legal business, paid tax, paid into Italian pension fund, you name it. Also I'm married to an Italian and can claim Italian citizenship.
I don't know about that, but you still have to bring in all the forms we ask plus proof of private health insurance.
What? (at this point my heart beat is making the double thickness glass partition between us begin to rattle) I already have Italian State health insurance (which I'm imminently going to be in need of)
No you don't.
I whip out my insurance card and he looks at it dumbfounded, then takes it over to six foot lizard. Lizard gets his own out of his wallet and scrutinises both together, turning them over round and round. He sends a telepathic command to young lizard who picks up phone and calls Lizard HQ. I leave him talking and go and have a coffee with Graciella and Quinto who I spot outside; comeback and young lizard is still on phone and now I see boss lizard is giving me deadly looks, trying to hypnotise me I guess or damage my brain cells.
Yes you do have this card it's true but you must get an E121 card from your country of origin and take it to the hospital to make it valid.
You mean it isn't any longer valid? If I have an accident , or maybe a heart attack, I'm not covered?
Yes you are but you still have to get this card and I would advise as soon as possible.
For God's sake, I've been resident here for years, etc etc etc.
OK, I'm getting out of here, you lizards don't know what you are talking about.
They flash each other looks and I see the green sparks for a split second, so now I know for sure.

Get back home and Pino turns up because I'd said we'd go to Denis' house to check out a massive leak he'd been told had swamped his downstairs lounge. We drop Lili off in Amandola to catch the bus for Rome and we head off to Illice to check house. Pino hands me his new Tom Tom satellite navigator because he says he's tried for days to get it to work and can't, it keeps on trying to make him go to Ancona airport when wants to go to The Oasis shopping centre in Fermo. I switch it on and it says 'Turn around now. Would you like to take the autostrada.... your journey is 316 Kilometres and will take two and three quarter hours.'
Illice is only 8K away and ten mins I should add.
Try it tomorrow I tell him, it's a bad Italy day. He puts it away. I don't have to explain.
Denis' flood turns out to be a tiny puddle and as we leave the house the snow has really set in and we sooth our irritation by picking as many of Denis' persimans as we can carry. Enough to last until Christmas, you bet.
Back into Amandola for a beer and it's getting darker and colder and I have to remind myself that this weather is not normal. Why this time last year we were still at the beach sunbathing, although I guess that wasn't normal either.
Back home I decide to go to Pilates class even though Lili is in Rome (just me and twenty women, what am I doing?) I kit up, go out wearing my Crocs walk onto snow and WHACK!, down I go. So there I was, in the dark, lying on my back, soaked in wet snow and my back hurting like hell and with Bessie looking over me wagging her tail.
I give up, go back inside house and run a hot aromatic bath.
It's a bad Italy day.
It's the best you can do.