TUSCAN VIRGIN

HEY JUDE!

2010-12-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

On 15th July, 2010 unto James and Lisa a little boy was born!

Not so little. Over nine pounds and already into clothes fit for a one year old at four months!

He is the apple of everyone's eye and even Aziz is slightly charmed I think.

Can't wait to get him on horseback. Must get myself together and get Knickers broken in time for his first ride.

TRIP TO FIRENZE. (BRONZINO EXHIBITION)

2010-12-05T02:57:00.000-08:00

I am on my own for the first time at the farm AC having just returned to London and the snow. Gatwick airport has been closed for the past two days and England is struggling amidst the chaos caused by a very early icy blast from the North Pole!

Even Cornwall is covered in a couple of feet of snow and it seems all the schools have been closed for a week now.

In Italy we have had rain but only a dusting of snow high on the hills.

AC and I flew back to Italy from London together and stayed in Florence for a couple of nights for the first time since we bought the farm. Roger Jupe had told us about a wonderful exhibition of Bronzino paintings at Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and suggested we stay at The Loggia Senite, Piaza SS Annunciata. Loved the exhibition, not too mad about the hotel!

We had just seen the Gauguin exhibition in London at Tate Modern which I had not enjoyed one bit, but Bronzino knocked my socks off! Full of surprises including a painting of a dwarf almost full-size, nude except for a fig leaf from the front and painted again from the back or behind. Very strange. He had a owl on one shoulder and a jay on the other.

I must read the book we bought about the exhibition to discover who this chap was and why he keeps the company of these two particular birds.

Saw Piero and Maria Anna Beldonni-Boni in Firenze. They have a flat just around the corner from the hotel and they took us to two wonderful meals. The first restaurant is just near to the station and typically Tuscan. No frills but fantastic food. Will find the card and put in the info for anyone interested.

Found it:

Trattoria Sostanza Troia s.a.s.
Via del Porcellana, 25r
50123. Firenze
Tel. 055. 212691.

The second was lunch at Bella Donne, (sounds poisonous), close to the exhibition and the Arno. Doubt if I could find it again but will try.

We walked our feet off and AC saw Michelangelo's David for the first time in the Accademia. Funnily enough the Accademia turned out to be directly behind our hotel and that we could see it from our bedroom window! I had been trying for an hour to find it on our tiny map of Florence, and there it was all the time within touching distance.

Aziz came up to me laughing as we mingled with the crowds gazing up at David. He whispered that he had heard two Americans asking what David was holding in his left hand and slung over his shoulder. Well, I didn't know either. It just looked like a piece of material and I had never given it a second thought.

Of course, AC being that much more intelligent than me said, "Well, it is the sling he used to throw the stone that killed Goliath!"

Oh, it's that David, is it!!!!!

We walked around the seven days a week market and over the Ponte Vecchio. Fabulous jewelery at fabulous prices!

Finally saw inside the Duomo as well. Quite a let down compared to the majesty of the outside. One enormous empty space with the builders in! AC suggested we climb to the top and look out over the city. I hate heights so suggested I meet him afterwards in the bar next door.

I took pictures of the amazing frescoed dome, AC took photographs of the builder's paraphanelia in one corner. I asked him why and he said he thought it was a more interesting photograph!!!!

Had a drink in a little bar opposite and talked to a charming man from Rome who had come up for the day on his own. He designed IT sites and came from somewhere in the Caribbean.

Suddenly a posse of Chinese arrived in my eyeline in front of the bar with the Duomo behind. I took their picture and then they all took mine. Then one by one they came into the bar to have their picture taken with us. Lots of laughter and they were insistent that we knew they came from China.

Where else would they have come from looking like that?!!!

Charming.

Took some pictures which I will post later.

GAUGUIN AND SUNFLOWER SEEDS AT THE TATE

2010-11-17T09:56:00.001-08:00

AC and I had our first day 'together' in London today and chose to spend it on a trip down Father Thames to Tate Modern to see the Gauguin exhibition, and something that moved me far more, the Sunflower Seeds.

Here are some photographs just to jog our memories in years to come.

I am going to use my blog more as a diary for Little Jude than saying anything of earth-shattering importance!

Tate Modern is such a stark and imposing building that one is immediately put in the mind-set to enjoy whatever they throw at you.

Well, not Gauguin for me. We both took one of those audio machines for explanation but I had to agree with a lady who was leaving the final room who said that if she hadn't had to fight to understand where she was and what the machine was telling her then she might have enjoyed the pictures more.

I did have a fight with the machine but more of a disagreement with Gaughin. I just think he was mad and that Van Gogh and he should have cut each others' ears off, smacked each other over the head with their respective chairs, caught syphillus and died much sooner than they did.

Dreary, dark, brooding, badly painted pictures of dark ladies and even worse pictures of horses carrying him off across the river to oblivion.

Loved his ceramics! Has anyone ever heard of Gauguin's ceramics? They are mad but brilliant.

Bit like the Sunflower Seeds.

Mr. Wei Wei Whatever, made twenty thousand million single ceramic sunflower seeds, employed a whole town of thousands to work on this one work of art, shipped them to London to be laid as a carpet for people to walk on and make patterns, pick them up in handfuls, suck them, put them in their pockets as a lasting memory of his art-piece, and guess what?

Health and Safety has forbidden anyone to go near them because of the danger of dust!!!!!!!!

Poor Mr. Wei Wei. Buggered by beurocracy! Still a strangely moving mountain of Chinese porcelaine.

THE WONKY BRIDGE WITH ST. PAUL'S IN THE BACKGROUND SEEN FROM THE TOP FLOOR RESTAURANT AT TATE MODERN

PAT WILL BE MISSED

2010-11-12T23:44:00.000-08:00

PAT WITH THREE FRIENDS IN TUSCANY

A sad visit to London to attend our friend Pat Amy Tudor's Memorial service at Chelsea Old Church. 17th March 1942 - 10th July 2010. Wednesday, 10th November, 2010.

After days of rain the sun came out and we were treated to the most beautiful weather for Pat's farewell. Lunched with Gina and Tommy Sopwith at Frantoio and then sobbed throughout a beautiful service.

I think singing All Things Bright and Beautiful and looking at photographs in the service sheet of Pat suddenly brought home how close we all are to death. Tears welled and after running down my cheeks, dripped off my chin. I had to summon every fibre of my body not to climb over the back of my pew and escape such emotion.

An old friend of Pats' and pianist John Lill played Chopin's Nocturne in C Minor, Op 48/1 and Alexander Scriabin's Study in D Sharp Minor Op 8/12 and a wonderful young man Roberto Abate, sang Franz Schubert's Ave Maria which brought the house down!

Met up with a lot of our old, (and I mean old!), friends at the reception following the service and caught up with Pat's sister Barbara and brother in law, Jim Higgins. They had both spoken tributes during the ceremony in memory of Pat and although full of grief, somehow held on to their dignity and Jim even spoke for ten minutes without a note in his hand!

I still think that William Blake's, "Jerusalem", is one of the best hymns ever written and one of the most moving.

We walked home down the King's Road and the rain started. It hasn't stopped for three days now! Even the heaven's are sad at the loss of such a dear friend.

Yesterday AC took me to an exhibition at The Barbican. Thirty years of Japanese Fashion.

A beautifully executed history of designs by Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto.

On our way home we walked down Conduit Street and dropped into Issey Miyake's beautiful shop. His designs are still ground-breaking and I long to own one of his overcoats.

Lunch at a fabulous Italian (!!!!!) restaurant in Soho, Boca de Lupo. Why on earth can't all Italian restaurants provide such a menu? Unusual recipes and hardly any of the rubbish that our local restaurants in Tuscany serve for the tourists. Must learn how to make Espresso Zabaglione!!! Bang went the diet but we did walk home in the rain!!!!

Today I have my Little Boy for the day. James and Lisa are dropping Jude off to his Nona and Babu for a little hard earned R and R. I expect they will just go home and sleep as they both sound totally worn out.

Tomorrow lunch for the family and for AC's parents. Better go have my bath and then to Waitrose! How life goes on.

SLEEP WELL DEAR GIRL

ARAMIS - RIP

2010-06-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

Today I died in a ditch with a six foot tall dark stranger.

He had wandered down from the olive terraces after weeks of suffering from a large tumor on his face.

His owner had not been able to face the prospect of putting him down when the original prognosis had been made so put him out to grass in our olive trees.

He was together with three other of his elderly friends and before the weather had changed from freezing cold to warm and now blasted hot, he was happy wandering the olive groves and grazing on the wild grasses and herbs.

Aramis and his friends had a stream running through their grazing and if I could wish any horse a happier last few weeks, months, years, I can think of no better place to rest out their last.

Aramis arrived at my door this morning, all six feet of beautiful bay coat stretched over arched bones, frothing from the mouth, gasping for breath, covered in flies, and swaying on tall and elegant legs. He was a beautiful beast with a tumor measuring two feet in either direction from his lower nostril up to his eyes. He could hardly breathe and was unable to drink.

Why would nature kill such a fantastic animal so slowly?

He had come down to find someone to die with.

I left him to call his owners and when I returned I found him collapsed in the small stream bed below the house. After several attempts to right himself he collapsed under the shade of a quince tree which is where I joined him with a cold, wet bath towel.

I covered his head and asked my gardener to bring a hose to cool him down and to rid him of the ever present stinging flies we have in Tuscany.

Once his head was covered and he was cool and the flies had stopped biting, he lay for half an hour just relaxing.

The vet had been called, his owners were on their way but after three really heavy sighs and lots of tears, he died and went somewhere where horses are not bitten or kicked but appreciated for their diligence and subservience and unquestioning love.

He has taught me a lesson never to be forgotten.

ANNUS HORRIBILIS!!!

2010-01-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

Queen Elizabethand I have both suffered from bad years. This last year beats all for me but luckily I have tucked myself away in the depths of Tuscany to lick my wounds and so not many have noticed.

I really cannot remember how the year 2009 began but I do know that I was enjoying my vegetable garden and my greenhouse in the early months. Planting early veg and flower seeds and then in April taking my usual ride at Paolo's stables on my wonderful Salty, then suddenly one day I lay in the open riding school eating gravel on the floor with Lamu curled beside me licking my face but otherwise unable to get help.

This must have been the first time I paid attention to detail in my life!! I think I have always thought every day was a rehearsal for what I would do when I grew up!! That day was the first day I felt I was facing my own mortality.

I have never felt the necessity to read any instruction manual for a new piece of electronic equipment or something necessitating construction, I always knew how to work it out for myself. I suppose this is how I have also viewed life, I could always work it out for myself.

That day, I have no recollection of how I landed up on the floor eating dirt, or why my dog was whimpering by my side, or why Salty was looking down on me, reins dangling, I just knew I hurt and life had opened the door marked "Looser" which had for 66 years read "Survivor".

Childhood problems I had none but from the age of 21 when I married a highly intelligent, successful actor, my life took on a drama that would be worthy of any stage in the land.

I intend to write this when I can no longer race cars, (early), throw myself off horses (recent) or garden.

AND SO TO BED!

2009-04-28T10:08:00.000-07:00

I knew life was too perfect.

The winter was nearly over. Spring flowers were bursting into bloom and the weather was just perfect for a good dose of gardening!

The spring cattle show in Camucia had been and gone! So had the poor gentle cows!

The local Co-op seem to have bought most of the poor things. It's enough to make me a vegetarian.

Strawberries were appearing in the shops.

The chickens were sitting on their eggs, watched by Lamu!!! Who, by the way found one nest in the bushes and ate all 14 eggs at one sitting. She did look a bit yellow for a while.

Salty's friends had come up to the olive groves for some spring grass.

The ducks joined them!

AND THEN DISASTER STRUCK AND THE AMBULANCE WAS CALLED.

Dear Salty had been in the stable for five days after a muscle strain and our vet had asked me not to lunge him before riding because of the chance of him going mad and pulling the bad muscle again!!!!

Instead, I mounted a strung up, ball of muscle and rode him directly up to the outside school.

I don't remember much after that except being covered with sand and in agony lying on the ground. I could feel my feet and my hands moved which was a relief but I could not be seen from the stables.

Lamu was no help and lay as close as possible, whimpering. The horse came and stood over me clearly upset with himself and that left me looking for my mobile which was in my jacket in the Range Rover!!!

Luckily a young family were riding their ponies around the yard and one of them heard my cries.

Ambulance, bumps, hospital, X-rays, jabs, documents to release myself, promises to stay in bed for two weeks, more bumps, bed!!!

That was three weeks ago and I still feel rotten and the pain is only mildly better. I am bad tempered, depressed and getting fatter on a diet of bread, eggs, pasta, wine and no exercise.

My wonderful sister-in-law Diana, flew all the way from Canada to look after me and I can't thank her enough.

More moaning later.....

THIS IS HOW OLD I FEEL!!!!

WINTER IN LONDON-SPRING ON THE FARM-2009

2009-04-27T02:30:00.001-07:00

We spent three weeks in London over Xmas, 2008 and did all the usual THINGS. The Fair in Hyde Park is always fun but I don't understand why a German company has to ship so much equipment so far to amuse Londoners when we surely could provide our own entertainment!

So many people falling and ruining their Christmas's!! I saw two bad accidents in ten minutes and most people just hung on to the walls, scared to leave their safety zone.

Have you noticed how all of these 'amusements' are guaranteed to frighten!?

My feet stayed on terra firma!!

Aziz and I went to Cornwall to see how "Aunty Freda's Cottage", had survived the last five years of weekly lettings.

It looked just the same. A bit tired with a drain-pipe hanging off and a few window frames in need of a bit of paint but otherwise much loved and lived in!!

The garden was a mangle of rhodedendruns and weeds that only Cornwall and its rainfall can boast, but nothing too drastic.

We stayed at The Green Bank Hotel, in Falmouth looking over to the little village of Flushing. It brought back so many happy memories of sailing, riding and just growing up. The weather lived up to its name though and everything looked grey and windblown as it should mid-winter.

Back to Tuscany and the animals. Lamu was well and happy.

The cats fat and happy.

Salteno, now housed down the road at our local stables with Paulo and Hatti had returned home.

But my garden looked glum.

Just a few overwintering chard plants and a lot of weeds!

The snow soon came along to kill these off as well.

The ducks who when I left for London were little balls of yellow fluff had become fully grown, Hissing Sid and his four wives. They all nearly died of duck flu but luckily are still around and one is now sitting on fourteen eggs!! I wish someone had taken them away from her. Now I don't want to disappoint her.

Mimosa is always the first to brighten our dull pre spring days and this year the wind didn't destroy it.

Our crocus, daffodils and tulips have been better than ever. NOTE: Wild black iris.

Thankfully this winter we have had wet rather than cold weather and the wells and streams are full. If we are to have five months of hot dry weather all summer, we really need this break.

Sally and Briggie Freeman came out together for Easter and we all climbed on the train for Roma.

Nice hotel, The Gregorian,

next to The Hassler. Half the price and useful for The Hassler bar for pre-dinner drinks!! In fact one evening we didn't make it to dinner!! It was Sal's 70th and on hearing this news Luigi the barman for thirty years gave us such wonderful martinis and bits of lobster tails that we didn't feel like ploughing through three courses.

Briggie hadn't been to Rome and I think we packed five days sightseeing into three! Well, that's what my feet told me. Bit of shopping of course and some pleasant meals.

IN MEMORIAM TO CHINA CAT

2009-04-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

A TRIBUTE TO AN OLD FRIEND

We were friends for over six years but only at arms length. However, we relied on each other over six years in different ways.

From the first day of our meeting she annually brought her offspring for our approval. They were always a credit to her except one, who turned out to be a little daft. Skippy. So named because she jumped up and down on the spot for no apparent reason until she fell over!! We were never introduced to the fathers! We chucked bricks at them if they came yowling around the house late at night, or as my husband called the wood he hurled at them, Catalogs!!

She came to visit us when I was camping in a small cottage during building works on the main house. This temporary camp site lasted for nearly two years and daily she and any youngsters in her care at the time were duly at the cottage door for whatever we had to give them.

Skippy became a bore because as the builders left every evening, she tried to embalm herself within the house and once was missing for at least five days during one of Italy’s many festas. She was spotted one evening jumping up and down behind a window and was finally released only to jump around for five minutes, then fall over. She had left her mark inside the house, needless to say.

Our friend can only have been two or three years old when we first met but the incessant courting by the local Nasties, the Toms of the neighbourhood, would have taken years off anyone’s life. She looked downtrodden and weary of life!

One day I saw her running scared across the field in front of our kitchen windows and was horrified to see no less than fifteen males of varying colours and size following her. She always ended up a rag at the end of the mating season and finally we caught her and put paid to the lotharios fun.

She seemed to appreciate our kindness but would never enter the house or allow us more than one stroke every morning as her bowl was filled with breakfast. We never saw her after breakfast and once fed she disappeared into the countryside.

We have other cats but she was my friend and we shared memories of difficult times. If it is possible to love a cat, I loved this one.

I have been in London over Christmas and only been feeding her in the mornings for about a week on my return to the farm, and everything seemed okay in her little world.

Except. Last evening I heard a loud crying outside the back door which continued until I opened it. I invited her in. Again she refused but allowed me to collect her in my arms and stroke her. Something, that for the past six years she always declined. Her fur looked ill kempt and she cried from time to time.

I took her to the pig sty where there is warm hay, gave her food and water, locked the door against any other animal intent on aggression and waited to check on her later in the evening.

Before I went to bed I heard her crying at the back door once again and I will never know how she had escaped from that locked pigsty.

She let me pick her up again, cried once or twice, and then started to purr loudly as if happy!!! I wrapped her in one of my old jackets and did not lock her up this time but put her under cover in sight of the back door and went to bed.

This morning she was dead but had thanked me in the only way she could by coming to say goodbye!!!

How did she know she was going to die that night and why did she want to say thank you for the small kindness we had shown to her?

China Cat was special and she will be a bright light forever in my mind.

HEAVEN ON EARTH!!!

2009-01-30T23:35:00.000-08:00

The Italian Bunch!!

Every morning I am met by this motley crew outside the kitchen door every morning. They are all starving. The dogs and cats have probably been up for at least three hours and would eat my handbag if I had it with me at this time of day!

During this time I have a tune running through my head that goes, ‘If they could see me now’, as dressed in a blue fleece dressing gown on top of which I have slung some old riding jacket, woolly hat and boots of varying descriptions, my smart friends in London would be horrified at this bizaar sight. It’s a bit breezy down below but at least I am warm and dry on top!

I blush to think of the times I have been caught out in this garb by total strangers who have let themselves in by crossing the stream and coming in the back way unannounced. Goodness knows what they think lives amongst them in the hills of Cortona, as they come across this apparition with mascara down to her chin!!! I don’t haunt houses, I haunt olive groves!!

First I feed the pushy cats and clean up the mess the wild animals have made during the night scavenging for any leftovers . There is usually a torn up a sack of precious potting compost they have mistaken for a sack of fish food or wild bird seed!!! They would eat my pampered cats if they weren’t tucked up somewhere hiding their heads under their paws and playing dead!

It’s usually raining at this time of the year so it’s a mad dash to the greenhouse followed by two filthy wet dogs thinking that instead of work, I am going for a long walk up in the hills.

On the way I inspect the advancing spears of the daffodils or the browning leaves of the over-wintering spinach or plan what needs doing by the gardener on Monday morning. Whatever I ask him to do will make no difference, he will do just as he pleases.

The ponies have heard my yelling by now and are yelling back. I have forgotten to throw them some tidbit or a chunk of hay. The little stallion will yell until I remember. He can wait.

I don’t quite know why they call my erection a greenhouse! It’s a poly-tunnel with a few mod cons like light and a little electric heater. It should be called, Heaven.

As a child I remember visiting my grandmother in her house on the Thames, just below Teddington Lock in London, where there was a proper green-house with a proper gardener who grew exotic things like orchids. I can remember the wonderful smell and beautiful colours that greeted me when I entered, and have never forgotten the magic of that little wonderland. Subconsciously, I think I have tried to recreate just this vision of Plumbago and Jasmine in my little plastic tunnel. The smell this morning was quite over-powering and although pouring outside, it was spring inside.

I don’t think any perfume house has ever reproduced a scent as beautiful as the natural scent of jasmine, or for that matter, many other flower perfumes.

The cats and dogs are usually shut out because I keep falling over them as I go about my planting deep in thought but if the rain is too heavy they come in and fight for the one dog bed. I have been known to hide in that same dog bed with them if unwanted visitors arrive when I am in haunting mode!!!

The inside of Heaven would probably resemble Hell to some of my tidier friends, but I know exactly where everything lives and among the bee equipment, the snakes winter quarters, the gheckos holes, the tools, plant pots, etc., I can usually find a pen to mark some new plant pots or a hammer to kill a bug!

Lots of little bags of seeds to plant at this time of the year. Some gathered from trips to foreign fields and some ordered on the net. Yesterday I opened a packet of cucumber seeds that I had paid two pounds for and it only contained four seeds!!! Can you believe they can get away with such daylight robbery? Note: Write rude letter to Thompson and Morgan.

By now there is usually an essential trip to the bushes! Not easy or comfortable when the bushes are dripping wet, the grass is sodden and there is little cover and one is being watched by four pairs of eyes wondering why the hell you are hiding behind a rock in the pouring rain!!

My eyes are streaming. Hankies wet with tears, must be allergic to something. Boring having just found my future amongst all things laden with pollen!!.

Ducks and chickens to let out. Little bantam sitting on five eggs, looking plumpy and pleased with herself. Herald, her husband on guard.

Laugh out loud as five ducks rush out with wings flapping to try a few exploratory take-offs! Most attempts end up in a pile of legs and white feathers akimbo, but when they do occasionally they get their fat bodies six inches off the ground they waddle back with a look complete elation. Or are they looking elevated?

Back to the greenhouse to write explicit biological names on tags for the newly-potted seeds and plants. “Hessi’s Triffids”, and “Plant Pinched from Garden in Perugia”! I will find the real names one day but not today I have too much to do.

Begin to wonder why my hands are shaking and promise to leave the second half of the wine bottle un-drunk at lunch time, only to realize I am on my second schooner of dark, black coffee. Try planting seeds the size of pin heads with shaking hands the size of shovels. Most end up on the floor.

Trickles of sweat drip down my back and I realize the sun has come up, the mist has disappeared from the woods and valleys and the sound of birdsong has been joined by the bells of Cortona announcing that it is mid-day. I have been wrapped in a world without worry for five hours and for the first time in weeks not thought about the credit crunch, only the safety of my summer’s harvest.
My grand-mother’s silver topped cane hangs in the corner of Heaven and her well traveled planter covered in gaudy oranges and lemons, probably bought on a trip to Amalfi in the thirties, sits on the bench.

They take note of me as I rescue the animals and make my way to my bath and a quiet Sunday afternoon in front of the fire.

----------------------------------

IN MEMORIAM

2008-10-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

I have collected THINGS for most of my life.

As a four year old, worms. Taking them to my Mother with a proud, "Verms"! She smiled as she retold the story.

Later, spiders with which to torture my brothers.

Cornwall gave up glass fly-catchers for a fiver that were transported to London and loved to this day. Chelsea and Miessen china were favourites of mine and although I could not afford the very best, I bought what took my fancy in the over-priced shops of Mayfair. Little did I know at the age of twenty-eight that I was being sold beautiful pieces flawed by well hidden breaks. All of which after forty years of central heating have offered up the secrets of the crooked shopkeepers. Or, a pair of Miessen swans, one bought one week and the other bought a couple of weeks later, only to produce a mismatching group!

These purchases have moved with me from house to house, country to country, and have given me hours of a feeling of belonging to things fine and elegant.

My marriage to a wonderful man of minimalist bent has given me the greatest pleasure in life but also the most grief. We have argued about "bits" and "things" and both of us have stood our ground for over eighteen years now.

Let it be known by my nearest and dearest that I am exhausted by the arguments and that all my things are going to Ebay just as soon as I return to Italy! Cracks and all!!! I wonder if there are other idiots like me out there.

Having made up my mind on the aeroplane last night that I will rid myself of all trappings, I began in earnest to clear my London cupboards of detritus and came across a shell with my grandmother's writing, "Malibu, California". No date. I have kept this maybe for forty years but that is now in the rubbish bin. I had copied her wonderful idea and have just thrown out twenty shells recording the boys, AC and my trips to parts various, and dates that cast me back to happier times.

All in the bin now.

In my bedside cabinet I fished out an old bible. Not mine, not covered in enough ink or childish jottings, but my Mother's. Inside a folded piece of paper covered with my Mother's wonderful hand reading thus:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there - I do not sleep

I am a thousand winds that blow

I am the softly falling snow

I am the gentle rain that falls

I am the fields of ripening grain

I am in the morning hush

I am in the graceful rush

of beautiful birds in circling flight

I am the star-shine of the night

I am in the flowers that bloom

I am in a quiet room

I am in the birds that sing

I am in each lovely thing

Do not stand at my grave and cry

I did not die...

M.E. Frye. 1932

After howling for a good ten minutes I realised there is life after death. She had hidden this poem for me to find many years after she died. I think of her every day and now she has spoken to me and now I know why I cannot live in the heart of London again. She speaks to me every day in the country.

But I still miss her.

OUR LONG HOT SUMMER!

2008-08-28T05:47:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

This seems to be turning into a bi-annual blog instead of a monthly update for friends and family back home.

Sorry chaps, but there is so much to do here that the days dash past and spring has morfed into autumn with hardly a conversation with any of you who haven't been out to stay. Get your bags packed next year and spend summer here at 40 degrees instead of in the rain.

This chap and all his relations have finally kissed their kith and kin, turned into Counts or Countesses and stopped their incessant row at night. WWF say they are becoming extinct so if they want a few vociferous pair, we sure have a them!!

I wouldn't mind if they courted all day but they sleep when we are awake and keep us awake when we want to sleep!!

Tuscany in August is HOT!

We had the wettest spring in 200 years and now one of the hottest summers in my LONG memory of hot summers!

We are desperate for water and we thank the powers that be, that we sank a new well whilst renovating the farm. There are people in the valley who ran out of water a weeks ago and are having to beg, borrow or buy water for drinking and washing.

Every time I water the garden, which is more often than I would like, I feel a tinge of guilt. The farmer next door came up to see if we had diverted his pipe from the stream as his supply had run out and his cows were thirsty!

I have a feeling he knew the stream had been dry for months and that he wanted to stick a pipe down our well.

Everyone in England must think I am mad after the rotten summer you have all had. I am so sorry for you all but have a nice little warm feeling somewhere deep inside me, that we left some years ago!!!

Elaine Taylor and Annie Hart came to stay early in spring. It reminded me of the holidays we spent together in Spain playing tennis with Mimi Doxford, Maisie Elliot et al. We ate, drank, and talked ourselves to a standstill. Oh, I forgot, we also shopped!!

Stephanie Cochrane also fitted in a visit. She came out with her sister, June, and although we did not have a lot of time with them, they were going on to Florence to meet friends, we certainly loved having them.Having a drink at Il Falcone. Well about to!

Next the Askins and Amhursts arrived and their laughter gave me enough endorphins for the rest of the year!! Julian's big love, after Susie that is, are four legged hairy animals. He has three badger baiters himself but Lamu thought she had gone to heaven when Julian and Carolyn put her before any of the other house guests!

GELATO AND WINE IS A GOOD COMBINATION!

I TOLD YOU THEY PREFERRED DOGS TO PEOPLE.

MR. WHIPPY ENTERTAINS!

Back to London for a couple of weeks to catch up with a few friends, doctors, dentists, etc., and then off to Julian's birthday weekend in Bath. The Askins had taken over Luckenham Park Hotel and we joined their family and eighty of his closest friends (!) for a fabulous two days of great food, fantastic company and a lot of silliness.

IT WAS A CELEBRATION OF JULIAN'S 60TH.

LUCKNAM PARK HOTEL

CHARLOTTE ARRANGED THE WHOLE WEEKEND AND EVERYTHING WENT OFF WITHOUT A HITCH. NO WONDER SHE DOES IT FOR A LIVING. SORRY SUSIE, I KNOW YOU HELPED A LITTLE!!

THIS WAS MY FIRST VISIT TO BATH BUT MY FATHER WENT TO SCHOOL AT CLIFTON COLLEGE AND USED TO TELL US HE COULD HEAR THE ROAR OF THE LIONS IN THE ZOO! MUST GO BACK AND FIND THE ZOO. IT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY. VERY ELEGANT.

ON THE WAY BACK TO LONDON STOPPED OFF AT CANDY AND JONO SIEFF'S NEAR NEWBURY TO SEE THE NEW ARRIVALS!

We gave a summer party for about fifty people. I ordered a suckling pig from one of the porchetta vans in the Thursday market and he arrived with it hot and crackling in time for dinner. We had thought of cooking it in the pizza oven but this route took less effort and I certainly would not have known how to stuff it with herbs and kidneys. It was absolutely delicious. One guy came back for his fifth serving!!

Simo, Hessi and I made lots of salads and puddings. The kids went swimming and the wrinklies just talked and drank.

THEY DIDN'T LEAVE MUCH PIGLET!

Talking of pigs. We are demented by a group of about six little pigs who visit us every evening to see if the ponies have left any scraps of corn. I can get within six feet of them before they stick their little tails in the air and scarper.

I can walk right up to them and they carry on digging up my orchard!! The little chap on the right looked up at me and then just stuck his nose back into the ground and dug on!

HESSI SHOPPING AT FERRAGAMO'S FESTA

ALISON, A GREAT FRIEND OF FABIO AND HESSI. SHE LOOKS AFTER ALL THE FERRAGAMO HORSES AND IS A GREAT COOK

THE FERRAGAMO WEEKEND COTTAGE!

THE ONE PIG WHO DOESN'T DIG UP MY GARDEN BUT JUST SITS THERE AND LOOKS ELEGANT.

WHAT THE WELL DRESSED LADY WEARS TO GATHER WILD FINOCCHIO FLOWERS FOR WINTER STEWS.

MIKE & SOPHIE TEACHING AC TO PLAY BACKGAMMON.

LUNCH FOR LILLIS LYON, HER NIECE AND DAUGHTER FROM AMERICA. THEY WERE OFF FOR A COOKERY COURSE IN TUSCANY.

OFF TO CAPRI WITH TEL & FEL. THE MEN GOT SOAKED ON THE TRIP OVER

BEFORE THE SOAKING LEAVING NAPLES!

INTERNATIONAL JET SETTERS.

THE HARBOUR OF CAPRI.

I really must post this or it will be another five months before publication.

Am off to see to my apian friends now. We have already had about twenty-five kilos of honey and should have double that again. I want to put them to bed for the winter so that when I go to London I won't worry about them going hungry.

It is the most wonderful weather here still and the colours are turning to autumn. The walnuts are ready, the mushrooms are arriving at my kitchen door, the only thing left to bottle is the quince jelly and I am going back to my first love, riding.

We have found a great stable about ten minutes away run by the top dressage rider in Italy. I have signed on with the hope I will get fit and lose weight!!, in time for James and Lisa's weddidng in India late in December.

More on this later.

2008-06-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

THESE ARE SOME PHOTOGRAPHS I FORGOT TO INCLUDE IN THE LAST BLOG!!!

AC AND KOOKS IN HER BEAUTIFUL HOUSE IN MARRAKECH.

A STORK ON A STALK WITH HIS FISHY SUPPER!

WHO WOULD BELIEVE THAT TWO HOURS AWAY FROM LONDON COLOURS ARE THIS VIVID AND BIRDS LIKE THESE STORKS ABOUND.

SPRING, SPRING, SPRING

2008-04-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Spring approached hesitantly this year. A blast of colour from our apricot, peach and almond blossom was met with a crisp, white frost! And consequently they all bit the dust.

Alan Titchmarsh told me on television that these blossoms should be covered with some form of protection against early frosts but this proves difficult, if not impossible, when one is dealing with trees as tall as ours!!!

We have lost most of our early fruit but the cherries, apples and pears will make up for the loss. Luckily the flowers on the olive trees do not show until much later in the year after any fear of low temperatures.

Our daffodils and tulips are now over but were a wonderful splash of colour under grey skies.

Some came to London with me and brightened up our stay.

The wisteria is out at the moment and plants that I only put in a couple of years ago are covering the wall below the house.

For the past week we have been enjoying wonderful blue skies and warm winds.

The terraces are knee deep in spring flowers, poppies, wild lupins and many I have never seen before. Prince Charles would approve!!

The kitchen garden is keeping me busy and I fall into bed exhausted at about eight every evening. No trouble in sleeping after a day in the sunshine and hard manual labour! I wonder how many years will I be bothered to grow my own?

Now the olive terraces are waist high in grass and need the attention of the Ferrari, (bright red tractor mower), so anyone thinking of retiring to a life of milk in honey in Tuscany, forget it. I work harder here than I have ever done in London. Different, more enjoyable work, but work nonetheless.

The ponies are loving the spring grass and if anyone ever wondered who did most of the chasing in a romantic relationship, I have had proof from Sock's behaviour that it is definitely the male of the species. I have felt positively sorry for poor Knickers. Still the exercise is keeping her figure trim! He chases her around the field constantly. He's very brave because in the midst of galloping she is lashing out with her back feet and often catches him either on the knees or in the windpipe. He is can be seen lying on the floor coughing his little heart out!

This is a picture of Socks working out if he could drop from one of the terraces on to Knickers bones without her noticing!!!

He did and they are now both dead!!!!

The locals will be pleased, they eat horsemeat here.

I often pick it up by mistake when shopping and feel a slight shock. Why do the Brits feel upset when offered horse meat for consumption? We eat everything else on four legs, why not horse?

Is it because they have served us so well as loyal, uncomplaining servants during wars and in preparation of our lands for growing foodstuffs? I have never forgotten being offered horsemeat by the woman who sold us our farm. She pretended not to hear when I asked what we were eating but waited until we had finished and asked, had we enjoyed our meal. Of course we said we had, only to be told we had been eating horse.

A mental feeling of having been cheated intentionally and her evident pleasure in our discomfort will stay with me for ever.

Irrational?

Aziz and I were invited by Kokoly Fallah to visit her in her new home in Marrakech. I have always loved this city since early in our marriage we drove over the High Atlas Mountains, into the desert at Quassersat, and on to Taradant. We had a very dangerous but exciting incident on that drive but do not have time for the story now.

Kooks has a lovely new house just off the golf course and my stay was made by going to watch the storks/cranes making their nest on the tops of the palm trees all around the Amangena Hotel and golf course.

The colours, sounds and smells of Morocco always give me a thrill. So close by plane, so different only two hours away.

Kooks new house and a wonderful spice shop we found. We spent hours being made-up and drinking sweet tea.

The Amangeena Hotel. (Wrong spelling I am sure)

Alladin's Cave

SPRING SPRANG -WINTER WITHERED!

2008-03-10T04:11:00.000-07:00

Spring finally arrived and all the hard work I put into planting hundreds of bulbs, has paid off. The farm is covered in patches of wonderful daffodils which smile at me as I gaze out of the windows.

My crocus are nearly over now but the willows are out, the jasmine is another happy yellow splash up by the main gate, and before the big storm of three days ago, my mimosa was magnificent.

Suddenly we were warned to batten down the hatches as our beautiful spring weather was coming to a halt and that the weather men were expecting snow and high winds. It came in roaring and I was completely cut off from the outside world until the motor saws were brought in to clear the roads. Wrapped in the wind were hail stones the size of large olives which were hurled sideways across the valley.

I couldn't get out to feed the ponies or cats because I would have been knocked over and I've been there once this year!!!

Trees were knocked over and so were the spring flowers and my mimosa. I could cry they look so pathetic now.

We have had to prune them to see if we can save their lives.

All of my peach trees have been stripped of their pink blossom and the almond trees had also just burst into colour.

What rotten timing. I wonder if my bees had the time to pollinate a few of the flowers or we will short on fruit this summer.

At least the little Princess is safe and dry.

CATCHING UP WITH THE NEWS

2008-03-10T00:29:00.000-07:00

I have been very remiss at keeping my blog up to date. Sorry to friends all over the world. I was sure nobody was reading it and as not much happens here I so sort of lost interest!

We will draw a veil over Xmas. Not the most successful. I had just returned from London where I had spent most of my visit in bed. Went out to dinner with friends and upon leaving their nice warm house fell over and woke up eating gravel.

My face looked dreadful and it was quite interesting to see the reaction in the Co-op. One man followed me around the shelves and was so riveted at the check-out that he dropped a bottle of vinegar on his foot which immediately shattered and left a rather pleasant smell reminiscent of days spent pickling cabbage in my kitchen!

I now know how awful it must be to be born with some facial deformity, people just stare at you with absolutely no sign of embarrassment, that is until they run into a lamppost or drop vinegar all over their feet.

Aziz has been traveling a lot for the past six weeks and has made several trips to NY, Atlanta, North Carolina, etc., to meet WPP clients. He is off at the moment meeting Coca Cola. Poor chap had one whole week in some hotel outside London just after Xmas having to make a presentation to over seventy companies on his ideas of how to improve their operations. I think that really stressed him as his drumming fingers and tapping feet have returned!!!

He gave me a list of his dates the other day when I asked if he was going to be here in Italy to see any of our guests over the summer. Note to guests. Don’t count on it!!!!!

Rather him than me. I would rather poke my eyes out with a stick than get on all of those airplanes. It takes me all my courage to fly back to London once or twice in the winter!!

I read a long article in Vanity Fair last night about all the would-be hi-jackers, bomb makers, the inefficiency of the airport officials, etc., etc., and now I don’t think I will ever get back home.

Sally came out for New Year and we had a great time eating, drinking and exercising. The ponies, that is!!!

Perhaps I will drive back to London now that I have a car! What with the Fiat catching fire and the Range Rover being stolen whilst in a garage having a service, I have been using hired cars for the past weeks. AC was insistent on buying a good second hand R Rover but couldn’t find one here so I have bought a friend’s 4 x 4 Nissan, (don’t tell AC), which is luxury compared to the old car. It’s dark blue, cream interior, heated everything, a radio that works, sat nav fitted so it doesn’t fall on the floor when you go around a corner like the old Tom Tom did, a camera at the back to avoid running into the dogs or over a sleeping policeman!, and speed that gets me up to Cortona in half the time.

I collected AC from the station in it the other day and he pretended it didn’t exist. Designers only comment on something if it looks right!!! Never if it works perfectly!!! Maybe it is so awful that the thieves will take something else next time.

The little Fiat was delivered back after being completely rebuilt looking shiny and new.

Hessi and Piero with our new car!

Having driven it for a week or so Aziz sent it back for a few alterations for which we waited another month. All in all the rebuilding since the fire had taken over eight months.

Finally the body-worker rang to say it was ready and should he deliver it to the farm the following weekend.

As the low loader parked, the engineer got out looking like a ghost. Coming up the final hill he had taken the wrong turning and on backing the loader it had fallen into a ditch and the little black car had bounced off and shot off on its own!!!!!

He had re-loaded it but of course it had suffered more damage!!!!!

Long story short, I gave him a snifter of brandy and sent him on his way. He had been driving for 30 years, hundreds of thousands of miles under his belt and never once had he lost a car or had an accident!!

Of course it had to happen to us.

I am still awaiting the second coming of my badly treated little car!

Having prayed for rain and observing our two dried out river-beds since the end of last February I began to worry about the state of our wells. I should have known better as we were suddenly inundated with the blasted stuff.

The other night I had tucked myself into bed with a book, I won’t say good, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by the author of The Kite Runners, when suddenly we were hit!
I had heard some rumblings in the distance whilst gardening but at about ten o’clock at night an explosion of noise rushed down the chimney in my bedroom, I was hit by something falling and I thought I was being attacked physically. The room had lit up as if daylight had come early.

The house had been hit by lightning and thunder simultaneously and the dog had leapt from its bed in the corner of the room in terror and had landed on me from a great height. I don’t know who was more shaken, the dog or me.

She shook like a leaf and crawled whimpering under the bedcover. She must have been scared because if she as much as puts one finger on the bed she is usually told in no uncertain terms that this is not her territory!

We shook together for about an hour before the firework display stopped and she rather sheepishly crept back to her hole and I smoothed my nerves and read another chapter of the killings and beatings of women in the muslim community!

A wonderful, old apricot tree was hit and leaves a horrible hole.

Lovely day today with the joyous sound of rushing water in both river and stream but as usual after a storm, absolutely no power. This happens every time the wind gets up and we have paid so much money to find a way to stop the television, electric gates, computers, telephone, etc., nose-diving. This time bodies will be found hanging from the cypresses after they have fixed the problem.

I’ll blame the Taliban if anyone asks about the bodies.

You can tell I am really scraping the barrel when I begin to talk about the weather. Sorry.

Another year has passed and I still don’t speak Italian. I am ashamed but am at least making a bit more of an effort. I have completely lost my confidence in most things as I get older. I think it is because one loses concentration and doesn’t want to feel foolish whilst practicing. However, Julia a friend who is the brightest thing I have ever met, has let me download her Pimsleur Italian course which I play during lunch times and on my iPod when gardening and I am even surprising myself when I find myself constructing sentences!!! Not many but enough to get me by.

This course is brilliant if anyone wants to learn a language. No learning reams of verbs, it all comes neatly wrapped in words and phrases.

Soon I will be writing this blog in Italian!!!

I will finish this tomorrow as I have visitors wandering down the driveway.

The Visitors, one Italian female, the other tall dark, impeccably dressed who looked Japanese/American, wore two black bags over their shoulders.

He was from Pittsburg, she seemed local and they were both staying in Arezzo. On arrival he was pleased I spoke in English and when asked how on earth had they found me up here in the woods and hills and he said an English name out of the phone book! Can you get any more non-Inglisi name than Cami?

The matching black shoulder bags should have told me the reason for their visit.

He said that someone had once stated that the axis of evils of the world were caused by religion, Judaism, Muslim, Catholicism and Christianity. I agreed and said that was why I was not interested in what he had to sell.

His piercing eyes clouded but his smile stayed frozen on his lips! He could have been a politician he was so good. I think that after such a long trip up into the forest he wanted to spill the beans!

She began to pull booklets out of one shoulder bag and he kept his eyes riveted on mine. Can you believe that as I saw them driving down the driveway that I had thought I should smarten myself up a bit and do my hair! They parked just short of the chain. I swore as these people always arrive at lunch time.

He asked me if I went to church in Italy and when I began walking away backwards, he began to step over the chain that stops cars from coming to front of the house. My guard dogs meanwhile were totally mute and sniffing the visitor’s shoes and wagging their tails.

I told him I practiced my religion in every day life and mentally damned to hell the God who had sent the thunderstorm. Normally the electric gates would have saved me from these unwelcome intruders.

He then began to ask me how long I had lived here, how much land we had and how much had the farm cost!!!!

I am now wondering if he really was a religious nut or something even more sinister!!!

I have been watching The Sopranos boxed set of television programes, so everyone now is part of the mafia in my imagination!

NOAH WOULD HAVE APPROVED!

2007-12-12T05:11:00.000-08:00

Can't find the photo!

It's always nice to arrive home except I don't know where HOME is anymore!

Our flat in London and my robinia tree looked just the same. Always the last to lose its' leaves and last to sprout in the spring. I arrived to fall back into a life of no cats, no dogs, no ponies, no watering of plants, no opening and closing of glass houses, etc. Just parking meter attendants, rubbish on the streets, no smiles and no interest from one's fellow men.

I did have a few interesting chats with taxi drivers but they are usually so depressing and anti everything that the only one I can remember is a guy who is planning a holiday near Venice with his wife, his mother-in-law and his six children, under canvas!!! He is driving there in his taxi with his eldest son because everyone else has said they couldn't stand being in an enclosed space listening to him trash Ken Livingstone for 48 hours!!!!

He did ask me if I would like to keep a toy boy!!! I didn't know whether to be flattered or shocked. Was he offering? He said definitely as his wife had let herself go and had not cooked the family a fresh meal in twenty-five years!!! Every day she goes to Marks and Spencer or McDonalds and buys take-aways for eight people. How much must she spend on food a week?

Sadly, he was not a Robert Redford lookalike so I offered to give his wife some cooking lessons instead!!

So they are flying ahead to put up the tents and he is following at taxi speed. I wonder if he turns on his clock? It would be interesting to see how much it would cost to take a taxi to Venice from central London!

Our local church, St. Peter's Eaton Square.

BUT, after about four days of wondering where my shadow in the shape of Lamu had gone, I began to worry about how the animals felt having suddenly had their team leader disappear into thin air. I missed my ping pong ponies so much I dreamed about them and I knew there were a million things I should be doing in the garden.

I made up for this by buying lots of gardening journals and then ordering everything necessary for a successful springtime in Tuscany!!!!

The bulbs will have flowered and the trees sprouted by the time they arrive here in Casa Loreto. What a shame. It really did feel like an addict being taken away from its root (!) source.

London looked much as I remembered it but wetter. Noah could have floated his Ark down the Thames and into surrounding flatlands to his hearts content. If they don't build a better Thames Barrier fairly shortly I really believe that the Houses of Parliament, the Palace, and what is more important, OUR FLAT, will be flooded within the next ten years. They were warning the east coast that the tides were at their highest, a strong wind was forecast NE/SW and that a lot of the coastal properties would be flooded. The barrier on the Thames was closed and many families were calling their insurance companies.

I wish I had taken a photograph of my bedroom ceiling. God knows I had the time. I could show you what I really did in London! Three days at the beginning of my stay out and about, ten days in bed and then three days at the end did not do justice to my plans for retail therapy and happy hours gossiping with my friends. I must have saved a lot of money though and that makes me happy. I can now buy some more animals!!!!

Maybe a few sheep. A house cow or two. Jerseys of course. I am reading an autobiography by my heroin Iris Origa and she mentions that her grand-parents at Westbrook, their house on Long Island always kept a small herd of Jerseys in 1909!!! The local cattle are not quite as dainty:

Our good friends the Rosenquists gave us a welcoming dinner party with all the Usual Suspects which was great fun. Old friends are the best because everything comes naturally. We all talk the same talk and don't have to fill in the blanks! Lazy I suppose.

I hardly saw any of my other friends, but did fit in a few good meals at Marks Club with the Lewintons, and Le Gavroche with David McAlpine and Angharad.

We had lunch with Christopher and Elaine Plummber at Zafferano. I gave an 86 birthday party for Norman Webb, Sally James, my son James and his girlfriend Lisa but missed dozens of others I had really planned to meet.

Feeling rotten I took the Gatwick Express to the airport and a private jet to Firenze!!! There can't have been more than ten people on the flight. Had just missed my train to Camucia so sat in the restaurant at Florence and was immediately surrounded by two women who announced they had slept the night on one of the platforms and didn't have any money to buy lunch! Of course I left lighter in pocket and wondering why they looked so neat and trim and WASHED. I saw them loading their trays with three courses and a bottle of wine as I made my escape.

My best private time on this trip is on the train from Florence to my local station. A half bottle of red wine, a baguette bought at Gatwick, watching the passing rivers and learning what to grow in my garden from observing the local back yards of the Italians. It is magic and the journey is always too short. I could take a private car from the airport to home but just think what I would miss.

HOME AGAIN AND THE ROUNDS OF FEEDING AND WATERING BEGIN.

And wondering how I am going to sell 800 bottles of superb olive oil.

OLIVE PICKING

2007-11-29T03:56:00.000-08:00

Under clear blue skies we started to pick our olives two weeks early this year. As I said in a previous blog, we had a wonderful display of flowers due to the hot spring and good pollination by our new bees, a great bounty of fruit but at the last minute we had two awful hail storms.

These storms are dreaded by the farmers just before the harvest begins as the hail knocks the fruit to the ground and leaves little pitting marks over those that manage to hang on.

We have two definite sides to our olive grove, and every year the harvest from each side differs quite considerably. You can imagine the arguments this causes between the pickers. One family pick the right hand side of the valley and another the left. This year the right hand side was weighed down with fruit while the left was sparse in places. What they all forget is that last year the position was reversed.

Lots of grumbling went on as each family keep half of the weight of olives they pick as their wages. The oil this brings to them and to their friends for the coming year is quite important and every last ounce is guarded vehemently.

I suppose this situation comes about because every other year we have to prune the trees and this cuts back on the number of branches able to bear fruit.

Sadly Simonetta, who is married to our gardener and belongs to one of the families who pick, had a recurring bout of her dreaded MS and for one week had hospital treatment for cortizone injections.

I was horrified when she turned up every afternoon, still with a stent in her arm straight from hospital, working until after dark up a tall ladder picking olives. When I remonstrated with her husband he just shrugged and said she was forte. (strong).

It has been a good year for oil and our little grove has produced about eight hundred bottles as our share. Not quite sure what I am going to do with it all but Rialto Foods in South Africa seem interested, my usual delicatessens in London still want to sell it and even Waitrose in Belgravia have said they will stock it next year.

BEFORE I GO ON PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE PROCESS OF TURNING THE FRUIT INTO OIL IN PICTURES.

I was struck down with my annual bout of bronchitis as soon as I caught a plane to London. Managed to see a lot of friends for the first few days but gradually went down hill and retired to my bed for two or three days. Nothing improved and I wasted a whole week of my return to London to shop for Xmas.

Still this is the first blog I have posted for months now, so I was quite pleased to have this respite to bring myself up to date.

We have sadly said goodbye to our little apartment in Antigua. The new buyer has taken nearly one whole year to sign and pay up!!! I had quite given up hope of ever seeing the colour of his money.

We will miss our two months of boat watching, tennis playing and warm Caribbean waters, but we are downsizing. All we have to do now is to sell our cottage in Cornwall and life will become much less complicated.

SEASON OF MISTS & MELLOW FRUITFULNESS

2007-10-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

My blogging has been hampered for months now and I have really missed putting down my thoughts about our lives on our farm it Italy.

After the flooding we had so many wonderful friends coming from England to visit us that I really did not have the time to myself to gather my thoughts and then put them in my blog. Robyn, my Australian artist friend, has said I should just write two lines and add a few photographs and leave it at that. That is probably the route I should take but even that takes time and so for the time being I am going to have to be verbose!!

I have learned a lot this year about what to grow in the kitchen garden, when, and how many! Firstly we had a glut of zuccini and I made hundreds of bags of pulp which now fill up my deep freeze. If you buy six zucini plants and plant them at the same time, you deserve to have a glut!

Same with corn on the cob, fava beans, etc. etc. So next year everything is going to be different.

I have discovered that what one grows in the Shires, does not grow here! I wanted a herbaceous border just like my friends in England but that does not work here with our clay soil and long periods of drought. I am going semi-tropical and this should make for less work as well. Not so much weeding and clearing in the autumn. I haven't seen enough gardens in this part of the world to see how it is done, so next year I must get in the car and travel around all the famous gardens in our area.

From our large dining room windows we look up at the village of Cortona and a wonderful, ancient cemetery! While Aziz' sister Diana was here we went up to look around. I was so impressed that I am about to book myself a niche!! Well, it has a view over our property and I can keep an eye on the new owners and what they are doing to my little farm!!!

I will descend from the hills and haunt them if they do anything I disapprove of!!

I was thrilled with my first hive of bees and thought they had been doing wonderfully, coming and going full of pollen and buzzing around the kitchen garden with great energy. We finally opened them up only to find that half of them were dead. Killed by overheating. I kicked myself as I knew they fanned themselves and the honey when hot. When the guy who sold me the bees installed the hive he insisted it go where it is now and not where I had prepared a place in the shade. I knew would be cooler for them.

He won the battle and now we are without honey this year.

Hessi and I went off to a local horse show in Citta de Castello in the summer and saw a little pony being treated rather badly. I knew AC would be furious but I told this horrible, sleazy horse-coper that I wanted to buy the pony!

He is a little stallion called Socks and he has a wife called Knickers!

Luckily AC wasn't here so I quickly made the roll-over into a stable and the ponies, after several break-outs were installed, and we quickly post-and-railed the orchard.

They are delightful and answer in high pitched voices when I call and dash up for their piece of sugar. They are about the size of Lamu but she is terrified of them.

The local horse show with a competition for the best hat took place in Arezzo! I think Ascot could teach the locals a thing or two!!!

AC, Mimi and David McFarlane built the coffee table for our new Drawing Room beneath the wisteria.

AC has been travelling a lot this autumn and was away when I went to the local Foianno Show. It was a delight with all the streets of the village full of people doing what they have been doing for centuries.

Making pasta, tending cattle and sheep

producing wine, digging for truffles, picking porcini, etc.

Jani, her daughter Kara, and Louis gave me lunch and we wandered for a blissfully interesting afternoon. Stupidly I had taken Lamu with me and she wanted to eat everything on four legs that crossed her path. I gave up and took her home after she had attacked a black, pot bellied pig that I am sure would have come out on top if he had just honked at her!!!

All teeth and temptation but no backbone.

AC has gone off to New York to talk to his new company bosses, WPP and a few of their clients, and as usual seems very laid back. I don't know how he gets so much self-confidence, but he has, so that stops me worrying about him. Hopefully he will tell me if he needs me to go with him!!!! Oh, Ha Ha.

It is the most beautiful autumn I have ever seen anywhere. I would really rather live in the Shires in England but to keep the Old Man happy I agreed to live here. Gradually I am beginn ing to realise that our climate here in Italy is so much warmer and dryer than England that I should stop worrying about leaving my home country and enjoy my new life. Every day starts with sunshine or by lunchtime the sun has fought its way through the fog.

Autumn is the time for bulb planting and that is what I have been doing. In fact I had ordered double the amount of daffodils I needed and have had to borrow a small digging machine in order to plant them!!! The ground was so hard we could not get our spades in. Clay is worse than concrete when the water is extracted.

It hasn't been a great year for fruit but I did manage to make some quince jelly between feeding the guests!

Two of my quince trees have been killed by the wild boars who dig up the roots. They must have a better taste than the trees in the woods. Also the drought has not helped. We did have some apples and pears but they were all so small they were hardly worth bottling. The walnuts and almonds however, have been wonderful and there will be lots to munch over Christmas!

THE DAY THAT THE RAINS CAME DOWN!

2007-09-01T07:06:00.001-07:00

(MOTHER EARTH SMILED AGAIN)

I have been at the farm for most of this year and as the months passed the drought became worse.

We have suffered (!) month long temperatures of 42 degrees from May until now. We have watched in horror as the poor folk in England and Wales have been battered by rain- storms and an almost continuous blanket of cloud . How can weather patterns be so diametrically different when England and Italy are only separated by a two hour flight?

Shouts of Alps, surrounded by sea, Mediterranean, etc. echo in my ears.

The ground had become unworkable as the clay became harder than concrete as the summer progressed. All my wonderful flowers had given up the ghost long ago, the fruit trees bore the smallest harvest I have seen and the olive trees although covered in fruit desperately needed rain to swell the oil content.

The wild boar have been launching regular evening raiding sortes to eat everything that contained something juicy to eat or drink. Branches have been torn off my apple trees seven feet off the ground. The fig trees have been similarly assaulted and reduced to half their size.

We have been hearing rifle shots from all the local farmers late at night as they try to defend their precious grape harvest, even though they can be heavily fined for shooting pigs before the 1st September. Electric fences have shot up everywhere and the dogs bark all night trying to scare them off.

AC gave me a night vision binocular for my birthday and we have spent many evenings watching the pigs move down the valley on the hunt. Every morning they have done more damage to the orchard. Next year I am going to have to fence it and when necessary back it up with electricity.

Well, that was yesterday!!! Today the rains came down as if trying to make up for lost time.

We have AC’s parents and sister from Canada staying for a couple of weeks and if I hadn’t found some just-caught mussels in the Coop this morning, we were going up to Cortona for lunch. Thank God we didn’t.

Half way through lunch the sky darkened and the heavens opened for a good three hours of the worst rain we have seen in five years. It bucketed down aided and abetted by a spectacular display of thunder and lightning. At one point we thought the house had been struck as the crash above our house even frightened me, and I love a good storm.

AC went out with his umbrella in the middle of the worst of it to check on the swimming pool and returned ashen faced. He had been outside when the big bang happened with forked lightning and he said the whole world lit up and he smelled burning!! For a moment he thought he had been struck and looked about himself to see if anything was singed! Idiot for going out at all.

If we had gone to Cortona for lunch we would still be there. Mother in law is not too nifty on her pins and neither is Dad in law, so we would have still been sitting getting drunk four hours later. Cortona stands on an almost vertical hill and I couldn’t imagine them sprinting for the car in the market square in a monsoon.

Two days ago Felice our gardener was working in the stream getting me some good leaf-mould for the greenhouse and heard a scratching noise behind him. On investigation he found a large dolce-granchio (fresh water crab) emerging from under a stone. Lamu and I joined him and found a few more which we put into the lago to keep the crayfish company! In a year or so they will make a fabulous crayfish and crab pasta!!!! We just need some trout and we will be almost completely self-sufficient. He certainly would not be standing in the same place today! The water would be above his head height.

The river bed before the storm

Well, that’s when I have bought a Jersey cow over from England for milk, put a couple of pigs in Porkie’s Palace for bacon, bought a few dozen chickens for eggs, and a hutch full of rabbits.

When I say this to AC he says, “You will find me in Eaton Place when you need me!”

I digress. We were talking about working in the dry river bed. Well, look at it now.

The poor dozen goldfish I put in a deep pool, the only one left with about an inch of water in it, must be swimming in the Arno by now!

The lake has overflowed and Lamu caught this crayfish about five hundred yards away making its escape southwards in the middle of the olive grove!!! It’s now back with the granchio in the lake. You can’t let your lunch run away just like that.

Of course, the lights have gone out. As soon as we have a wind of more than thirty miles per hour or a bit of rain, Italy disappears into blackout mode. I am sitting typing this with the aid of several night lights at the kitchen table. My battery will also conk out in a minute.

It’s an ill wind, or storm for that matter, that blows nobody some good!

The parents have gone up the hill to their cottage with a plate of sandwiches and several candles for an early night and I can go to bed without having to cook another meal!!!

Tomorrow I hope the sun will be shining because Arezzo has its two day antique market that takes over the whole town, and a jousting display, and we all want to go.

Oh dear, perhaps not. We have just discovered that the kitchen is under water. Our dear plumber who is suing us for non payment of his final bill, has forgotten to block up the holes he drilled in the back wall for several pipes to exit. It is not the only idiot thing he forgot, so that makes me even more resolute in my stand against paying him.

The water has brought with it several inches of nasty yellow mud and this will take at least the weekend to clear up.

It must have been a very ill wind!!

HERMES' TORSO

2007-08-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

On my last visit to London some friends asked us for lunch in Petworth. I asked what an old green dress of Lillis' was doing standing like a scarecrow in the middle of one of their flower beds!

After lunch David took us to see a new sculpture in green marble they had bought a week previously at a wonderful gallery not far from their house. They were just testing various positions where it might stand to the best effect

Of course, not to be outdone, I bought one of Paul Vanstone's fabulous sculptures for AC's birthday and Christmas presents!!! (That will be for the next ten years I suspect), and here it is standing in all its glory at the end of the swimming pool.

Paul came out to install it on his way to Carrera to collect a consignment of new marble and we had a hilarious two days with him. AC was away and it was all a surprise for him when he got back. Never will he know the labour of love the installation took.

Now the Boar in the orto will have someone to talk to. Maybe not!!!!

In a future blog I will tell the whole story of Paul's visit. Very funny in retrospect! Not at the time.

ANTIGUAN WATER CABBAGE

2007-08-12T21:47:00.001-07:00

Isn't this a pretty flower?

I saw it growing in a pond in Antigua and on our return to Italy I stuffed one small plant into an empty tennis ball tube.

Now we have them growing on the lake and in these planters from the reclamation yard. If anybody would like some, just shout.

You may have to bring them in to over winter.

By the way, does anyone know its real name?

WHERE'S BARRY HUMPHRIES WHEN I NEED HIM!

2007-08-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

Glads aren't really my favourite flower but this year they have been wonderful.

This bunch came as a free gift from a bulb company when I placed an order last autumn. I stuck the bulbs in the ground not expecting to see a flower. This wonderful array of colour was the result.

Bring on the freebies!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

2007-08-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

MY DATURA ONLY HAD ONE FLOWER!!

Four years of rebuilding the farm and four months of drought and then a deluge of guests and rain arrive. Then some dreaded hail to damage the olive crop and flood the kitchen. “ It never rains but……

The friends have arrived to see for themselves why we have been absent from London for the past four years and seem mildly impressed but more so with the sunshine after the awful weather they have suffered in England this year.

Firstly, Terry and Felicity arrived. He a big AdMan who loves corn on the cob. I had been beating off any hungry looking locals who looked longingly at my crop in order to impress my American visitor who can devour at least thirty cobs at one sitting. (I think he is from the deep South)! He duly accepted the challenge for two days and I was congratulating myself on having got my timing to perfection. At breakfast on the morning we were leaving on our trip to Positano, I noticed his brand new bottom set of crowns looked decidedly tatty! I asked when his final trip to the dentist was planned and with a less than perfect grin, he said it was all finished!!!

I was unsure where to go next when trying to tell him that I would ask for my money back if I were he! He had spent thousands on his new set of gnashers and the bottom set in my opinion did not live up to the “ping” of the adverts.

I left him in the dark and waited for the yell of pain which I felt was inevitable during his morning ablutions. It came half an hour later followed by his wife’s laughter and various scatological jokes about the best way to recover his highly prized, shiny bottom (!) set of teeth.

The trip to Positano was uneventful except AC insisted on showing Toothless’ wife the whole of the Amalfi coast which added at least another three hours of driving to the end of at least five. Big Addy sat silently in the back pondering his molars with the odd “Goddammit” as I narrowly missed the ninety-third large bus on an impossible corner.

The Sirenuse Hotel was a welcome sight and the Range Rover was whisked away, not to be seen again, and certainly not missed for at least a week. Eight hours dicing with Italian drivers on the Amalfi coast must be up amongst the top most dangerous sports!!! And I mean sport to the locals. They spot a ‘stranieri’ and vie with each other as to who can turn the intruder’s hair white in the quickest possible time. This sport is not only undertaken by the men, the women are far worse and reminded me of “The Bicycle Man” in Nice who used to rush up to cars headon on the edge of the water, only to stop just short of their bumpers, jam on his brakes and rear up his bike while he viewed the collapsed driver behind his wheel suffering from a heart attack. I believe he only fell into the water doing this about ten times over a forty year career.

Felicity and I were desperate to hit the linen shops of Positano. Clothes that is, not bed. Everything we did to lose the men had no effect so we took out a boat for an evening cruise. We found a great Captain who during the winter months drives a tanker in the Caribbean!!! Wonderful, rugged rocks dropping beneath the waves from hundreds of feet in the air. Little windy roads with dinky toy cars dashing in one side of the hill and ant-like, reappearing the other side. When you are driving on them they feel quite substantial but viewed from a boat hundreds of feet below, they look suicidal clinging to the rocks. Man and his achievements is awesome when you see nothing daunts him when progress beckons.

We swam off the boat in crystal clear, warm turquoise water and counted our blessings.

I asked our Captain about the hill fires that were raging on certain stretches of the mountainside and he laughed when I suggested the odd cigarette might have started them. “That”, he said, “Is big business!” Everything in Italy is ‘business’.

If a fire starts then someone has to be paid to put it out! Then someone else has to be paid recompense by the authorities, and another someone has to replant with trees and bushes! Gives everyone something to do once the holiday makers have gone home. Makes sense really!

Nice day spent in Capri, a place none of us had been to before. Next year we decided we would spend our time there instead of Positano. Positano is good for the leg muscles but there are too many pairs of legs being exercised on the charming streets. Apparently, in Capri once the ferries have all left if you aren’t staying in a villa or a hotel, everyone has gone home and the island is peaceful so you can shop to your hearts content with people like Elton John and a few Royals!!!!

Hot day spent in Pompeii with a fascinating guide who brought the whole horror to life! Apparently there are still forty to fifty thousand people living on the mountainside beneath Vesuvius – and it’s SMOKING! I think I would re-locate!!!

Holiday over and just leaving the winding roads at Sorrento when some idiot stopped in front of me and on applying the brakes, nothing happened! Big heart-stopping moment saved only by a quick pumping. “Goddammits” flying everywhere and we still had five more hours of driving! Made it but would not do that drive again for all the good breaks in the world. The garage tells us the ABS had gone, whatever that might be, and that it will cost six thousand euros to replace. I liked the look of Victoria Beckham’s new drop-head Bentley in Hello Magazine last week!! Perhaps that would be more reliable. AC says I am as common as she. Especially as I admired her initials on the white head-rests and the hub caps!!!

Second lot of guests arrive and so does the cooking! Nobody seems to want to go out when they stay with us. Wonderful laughter though and because the drought was still holding, good tans all round.

Second disaster after a trip to Cortona where sit in the main square and laugh at all the stranieri, little realizing they are all laughing at us at the same time. I had taken the girls in the Range Rover and because we couldn’t all fit in, AC took Mike in my little black Fiat 500. Had a good laugh at WPP's newly appointed designer and Mike a 'Big Banker' struggling to get into the smallest car in the world not realizing that disaster lay ahead.

We had bought several different flavours of ice cream and Mike was in a hurry to get them into the deep freeze! They had beaten us down the hill and as we turned the last corner leading up to our gates the little car was a blazing inferno! The farmer who lives next door was directing a very small hose of water onto the blazing engine and no sign of AC and Mike!!!

Panic for a few seconds when AC reappeared from the farmhouse where he had been ringing the fire station but still no Mike. I dashed for the door of the Fiat to switch off the ignition and let out some smoke and then rescue what I imagined was an unconscious Mike. We had spent thousands of pounds having the interior spruced up with pale cream leather and I did not want it ruined!!!

Mike finally appeared having dashed to our farm to get a fire extinquisher only to find he couldn’t get into the house. He said he spent some time trying to find somewhere in the shade to hide the boxes of ice cream!!!!!

The final horror became apparent when we discovered that in Italy insurance does not mean the same thing. It means you insure the other guys car, not your own.

PIGS, PORCUPINES & PLUMS!

2007-07-11T07:24:00.000-07:00

Three nights ago whilst watering the herb garden I turned around to find about ten wild PIGS galloping across the orchard towards me. Two enormous black monsters and eight of varying height, squealing with delight, heads down, bristling with muscle!

Unfortunately, the dog saw them at the same moment and ran barking towards them. Tails comically straight in the air, they turned snout and ran.

Every evening since I have sat in the dusk at around nine o’clock and watched them jumping down the terraces towards our orchard and the farm next door. I had thought they were after any fallen apples but I now think they have to come down out of the forest in order to find water. Both our streams have become wallow pits and the clay ground we sit on is harder than cement.

Below us is a bigger river and they have to cross our olive groves on their journey to get a drink. By the barking of the dogs about twenty minutes after I sight them in the valley, they have arrived!

On their return journey they seem to stop off to eat the fallen apples and last night, half a plum tree. The lower branches of this tree are about seven feet off the ground, so a Cinghale on its hind legs is much taller than the average man! Still my fertilizing bills will be cheaper this year!

Believe it or not there are three pigs in this awful photograph!! Perhaps more. A friend emailed to say that she could also see a man in one of the fruit trees!!! I do hope not. Perhaps one of the pigs was a pig of a man in an earlier life!!! Tonight I am going to lie in wait and bag a better one, sans dog, sans pussies, mit spritzer, OFF (biting bugs are a hazard at night), and cushion!

The irony of this story hit me this morning whilst driving the tractor around the lake when I saw that the porcupines had dug up and eaten all my very special irises to add to their fertilizer of two nights ago when they ate every iris in front of the house. I should have been waiting for them with not a camera but a gun! A porcupine by the way is only slightly smaller than a pig!!! Or when quills raised, probably much bigger. Hence Philip Treacey can put a couple of these in every one of his hats!!

Only one more piece of news. Simoneta exited the house as I passed with the hairs on her head and arms standing on end! Understandably, I paused and examined the contents in her hand. Beautiful, lacey pieces of material resembling the softest silk were quivering in her palm in tune with her fright.

Her answer to my question of where she had found these wonderful silky samples, then stood my hair on end. “Under your bed”. She knew and I had guessed that what we were looking at was the shed skin of a fairly large snake.
Tonight I am sleeping outside with the pigs, Lamu the dog, the porcupines, the pussies and any other animale who wishes to join us. They in my opinion are less frightening to sleep with than one snake!!

On second thoughts......

CASA LORETO OLIVE OIL

2007-07-07T09:28:00.001-07:00

Talking of olive oil, which of course I haven't been, it is a fantastic year in the olive groves!

Lots of flowers earlier in the year, rain at the right time, no hail to knock the young fruit off the trees, and now wonderful sunshine. Yesterday was 35 degrees!

We plan to pick earlier this year. The beginning of November rather than around the 11th. It makes sense as the weather is usually a little warmer and the oil is more peppery which our customers seem to like.

We are planning to launch our Olio Nouvello in London around the end of the month after picking and have just received interest from South Africa!!!

We didn't want to start a new business but it seems to be starting itself!

Never look a gift horse in the mouth. It might be eating your olives.

FIRST VISITORS ARRIVE!

2007-05-28T04:46:00.000-07:00

RESTAURANT BY LAKE TRASIMENO

AC had insisted I hadn't told him that I had invited four of our best friends to visit the farm, so he had arranged several meetings in London and departed thence!

The four days before the great arrival were the culmination of FOUR YEARS of preparation. Buying, renovating, planting, pruning, fertilizing, building, falling out, etc., and there I was with no husband to help!

I am sort of used to this as he has to travel a lot but this was a bridge too far. My wonderful gardener, his wife, Hessie, the dog, the only cat left after the poisoning, and myself were flat out not knowing how our new home was going to be received.

AC's last words were, "Don't worry about cooking". "Just take them out".

The first couple arrived from St. Tropez were they live, and had a dreadful drive through all those awful tunnels down from Liguria, which had taken eight and a half hours, arrived at drinks time. Which is just what we did. Have a drink. Sadly nobody wanted my one bottle of elderberry champagne!!!

The second couple had flown from Gloucestershire to Pisa and had driven for about three hours in the dark. We were quite jolly when they arrived and sailed past our front gate and disappeared into the woods with the pigs, but when asked to back for about half a mile in the dark, were fairly colourful in their language!

Dinner was finished at about two o'clock in the morning with the St. Tropez husband, who happened to be Italian, saying my pasta was too dry. Normally I am in bed by eight in the evening so getting up to lay for breakfast and finding one of my guests already at the table at six thirty was a shock.

Christopher I knew was a famous screenwriter and producer (Don't Look Now, The Young Catherine, etc), but was not aware he had also been a stand-up comic. The next five days were to prove some of the funniest any of us can remember. We didn't "Go Out" much but we certainly laughed. I can now cook wet pasta sauce, whilst laying the table, crying with laughter and feeding the dog at the same time.

TWENTY-FOUR GUN SALUTE!

2007-05-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to begin this blog for months now but could not find anything to really blow my mind after four years of major events during redevelopment of an old farmhouse and twenty acres of olive terraces!!!

Today it happened. The water had gone off all over the olive groves and the casa. Of course it was a Sunday and lunch time!

As I made my way to the telephone I was felled by a blunderbuss from the car port, a loud hissing and a strong fruity smell. The dog barked, the cat hissed and I ran for the back door.

I had completely forgotten that two days earlier Hessy and I had bottled twenty-four old S. Pellegrino bottles with the first fermentation of Elderflower Champagne. Mother's old recipe in my much fingered Personal Recipe Book said in capitals, "Tie the Corks Down". Something to be remembered if anyone wants to try this.

We didn't have any corks or wine bottles and the S. Pellegrino bottles whose screw tops when used are not that secure the second time around are obviously not up to the job.

Hessy, my friend/sec/gardener/vegan/had insisted on making hers with brown sugar and these bottles were blowing through the roof every hour and on the hour.

I find this whole day not only funny but a lesson on not underestimating the power of nature. No yeast was added and within two days some sugar, a few sultanas and a few flower heads had turned into something DANGEROUS. The second bottle I tried to rescue went off in my hand and blew off my, not false nail, and bruised my hand. The remains of the contents was licked up by dog and cat!

TAKING FLIGHT!

2007-04-21T02:46:00.000-07:00