Tag: italy

Alphabetti Spaghetti

If I ever say I’m moving again, someone throw me in the lake. This last stage of the move here has been borderline crippling with exhaustion; let’s just say that at my age, dismantling one apartment after 21 years while moving carloads in my Fiat 500 (= not a lot of boxes), so I could then clear it out in time for its sale at the end of November, has been an absolute uphill slog. Each day I had to carry boxes down flights of stairs, across the garden and down a rough gravel slope to the carpark and repeat until the car is full. Then a 45 min each way drive and a car unload at the other end. I worked my ass off trying to get a couple of rooms decorated before the lorry arrived from England with all my things from my old home in East Sussex. Then the almighty business end of all of this started… the big unpack. In between there have been IKEA deliveries, several days of flat pack assembly (hell on earth with an Allen key) and a lot of swearing and hammering.

People think I’m insane because
I am frowning all the time.

Lyrics by: Michael Butler / Ozzy Osbourne / Tony Iommi / William Ward

However, huge apologies to Rosa Anna downstairs for her induction into the more flowery end of British vocabulary. The bastard washing machine blew up (more swearing), knocking out the electrics, and the mains box is almost as far away as the carpark in the other place. More swearing and up and down stairs until I got it sorted. New washing machine eventually arrived.

Lorry Armageddon

I’ve been sorting out a new kitchen as the current one is terrible and even the oven door doesn’t shut, and if you know how much I love to cook this is not good. Christmas day saw me nearly give up as I was trying to cook a chicken with a stool wedged against the oven door to keep it shut but add to that the dial is broken so it involves the use of a wrench and a hope that I’m not grilling food rather than roasting.

In the meantime, back and forth to the showrooms, buying paint, ordering a sofa and couple of cupboards. Back and forth… my life is like a never-ending plate of spaghetti, while I am slowly looking more and more like an extra from the Addams family. I give eye bags a run for their money. I’ve lost weight as would you believe painting a ceiling uses more steps than a walk in the woods. I’ve got blisters on my hands and bruises from holding the ceiling extender steady. 

When the tiredness becomes all consuming

I just now need to pace myself with the work and slowly settle into life by the lake. I also need to get my locks changed as one of my new neighbours keeps letting herself in for a chat. She’s an old lady, wears a thoroughly tacky tracksuit and whiffs of fags. She’s tiny, her name is Maria, and she needs little excuse to knock very quietly… whisper ‘permesso’ , literally means, ‘I have permission?’ And appear in my lounge, chatting away at me, usually about her old cat who pees down in the garages and under my entrance stairs, or she wanted to know when I am moving in, or when it’s my turn to pay for the lights on the path, what do I do for work. The list is endless, but there she is like a Swiss cuckoo clock, using my front door as a rotating entrance. I don’t mind. It’s actually very Italian and her curiosity for her new neighbour is funny. Another neighbour appeared last week, to tell me that the day before I’d left my garage light on, she seemed more interested in what I was doing to the place, no surprise there. She’s lovely and we chat over my veranda wall, as she is below my apartment. To be fair even the Amazon man has taken to letting himself through my security gate to leave parcels by my front door, and thinks it is hilarious to ask me random things in pidgin English. 

So, life is moving forwards in my new pad, and I’m unravelling all my possessions and finding them new homes, it is indeed like a plate of spaghetti with added swear words. Ironically, Italians find the concept of tinned spaghetti an anathema and more so a total food code violation, it’s almost worse than a cappuccino after 10.30am. The pasta aisles here in the supermarkets are front to back in the stores, every size and shape, fresh or dried and bags of Farina 00 if you make your own. I do miss some of the variety in good UK supermarkets, but the food here is way fresher and tastier, you just get used to shopping a little less and a little more often. 

Alphabetti Spaghetti

I’ve filed to change my residency in the new town and am now waiting for the rozzers to come round, unannounced (like everyone else …lol) to make sure I exist, and I am actually living here. Bureaucracy continues to be next level, I went to the comune to make my application, they’re closed on Wednesdays (who knew), so I went upstairs to sort out paying my refuse tax.  I knocked on the door which was open, and she asked me to wait outside, meanwhile her colleague walks past and told me to go in, as an open door means you can enter. But this was a ruse, as the refuse lady was on the phone, and her mate in the corridor started to laugh and tell her off for not being instantly available. She then proceeded to give me the door open/ shut protocol, while tutting at the refuse lady and eye rolling. After the comune cabaret you then have to go to the tip, (obvs also closed), to get your card, so I could start to shift the EU cardboard mountain on my veranda. Meanwhile I still have to switch my health card to the new area, I’ll save that experience extravaganza to next month.

I’ve also discovered during this whole process, that no one can pronounce my last name. it starts with an H which isn’t really pronounced here; hotel for instance is said like ‘otel. My name also contains a Y which strictly isn’t in the Italian alphabet, more difficulty … but my Christian name is, to all intents and purposes, Italian. They breathe a sigh of relief while skirting around my surname. 

With that, I need some carbs and am off to eat some pasta. 

Fino alla prossima volta

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River Deep, Mountain High

Having spent the last 6 months living in the mountains, overlooking a large flat plain and river, while seeing how the majority of Umbrians in this area, work the land for food and resources. Right now, the olives are being harvested, a really bad year after a long, hot and dry summer. Also, people are out collecting and chopping wood and building huge piles outside their homes, ready for the winter home fires. Italy, doesn’t have its own natural gas resources, so winter energy bills can be high here, which is why so many have wood burners. But it is fuel of another sort that my story today is about. It’s about a brown coal called lignite and a young local man, earlier last century.

That vast plain that I look down on, and drive across most days, was once… well actually I need to go back further than a little bit, in fact a bloody long way back, to 1.8 million years ago, in the Pliocene Era. It was from this time period and the breaking down of plant matter that a huge presence of lignite, a type of brown fossil coal, settled into seams on what is now, that valley floor near Perugia. Lignite was to become so important in the region and wider parts of Italy as a fuel, so much so that in 1925 it was a justified expense to build the first power plant in Pietrafitta. By 1958 a new power plant, called “City of Rome”, including vast almost War of the Worlds looking excavators were deployed to remove the layers of soil and rock, so that an open cast lignite mine could be worked.

One of the huge dredging machines, used to clear the lignite mines.

But this isn’t so much about the coal mine, but about one particular man, who was sent to work in the mine after his father was killed in WWII. His name was Luigi Boldrini, he was around 14 years old and he suddenly had to be the bread winner for his family. At first Luigi worked in the mine, but as he got older, he was given more responsibility and put in charge of running one of the huge rock and earth moving machines. By this time, he was assistant mine foreman, when one day he noticed something that wasn’t the usual rock debris or coal, when he stopped what he was doing and went to look he discovered a huge fossilised mammoth tusk. 

Mammoth Tusk on display at the Paleontology Museum

Mammoths were once very prevalent in the area and they had lived from about 2 million years ago to 9,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age (the Pleistocene Epoch). Just for super quick time referencing, the Pliocene lasted from around 5.333 million to 2.58 million years ago. It marked the beginning of the transition from a warm, moist climate (perfect coal making conditions) to the more fluctuating and cooler conditions of the Pleistocene, and saw the first appearances of early human species such as Australopithecus and Homo habilis. Ironically that flat plain was also the site of a large battle between Attila the Hun and Italians in the 440’s AD, he famously arrived on an elephant, only his elephant survived that battle and most of his troops including Attila died of the diseases they caught along the way. Those plains have seen elephants in both their prehistoric and historic forms.

For to march and drill

Over field and hill

Is a military goal

Lyrics by: J.Pat O’Malley – ‘Colonel Hathi’s March’

(With apologies, you try and find a decent song about elephants or even mammoths.)

But back to the main story; Luigi stopped what he was doing and went to the mine office to report what he had found and ask that they stop excavating the coal in that area just while it could be safely retrieved. The mine was hugely important for keeping not only Umbria going, but also Rome. The mine office said no, and get back to work.

Historical photo of the Pietrafitta Lignite Mine.

But Luigi, thank the fossil gods up there, did everything he could to save the tusks. Taking time after his long shifts to dig them out and save what he could. But he kept on finding more and so he worked most nights looking for and removing what he could find and save. He even built iron frames to support the tusks and stored all the fossils carefully on racking in his own garage. This went on for years, and sometimes if he found larger remains, he would pour concrete over it to protect it from mine machinery, and come back later with friends to tip it over and bring it to his garage.

Mammoth Tusks still set in their concrete cocoon, cast by Boldroni

Years later when the mine company had wised the f*ck up and stopped being historical saboteurs, they began to allow the retrieval of remains. Sadly, by then, Luigi had died. But his legacy, his unbelievably unprecedented amount of work, dedication and fascination for what he found was not in vain. There is now a Paleontological Museum named after him, with all the fossils he found, including the upside-down ones, cast in cocoons of concrete, their contents too fragile and valuable to risk separating from the cement. Here in the museum, you can even see the iron frames he so carefully designed and forged.

His paleontological collection is displayed alongside that of the University of Perugia and the Umbrian Museums Department, his finds are considered a flagship of national paleontology and one of the most important in Europe, with current analysis looking at one of those mammoth tusks – from what is now known to be the largest mammoth in Europe, and possibly the world. It is an absolute whopper. 

Over all those years, Luigi found thousands of fossils belonging to many animal species, such as fish, amphibians, birds, bears, rhinos and elephants, monkeys, turtles and several species of deer, including an unknown species and many more. Findings of seeds, leaves and shells were also included, as well as that precious collection of Mammoths, the Mammuthus Meridionalis.

Mammoth Teeth

A few years ago, an underground car park was being dug out for a local shopping centre, and they found more mammoth remains, this time, they had learned their lesson and work was stopped while they were carefully removed and preserved. 

I guess for me, his story began with such sadness at the loss of his father, and having to work so hard at such a young age. But his discovery and his tenacity in searching for, and preserving his finds, makes him nothing short of a hero. I studied paleontology as part of my degree and its importance as a science and historical reference point is incredible. He had no training but he knew the fossils were worth the hours of hard work and preservation, and he has left a ground-breaking legacy behind him. 

One of the original iron frames, forged by Boldroni to support a mammoth tusk.

“I brought them back to see the sky and the Pietrafitta plain, where a million years ago they passed and grazed.”

Luigi Boldroni. 

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A Sign of the Times

An Otterly Brilliant Sign

I’ve always loved a good signpost, I think it’s the geographer in me, that loves maps and navigating and they’re all wrapped up together. That and my ironical innate sense of any direction, makes them vital markers in my brain. The word ‘sign’ itself is derived from the Latin signum, meaning “mark” or “signal’. But signs aren’t just about the ones telling you the train is coming, to stick to the footpath, how many miles it is to the next town, or when to turn left. They can be as vital as sign language or even those small things that you see and then interpret; the look on someone’s face, their tone of voice or that they are always late, return your calls on time, always know what to say … the list is endless. We all have our little markers in life those signals, that tell us what we feel we need to know or understand. Star signs, a white feather, road signs, up in the bloody air signs, they are all around us. Hearing your neighbours arguing continually through the walls, can be a sign it’s time to move house, or the summer waft of grilling burgers may be your sign that as a barbecue enthusiast, you have landed on your upturned burger bun-loving feet. 

But what are my signs? Well for one, I’ve been thinking a lot of a friend of mine lately, she died a few years ago of the unmentionable C-word, she was a life force and my lasting memory of her is dancing on the stage at the Breast Cancer fashion show, while Tony Christie belted out “Is this the way to Amarillo.’ But more than that, she loved rainbows, and since she’s gone whenever I see a rainbow I feel she’s here giving me a little sign. She was hugely encouraging, when I first started seriously thinking of moving to Italy, and her fierce bravery for life is one in which I often seek comfort. 

For Rachel

The seasons here in Umbria are shifting, a couple of storms later and while it is still toasty in the high 20’s during the day, the mornings up here in the mountains are swathed in mist, making it seem like I’m living in the clouds. It’s quite beautiful and worth getting up early to witness.

But it’s a sign that winter is coming and cooler nights (hallelujah) and finally I can think about wearing the jeans I brought with me 5 months ago.  But those few rainy days, brought some stunning rainbows, and if I needed it, a sign that I am where I am meant to be.  The fields that were full of sunflowers in June are drying and being harvested, another sign of shifting daylight hours as those golden heads darken and droop. Did you know sunflowers are a sign of our condition of being?

And weirdly for some reason I’ve been feeling more anxious lately, the purchase of the apartment I am buying is seemingly endless with complications. I’ve never moved house, without there being some delay, major stress or nightmare survey, I am sure this has played a part, too many bad experiences. While this one isn’t falling into that pot exactly, I’ve noticed that I’ve begun to check my phone a lot, for any updates or replies, and how that’s been making me feel, tense and worried. Time is ticking along. That was my sign to find a way to relax, so while I still had my phone in my hand, I booked myself into a hot spring spa about an hour away in Tuscany for an afternoon of relaxing. The last few months have been fun but also exhausting; navigating bureaucracy in another language that I am far from fluent in, but also solo. We all need to pay attention to those signs that it’s time to switch off, and I had a super afternoon for the sum total of 29 Euros, floating in hot natural springs. It was fabulous. 

A Sign to Relax

Italians seem to love signs to the point of oblivion and confusion. Pretty much every road junction and bend in the highway is cluttered with a stack of often conflicting signposts, don’t get me started on when there are two facing opposite ways for the same thing. But my point here is don’t let those signs in your head stack up like a mad Italian crossroads, listen to them as they are rarely ever wrong. 

Sign, sign

Everywhere a sign

Blockin out the scenery

Breakin’ my mind

Do this, do that

Can’t you read the sign?

Song and Lyrics by – Five Man Electrical Band

PS If you need a sign to go exploring one night in the dark, drive up to that hilltop and wait for the lunar eclipse to appear through the soft clouds on the horizon. This is my sign to you to not miss those experiences. 

Lunar Eclipse over Perugia

PPS This could be your sign to ask me to do some content writing for you, I can be reached at writeupymystreet@btinternet.com

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Augustus, Hot Augustus

The arrival of August in Italy sees the approach of one its biggest holidays, namely, the 15th August, or Ferragosto. The term itself, Ferragosto, comes from the Latin term, Feriae Augusti or Augustus Holidays. Back in 18 BC, the then emperor Augustus, decided to create a public holiday, to not only glorify his name into history, by naming it after himself, but also to give the empire’s workers a well-deserved day off, after months of hard labour in the fields. 

The First Roman Emperor, Augustus.

Back then, people would pass by their patrons houses to greet them, collecting a small tip for their troubles, before heading to one of the many horse races held across the Roman Empire – one of the most famous and indeed oldest, still survives today  – the bi-annual palio in Siena. (James Bond fans will recall the palio featuring at the start of The Quantum of Solace.)

Siena’s Bi-annual Palio

While the empire’s horses didn’t enjoy the day off, its other beasts of burden did. Oxen, donkeys and mules were temporarily relieved from carrying all the heavy shit about, and decorated with flowers and garlands—usually a sign of their imminent sacrifice (this was the start of the Roman Empire, and we all know how things panned out for the Christians a bit later on), but on this occasion donkeys were a welcome addition.

Ferragosto however, was not traditionally held on August 15th but on August 1st (the first day of the month that Augustus himself introduced). It was the Catholic Church that pushed the event back in the calendar so that it coincided with the Assumption of Mary. Assumption Day is now a public holiday in many countries where they have strong roots in Catholic or Orthodox traditions.  But while the Feast of the Assumption was introduced in the 5th century by Bishop Cyril of Alexandria, it was not until the 6th century that the tradition was adopted by the Eastern Church and recognised by the Western Church as a Holy Day of Obligation. I digress a little, but just to wrap that bit of history in an appropriate loin cloth.

Ferragosto during the Fascist Period

It doesn’t end there, Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime popularised the tradition of travelling during Ferragosto, implementing the idea through corporate ‘associazioni dopolavoristiche’ (‘After-Work Associations’, which controlled the after-work activities of Italy’s workforce).

From 1925 onwards, Mussolini’s regime organised hundreds of trips to Italy’s major cities as well as its coastlines and mountains, facilitating travel for Italy’s working classes through heavily discounted train fares. Valid on the 13th, 14th and 15th of August, the offer consisted of two options: one-day travel within a radius of 100km or three-day travel within a radius of 200km.

The ‘Popular Trains’ of Ferragosto

In terms of kickstarting domestic Italian tourism, the initiative was a roaring success. Many Italian families were able to visit the artistic cities of Venice, Florence, Rome and Naples for the first time while landlocked families were able to visit the coast; and families living on the coast were able to venture into the mountains. It really was a great idea put into practice on a national scale.

Today in true Italian style, and remember this is a nation for whom a 3 hour lunch break is a ‘religion’ not to be tampered with, Ferie as it has now become known, extends for at least half if not all of August. Even the banks are on short hours, I kid you not and many businesses close altogether to give their staff a chance to head to the seaside with their friends and families. If you go to Rome on the 15th August, you will find it as quiet as it can be, as most Romans are out of town, laying on their towels or sun loungers, basking in the cooler mountain air, having a stiff Aperol or chilled glass of wine. 

As this is the first time I have been in Italy for the entire month, I’ve noticed that literally every town and village, no matter how small or large are having parties and festivals. These get advertised, if they are well organised, on Facebook, or even just with a poster papered to lampposts and town notice boards, right next to the funeral and birth notices. Every night the sound of Euro music beats out across the countryside, fireworks blast upwards into the night sky and endless piles of Italian street food are scoffed. Everything from prog rock, 80’s disco to Italian classics are go, vans serving porchetta and torta di testa, (an Umbrian flat bread, filled with pretty much anything) can be found in the hands of hungry locals. 

But for me the atmosphere and the holiday/party vibes of unbelievable conviviality have stuck in my mind for ever, seared in with the heat that has been this summer; which has included fire breathing acrobatics, alongside old-fashioned fairs, parades and food as far as the eye can see. They embrace August, just like the first Roman emperor intended and they’ve rolled out the 15th into the entire month, of their summer holiday season.  

My nearest local hill town is small, around 500 inhabitants, they had a week long festa, with a parade of medieval costumes, music until 1am or later each night and some serious food carts.  They embodied one of the reasons I wanted to move here to live, their passion for fun and celebrations, while respecting history and tradition.  It rained heavily at the weekend, along with a stunning and loud storm, but nothing that would dampen the Italian holiday spirit. Tonight, I am off into town for skewers of fish kebabs, a cup of wine and a band playing into the night. Happy August wherever you are. 

Spegni le luci della città

Cosi che il cielo s’illumina

Balliamo l’ultima volta, ma

Lyrics & Song by Cesare Cremonini

(Turn off the city lights, So that the sky lights up, Let’s dance the last time)

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Vroom, Boom, Boom, Boom

Am drifting back to an earlier Clint inspired post here, but you know when you watch an old spaghetti western, when the desert heat is palpable in those hot, dusty and sweat drenched, exhausted faces; that lingering quiet in the highest temperature of midday, just as a dried husk of tumbleweed rolls and bounces past. 

Well, in case you’d not been reading the news, Italy is in the midst of an unprecedented heatwave since early June. It’s normally not this hot until mid-July, but day after day it’s been hitting the 40s centigrade or very close. Your skin feels like the moisture is being desiccated by the second and on top of that the mosquitoes have been out in force. My back looks like a join the dots map of Italy and I’ve been eyeing the spare cheese grater as a means to reach those places in the middle of your back, you know the ones where only those with arms like an orang-utan could have a hope of reaching. 

Mosquitoes, the world’s most pointless insect after wasps.

Once the sun sets and the air cools a few meagre degrees, windows are opened to let in any semblance of cool night air. I’ve got a fan running non-stop to keep my two cats at a comfortable temperature. Although after one of them took to sleeping in the bidet I bought her a pet cool mat.   On the upside my laundry bill is minimal as unless you are going out, seriously who wants to wear anything more than the essentials in this heat. 

In other news I’ve been sweating my way through appointments at the local municipality office as I went through applying for Italian residency, while on the other side of the security screen there is a whirring A/C, my face is dripping. I’m literally sweating like a nervous dog. But some good news, I am now officially a resident here, and one step closer to Italian health care and have been able to sack off hiring a car and buy one. Having finally stopped getting rinsed each month, I’ve splashed out and bought a little Fiat 500 in pale blue. I am pretty sure Avis are glad to see the back of me, as two weeks ago I was driving down the hair pin bends from my apartment to the main road below when an old man was coming the other way and didn’t see me swerving out the way or honking my horn like a loon, and smashed into the front of my car. My driver’s side door wouldn’t open, my leg was whacked against the steering column (nothing cut or broken so phew…) and I now have a smashing (‘scuse the pun) bruise and a bump on my shin. But thank the car hire gods for reminding me to take the extra insurance as all covered, as it was close to a write off. I had a few days of feeling the shock and felt a bit wobbly inside, but I spent the weekend making deserts for a friend’s barbecue and helping out with the catering at a pizza party, which helped to take my mind off it all. 

Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza (which was divine)

I’ve also been house hunting and had found a lovely apartment made an offer which wasn’t accepted but was told the owner would only take full price. So, I upped it and then he decided he couldn’t be arsed to sell and took it off the market (silent inward screaming).  

Back to the drawing board… and I found a little Cielo-Terra (means sky – earth) in a hill town. About 500 years old and restored, lovely … however, the ground floor rooms were so damp the plaster was coming off, the owner is an architect so he should know better but he not only hadn’t got permission for all the alterations he’d done to a very historic building, but he’d also neglected to get a certificate of habitability. We all know what happened next… back to the drawing board. 

I’ve now found another apartment near the lake here in Umbria, and the other day got the magnificent news that my offer has been signed and accepted and should be moving in late September. It needs a good decorate and freshen up, but I will have all the time to do it up and make it home.  I will be sitting on that veranda with the lake in the distance having a well-deserved Aperol.

Lake Trasimeno

It’s 3 months since, I arrived, and it’s been baking hot, tiring and at times bewildering; the cats are slowly accepting the new billet, (little do they know we’re moving again) and Jack as per the pic below, has taken to sleeping in the bidet when it gets super hot.

But my Italian is slowly improving thanks to weekly lessons, and I have not once regretted coming here and taking that enormous leap. So, you could say, car crashes aside, Italy so far has my heart.

Ricordo ancora il suono: “Click, boom, boom, boom”
Senti il mio cuore, fa così: “Boom, boom, boom”

Lyrics By Rose Villain

(I still remember the sound, Click, boom, boom, boom

Feel my heart, it goes like this, boom, boom, boom)

————————————-

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Vivere Senza Paura

(Live without fear) This post has been a very long time in the making, not just typing it out and composing the words but also having it quite certain, or as certain as it can be in my head. I’ll take you back a few years first; About 21 years ago I bought a little apartment in Italy, it’s part of a 12th Century castle and it’s all it should be with beams, tiled floors, a leaky toilet cistern, a fireplace and a view out onto a garden filled with lavender, rosemary and olive trees. I can still remember the first time I saw the place; I was with a friend from work who had come along with me on my viewing trip to Umbria. We drove around some winding mountain roads and as we turned a corner, to one side was a stunning medieval hill town with the valley in the distance, perched on top of a rocky outcrop, like something other worldly, but to the other side, was a tiny bell tower on top of a hill. 

That bell tower, built by Franciscan monks and housing a bell brought from Rhodes (so the story goes) belonged to the castle, and it was a little more than love at first sight (rose tinted specs went right out the window). It all began even further back, following a short lived marriage and once the dust settled on the divorce papers, I realised I needed to make some kind of future proof investment. Or at least buy part of a castle in Italy. I opted for the latter. Every year since, apart from the unmentionable joy that was Covid, I have been over at least once. It was the first place I wanted to be once I’d recovered from breast cancer and not surprisingly after a couple of years of more recent life ups and downs, the place I want to be at most of all. It has something magical about it, it rebalances my brain and rebolsters my supply of shoes. I’ve been there enough now to have chucked the pink tinged glasses in the bin and stopped a long time ago from wondering why the DIY shops are shut on Saturday lunchtimes, when surely that’s when they do most business. I only needed telling once, ‘well they have to eat’ was the stellar reply. A country where they take their food seriously and also use, believe it or not very few fresh ingredients to create some of the best food in the world. Plus also, of course some lyrical inspiration from George.

‘In the absence of security, I made my way into the night’ – George Michael

And so, I made an enormous and life changing decision to move to Italy, for good. I completed on the sale of my house last month, loaded everything apart from a car full of luggage plus my cats, into a lorry and moved myself into a little flat for a couple of weeks while the cats underwent all their EU vaccinations and AHC’s. Then, we boarded LeShuttle and started a 2 ½ day, one way, road trip to Umbria. I had my last hair cut at the salon I’ve been going to for over 20 years, said goodbye to friends and family (who I am fully expecting to visit asap) and we headed into what was to be one of many tunnels. Night one was in Nancy, a fairly basic hotel, I just about fitted my case and two cats in. Zero sleep that night, and the next day dragged into a further series of tunnels as we snaked our way across that corner of France. The Vosges mountains couldn’t be dented by the rain and drizzle as we crossed into Switzerland. Weirdly Switzerland isn’t what I expected, or at least all the bits I saw. More or less every valley was occupied by a pharmaceutical factory, these things are vast and the towns were less than idyllic, that is until we swung through the last of the next batch of (yes, you’ve guess it…) more tunnels.  I also discovered the role of being in the front passenger seat in a RHD vehicle; you’re chief in charge of toll booth tickets and payments. 

Somewhere in Switzerland

Since arriving it has been to say the least a week of unexpected light and the sadness of the death of Pope Francis. Let’s hope the next one fills his well-worn shoes, I won’t say who my Euros are on, in case I jinx it.

Conclave starts on May 7th.

I’ve made a restart (after last summer) on house or flat hunting, seen a few definite no’s and one possible contender. The cats are slowly settling in, although living in a medieval castle is at times quite noisy, all those hard terracotta tiled floors carry every sound from your neighbours. One of the cats keeps hiding in the wardrobe while the other is a little braver and has realised, she can jump off my hand painted cupboard and land squarely on my bladder first thing in the morning. The spring festivals are underway and so far, cheese, tulips and asparagus, plus I found the most amazing fresh pasta shop; waddled home with a bag full. 

They say you should follow your dreams; life is too short, and you only live once… you know all the rest. For most of us we say these things and don’t do it, or at least not in any way that truly constitutes following a dream. But I’ve sailed too close to death myself and lost too many others, wondering what is coming next, to hesitate anymore over what has on one side been a tortuous 10 months of selling, decluttering and getting rid of over half my possessions, not to mention an awful lot of shoes, while on the other looking forward to a life in Umbria.  Time can be a storm in which we allow ourselves to be lost, but it can also be one that brings us joy, gelato, homemade pasta and all the Aperol’s. I’m going with the latter. 

And to end appropriately with a quote from one of my most favourite songs;

Ah, might as well jump (jump!)
Go ahead and jump
Might as well jump (jump!)
Go ahead and jump

By: E & A Van Halen & David Lee Roth

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