A Tuscan View - from Umbria

Guilty as charged

10th May 2008

Around 10 years ago there was a great deal of excitement about the 500th Anniversary of the death of one of the greatest Renaissance painters, Piero Della Francesca. I remember being on holiday in Italy at the time and tearing around with Marito to various churches, museums and small towns to see as much of his work as possible as quickly as we could, The Piero Trail.

There were so many highlights, including my personal favourite, the serene Madonna Del Parto , but the one that perhaps stands out the most in terms of its sheer magnificence is the Legend of the True Cross fresco cycle in Arezzo. As a story it has all the intrigue of The Lord of the Rings, spanning over 5,000 years from the death of Adam to the return of the cross to Jerusalem.

In the middle there is the search for healing oil from the Wood of Mercy, the theatrical angel appearing to Constantine in his beautifully illuminated campaign tent and two tremendous battle scenes. It appears exactly as it would have done, except for the damage caused by earthquakes, lightning, nearby building works and, perhaps the worst of all evils, if you're a fresco, damp.

I took some photographs, although I did get told off for doing so. Flash photography causes terrible damage to a fresco, I was once told that one flash was the equivalent of 10 days subdued sunlight, so I am always careful to not use it. So when I asked (politely) why it was wrong, it seems the reason is now copyright. After 510 years I doubt whether Piero Della Francesca would really care that much.

Anyway, guilty as charged, here they are. The idea is to make other people want to go and pay to see the frescoes, so I guess it all works out ok in the end.

The History of Art really is food for the soul, it's history with pictures, a wonderful subject for anyone with their eyes open to ideas and creativity and, whether or not you love the art, it represents an aspect of human endeavour which shapes the world we live in.

Seems like nature’s doing a pretty good job too, it being so juicy green and blooming beautiful around here these days.

Best thing I ate;

Panino

Sometimes the best thing you eat has less to do with the actual food itself and more to do with the location in which you eat it, or the company you're with. So it was with my Panino con Tonno e Capperi, oily and delicious indeed, but it would hardly have drawn a crowd. 
However, add to it the location, (a bustling outside café under Vasari’s gracious loggia in the stunning town of Arezzo) the company, (two of my favourite Italophiles and fellow bloggers, the olive notes) a little sunshine and the famous Fiera Antiquaria.

Mix it all up and stick that in a Panino – ‘perfetto’!

The birds and the bees

27th April 2008

Forget the bursting buds of Spring, forget the birds and the bees. For a sure sign that more clement weather is on the way check out this remarkable transformation.

It was with some trepidation that we took our beloved hound (one year old this week) for his first haircut warned, as we had been, by the vet that it might look “un po brutto”, (a little ugly) but, as temperatures started to climb, the hair had to go.

Just look at what a handsome and expressive face had been lurking beneath all that wool. At first he seemed more vulnerable and, strangely, slightly more intelligent however, after a brief identity crisis, he is now back to his normal stupid self and feeling mighty confident about his furry charms. Strutting his stuff down Chiusi main street with hardly a backwards glance at all the lady-dogs swooning in his wake.

Best thing I ate:
Bistecca alla Fiorentina

I am enamoured with my butcher. He has Al Pacino eyes and the lazy smile of a well fed wolf. I know he likes me and he knows I like him. Why? because we both like good meat.

Yesterday, when Marito was buying some bistecca (steak) and I was waiting outside with the dog (our noses pushed up against the window), ‘Big Al’ refused to cut marito’s steak thicker than mine, despite his protestations because, said Al, (gesturing towards me with his chopper), “I know she likes her meat!”
So… if you’re ever in Chuisi, and you require the services of a good butcher, you know where to go – 70, Via Porsena, Chuisi.

For a bistecca that’s butch and bloody with a salty crust, here’s how;

The steak (about as thick as your thumb)
Some olive oil
Sea salt, black pepper and a stem of fresh rosemary
A heavy frying or grill pan

Rub your steak all over with olive oil, use the rosemary to brutally brush it on, crushing the herb and releasing the fragrance. Grind the pepper over both sides and (controversial I know), a good grind of sea salt too. This gives a lovely salty crust to the meat.
Put a little more oil in your pan and get it nice and hot, (it must be hot for this to work), then slap in the steak and press it down into the pan, don’t move it about.
Let it cook for 2 minutes, then turn it over, grind a bit more salt over it and press down again.
Let in cook for 2 minutes more and it will be ready, (the faint hearted may wish to cook it for a bit longer). I sometimes add a couple of cloves of garlic, squashed in their skins to the pan, or throw in a little wine after removing the meat to make the beefy juices go a bit further.

Apologies to vegetarians. I like vegetables too, promise.

The rule of threes

20th April 2008

I know things don’t happen in threes, no more than they happen in twos or fours, but people keep mentioning my two recent building site incidents and mentioning this ‘three’ thing, and I am starting to wonder. So this morning I was extra careful, hoping the third thing might happen to someone else.

Me, being extra careful.

The second thing was a nasty cut to the head, requiring stitches.
My friend interrupted his holiday with us to take me to the hospital in Citta della Pieve, careful not to get my blood on his car seat. Once there I may have made a mistake. I assumed that because someone works at a hospital and wears a uniform, he or she must be a doctor.
Two men in bright orange uniforms quickly gave me a combination of; head-shave, local anaesthetic and stitches.

It was only later, when I was leaving the hospital after the obligatory cranial x-ray, that I noticed two similarly dressed men putting up a wobbly wooden fence around the town walls. Then I saw them again, on the motorway, painting white lines, quite badly.
Now I look at my stitches in a different light. They are the sort you draw onto a face when you’re 6 years old, or the sort you would do if you had absolutely no medical training and were having a bit of a laugh while the doctor was at lunch.
I will spare you the photos.

Spring, in our garden, seems to have sprung - by the way

The stupidest thing I did today;
Watched ‘Cloverfield’ – where do I go to claim those 84 minutes of my life back?

Dyed hair and false smiles

8th April 2008

It would be hard to miss the election about to happen in Italy, not because our tv is filled with grey-suited, bespectacled men with dyed hair and false smiles, and not because the adverts are punctuated by explanations of how the complicated voting system works. It is simply that every public place; car parks, piazzas and municipal parks, has suddenly been filled with large, metal, grey election poster boards, presumably designed to keep the unsuspecting buildings poster-free.

I won’t pretend to understand anything about Italian politics or the machinations of the voting system, but suffice to say that after the election there are a lot of ‘conversations’ in smoke-filled rooms as the parties form tenuous coalitions with each other to achieve a working majority. This then results in a government which is quite soon held to ransom by all the smaller parties until the tenuous coalitions fall apart and the working majority is lost and we have another election and the large, metal, grey election poster boards come out again.

Someone once told me that if you go to a dinner party in England, the subjects to avoid are religion, sex, and politics. But in Italy, whether at breakfast, lunch or dinner they are the only topics of conversation.

Political manoeuvrings are an Italian tradition, they have been going on for centuries, and almost every fresco, sculpture and painting in Florence owes its existence to the blind ambition or overt gratitude of a benefactor with one eye on the heavens and the other firmly over his shoulder.

This goes some way to explaining the appearance on fresco cycles of the faces of so many wealthy Florentines. As many as five hundred years ago, a little advertising and a little publicity did you no harm at all, you could even carve on the façade of a church the fact that you paid for it and, more importantly, how much it cost!

The stupidest thing I did today;
Momentary lapse in concentration whilst holding a chisel and swinging a hammer

The garland maker

29th March 2008

During the Easter break we shed our builders’ overalls and travelled by train to Florence for another quick fix of culture.

We chose Santa Maria Novella, not because it’s a stones throw from the station, nor because of it’s ornate green and white marble façade but because it really is a marvel. So jam packed with Renaissance goodies that at two and a half euros for the entrance it’s got to be the best value for money in town.

Green and white marble facade

Despite the lure of an early Masaccio fresco and the tormented beauty of Brunelleschi’s crucifix, what really does it for me is the Tornabuoni chapel, frescos by Domenico Ghirlandaio.  The name Ghirlandaio means garland maker and was a nickname passed down by his father, a goldsmith who made gold garland-like necklaces for the wealthy women of Florence.  From his father’s workshop Ghirlandaio was said to have begun his career making drawings of the passers-by.

His skill for portraiture is displayed at it’s best in these striking frescos commissioned by the banker, Giovanni Tornabuoni. Despite the subject matter being the lives of the Madonna and St John the Baptist there are no fewer than 21 portraits of members of the Tornabuoni family and their circle depicted here.  This might explain why certain illustrious ladies of Florentine society are shown as if present at the births of both St John and the Virgin.  These beauties include the ill-fated Ludovica Tornabuoni, the patron’s only daughter, who never saw her prominent portrait as she was to die in childbirth aged 15 before it was finished, making the scene even more poignant.

Ludovica Tornabuoni, 5th from the left, by Domenico Ghirlandaio

As a snapshot of 15th Century life in Florence, no frescos are more fascinating.  There is a strange, almost Disney-like quality to them and the interior detail is compelling.  Imagine the impact when these gaudy scenes were revealed to the god-fearing Florentine masses in all their technicolour glory.  Here there are no imaginary celestial settings but the real, elaborate halls and bed chambers of contemporary Florence, peopled by the wives and daughters of the rich.  In a world without glossy magazines, TV shows or shopping channels they were like a Florentine soap-opera, the first ever reality show and they caused a sensation. John Ruskin snippily said of them that “if you are  nice person they are not nice enough” and “if you are a vulgar person, not vulgar enough”.
To me they are nice and vulgar!

As you leave you may notice a large carved, wooden pulpit, it was from here that the zealous Dominicans first denounced Galileos daring realisation that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way round.  And, in a dimly lit corner with no label or sign attached, is a small but exquisite water stoop carved by a young Michelangelo.  All this for two and a half euros!  What more could you ask for, (although marito remarked cynically that it used to be free).

The best thing I ate;
Asparagus.

It’s a little early I know (the true season for Italian asparagus being the end of April to the end of June) but I just can’t wait. Slowly, gradually it is beginning to appear on the market stalls. I’ve been holding back knowing my greed for asparagus knows no bounds, not wanting to waste the first taste of the year on  something lacking and inferior. But then, as luck would have it, I was invited to join some neighbours for supper and there it was, the first course. A large white platter, piled high with beautiful, glistening spears of silky green asparagus, briefly boiled and tender to the bite. The partner to this heavenly vision was a large bowl of lovely, fat, wobbly home-made mayonnaise. And so, I declare the asparagus season (in this house) has begun.

Where to get it;
Anywhere you can, before I do.

Moliere

20th March 2008

As he knelt on the cold stone floor of the dark, abandoned warehouse, Julian became suddenly aware of the strange noises echoing through the corrugated iron roof, and he began to wonder how he had got himself into this mess.

His heart sank as he remembered the initial conversation outside the school gates, being asked if sometime in the vague future he would mind helping design the set for a little play at Castiglione Del Lago.
It seemed such a good idea at the time…

My new office - the warehouse of the Lago Trasimeno Touring Theatre Company

Now, with a set of keys to the old warehouse, and not a soul in sight, he was faced with sixty square metres of set to design and produce single-handedly for a 17th Century Moliere play, ‘School for wives’, being performed in a month before going on tour around this part of Italy.

Yes, every night for the last couple of weeks, I have been wending my weary way to this old warehouse where they prepare the sets. It has to be at night because I am using an overhead projector, so the place is very quiet. It’s a little odd, as there never seem to be any actors rehearsing, or any lighting or sound people doing whatever they do. Nothing. No-one. Except me.

I must learn to start saying no.

The stupidest thing I did today;

Still couldn't say no when I got 'tagged' by Anne
and here are my answers;

What I was doing 10 years ago:
Living in London, teaching Art, wondering what I would be doing in 10 years time

Five things on my to-do list today:
Chip more render off the outside walls of the house
Pay a huge bill, in cash, for our permissions to renovate the house
Try to finish our website (that’s been on quite a few to-do lists recently)
Fix my daughter’s already-broken bicycle
Prepare myself mentally and physically for indoor football tonight

Snacks I enjoy:
Does red wine count as a snack?

Things I would do if I was a Billionaire:
Wear cashmere during the day
Get someone else to chip the render off the house
Get someone else to fix the bicycle
Get someone else to finish the website
Pay the huge bill, in cash, and laugh
Drink better red wine in the evening
Sleep better at night

Three of my bad habits:
You’ll have to ask my wife, I'm not sure I have any...

Five places I have lived:
Malta
Norfolk
London
Kingston
Italy

Five jobs I have had:
Paperboy
Barman
Book Illustrator
Teacher
Unskilled builder

and the list of those hapless few I now have to 'tag';

Chris - How to be happy
Miranda Taxis at Il Pero
Jeff in Puglia
Sally at Casalba
Maryann at Finding La Dolce Vita

Tufa

18th March 2008

I made a rather foolish decision a few days ago. The job was to smash down a small building attached to the house to make way for a large terrace. At my disposal was a very nice, orange digger (see picture) which is designed to knock down small buildings in a matter of minutes, or, alternatively I could choose to spend the rest of my life taking it down by hand to save the bricks for later.

Me and my digger

That was the first bad decision. Then, yesterday, when deciding where the drains and septic tanks need to go, it was decided that the perfect spot would be where I had just spent 3 days piling up those 562 big, water-heavy bricks (trust me, I did count them)
So now I have to move them to the other side of the garden, by hand, which gives me another chance to count them, I suppose.

Tufa - beautiful, but heavy when wet.

Who would have thought that the main topic of conversation at my 6 year olds parents’ evening would be the fact that of all the children in her class, only Lorenzo eats his vegetables and absolutely no-one eats the minestrone. Those parents who weren’t busy chatting on their mobile phones looked most upset except, of course, for Lorenzo’s mother who almost felt the need to stand up in her moment of pride. This was, fortunately, the only moment when individuals were singled out. Most of the parents were cowering in fear of the public humiliation at the hands of a teacher who was literally foaming at the mouth as she explained her exasperation at coping with such an ‘unruly’ lot.
However I managed to escape unscathed from both sets of teachers, now I just have to work out how our two children manage to transform themselves into little angels between 8.30am and 4.30pm.

The stupidest thing I did today;
See above...

Myrtle

After 18 years, and having put up with 4 different houses, 2 different countries, 2 small children and a dog, our little cat Myrtle has died. She was a lovely cat and, for the majority of my adult life, was an ever-present feature in the house. A warm, darkish blob with a beautiful face and a gentle manner. She will be sorely missed and has now found a nice, familiar spot in our garden, between two large rosemary bushes which, perhaps coincidentally, just flowered in the most magnificent way.

Myrtle (Miss) 14th February 1990 - 10th March 2008

Bones and stones

9th March 2008

Real life seems to be taking over from blogging here at the moment as, finally, the building work seems to be moving on a pace, which is good, as our first painting course starts in September and the apartments and studio need to ready for the summer.
Hard work, however, doesn’t come cheap and this is a point in the project when we seem to haemorrhaging cash.
The house is changing and evolving almost daily and it seems to me that sometimes it ‘talks’. By that I mean it makes it’s spirit felt. When you take a building back to it’s origins and strip away the layers of man made rubbish we like to surround ourselves with; the polyurethane, vinyl, plasterboard and pebbledash to reveal the beautiful bones and stones and brick and wood you set it’s spirit free.

The spirit of this house soared free yesterday morning when marito and Vlad began to chisel off the sombre render on the front of the house and revealed this.

Best thing I ate:

Here, for my friends Maryann, Finding La Dolce Vita and Marie, Proud Italian Cook, is my contribution to Festa Italia

Pasta al forno con pomodoro e mozzarella

This is one of my favourite Italian pasta dishes. I love the way a few humble ingredients like cheese, tomatoes and pasta can be made into something rich and sustaining.
When I take this out of the oven, fragrant and bubbling, it always makes me feel like a sexy Italian ‘mamma’. You will find versions of it in almost every Italian cookery book and it is a regular feature at celebrations all over Italy.
Marito and the girls would gladly eat this everyday of the week given half a chance. It is straightforward to make in large quantities so perfect for a festa. The fact that Italians choose to celebrate with such a simple dish and then to lavish so much care over its preparation is for me what makes Italian food truly great.

It feeds four greedy people;

2 large cloves garlic squashed
1 peperoncino crumbled
Extra virgin olive oil
3x 400g tins of good quality plum tomatoes
2 bay leaves
Sea salt, black pepper
Big bunch of Basil leaves
2 or 3 balls of good quality mozzarella cheese
Lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Nutmeg
400g Penne pasta

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees and put a large pan of water on to boil for the pasta.
In a large deep frying pan heat a good glug of olive oil and sauté the garlic and peperoncino for a few minutes but do not colour. Add the tomatoes and chop them roughly, then add the bay leaves and simmer it all for about 20 minutes until it’s thick and reduced. Mash in the garlic, which should now be soft, and remove the bay. Check the flavour and season with as much salt and pepper as you like.

When your water is boiling add some salt and cook the Penne until just ‘al dente’ then drain, reserving a small cup of the pasta water. Toss the pasta with half of the sauce and use the water to thin down the remaining tomato mixture.

In a large baking dish layer the pasta followed by the tomato sauce and 1 torn up mozzarella ball, some basil leaves and a good grating of Parmesan. Repeat these layers until you have used everything up. Ending with a layer of mozzarella and Parmesan and topping the whole glorious thing off with a grating of nutmeg, don’t hold back.

Bake in a hot oven for about 15 mins until crusty and golden.

This is a perfect sop for large quantities of good red wine. Buona Festa!

A weekend off with SpongeBob

3rd March 2008

It's not often that I take a weekend off, as I like to impress on Vladimir that I'm not a 'gentleman builder' or an idler. Despite my efforts he still seems unconvinced. So, this weekend, which featured my small daughter's Birthday and party, I decided to have a break.

Tools down for the weekend

The birthday girl filled my weekend by introducing me to her latest obsession, the 'SpongeBob Squarepants Patty Panic' game, and within minutes I was a 'competitive dad' again. Please don't look it up, mostly because it's rubbish, but also because you'll then be tempted to try to beat my highest score ( a magnificent 19,525) which would be impossible.

Anyway it was the birthday of the new (almost grown up) bicycle. Everyone can remember 'that' birthday, it's such a great gift and it represents so much more than the sum of its parts, even for a seven-year-old.

However, all that is behind us now , as the week has begun with a return to the building site, and with a few strange questions left unanswered;
1. Why did my lovely wife bake an even lovelier cake and then leave it at dog-height for 30 seconds?
2. Why did I spend so long with SpongeBob this weekend? and, most worrying of all,
3. What does my wife mean when she says that the "building is talking to us"?

The stupidest thing I did today;

Inadvertently offering up a challenge to all other competitive Alpha males (and females), and now expecting a small flurry of made-up scores.

Cold and luckless

22nd February 2008

On a cold and luckless night last week, the pitiless febbre (flu) that has been stalking the winter countryside paid a visit to our house, claiming me and the small one as it’s victims before bounding on to Chuisi for a pizza. Having spent the last few days aching, shivering and sneezing while administering to a cranky child, I can tell you that Italian flu is no fun.

The house, emerging from Winter

However, while I’ve been languishing in my sickbed, inhaling foul potions prescribed by marito, the air outside has softened and the promise of Spring can be felt as the pale sunshine breaks through the mist. Things are looking up.

Preferring not to waste his time on elaborate bedside manners, marito has been busy demolishing the back of the house. Bravo, who wants to be a doctor anyway.

Marito, hiding somewhere in this picture, avoiding the flu

Best thing I ate:

Tachipirina (Paracetamol)
Pity me.
I have also (temporarily I hope) lost my sense of taste and smell.

Vladimir and the villagers

13th February 2008

This ‘optimistic’ blog struggles to retain its optimism sometimes; red tape, ever escalating prices, never escalating temperatures and a dog whose diet of stolen foods makes for a vet’s bill much higher than it ought to be.

To give you an idea, last week he claimed; one pound of butter, a babybel cheese (including wax and wrapper), two pairs of sunglasses, various items from the cat litter tray, and as much of our rubbish as he could shove into his mouth before we caught him.

Having said all that. I was then privileged to witness the most extreme example of Italian’s love of their mobile phones. I have discovered that there is nowhere and no occasion in which you cannot or should not answer your phone. But there had to be a limit, and now I think I have found that limit. At the vets, taking the temperature of my dog, you might have thought that she could miss a call, but no. With one hand up my dog’s backside and the other ferreting around her white coat for the mobile, even the dog had to laugh.

Had a fantastic afternoon, without the dog, photographing the railway station in Florence, Santa Maria Novella. I put a few of the best ones in the sidebar…

The stupidest thing I did today;

Dipping out of my ‘theme’ for a change, I found out something very useful today which might stop me doing something stupid in the future. According to local legend, our builder, Vladimir, once ‘took on’ a whole village after a dispute in a bar. I must remember that.

Carnevale

7th February 2008

My wife thinks I’m simply attention seeking, but I know that I’m cursed.

Take any street entertainer, anywhere, and get him to pick an idiot out of the crowd to be made a fool of, and it will be me. I don’t push people aside to get to the front and I don’t want the attention, I promise.

I used to cope in England (and in English), but when I got picked by a wild-eyed amateur Italian fire-juggler to participate in his act, it was a little disconcerting. Maybe he said “throw the flaming torch to me’, maybe he said “throw the flaming torch at me”, maybe he said "on no account throw that flaming torch anywhere near me!”
I was concentrating like never before and threw the flaming torch in his general direction, half closing my eyes, just in case I killed the crazy man in Renaissance costume during Carnevale.
The rest is a bit of a blur, but he lived.

On a much happier note, I have managed to join another football team. They are older, slower and friendlier, and they play indoors! My joy is unbounded, as is my newly discovered turn of pace against men ‘of a certain age’.

The stupidest thing I did today;

I assumed that men ‘of a certain age’ would have thrown off the shackles of post-match hair gel, fancy dressing gowns and hair driers, but no.

Sounds simple enough...

2nd February 2008

When we bought the house, one of the main attractions for us was the fact that much of it had remained untouched for many years. The rust, the peeling paint and the beauty of its decay are bound up with its unique character. We are now making decisions which will affect the way the house will look for at least the next few decades and we don’t want to spoil those things that made us love it in the first place.
Sounds simple enough, but it’s not.

One good example is the doors and windows. They were made of metal. Old rusty metal and, according to most, must now be changed into ‘traditional’ hardwood with double glazing and a protective polyurethane seal to prevent wear and tear. We are suggesting to our builder that we quite like wear and tear and would ideally like rusty metal windows and doors, just like they used to be.

The floors. Many years and countless euros have been wasted trying to make ceramic tiles look like traditional handmade cotto ones. The argument is; pay more, lay them easily, and you never have to touch them again, they will stay like that forever. Aaaagh! We are suggesting to our builder that we would like to see them change over time with successive, deepening layers of wax, just like they used to.

Now it looks as though we are going to be ‘on our own’ for the floor, and that means choosing, buying, laying and treating it all myself.
Sounds simple enough, but that won't be either.

The stupidest thing I did today;

I'm not sure, but I think I may have killed my new best friend

Makita - my new best friend (possibly deceased)

One thing I know

27th January 2008

Just before we left England, in a kind of panic to cling on to some remnant of my old life, I persuaded marito to buy me a running machine. This he did, at some expense, over the internet. It was to be delivered to our new home in Italy. Of course, shortly after our arrival at our enchantingly rural money-pit, I realised how completely frivolous and inappropriate the purchase was.

The tranquil white roads beckoned and I was seduced. I began to run outside, early in the mornings, my feet crunching on layers of frosty leaves, sun rising in an opalescent sky and air so pure and cold that it crackled through my hair and caught my breath. It was exhilarating. I began to dread the arrival of the tread-mill. However, as the weeks and months passed by, it dawned on us that the machine was not “on it’s way”, “just about to be delivered” and that we had, in fact, been had. An internet con.

Now, not only had I coerced marito into making a reckless purchase that we could ill afford, but we were also unlikely ever to see it. The running machine began to symbolise all my foolish suburban naiveties as well as our financial ineptitude. I felt a sickening shame whenever I thought of it.

Marito, however, was on the case. He tracked the shyster down to his hideout in deepest Cambridgeshire and, with a little help from the local police, organised a dawn raid. Fortunately the ‘dodger’ turned out to be an equally inept criminal and quickly confessed all. We had not been his only victims and other witless fitness fanatics had been similarly fleeced. The courts gave him a conditional discharge, he must pay back his ill-gotten gains or face the consequences. I had my doubts and carried on running with a heavy heart.

This morning, a year and 2 months later, a cheque arrived in the post and I am astonished. He has made good, paid his dues and bought me a reprieve. I can run free from the chains of guilt that had held me back. So, as the dog bounds ahead around a corner, momentarily out of sight, and I quicken my pace to catch him, I may not know what lies ahead but I do know one thing for sure. You cannot take your old life with you to a new country, you must evolve and embrace the new. Thank you Steve, whoever you are, it may have taken a year and a bit but you did the right thing and maybe we are both better for it.

The best thing I ate;

Quince (Cotogna)

Detail of 'Two Quinces' (1951) by Eliot Hodgkin

A quince is an ancient fruit. It looks like a mixture between an apple and a pear but in fact is not. It cannot be eaten raw and, when cooked, has a taste and texture like neither. It is intensely and beautifully fragrant. A strange, hauntingly, honeyed fragrance so lingering that I have read that great bowls of quinces were left to rot in order to perfume the Renaissance houses of Florence.

The quince season is fleeting and they can be difficult to track down. Luckily for me there are plenty of them growing around here. I have eaten them at a neighbour’s house added in chunks to a fig crumble (home bottled figs, no less) and their luscious, grainy texture stole the show.

For myself, I poached mine in cheap Vin Santo , filling the kitchen with a warm, heady fug and watching as the coarse rock-hard flesh softened and turned gloriously rosy.

Where to get them;
Good luck. They’re hard to find…

Mad Tom

17th January 2008

A hard frost is on the ground and mist is in the valleys, rising up from between the bald scrub oaks in whisps and spectres.
In the distance the milky mountains roll back like time, Umbria morphs into Tuscany and soon we are in Florence, waiting on the cold stone steps of Santa Maria del Carmine to see the Brancacci chapel.  It was on these steps that Michelangelo's nose was broken in a brawl. But that's another story, today we are here for 'Mad Tom', Masaccio.

The Brancacci frescoes were commisioned in 1424 by the Brancaccis, a family of wealthy Florentine silk merchants.  It was while working on these frescoes that the 22 year old Masaccio began to really shine, usurping his teacher (Masolino) and emerging as a compelling talent.  His desolate depiction of Adam and Eve howling in their nakedness as they are cast out into the world is worth the ticket price alone.

In the panel 'St Peter Enthroned', Masaccio has painted himself as one of the figures to the right of the throne.  He stares boldly out as he touches St Peter's hem for luck, a luck that could not save him as he was to die just 3 years later. But it's more than a signature, it is a brazen flourish of humanity. It says "Look at me. I did this wonderful thing. I was here".

Masaccio never completed his paintings in the chapel and, in a shift of politics, the Brancaccis were exiled.  50 years later, after the dust had settled and long after Masaccio's death, the artist Fillipino Lippi finished and 'restored' the frescoes.  It was a different kind of human emotion that prompted Lippi to paint out the arm that dared to touch the saint.  He would have had to look Masaccio in the eye as he worked and, I wonder, did that open, steady gaze trouble him as he applied the tempera? Did it disturb his dreams?   

The best thing I ate today;

Cavolo Nero

At this time of year I always feel the urge to gorge on dark green veg. Maybe it's a kind of detox, an antidote to the excesses of December.  Kale or spinach will do, but best of all is the 'king of cabbages', Cavolo Nero.

Its tightly crinkled, black/green leaves look so enticing when sold in large frosty bundles on the market stall in Chiusi.  I lug them home and use a long sharp knife to separate the leaves from the central stem. The deep, sweetly pungent flavour is full of 'brassic' goodness.  I have been toying with the idea of cooking them with lots of garlic and stiring the resulting puree into wet, creamy polenta (River Cafe Green) as a sort of yin/yang/flavour/colour thing.

But maybe it's best not to mess, as it's hard to beat the joy of cooking it in it's simplest form.  All you need to do is boil until 'al dente', drain well, slug in the olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper, and pile the dark glistening leaves around a couple of plump and spicy susages or any sticky roast.  Then, open a bottle of good red wine and invite me round for supper.

New Year

12th January 2008

New Year and a time to reorganise, revitalise and prioritise. First of all (and most importantly), new boots - steel toe-caps, acid-proof, burn-proof, water-proof and rubbery. Next I have to start thinking about the year ahead. This is the big one and, if our project is going to work, we'll probably know by this time next year, so we have to get ourselves sorted. My job has now been split into two halves; morning and afternoons building (with new boots), and evenings trying to figure out how to use Dreamweaver and Flash to get our websites going (probably still in new boots). Not sure which is the hardest but, on balance, the frustrations of technology seem to outweigh those of a sledgehammer. My brain is being stretched and it doesn't like it.
Of course the antidote to all this is only about an hour away from us and is one of the reasons we are here. Florence.

Piazza della Signoria, Florence, at night.

We had to go over the Christmas period just to see what was going on and we weren't disappointed. The lights and the lighting proved to be as captivating and magical as we could have imagined, and even the children stayed the course with barely a murmur of discontent.
I haven't yet become used to, or complacent about, the fact that we are lucky enough to get onto the motorway a few miles from our house, and our choice of destinations, according to the big green signs, is as below. How could anyone grumble about that?

The stupidest thing I did today;
A new year and, so far, completely stupid-free.

Merry Christmas!

Panettone

23rd December 2007

The car is filled with the resinous smell of Christmas as the girls squash into either side of the still-netted and prickly tree. It is the end of the last school day before the long-awaited holidays and they are fizzing with excitement.

They bubble over with a jumble of chatter; bursts of song from their school Christmas Shows, jokes and gossip. They talk about the new boy, the naughty boy, the tall girl, the new friend, the favourite teacher, the homework, the party and the plans for the holidays.
Conversations with no beginnings and no ends, alive, fluid and full of laughter.
Marito and I fall silent, listening and smiling.
We are almost home when something strikes me, they are talking to each other in Italian.

The best thing I ate today;

Panettone.

Italy has gone Panettone crazy. These gaudily wrapped cakes are everywhere, and so appealing. There is something so splendid about the packaging that draws you in. Even if you’re not addicted to the rich, yeasty sweet bread, fragrant with vanilla and studded with sultanas and citrus peel, the festive allure of the box will surely get you every time.

As you might have guessed, I love a bit of panettone (and, by now, have probably eaten one too many). My favourites are the traditional fruited ones, although you can find the dome-shaped loaves, stuffed with all kinds of things; chocolate-chip, praline, tiramisu and even limoncello.
The prices vary enormously too, as much as €56.00 for a Father Christmas shape which, if you ask me, is a bit steep for what is, basically, an overblown currant bun. However, I did quite fancy the ‘Tachino d’Oro’, a large golden panettone, shaped like a turkey and stuffed up its rear end with custard. Now that would make a change for Christmas dinner.

Where to get them;
You can’t walk into a Supermarket in Italy without tripping over piles and piles of them.
There are many stories about how this dolce originated. My favourite, by far, is that many centuries ago this ‘pane’ (bread) was invented by a baker called ... wait for it ... Toni.

The digger

19th December 2007

I know I’m generalising, but little girls love dolls and little boys love diggers. By the age of 40, I honestly thought I had grown up and had gone beyond that stage of my life. I assumed it would be just mine and my friends’ children who would stare into the toyshop window and gaze in wonderment at the latest Barbie/Brat/Cindy/Winx club monstrosity, or the enormous remote-control yellow plastic crane.
And then today it arrived at our house – something so beautiful it almost took my breath away. A giant yellow digger. It makes holes the size of oil drums and as deep as you want, but I don’t really care what it does (even though after it has finished, our house should be able to survive the next millennium without moving even a fraction of an inch). It’s just how it looks that got me. It could be 50 or 60 years old, it might have dug ten thousand holes, but it’s Christmas, and I want it. I want Santa to somehow get it down the chimney and stick it under the tree with my name on it.

Many who look at this beast will never understand or appreciate its beauty, but one or two might and, for those one or two, you’re welcome to come over to my house on Boxing Day and have a play on my new digger. We can spend the day digging some unnecessary holes in the garden.

The stupidest thing I did today;
Letter to Santa

Cause to pause.

17th december 2007

It's now exactly a year to the day since we arrived here; naive, hapless, helpless and rather confused by the whole stressful process of moving to Italy from our comfortable and happy life in the UK. It obviously gives us cause to pause and to reflect on the year, but there would be too much to write and too much to repeat. So we have trawled through some of the images which have made this year memorable, and here they are, most of them. Make of them what you will...

The fog (part 2)

8th December 2007

Because you stop being able to see so far into the distance you are, consequently, more prone to reflect on your immediate surroundings; the house, the garden, the work done and, more importantly, the work still to be done. You live on an island, but only till about 10.30 when it always seems to disappear into blue skies and crispy coldness.

The extra moisture in the air brought by the fog also means that I am beginning to feel my age. I have tried all sorts of ways to hang on to my youthful good looks over the years, but there's no escaping that knee pain first thing in the morning. That's age, that is. After a fair amount of building work over the last 11 months, during which I have been careful to watch myself and to remember my mother always saying, "keep your back straight, bend your knees", ironically it was doing a little creative painting that finally did me in; overstretching,
in a t-shirt, as the light faded, as the cold descended...
I didn't want to be one of those people who's back went out more than they did, but at the moment the hot water bottles and ibuprofen are always at my side.

Fog in England only used to mean a slightly more treacherous drive to work but the drive through the suburban townscape where we lived wasn't ever inspiring enough to be much changed by not being able to see where you were going - here it seems to add an atmosphere and a quiet which can be quite wonderful, especially first thing in the morning. I'm usually quite happy to be the one to take the dog out at that time. He's the happiest one though - not sure why - maybe he knows something I don't, maybe he's just stupid or maybe he's been hanging on to that wee for so long...

Anyway it is a wonderful way to start the day, and to escape, albeit fleetingly, from the misery that is getting two warm little girls out of their beds to face the icy cold bathroom. The moans and screams shatter the silence and the reality of the day begins.

The stupidest thing I did today;
Overstretching, in a t-shirt, as the light faded, as the cold descended...

Homecoming

7th December 2007

Two little girls are glad to see me; brown eyes shining in squirrely faces, gappy smiles and vanilla flavoured sticky kisses. Marito, slightly weary but triumphant (smug even) after 10 days single parenting, is glad to see me. Tufo, wagging his entire doggy body, is glad to see me. Even the deaf cat manages a purr. I am back were I belong, back to fill the me-shaped space that has been waiting. Our house, standing on the hill, its lights glowing in the dusk, is glad to see me, and I am glad to be home.

Letter to Santa, just before it disappeared up the chimney

I have arrived to a house full of Advent calendars, letters to Santa and persistent requests to "Please get the crib out so that we can play with Baby Jesus".

There is always some debate about this as Marito feels it necessary to point out that baby Jesus should not strictly be in the crib until Christmas Day. However, as it is impossible to play the 'Baby Jesus and his Family' game without the main character, the small one and the tall one get their way. As usual.

The Three Kings - early and confused

The best thing I ate today;

Baked beans on toast.

If this was the best thing I ate today it must have been the best thing the girls had eaten for ages judging by the whoops of delight when I produced two tins of Heinz Baked Beans from my bag.

It's not immediately obvious, but there is an art to making the perfect beans on toast; the beans, Heinz of course, must not be too wet, they must be cooked on a high heat to reduce the syrupy tomato sauce to a beany sludge and then dolloped on to crisply toasted sliced white bread of the lowest possible quality which has been thickly smeared with enough butter to choke a horse. A few grinds of black pepper, maybe a dash of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce and there you have it. Delicious!

The fog (part 1)

3rd December 2007

The fogs have begun.

I used to watch football from Italy on Channel 4 in the 90's in England, and I was struck by how often you couldn't see one side of the pitch from the other, and also by how often players wore gloves and earmuffs. Now I am beginning to understand why, though I'm still a little perplexed by those earmuffs.

The view of Chiusi from the house as the fog begins to clear

The fogs bring with them a number of changes. The cold is the most obvious change, but it is so much colder than I had ever imagined. We fight over who does the washing up, because the sensation of plunging your hands into hot, soapy water is about as good as it gets here during the Winter. We have tried to increase the amount of heat we produce in the house but, as I now realise, it's not how much heat you produce, it's how much heat you lose that counts. We lose a lot, with our high, uninsulated ceilings making the sky above the house quite warm, but leaving us stone cold.

The back of the house in the fog, (photo taken by our friend George)

The days have a different rhythm now; starting with how to get warm in the morning, then the wood run begins, sometimes just schlepping it from one place to another, often chopping it into smaller sizes, always hoping it's the good stuff; not too young, not too wet, not too dry and, preferably oak. In the evenings it's all about keeping the fires going and, finally at bedtime, it's about retaining as much heat as possible until the next morning.

The wise heads around here use inside/outside thermometers to check whether or not you should have the doors and windows open as it's often warmer outside than inside in these big, draughty houses. However, wherever you go and whoever you spaek with, the conversation inevitably turns to heat, or cold, or heating, or insulation. Underfloor, solar, back boilers, wood burners, open fires, geo-thermal, the cost of having the roof done in euros, the cost of not having it done in degrees and unhappiness. It becomes the sole topic of conversation after olives and before Christmas.

The stupidest thing I did today;
Well, this was actually many years ago, but only really affected me today. I was reminded that I had once said that I would never wear thermal underwear...

Machiavelli

24th November 2007

Machiavelli spent a few nights, they say, at Castiglione del Lago, a beautiful little walled town on the shores of Lake Trasimeno, 15 minutes drive away from us. It juts out into the lake, in a shape that resembles the uvula at the back of your throat. No-one seems to like that analogy, but it is reasonably accurate and I'm sticking with it.

The view from the fort onto the lake at Castiglione Del Lago

Anyway, he stayed at the fort and, coincidentally, we live (and my children go to school) in the same Comune. So, with Machiavelli firmly in mind, I offered my voluntary services to the teachers at the school, expecting nothing more that a polite rebuff whilst, at the same time, hoping for a little more credibility when, next year, I offer an after-school Art club.

That was two weeks ago.

Today I found myself reading an English version of Charles Dickens', 'A Christmas Carol' to 53 eight year olds and 4 teachers in a tiny classroom, and more nervous than in any of my 15 years teaching Art in England. I have to help prepare them for their Christmas play and, because of my big mouth, also have to get stuck into the set decoration as well. Fortunately, in Italian schools the last day of term is Christmas Eve, so there is exactly one month to do it... what could possibly go wrong?

The stupidest thing I did today;

Bad one today.

I am a single dad/mum this week and one of my more peculiar duties was to sew the elastic on two new pairs of ballet shoes for the girls. All was going well until I was discovered by, none other than, our manly builder in mid-stitch!

There was nothing I could do - no amount of manly posturing or grunting could get me out of this one. Ten months of careful image-building lost in a single 'moment of madness'. He's probably still shaking his head now, though to be fair, I did a pretty good job with those bits of pink elastic and he may have been secretly impressed by my fine motor skills.

Driving in Italy - a guide.

21st November 2007