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Tuscan Tales Chapter 29 – Fig Jam and Fennel Tea

I think that Liam should have been a fig tree farmer. For many years, in the height of summer and in the height of the fig season, he managed to find what must be the only fig tree right in the heart of the City of London. Every morning he would leave our house a little earlier, get off the underground a stop or two before his usual one, and break what was his normal fasting day. That was until his younger brother also began working in the City, and then the earlier bird got the fruit.

At Fontana we inherited one large fig tree at the gate, with delicious large white figs. Then, when we were restoring the olive grove, we uncovered a small but prolific fig tree in amongst the brambles. These ones are deep red, and with this one the race is now on between Liam and the birds. Our neighbours don’t seem to eat them, preferring to wait until the end of summer, and then they make jam. They are all great jam makers, and on a summer’s evening you can see both Manuela and Leila out with their straw baskets collecting blackberries along our bumpy track.

‘I’ll take Manuela some of my fig jam!’ I told my friends M&M who were visiting us from Venice. ‘She won’t like it,’ M replied, ‘haven’t you noticed how M never eats your jam?’

‘Not really,’ I replied, ‘why not?’ ‘It’s got lumps!’ M said, ‘I can’t eat it.’ ‘Nonsense!’ I said, ‘those lumps are the fruit.’ And it turned out that most Italians only like smooth jam – you must mill it up until it resembles baby food.

‘Well I am not going to do that,’ I said, ‘Rather I wait until spring, when the first crop doesn’t ripen and I make fig konfyt – whole fig preserve in syrup. ‘Nobody does that,’ said M. ‘I bet they don’t even know about the first crop.’ And she was quite right. I asked around – nobody knew what I was talking about. Here are my culinary neighbours living down this valley for generations, and not one of them uses the first unripe figs. ‘Must be a South African thing,’ I thought, and went off to phone a faraway friend with a fig farm in a remote valley near Riebeek Kasteel in the Cape …

It turned out that for a fig to ripen it requires a certain wasp. This wasp does not arrive in the early spring, and so the very first crop of figs do not ripen, but merely fall off the tree. Then, when the next lot appear, the wasp has arrived, and gets busy fertilising the fig.

If you stand under the fig tree and reach up and press the unripe fig quite hard between your thumb and index finger, you need to feel a slight ‘give’. If you can, then they are ready for the pot. You pick them whole, scrape them and cut a cross in the bottom. Then you cover them overnight in a solution of slaked lime. The next morning give them a good wash, and boil them in a sugar syrup solution until they are translucent and glossy. Absolutely delicious with cheese, and, with the Tuscan pecorino or sheep’s cheese in our area, mine do not last a nanosecond.

figs-stewing-fixed

Except this year. We nearly lost the lot. Arriving mid-May the first thing that Liam did was hop out of the car and walk down to his carefully planted ‘orchard’ … one apricot tree, one mulberry, and two wonderful new figs of a different variety. ‘Oh NO!’ I heard a wail coming up from the garden. ‘The deer have somehow got in and have eaten a ring of new leaves around each tree. Crikey – as if that porcupine hasn’t done enough to our garden already.’

I had a look. ‘Wow. These deer have a pretty good reach,’ I said, ‘they’ve practically got to the top – and just look at that – they’ve eaten the unripe figs too.
Just then Alessandro arrived for pranzo. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘The fence is too low and now that you have tasty trees the capriolo – the deer – will easily jump it. Then they will be very happy. You must make the fence higher.’ So, as fruit trees rate very highly in Liam’s life, down came the workers and up came the fence. We raised it by a metre.

After that, and with no night terrors, the little figs grew beautifully. Soon I had pots of them boiling away merrily on the stove. ‘I’ll take these to Manuela,’ I told Liam, ‘maybe as the fruit is completely whole it won’t rate as jam? Maybe they’ll start a whole new industry?’

I put some of the whole figs in a pretty glass bowl, walked up Manuela’s stairs and ducked under the washing. Calling out ‘Permesso?’ I desperately thought of the word for fig jam, praying that I did not get it wrong, as one of my friend’s mother’s had done …

Her mother, coming to stay with her, now Italian, daughter, had been desperate to learn Italian and impress everyone. Only trouble was that her language skills were appalling – she had no ear at all. One evening they were invited to dinner with the smart ‘Chianti set’. That afternoon my friend found her mum studying away at her books. ‘I’m going to speak Italian all night’ her mother announced. ‘Oh please don’t!’ begged her daughter, ‘I don’t think that will be at all wise.’

But some mothers don’t listen, and they duly arrived at their host’s house. They were bearing a delicious gift of home-made fig jam and mother, waving the fig jam in the air announced to the entire assembly ‘Guarda, sono faccio marmalade di figha sensa preservitiva.’

fig-jam-fixed Yes, you and I might guess that she had said: ‘Look, I have made you some fig jam without any preservatives.’ But not so fast. What she had actually said to the hoity-toity group was: ‘Look, I have made you some fanny jam without any condoms.’ Language can be tricky at the best of times …

But now, getting the word for ‘fig jam’ – mamellata di fichi – right, I seated myself at the kitchen table. The old one, Flavia, never moves from her seat. She faces the door, and sits at the right hand corner of the old wooden table. Manuela and Flavia both peered dubiously at the whole figs in their syrup. ‘Prova’ – try,’ I said. ‘I’ve brought a little pecorino to go with them.’ Out came plates and knives and on went the kettle. Gingerly they tried a teeny weeny bit.

‘Buono!’ they chorused in unison, without one jot of conviction in it. In fact their faces were the picture of misery.

By now the kettle was boiled, and Manuela had got out three mugs. ‘Now for some proper Tuscan fare,’ she said, ‘At the end of summer we dried fennel from the slopes of the hillside, and maybe you would like a little fig jam made from the big tree on our terrace?

fennel-fixed Up from the steaming mugs wafted the amazing smell of fennel. I peered into the pot of mushy fig and looked across at these two old Tuscan treasures. Both seemed to be waiting anxiously for my verdict.

‘Wonderful!’ I said, ‘Fig jam and fennel tea! Let’s have it with the pecorino that I brought.’

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Tuscan Tales Chapter 28 – The Florentine Flop

To me the best day of the year is my birthday. The 22nd March … not the 21st March or the 23rd March. I am quite unable do that. For, as long as I can remember, my joy has been to celebrate my birthday in my home, surrounded by friends and family, and I cook. A sort of lousy Babette’s Feast, for I am no cook to write home about, but this is the day that I pull out all the stops.

This year for the first time we were in Tuscany. ‘I’ll feed them all here,’ I told my brother, who was visiting from the Cape. ‘Us, Mila and Mauro from Venice, and Kira and Mirko from Florence. I’ll set the yellowwood table beautifully. I’ll use Ouma’s old dinner service and I’ll cook something nice – with a real Cape flavour’.

My brother, a long time sufferer of my culinary experiments, looked at me dubiously: ‘Wouldn’t it be better to just go to a restaurant?’ he said. ‘Nope!’ I said, ‘I’ll ring Kira and see if she can come’. Now Kira is a legendary cook of note. Liam would walk the 32 kilometres from our house to Florence simply to taste her risotto. ‘Oh oh,’ said my brother, ‘THAT Kira.’

And so the doubt set in …

‘Kira,’ I said on the phone, ‘do you perhaps know of a nice cosy off-the-tourist-track restaurant in Florence where we can go for my birthday?’

duomo fixed

The nice cosy off-the-tourist-track restaurant lay just behind the Duomo. It was packed to the brim with locals enjoying good Tuscan fare. Doors and windows were closed against the March chill, scented waves of ribollita, lasagne and pasta competed with the chat and general laughter of people simply having a seriously good time. The local Tuscan red flowed and our table was enjoying it all immensely. ‘No matter that I did not cook,’ I thought, ‘I feel as happy as I have on every birthday.’ My brother glanced across the table at me, lowered his eyes and smiled gratefully at his plate.

It was late afternoon by the time we walked out of the door of the restaurant. The men walked ahead while us women set a more leisurely pace, strolling down the narrow cobbled streets and gazing at the beautiful displays in each window that we passed. Every now and then we stopped to talk about owning one of the stunning Florentine creations on show.

We were almost at the parking garage where we had parked the car when another and different window display sprang to light – it was a bicycle shop. On display were beautiful gleaming bikes of all shapes and designs … pedal, electric, fold-up … Fold-up? ‘Just the thing!’ I cried, ‘Let’s go in and have a look.’

Full of red wine and bonhomie we very soon forged an excellent friendship with the owner of the shop. ‘What I need,’ I said, ‘is a fold-up bike that would fit into Campari. Then I can come into Florence on a Sunday and I can simply park anywhere, get the bike out, and off I go.’

‘Sure!’ said the owner – he was so nice – ‘but you don’t want an ordinary little one. You want one with style’.

‘Style, that’s it exactly!’ chorused the three of us, ‘It simply won’t do without style.’ And then he produced it. A magnificent white, gleaming charge ready to do battle with any of the rough cobbled streets and traffic jams of Florence. ‘Oooooh!’ we gasped.

By this time the men had doubled back to find us, and they were much more critical, if not a tad sceptical. ‘But how does it work?’ asked Liam. ‘Oh that’s easy’ said the lovely man ‘You just snap-click and the handle bars and front wheel fold back to double the bike back onto itself.’ The men walked around it. Finally Liam, with a twinkle in his eye, said ‘Well, if it can fit into the back of Campari you can have it. It’s your birthday present.’

backseat fixed

Campari was duly fetched from the parking garage and positioned on the pavement outside the bicycle shop door. ‘Snap-click’ went the man and onto the back seat of Campari went the bicycle. A perfect fit, and a perfect end to a perfect day.

The next Sunday Liam folded my gleaming new toy onto the back seat of Campari and off I set for Florence. ‘Enjoy’ he cried as he waved good-bye from our wooden gate at the bottom of our valley, ‘Explore Florence and come back to tell me all about it’.

Passing Pasquale in his orto I called out to him. ‘Buongiorno … I’m going riding in the streets of Florence. ‘Let me see,’ he replied and came up to the car, ‘Oh, one of those’ he said. ‘Better you take the bus’. And muttering something suspiciously like ‘new fangled rubbish’, he set off back to his vegetable patch.

I decided to park Campari just in front of the American Embassy. ‘It’ll be a nice ride along the Arno to the Ponte Vecchio,’ I thought, ‘and then I’ll take it from there’.

I got the bike out and set off. I crossed the Arno at the Ponte Amerigo Vespuci and cruised slowly along the south bank of the river. A light breeze played softly in my hair. ‘Oh this is the life’ I thought, ‘so step it up girl.’ I pedalled faster. In front of me I could see the Ponte Vecchio, its beautiful medieval shops basking in the morning sunlight. I headed for it.

Just about at the corner of Ponte Santa Trinita and Via Maggio there is a row of dust bins – those funny big grey ones on four little wheels. It was there that I heard a snap, but no click. With that the handle bars and front wheel folded in on me and I found myself airborne. With an unceremonious flop I landed on top of the dust bin with the broken lid. Tourists gasped, onlookers gazed … and I?

Dustbins fixed Ignoring my grazed elbows, and not even attempting the ‘snap-click’ I lifted the awkward beast up and beat a hasty retreat down the narrow side road running towards the Santo Spirito.

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Tuscan Tales Chapter 27 – A New Year … and Spring is in the Air

All though the long winter months Fontana has stood cold and closed. Did the house miss us, and what have our neighbours been up to? I imagine the warmth of winter fires, snowy nights … when friends ask me where our house in Tuscany is I always say, ‘You don’t have to die to go to heaven, because paradise is right there’.

‘Right there’ is about half an hour due south of Florence. It is in the middle of Chianti, but contrary to the idea of an anglicised ‘Chiantishire’ we are at the bottom of a valley that seems to have stood still in time. Our neighbours still till the land, and three different families live under one big roof of a sprawling 17th century farmhouse. We bought the cattle wing. And so, by ancient stone, terracotta tiles, and the intricate balance that extended Italian groups need in order to co-exist, we are tied to them.

For me there is another factor: here I feel intricately linked to the place of my birth: the blue skies of the Cape, the olives and the vines, and above all the friendliness of the people. When I first arrived at this big stone house our neighbour Manuela was perched high on her steps hanging out the washing. I spoke no Italian. None of our neighbours speak English.

‘Bourngiorno’ I said praying that would be enough. ‘Brava!’ she laughed, ‘You see, you are talking Italian already.’ I could make that out. They liked me, and I liked them.

Now, after an interminably long winter, we are back. I step out of the aeroplane door and walk down the steps. My feet touch the tarmac. They are on Italian soil and I have arrived!

The Sita bus leaves Florence and starts to wind through the hills surrounding Florence and I sit back and smile. There seems to be a parallel action going on. As the bus climbs the hills, so my shoulders drop.

We hop off at our village and head straight across the road for the café. The owner Santino is inside and throws his arms out in delight. I get two kisses, a hug and a cappuccino. ‘The winter has been so-so,’ he says. ‘Lots of rain and no snow at all.’ ‘Oh – mi dispiace, I’m sorry’ I say. This does not bode well for the farmers as the vines and the olives like the deep snow – as it lies thick on the ground it slowly feeds the water deep down into their roots.

Very soon we are on our way, and as we walk down the bumpy road, pulling our aeroplane wheelie bags behind us, that feeling of being rooted between the two hemispheres returns. The view is simply stunning – the depths of the hills clearly visible through the sparseness of early spring. The little stream, so terribly dry in summer, rushes over rocks as it tumbles its way to Lucarelli, the Arno and finally the sea. We draw closer to the house, walking through Pasquale’s mess of rusty cars, abandoned tools, chickens and the odd pigeon or two. Manuela’s washing hangs stiffly in the crisp air. I stand at the old wooden gate and look across the terrace and into our garden …

In the Uffizi gallery in Florence is Sandro Botticelli’s painting of ‘Primavera’, or ‘Spring’ and I, along with so many tourists, have stood in front of it transfixed. But what draws me in are the flowers. Beautiful bare feet rest gently amongst the daintiest flowers of a spring meadow. Then look closer – there are the pinks, reds and whites of every kind of delicate flower imaginable. I read somewhere that there are over 500 plant species in this masterpiece. I could stand there for the rest of my days …

Yet here, at my very own gate, appears the riot in real life: a heady mass of tiny field flowers against the hit of blue rosemary and white viburnum. ‘Wow!’ I say to my husband, ‘Let’s leave the house and just wander around outside, it looks too good to be true.’ And it is. In amongst all the beds, winding through the still dormant lavender and other bushes are deep holes. ‘Something’s been sleeping here!’ I say to Liam.

‘And something’s eaten every single iris bulb – now there really is nothing left,’ he replies. We gaze at the devastation. Porcupine. All last summer we had tried to catch him, but with no success. We had even bought a trap and put in a tasty potato, but no go. When we left, we’d hoped he had left too, but that was mere optimism. Quite obviously he had decided to spend the winter in our garden, with a ready larder at hand.

On the east side of the house we hear our other neighbours. Elena is there walking the two dogs Beethoven and Lily. ‘It is a huge porcupine,’ she says, ‘I saw it the other day. In fact, there seem to be two, one on the inside of your garden, and one on the outside. Come and see what they are doing.’

Some time ago, in order to protect our domestic garden from wild boar, deer and porcupine we had erected a wire fence. On the advice of our neighbours we had run it about a metre deep under the ground to keep the porcupine out. ‘Porcupine will go mad for iris bulbs they had told us they will travel miles for bulbs, and for a potato.’

‘Well Elena,’ I say ‘This one, trapped in our domestic garden for most of the summer and all of the winter, must be the wild card, for nothing we try seems to get him out’.

‘Nothing?’ laughs Elena ‘You forget about Primavera. Spring. Amore. Love. Just look at your fence.’

And all along the base of the fence, like a long trench, our porcupine has been digging to get out. But why, when there remain other tasty bulbs in our garden? Then we look through the fence. And all along the base on the other side of the fence runs the same trench. ‘You see’ says Elena ‘there is a man and his ladylove and they cannot get to one another’.

‘Well,’ says my husband with a smile, ‘Let’s help love find a way. Tonight we leave the gate open. If he’s so keen to get to her, he’ll push off’.

‘But what if he’s not too keen on her – or worse still – he invites her back into our garden?’ I ask. ‘After all he likes it here, and what’s more the digging seems to be more furious from the outside. She’s quite obviously one of those pushy girls.’

‘Well, to be sure to tempt him out, we’ll put the trap outside the gate too. Then we’ll place a nice tasty potato back in the trap and see if he falls for it this time. Liam smiles ‘ … Just maybe he’ll invite her over for dinner!’

A potato love-letter? Call it Spring, Primavera or what-ever … wouldn’t work for me!

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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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Tuscan Tales Chapter 18 – Concerto della Tempesta

I’m out in the garden by seven, after the scorching heat of the day. I’m bending over some weeds in the bee and butterfly garden when I hear the horses in the next valley start to whinny. Suddenly there is a huge clap of thunder, and lightning streaks across the sky. It is in the far hills over Lamole way and I doubt that it will get here, but I put the umbrellas down and tie them fast anyway.

It's in the far hills over Lamole — “It’s in the far hills over Lamole …”

More lightning and another clap of thunder. The dogs up at Sala start to bark. I glance up, puzzled. Sala is on the opposite side to the horses. The storm seems to be closing in, surrounding us. One or two huge raindrops land on my feet and the wind picks up in gusts. I go inside, start closing the windows downstairs.

Then all hell lets loose: the wind careers up the valley like a mad thing, and it looks as if a mean hungry dog has got hold of the olive trees in its teeth and is shaking them to bits. As I bolt the arched window in the sitting room closed I see a particular vicious gust trying to split our cypress in two.

a particular vicious gust trying to split our cypress in two

I shoot upstairs to close my bedroom windows. The outer gauze netting is shut and there’s a cacophony of sound and a constant hammering as if a flock of woodpeckers are chopping down a tree. It’s the little swallows: about 20 of them are hammering and shrieking at the gauze. They’re wet and are being wind-battered. I go up to the window and tiny black eyes look back at me, unafraid.

‘Please please please let us in’ they are saying. ‘Sorry girls’ I say and shut the window. Still they don’t go away, but huddle into the sill seeking as best protection as they can get.

Downstairs the roof over the dining room and lounge has turned into a sieve. Rivulets of water are running down the connecting house wall, and more is flowing onto the floor. I fetch buckets and basins and place them in strategic places. Plop plop, it’s a different cacophony of sound: a concerto della tempesta. There’s more water running in through the front door and I fetch a bucket and start mopping.

Then it is all over. The sun comes out and a light drizzle lingers momentarily. I go outside: the upper terrace umbrella has been blown flat, and the swimming pool chairs have gone off down the garden for a stroll. Somehow the olives are still on the trees. Everything is glistening green and smells wonderful. From both sides of the big old house the neighbours come out.

‘Fantastico,’ chorus the two ancients, Cosimo and Enzio … ‘Both streams are running!’ Leila and Marzia wave their hands in the air. They smile at one another. ‘Una nuova parola per lei!’ … a new word for you. They are pointing to an enormous rainbow that seems to be holding the gleaming Tuscan vineyards and olive groves in a cupped hand. I gaze transfixed. The colours of the land and the sky seem to be bouncing back and forth off each other, just for the sheer joy of it.

‘ARCOBALENO! … Ora non dimenticar!’ Rainbow! … Now don’t you forget it!

How could I??

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Tuscan Tales Chapter 9 – Position, Position, Position …

Old Cosimo doesn’t sit … at his front door anymore …

Old Cosimo doesn’t sit on his plastic chair at his front door any more. Every morning I hear the latch on the wooden gate click, and there he is: coming through. In one hand he carries a plastic bucket, and under his arm he carries a plank. At the edge of our terrace he turns the bucket upside down, puts the plank across the top, and sits.

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Tuscan Tales Chapter 1 – Beginnings

London in Spring. Outside my window the apple blossom has started, and the small courtyard is bursting with life. There’s a steady hum of the pressure hose as Liam washes the brickwork down. Then he’ll be busy with the clippers. He loves this tiny patch. ‘I’ve always thought Liam should be a farmer’ his mother would say. ‘Somewhere warm and sunny, bring out his love of wide open spaces, his South African roots.’

There’s not much for me to do in this tiny urban patch. I leave Liam to it and walk up the road to the local school, where my bees were. James, the school beekeeper, and I are packing up the empty hives, storing skeps, bee veils and frames ‘The demolition squad will be here by Monday, we need to get a move on’ James says. I look around, trying to imagine the bulldozers flattening our apiary to make way for new classrooms.

I’ve always kept bees, since about the age of sixteen. Ever since I stumbled across my grandfather’s hive, overgrown and forgotten in the veld near Cape Point. Somehow, on this wild tip of Africa, they had managed to survive decades of neglect. ‘Fierce bees those’ I smile as I remember how they once chased a cousin right into the sea …. clouds of bees around his head, and his trousers around his ankles.

James and I chat about it as we pack the final things away, about the difference between the African ‘killer bee’ and the more gentle European bee that we breed in London. Right now we’ve been importing Italian queens for their docile nature. ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ I laugh,’ an Italian queen reminds me of some sort of diva … volatile and feisty.’ I’ll miss this apiary, and I’ll miss working with an expert bee-keeper too.

Back home there’s been a phone-call from Liam’s twin sister, Laura. ‘You know what Laura is like,’ he tells me. ‘They’re coming over from Sydney in July, and she is looking for an enforced rest for Jim before she allows him to put foot in the UK. Once here he will simply work non-stop. She thinks Florence would be good and wants to know if we’ll join them.’

‘Better still’ I reply. ‘Can we take a few days before they arrive, just the two of us? We’ve both been working flat out and are pretty run down …’

‘I’ve no time to think of it. You arrange the place, book the flights and tell my secretary. If you can organise it all, I’ll do it’, he says.

I sit down at the kitchen table, with a large map of Italy in front of me. My eyes glance to the north of Italy, to Aosta, where part of my mother’s family came from. My mother cannot remember the location, it is so far back in time now, and we have long since lost the language. But for my father this Italian connection is special.

‘Just look at your mother’ he would say ‘where-ever we are I have to build her a fountain, factor in a balustrade and find a workroom for her to sculpt in.’ Then he would look at my beautiful mother with her olive skin, jet black hair and cornflower blue eyes and say, ‘That’s her Italian blood coming out!’

My eyes move down the map, further south, to Florence, and nearby Prato. I’ve been reading Italian novels again. This time it is The Merchant of Prato. Daily life in a medieval city. It’s a fascinating account of a self-made man’s struggle to become rich and influential, and when he dies he bequeaths the lot to the city of Prato. Perhaps we will explore Prato as a result?

Florence - Tuscany - Italy — Florence – a perfect jewel of a city

And the hills around Florence, where I feel so strongly that I could live … from the very first time that I set eyes on this perfect jewel of a city. It has everything for me: history, religion, antiquity, culture and art. I don’t know about music? One could study and learn there forever … to say nothing about the language!

I pick up a pin, and run my finger in a straight line down from Florence. I stick the pin into the map. ‘Greve-in-Chianti’ comes up. ‘Hotels near Greve-in-Chianti’ brings up several options on Google. One of them is set in countryside that could be part of a medieval frieze. It seems to be about 15 minutes’ drive from Greve. The receptionist speaks a little English and, yes, room number nine is available from Friday until Wednesday. I’ve done it!

Next chapter: Into Tuscany …

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