December 2015 - Hemispheres Apart

Tuscan Tales Chapter 26 – ‘Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow …’

‘Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve no place to go – let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.’ Not quite so fast, Dean Martin! For as far back as I can remember, while the battery operated radio belted out tinkly stuff of reindeers racing over snowy roofs, our family was perched on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. This is in the Cape, where the hot sun shines down on a sparkly sea.

Our reindeers were the bontebok in the veld, and thanks to a very old fashioned mum, we bravely tackled an enormous Christmas day meal right slap bang in the middle of the day. Turkey, suckling pig, chicken, brandy butter and fruit pudding all swallowed down in the boiling midsummer heat. ‘It must be so easy in the cold,’ we kids would gasp, as we tottered from table back to beach.

So imagine my excitement when we planned our first Christmas in our very own piece of rural Tuscany. Some children could make it, and some precious cousins too. ‘We’ll buy a tree and put it near the arched door in the dining room,’ I said, ‘and we’ll decorate it beautifully. We’ll have stockings hanging from the mantel piece above the fire, and serve mulled wine to all who come through our door.’

‘At long last we’ll tackle that wretched roast turkey in a proper climate,’ I thought, ‘and finally I won’t feel as if that stuffed bird has transferred its aggression to me.’

‘I really hope it snows,’ I said to Liam, ‘… we’ll have walks in the snowy woods and on Christmas Day we’ll walk up the steep chalk road to the little church and sing hymns – it doesn’t matter if we’re not Catholic.’ ‘If it snows like that,’ laughed Liam, ‘no-one will get up our road – and I am not sure how easy it will be to have a traditional English Christmas. In the first place I bet you won’t find brussels sprouts, and thank heavens for that. Come to think of it – what do Italians eat for Christmas?’

Very soon our family had flown in, and our cousins had flown in, and the house was filled with laughter and expectation. One morning we slipped and slid up the rainy road and managed to get to the butcher in Greve. It’s a wonderful place with hams hanging tightly from the ceiling, and meat and sausages and cheeses wherever you look.

It’s a wonderful place with hams hanging tightly from the ceiling …

‘Buongiorno!’ I said to the man serving, ‘We would like a smoked gammon and a turkey please.’ ‘Why?’ asked the man. ‘Well, it’s Christmas in a few days and I want to cook them.’ I said. ‘Why you want to cook them?’ he asked.

Wondering if they had got extra staff in for Christmas I decided to spell it out, patiently: ‘Well, my grandmother taught me how to cook the smoked gammon.’ I said. ‘I do it with beer and mustard and it is delicious … and as for the turkey, well nobody actually likes it but it’s traditional.’ ‘No, no, no,’ he said, ‘You don’t understand! In Italy, I cook. You eat. You must tell me what you want and I cook it for you and you fetch it.’

‘Done deal!’ I said, happily dismissing hours of work in the kitchen. ‘You don’t’ by any chance mean the turkey too?’ By this time Liam had gotten interested. ‘Actually I was thinking of a chicken and a duck as well,’ he said.

‘I will prepare them for you,’ the man replied. I will roll the turkey and the chicken in one, and for you I will also roll a guinea fowl and a duck together. You can put both rolls in the oven at the same time.’ ‘Let’s leave the oven out of this,’ said Liam, ‘I think we’ll barbecue them.’ We had used the oven once or twice but it seemed to make funny bomb-like noises and nobody really trusted it.

‘No meat to prepare or cook.’ I thought, ‘How wonderful.’

… piled high with box upon box of panettone …

‘Shall we head for the supermarket and see if we can buy a Christmas pudding?’ I said. ‘Nobody likes that either.’ said Liam, who had clearly put it in the turkey category. He was in luck. The supermarket was piled high with box upon box of panettone.

This is what we have for Christmas.’ said the teller, ‘It’s light and fluffy and just the thing after a big meal. Serve it with a bit of vin santo or limoncello and just relax.’

Relax? On Christmas Day? How wonderful.

Back home I ducked under our neighbour Manuela’s cold damp washing and climbed the steep stairs to Manuela and Pasquale’s. I love it up there – there’s a middle room as you enter, and all other rooms lead off from this. In the wintertime Manuela and her mother-in-law sit around the kitchen drawing warmth from the ancient wood stove. There’s generally an old relative nodding in a corner rocker and Pasquale beetles in and out bringing in the cold, the wet and the mud.

‘Where do I buy a Christmas tree?’ I asked. The assembled aged looked at me curiously. ‘You can’t plant a tree now.’ they said, ‘The ground is too cold and it will die.’ ‘No,’ I explained, ‘I want a pine tree that is chopped down – a ‘Christmas tree’ – one that I buy in order to decorate.’ ‘Not here,’ they said, ‘that would be a waste of the tree. Here we buy some outside lights, and then we find our best tree closest to the house and put the lights in it.’

‘That tree with the blue trunk, the one on the terrace that old Enzio painted for you, that is the tree to choose.’ came the advice from the old boy on the rocker.

‘No meat to cook, no pudding to make – and now no decorations to bother about.’ I called as I came back through our door. ‘How simply unbelievable. All we need to do is concentrate on the real meaning of Christmas.’

‘Let me do the decorations.’ said my daughter in law, and she put on her wellington boots and headed for the woods. Soon she was back with an armful of woodland magic … the brown leaves of the oaks, the fallen acorns, the orange berries of the pyracanthus and the dark blue berries of the juniper bush. She placed them in the middle of the long dining room table, winding some in and around the plates and cutlery.

‘It’s as if the woods have come in to dine with us!’ I said. ‘How wonderful.’

In the evening we put our names in a hat and chose our stocking. We hung them on the mantel piece. Then Liam and our son hung the lights in the blue-trunked tree. ‘Not too early tomorrow morning!’ I said to Angela, a young of heart cousin of barely contained excitement.

It seemed as if I had barely closed my eyes when there was a tap on my door and a quiet voice was saying ‘Merry Christmas.’ ‘Oh Angela, it’s too too early.’ I said ‘Do go back to bed and try and sleep just a little longer.’ ‘I can’t.’ came the voice, ‘You must get up. You simply must come and see.’ I threw on my gown and she took my hand and led me down the steep winding stairs. Downstairs with the huge arched windows all around us, we stood, transfixed …

‘Oh the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so, delightful, and since we’ve no place to go – let it snow let it snow let it snow …’

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Tuscan Tales Chapter 25 – Let the Light Eternal …

Born firmly on African soil, we grew up as African children do, running through wild acres of the veld and splashing in and out of the Atlantic sea. The languages, culture and experience of Europe passed us by. Totally. We learnt no French, no Spanish and no Italian. There was little chance of classical music, opera or art museums.

As the South African comedian Pieter Dirk Uys once explained ‘Africa was our whole world and it engrossed us completely. As a child I had a map of Africa on the wall next to my bed, and if I turned it upside down, then South Africa was on the top, and Europe stayed under the duvet. That was good.’

‘I’m going to learn French!’ I announced to Liam when I first arrived in London. ‘I know that it is at a very late age indeed, but I think my brain can take it.’ ‘Excellent,’ he said ‘go off and learn French so that you can speak Italian.’ ‘How odd is that?’ I thought. The French and all they stand for had long been a romantic dream of mine. At university I crooned away to Edith Piaf’s Milord, and smoked French cheroots. ‘Now I can go to Paris and sit in a night club and be – oh so – oh la la — French!’ I thought. So, for about three years, I battled through acres of French verbs never really knowing what was potting.

Then we bought Fontana. Out went the French and in came the most beautiful language in the world. The language of opera, of friendship and of love. From the gentle dialect of the Florentines to the more guttural Tuscans in our valley – those of the ‘ghasa and ghoco-ghola’ fame – I love it. And I fell in love with Europe and all it has to offer too.

There can be nothing more exciting than packing your car outside your home in London, and getting it ready to drive right across Europe. Once the picnic basket goes in, with its thermos flasks of coffee and snacks for the road, you’re set. ‘Let’s not go the same way every time,’ I said to Liam ‘let’s go the scenic route. Let’s spend a couple of nights on the road each time we go. Let’s go up through the Swiss lakes, or down to the Mediterranean, or even through Spain. Let’s do what we never did as children.’

And so we did, and it was wonderful. Yet every time that we reached our final destination, and we bumped down our perilous and familiar road I would think ‘Can there be a better place than this anywhere else on earth?’

‘You know, you don’t have to die and go to heaven,’ I said to Liam, ‘because paradise is right here.’ ‘That may be’ replied Liam but each time I arrive back I wonder if our old boys will still be there. They may be tough and wiry but they are really getting very frail.’

Then one day it happened. We arrived back fairly late in the evening. In the morning I threw open the shutters. The early morning sunlight streamed in and as I leaned out of the window to savour the moment I saw Leila down at the chooks. Alone. ‘That’s funny, where is old Enzio?’ I wondered, and I leaned out further. ‘Buongiorno,’ I called out, ‘Come stai? How are you?’ ‘Non cosi bene – not so good.’ came the reply. ‘I’ll come down,’ I said.

It transpired that a few weeks back old Enzio had had a heart attack. He had landed up in the hospital at Poggibonsi, and was now at home recovering. He is impossible,’ Leila told me, ‘he listens to nothing and will not rest even though the doctors have told him to.’

‘Well thank heavens he has the spirit to recover.’ I said.

Over the summer he did just that. Every day the old boy was up at the crack of dawn. Then Leila would take him by the hand, and with her help and the help of a stick, he insisted on slowly taking charge of all his old chores. One by one he achieved them, starting with the care of his beloved chooks and the walking of Beethoven, and slowly progressing to the more arduous tasks of strimming and gardening.

Everybody admired him, and especially old Cosimo, who seemed to do less and less himself and become more and more reliant on sitting on his upturned bucket offering words of encouragement. ‘Bravo!’ I would hear him call, ‘just a little more and you have done it.’

‘I don’t think old Enzio is the one to worry about’ I said to Liam one day. ‘Rather it is old Cosimo … he is getting less and less mobile and he’s a frightful colour.’ I had been over chatting to his daughter Manuela and his wife Flavia. ‘The women tell me that he won’t listen to a thing either … he eats and drinks what he fancies, and then sits in the sun.’

Not too long after that we managed another road trip. This time we decided to drive back to Italy through the Rhone valley, passing Dijon and Lyon, and overnighting along the way. On the final day we happened to be driving by the outskirts of Portofino.

‘We’ve got a little time – I reckon we are about 5 hours from Fontana – so why not pop in and have a cup of tea with Leo and Nell?’ I said. These friends of ours had just bought a house on the hills above Portofino and were anxious to show us what they had found. ‘Good idea,’ said Liam, ‘let’s do it.’

Leo and Nell were in and very soon the kettle was on the boil. We sat out on the terrace looking down on the bay of Portofino, entranced by what they had bought. Nell was getting to know the neighbours and Leo had taken to getting up every morning at 6am and exploring the countryside. ‘Stay for the night’ they begged, but we decided not to. ‘We need to get home’ said Liam, ‘we have already taken four hours out of our journey and we really should go.’

By the time we bumped down our stony road it was at about ten in the evening. Not a light shone in the big old stone house, for these are working people, field workers, who get up at the crack of dawn and work to the hours of the sun. We unpacked as quietly as we could and went to bed.

The next morning I ducked under Manuela’s washing and climbed her rickety stairs. I am in the habit of doing this when I arrive and it helps me to settle back. We usually have a little chat. Manuela feeds me shockingly strong espresso and her mother-in-law Flavia starts to frown in preparation of trying to understand my Italian.

But not this time.

‘Permesso’ I called knocking on their old brown door. The old fashioned courtesies still exist here. Manuela came to the door ‘Entra’ she said. Her face was swollen and puffy. Seated at the table beyond her was the large form of Flavia. Dressed entirely in black she was rocking backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. Pasquale stood behind her his hands resting gently on her shoulders. He seemed at a loss to know what to do. ‘Che e’ successo? – what’s the matter?’ I asked.

But I knew. Old Cosimo was dead.

What I did not know, was that the funeral had been the afternoon before. Had we not decided to take a break for tea with our friends we would have been there …

Sitting atop the spine of one of the hills surrounding Panzano is a small cemetery of the utmost charm. I like to wander around it, for on all the graves, in good Catholic fashion, there is a picture of the person buried there. It sets my imagination going … who were they? Who was this young or old person?
Did they live a good life, or was it once of hardship and toil? If you pass this cemetery at night, every single grave, and the niches in the wall, are lit up. This is for 365 days of the year, through the heat of the summer, and through the cold dark days of the wintertime. They never go out.

Now the time has come for the eternal lights of that small cemetery to shine down on old Cosimo. No more will we see the familiar old figure toddling from plastic chair to upturned bucket to swing seat. No more will he weave fantastic stories around small events. No more will we see Manuela scolding him while she marches him through our wooden gate to return one of Liam’s tools that he has somehow ‘borrowed’.

A lovable, feisty, cheeky and simple rascal has gone, and quite simply, our little valley will never be the same.

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Tuscan Tales Chapter 24 – Hedging your bets …

It’s early morning. The time that I like best. The house is fast asleep and all is quiet. Our house guests will wake late – all our visitors do as they settle into this lovely stone house at the bottom of the Tuscan valley. They can be the movers and shakers of the world, these friends of ours, but when they take their luggage out of the car, and walk through the old wooden gate they simply stop and stare. Then I watch … I see the beauty of the valley, with its vineyards, its olive groves and the dense forest below slowly wrap its arms around them and hold them there. A deep and soporific peace envelops them and from then on they don’t move much.

I get out of bed, open the curtains and look at the hill opposite. Normally long rows of vines run upwards from the stream below, following the curve of the hill until they reach the line where the forest begins. But this year, just at the beginning of summer, machines arrived and pulled out the vines. Then they pulled out the trellis and laid them neatly to one side, and then they left.

Here in the heart of Chianti, it seems commonplace to renew vineyards on a regular basis. Now the ground will lie fallow and they’ll be back at the beginning of next summer to plant the new vines. This summer we’ve had good rains and everything is green, almost lush. The huge old Cyprus tree next to my window is alive with small birds chattering away at the break of day.

‘Time for a swim.’ I say to myself. I walk down the steep terracotta stairs, across the hallway and out onto the breakfast terrace. The light is extra-ordinary – a soft translucent glow seems to be spreading itself softly through the branches of the trees … under and over it goes, winding its way through the lavender and wisteria, on through the olives and out past the rose climbing over the wrought iron gate.

I stand at the edge of the pool, just drinking all this in. Down below I hear our neighbour, old Enzio, letting his chickens out. Better get in before the house wakes … I put on my goggles and go straight in. ‘Twenty lengths, that’s the minimum …’ I tell myself as my body hits the cool of the water.

My goggles are old and I cannot see anything outside of the water, but with my head under the water they’re OK. I strike out .. ten laps, eleven laps, twelve … I’m at the deep end and about to turn. Suddenly there is an awful scratching on my right arm. Something is trying to claw its way up it. I try to shake it off, but I’m too ungainly in the water. It moves further up my arm, and then there’s a loud hiss in my ear.

My first thought is a viper – in our part of Chianti it is the only snake that is pretty deadly, and we have had one in the garden before. I can’t see through my ancient goggles but I manage to shake it loose and strike out for the shallow end. It takes a lot to frighten me, a tough South African background sorted that out, but right now I am simply terrified. As I swim I am yelling loudly, simply shattering the calm of the morning. ‘Help! help!’ I call, ‘Help! Something’s in the pool and it’s following me!’ But no-one comes. I seem to take forever to reach the shallow end, where I risk looking behind me.

And there, swimming bravely after the only raft it can see, which is me, is a tiny hedgehog. Its dark little eyes are wide with terror as its little paws strike out bravely towards it’s perceived salvation. But this saviour has lost all sense of humanity. ‘Help! Help!’ I yell again ‘It’s a hedgehog and it’s after me.’

By this time I have managed to wake the house, well some of it. Liam comes, my nephew comes. ‘Oh my word!’ they cry. How did the little thing get into the pool? It must have been in most of the night, and it looks so frightened. ‘No, no!’ I yell, ‘You don’t understand. It’s me that is frightened. It jumped on me. It ran up my arm. It hissed in my ear. Oh oh oh.’

They look at me in astonishment. What’s happened to the tough South African, the brave wife, the plucky aunt they know? Who is this jabbering wreck?

‘There, there,’ they say, ‘you get out slowly and we’ll fetch a net for the poor little thing.’ ‘What will you do with it?’ I ask. ‘Please take it far, far away where it can’t see me and I can’t see it.’ ‘Calm down aunt,’ says my nephew, ‘it is perfectly harmless, and is more frightened than you.’ ‘Go and make her some tea,’ says Liam, ‘and I will take it far down into the wild olive grove.’

And that I thought was that.

The next morning I deliberated long and hard before deciding to swim. ‘Better just do it.’ I finally decided. Once again the house was quiet, and once again the early morning magic down at the pool made me glad that I was up. I checked the skimmers carefully – for when the little thing had fallen in during previous night the pool motor would have been off. He had probably spent the night balanced on a skimmer. My turbulence in the water must have flushed him out. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be!’ I thought and dived in.

... this shower ... is tucked away on an old stone wall ... — … this shower … is tucked away on an old stone wall …

I had a wonderful swim, then headed for our outside shower. When our guests first arrive, I show them this shower. It is tucked away on an old stone wall and it is completely private. As we stand there I say, ‘The water is the same borehole water that is in the house, the pressure is wonderful and I cannot imagine standing looking at a tiled wall when you can look down on this incredible view. In fact I do not think that I have showered in the house once since we arrived.’

Then I watch their reaction. They look at me dubiously, and I can see what is running through their minds. ‘She’s crazy, and we would never do that.’ That lasts for about two days, and after that, they give it a little try. Then the warmth of the shower, the sunshine on their tired city bodies and the sheer magic of the surroundings does its work. They are hooked.

After my shower, and feeling a million dollars, I walked around the garden, just taking in the little things … hundreds of brown furry bees were busy on the lavender and a lean hungry wild cat was stealthily licking water from the fountain. With the house still asleep I moved towards my bee and butterfly garden. ‘I’ll sit on the swing seat for a while, perhaps fetch a coffee?’ I thought.

From the swing seat I looked around the garden. I like what I call ‘rooms’ in a garden. When the surrounding hedge grows up I am hoping that you will have to push your way in here, and nobody will be able to find you. The hedge is pittosporum tobira, chosen for its sweet smelling flowers that attract bees. An empty hive stands under a rosemary bush in expectation, but no luck so far.

‘Another few years and this hedge will have matured,’ I thought. Some weeks before, when the porcupine set about devouring our irises, Liam had put a trap under it. He checked it every morning but nothing seemed in the least bit interested in it.

Or not?

... curled up fast asleep ... Nothing would budge him. — … curled up fast asleep … Nothing would budge him.

This time the trap seemed to have a dark shadow toward the back. I moved closer, and pulled the trap out from under the hedge. There, curled up fast asleep was a little hedgehog. Nothing would budge him. We had to tip him out.

Now I am sure that there are dozens of tiny hedgehogs all over our valley, but I am absolutely convinced that this particular little fellow was the swimmer of the night before. He seemed utterly exhausted.

After all, wouldn’t you be after two all-night sessions in a row? First, a night in the pool, and second, a very long trip indeed, all the way back up the hill, just to get home?

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Tuscan Tales Chapter 23 – Hystrix Cristata

The gentle rolling hills surrounding Florence may look utterly beautiful – but don’t try to garden them. Full of enthusiasm when we first arrived, we bought every plant we set eyes upon. Then practically everything died … daphne, roses, three wisteria and even an oleander. Too high at 550 metres, with hard packed hillside clay and stones, it is also ‘off the wall’ alkaline. Then there is the harsh month of August where the temperatures soar into the 40s and our entire house and garden are reliant on one temperamental borehole. So we’ve battled and battled.

‘Look over your neighbour’s fence’ advised Liam’s mother, who at 90 was still an excellent botanist ‘What grows for them will grow for you.’ So I did. Over our stone wall towards Manuela and Pasquale’s grow broken tiles, rusty cars and washing. Then again over our fence towards Leila and old Enzo’s grow chickens and rabbits in hutches. In summer though, they put out bright red geraniums in terracotta pots. ‘OK,’ we said, ‘we’ll go simple.’

From the old stone house, on the right hand side of the path we planted lavender and a few hardy horizontal icebergs. The bank on the left hand side of the path we decided to keep even more simple. We planted it with the tough local cistus or ‘rock rose’ and in between the cistus we planted iris.

The pale blue iris ... has done us proud ... — The pale blue iris … has done us proud …

The pale blue iris is the city flower of Florence and for the past five years it has done us proud, multiplying nicely. In spring they put on a wonderful show. ‘Finally,’ I said to Liam, ‘finally we are getting a garden.’ So inspired were we that back in London we spent a good deal of time at the Chelsea Flower Show chatting to the expert at the stall of the Irises. We even arranged, at the end of the summer, to buy more exotic colours from him and see if they would take. He thought they would, and so did we …

Hystrix Cristata
Common name: the Crested Porcupine, found in most parts of Italy.
Average head and body length: 60-83cm (24-33”)
Weight: 13-27kg (29-60lbs)

So right now, something a little shorter, but as heavy as my six year old grandsons, is romping through our garden at night, causing about as much damage as the children in Lord of the Flies.

something ... as heavy as my six year old grandsons — something … as heavy as my six year old grandsons

At first we were not sure what it was. One beautiful clear morning we took our mugs of coffee and wandered down stony the path, simply savouring that time when the light is soft and the birds chatter in the tops of the Cyprus trees. ‘Utterly wonderful,’ I said to Liam, ‘Aren’t we just the luckiest people on earth.’ Then we looked down.

Great tufts of leaves had been tossed around like hapless craft on a stormy sea. At the base of these leaves, where the green turns to white, that’s where the bulb should be. All that remained were the serrated ends where some sharp teeth had been working overtime. The surrounding soil looked as if a bobcat digger had started a new excavation project.

‘Crikey!’ I said, ‘What’s going on here?’

The first one to volunteer was old Enzio. ‘l’istricci – porcupine,’ he said, ‘Mangia tutto – it will eat everything.’ He and Liam walked around our perimeter fence. When we had erected it we had purposely buried about a third of it into the soil to prevent any animal entering our domestic garden. They found nothing alarming. Then old Enzio’s daughter, Elena, arrived. ‘Possibly it can fit between the struts of the pool fencing’ she volunteered. But old Enzio was adamant. ‘It won’t fit!’ he said, ‘The struts are too narrow.’ And off he went back to his chooks.

Next in was Manuela. ‘You must buy a trappo.’ she said. ‘Porcupine will do anything for a potato. They will walk miles to find one. Put the potato in the trap and you will catch him.’ ‘Then what?’ said Liam ‘What do I do with him once I’ve got him?’ ‘You must take him seven miles away, over the hills to Lamole,’ said Manuela, ‘because once a porcupine has found a place for a good meal he becomes totally single minded and he will always come back to your garden.’

‘No he won’t!’ came the answer from down at the pool, where Michele our pool man was busy cleaning. ‘He won’t come back Liam, because I will eat him. You catch him, I eat him. Simple.’

... and I have one big black dog full of spikes. — … and I have one big black dog full of spikes.

A few nights later, the damage was even worse. This time our immediate neighbour Alessandro came to have a look. ‘I think he can climb quite high’ said Alessandra. ‘You need to barricade the part of the stone wall where there is a gap in the rosemary’. ‘A climbing porcupine?’ said Liam dubiously. ‘Rather, I borrow your dog, Pedro, and shut him in our garden for the night.’ ‘No! No! Liam!’ cried Alessandro, ‘Then, in the morning you have a naked porcupine, and I have one big black dog full of spikes.’

Giuseppe, who owns the tiny shop at the top of our hill, gave us some bright blue liquid with a ghastly smell. ‘He’ll never come back’ he said. ‘Just put this down.’ But our porcupine was made of sterner stuff. The damage carried on unabated. ‘I think there is a small problem with a trap,’ I said to Liam, ‘I think they could be illegal, but let’s go and find out.’

In the local agricultural shop nobody mentioned the word illegal. ‘Catch it’ they said ‘They taste a bit like chicken.’ So we bought a trap … a rectangular wire trap with a raised end for the potato and a fierce snap-door to close once the unsuspecting porcupine was inside.

But somehow, we have attracted the most suspicious porcupine in Tuscany. Night after night the damage continues and right now he has worked his way through about 80% of our beautiful irises.

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