I felt rather sad when I woke up this morning and realised it was my last day here in Italy. The thought of entering the real world again makes me a little anxious. It feels like I’ve been bouncing around in a magical bubble for the past week and I'm not sure I want it to end. Still, I have another 12 hours to enjoy on Italian soil and we're at the beach again, so I'm in the right place. It’s another sweltering day, and my face feels a little burnt, so we’re sheltering on a shady terrace whilst eating lemon ice lollies.
The sea and the sky are exactly the same colour today; a rich cornflower blue. The water is as smooth as a billiards table and there’s not a cloud in the sky.
Last night we drove into Pescara to pick Carol up from the airport. We’d just entered the outskirts of the town when she texted to say she’d missed her plane. Heaven knows how! Fortunately, she managed (at great expense) to get herself on today’s flight, which means we’ll literally cross over at the airport.
We decided to stay in Pescara to see what the city had to offer - not a great deal as it happens, although we did find a rather charming mesh of narrow streets near the port that were buzzing with cafes, bars and bohemian young Italians. It reminded me of a cross between the streets of Rome, and Camden Town. Bands were playing live on a small open air stage outside one of the restaurants. We ate pizzas, and Julie was eaten alive by mosquitoes. There aren’t many advantages to being hairy, but not being bitten by mozzies would appear to be one of them. Sadly, my pizza was a bit too sloppy. I opted for one with mushrooms, which had turned into a tofu-like mush.
We went to a supermarket two days ago and I brought Nathan a little bag of Italian sweets, nicely wrapped with a lovely bow. I was incredibly pleased with them. They were little jelly sweets shaped like blackberries and raspberries. I absentmindedly left them in the boot of the car, whilst we were at the beach, and almost wept when I returned to discover that they’d entirely melted; literally turned into a bag of coloured water. For a brief moment I wondered if they might somehow magically turn back into sweets again when they cooled down, but realised almost instantly that the game was up. Very sad. Nathan has instructed me to take them (or “it” as they’ve now become) home with me. He said we can suck them out of the bag. At least the little ribbon hasn’t melted!
350 years ago, and Pepys was up at the crack of dawn, riding to London on horseback. He travelled with a venison seller, who he’d met on his journey from Cambridge to Baldock the previous day. They rested at Hatfield, and took a look at the great house there. Pepys wanted to steal a very pretty dog that was following him around, but thought better of the idea. He returned to London and found all was well, although was somewhat troubled that there was still no news from Sandwich, who was, we assume, still somewhere between England and Portugal on his mission to bring Catherine de Breganza to Charles II.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Throwing shadows on your saxophone
Last night we went to a hill-top village called Cellino Atanasio to listen to a saxophone quartet playing various pieces of music from the (somewhat limited) saxophone repertoire. Rather inevitably their set list included music by Gershwin and Monk, but also highlights from The Barber of Seville, which felt like quite a treat. Italian music played by Italians...
It was a concert like nothing I'd ever be able to see in the UK. The players performed under two floodlights outside a municipal building at the very top of the village whilst the audience surrounded them on uncomfortable little plastic chairs which had been scattered willy-nilly across a lawn. Above our heads were lines of brightly coloured ribbons which had been stretched, like a giant maypole, from the top of the municipal building to a wall behind us.
The atmosphere was terrific. It started when it started – probably about 45 minutes after the billed time – and children periodically wriggled out of their plastic seats and danced in front of the musicians. The quartet finished with a rendition of a song from Life is Beautiful, and the audience, en masse started softly humming along, which in retrospect was a rather beautiful moment.
At one point a big Dulux dog came and sat next to me and demanded a bit of fuss. I don’t think I’ve ever stroked a dog before, whilst watching a classical music concert, but I very much enjoyed the experience.
The quartet themselves weren’t brilliant. They were perfectly able players, but as an ensemble weren’t quite as tight as they might have been. The bari-sax player had both rhythmic and technical problems, and the tenor sax player had a few tuning issues. But it didn’t matter. We were sitting at the very top of a beautiful Italian village, looking out across the dark, velvety world. The little sequin stars above us mirrored the lights of a thousand tiny houses stretching for 15 miles towards the coast.
And what of Pepys? Well, 350 years ago, he was still in Huntingdon, drinking much of the morning with Thomas Trice. He went back to Brampton at lunchtime, where his father seemed genuinely shocked to see his son slightly drunk. I'm hugely surprised to read that it was the first time Pepys’ father had seen him in that particular state, particularly as they regularly shared a “morning draught” together. I can only assume that Pepys was utterly hammered, and that this was not the done thing...
Pepy had lunch to soak up the alcohol, before taking a horse back to London – arriving in Baldock, where he marvelled at the pretty church, and spent the night in a local tavern. The landlady, we’re told, was a pretty woman, but Pepys didn’t pay her any attention because her husband was looking on. I'm sure she was more than a little relieved!
It was a concert like nothing I'd ever be able to see in the UK. The players performed under two floodlights outside a municipal building at the very top of the village whilst the audience surrounded them on uncomfortable little plastic chairs which had been scattered willy-nilly across a lawn. Above our heads were lines of brightly coloured ribbons which had been stretched, like a giant maypole, from the top of the municipal building to a wall behind us.
The atmosphere was terrific. It started when it started – probably about 45 minutes after the billed time – and children periodically wriggled out of their plastic seats and danced in front of the musicians. The quartet finished with a rendition of a song from Life is Beautiful, and the audience, en masse started softly humming along, which in retrospect was a rather beautiful moment.
At one point a big Dulux dog came and sat next to me and demanded a bit of fuss. I don’t think I’ve ever stroked a dog before, whilst watching a classical music concert, but I very much enjoyed the experience.
The quartet themselves weren’t brilliant. They were perfectly able players, but as an ensemble weren’t quite as tight as they might have been. The bari-sax player had both rhythmic and technical problems, and the tenor sax player had a few tuning issues. But it didn’t matter. We were sitting at the very top of a beautiful Italian village, looking out across the dark, velvety world. The little sequin stars above us mirrored the lights of a thousand tiny houses stretching for 15 miles towards the coast.
And what of Pepys? Well, 350 years ago, he was still in Huntingdon, drinking much of the morning with Thomas Trice. He went back to Brampton at lunchtime, where his father seemed genuinely shocked to see his son slightly drunk. I'm hugely surprised to read that it was the first time Pepys’ father had seen him in that particular state, particularly as they regularly shared a “morning draught” together. I can only assume that Pepys was utterly hammered, and that this was not the done thing...
Pepy had lunch to soak up the alcohol, before taking a horse back to London – arriving in Baldock, where he marvelled at the pretty church, and spent the night in a local tavern. The landlady, we’re told, was a pretty woman, but Pepys didn’t pay her any attention because her husband was looking on. I'm sure she was more than a little relieved!
Friday, 5 August 2011
Like some kind of magic, like the light in Italy
Another day spent almost exclusively on the beach, soaking up hours of glorious orange sunlight. As a result, there’s very little else to say. We went to a hypermarket first thing and I had a great deal of fun browsing through countless aisles in search of bizarre-looking food. I have a passion for foreign supermarkets. I find them intriguing. I love the smells, and the colourful packages with strange and amusing names. We had a German teacher at school who had a large box in her cupboard filled with bottles and cans and magazines from Germany. She brought them out when we were doing role plays, so we could learn what to say when we were lucky enough to visit a restaurant in Germany. For some reason, the roll plays always started “Herr Ober,” which surely can’t be a phrase they use these days. Anyway, the cans and tubes were all similar to the ones we had in England, but different enough to properly fire the imagination of an 11-year old, and an obsession with foreign supermarkets was born...
I’ve been missing Nathan very much today. It’s so wonderful out here, and so relaxing, that I wish he were here to share it with me. I'd like him to spend some time with a peaceful Benjamin who isn’t trying to do a million things at once. It’s strange, on that note, to think that the holiday is nearly over. I could probably do with another week to properly recharge the batteries, but, with any luck, this dose of sun should see me through a few months. I just need to be careful not to hit London in a rush hour for at least a few days after my return.
The beach is particularly lovely at this time of day. It’s about 7pm, the shadows are lengthening and everything is turning the colour of golden syrup. Even the crests of the breaking waves are a shade of pinky-orange. There is, without doubt, a magical light in Italy.
Monday 5th August 1661, and Pepys travelled from Cambridge to Huntingdon. It was raining rather badly, so he borrowed a coat from a man who was riding with him, and paid him 6d for his kindness. He went to Brampton and found his father there, looking well. His aunt had already away vacated the house. Keen readers will remember that she’d been given 10l to sling her hook when her husband died, and Pepys was, yet again, complaining about the financial inconvenience of this act of "kindness". He spent the rest of the day in the villages around Brampton, visiting various relatives and sorting bits of business. He returned to a "quiet" house - no aunt, you see, busying about, whinging about the death of her husband and demanding money from anyone who would listen. I don't know... these grieving widows, eh?
I’ve been missing Nathan very much today. It’s so wonderful out here, and so relaxing, that I wish he were here to share it with me. I'd like him to spend some time with a peaceful Benjamin who isn’t trying to do a million things at once. It’s strange, on that note, to think that the holiday is nearly over. I could probably do with another week to properly recharge the batteries, but, with any luck, this dose of sun should see me through a few months. I just need to be careful not to hit London in a rush hour for at least a few days after my return.
The beach is particularly lovely at this time of day. It’s about 7pm, the shadows are lengthening and everything is turning the colour of golden syrup. Even the crests of the breaking waves are a shade of pinky-orange. There is, without doubt, a magical light in Italy.
Monday 5th August 1661, and Pepys travelled from Cambridge to Huntingdon. It was raining rather badly, so he borrowed a coat from a man who was riding with him, and paid him 6d for his kindness. He went to Brampton and found his father there, looking well. His aunt had already away vacated the house. Keen readers will remember that she’d been given 10l to sling her hook when her husband died, and Pepys was, yet again, complaining about the financial inconvenience of this act of "kindness". He spent the rest of the day in the villages around Brampton, visiting various relatives and sorting bits of business. He returned to a "quiet" house - no aunt, you see, busying about, whinging about the death of her husband and demanding money from anyone who would listen. I don't know... these grieving widows, eh?
Thursday, 4 August 2011
See the light ram through the gaps in the land
Today we visited the Gran Sasso Mountains, which are the dark, ominous peaks you can see in the distance from Julie’s house. We set off in a rain shower and stopped off at a cash point in a little village en route. Julie, as ever, got chatting with one of the locals, a little old lady, who commented on the rain. Julie had meant to say; “do you think this rain will turn into thunderstorm?” but got her Italian words temporarily muddled up and actually asked, “do you think this rain will turn into an earthquake?” The old lady looked horrified and said very categorically that she didn’t think it would. When you consider that the village she was in is less than 50 km from Aquilla, which was ripped apart by an earthquake about two years ago, the beautiful irony of Julie’s mistake becomes comedy gold! Still, insult, or no insult, the little old lady would have been unlikely to smile. The old women here are universally fat, battle-axe-like and grumpy. It seems that the menopause in Italy is extremely unkind. Women go from being utterly beautiful, fashion-conscious sirens in their youth, to a apple-shaped harridans with jowly cheeks and badly dyed hair. We’ve started to play a game which is called, “see if you can make the Italian harridan smile.” Suffice to say that neither of us has yet won a point.
On the way to the Gran Sasso region, the motorway passes straight through the middle of a 3,000 metre mountain in the form of a 10 km tunnel, which is an extraordinary experience, made all the more remarkable by the James Bond-style exit right in the middle which takes you to an internal tunnel with tall metal gates which scream “unauthorised personnel only.” One assumes entry is granted by iris recognition or something, and that there’s a helipad right at the top of the mountain which allows the governments of war-torn countries and various top spies to simply disappear.
The mountains are breathtakingly beautiful, and at various moments I found myself close to tears. The air is remarkably soft and infused with the sweet smell of pine trees. Clouds cascade like waterfalls from the highest peaks. Above the tree line, the landscape becomes almost lunar, but hundreds of gloriously-coloured alpine flowers poke up through the yellow scrub-like grass and the piles of chalky scree.
We stopped many times to take photographs, and at one moment stood looking over a mountain-top pasture filled with scores of grazing cows, each with a little bell around its neck. The sound was spectacular, like a million miniature church bells ringing out from a city of rocks.
The road snakes higher and higher, and the perilous hair-pin bends with terrifying drops on either side, test even the finest drivers. At one point we passed a camera crew. Perhaps unsurprisingly they were filming an advert... for a car.
On our way back down the mountain we visited San Stefano di Sassanio; a hilltop village, which is, in part, carved into the very rock on which it perches. It’s a twisting mesh of medieval lanes and at one point, the street that we were walking along became an alleyway, which then became nothing but a rock face which we had to squeeze through before emerging into something that resembled a street again. They call it the Tibet of Italy.
Last night we went to an amazing pizza restaurant with Julie’s English friends. We had an absolute blast playing a game called Ratfink which involves a pack of cards and 5 spoons. It’s an extraordinarily aggressive game that was passed down to me, I think, by my mother. In any case, I’ve been playing it since I was very young. It brings back countless memories of sitting around our kitchen table back in Northamptonshire. It was exactly the right game to play in the pizza restaurant and I have seldom laughed so hard.
On the way to the Gran Sasso region, the motorway passes straight through the middle of a 3,000 metre mountain in the form of a 10 km tunnel, which is an extraordinary experience, made all the more remarkable by the James Bond-style exit right in the middle which takes you to an internal tunnel with tall metal gates which scream “unauthorised personnel only.” One assumes entry is granted by iris recognition or something, and that there’s a helipad right at the top of the mountain which allows the governments of war-torn countries and various top spies to simply disappear.
The mountains are breathtakingly beautiful, and at various moments I found myself close to tears. The air is remarkably soft and infused with the sweet smell of pine trees. Clouds cascade like waterfalls from the highest peaks. Above the tree line, the landscape becomes almost lunar, but hundreds of gloriously-coloured alpine flowers poke up through the yellow scrub-like grass and the piles of chalky scree.
We stopped many times to take photographs, and at one moment stood looking over a mountain-top pasture filled with scores of grazing cows, each with a little bell around its neck. The sound was spectacular, like a million miniature church bells ringing out from a city of rocks.
The road snakes higher and higher, and the perilous hair-pin bends with terrifying drops on either side, test even the finest drivers. At one point we passed a camera crew. Perhaps unsurprisingly they were filming an advert... for a car.
On our way back down the mountain we visited San Stefano di Sassanio; a hilltop village, which is, in part, carved into the very rock on which it perches. It’s a twisting mesh of medieval lanes and at one point, the street that we were walking along became an alleyway, which then became nothing but a rock face which we had to squeeze through before emerging into something that resembled a street again. They call it the Tibet of Italy.
Last night we went to an amazing pizza restaurant with Julie’s English friends. We had an absolute blast playing a game called Ratfink which involves a pack of cards and 5 spoons. It’s an extraordinarily aggressive game that was passed down to me, I think, by my mother. In any case, I’ve been playing it since I was very young. It brings back countless memories of sitting around our kitchen table back in Northamptonshire. It was exactly the right game to play in the pizza restaurant and I have seldom laughed so hard.
Atri
350 years ago, and Pepys’ day started in an orchard where he picked fruit with his cousin, Roger. They talked about their uncle’s will. It was still far from sorted, and would remain up in the air for some time to come. It was a Sunday, so they went to church, and the local peasants got rather excited to see gentlemen in their presence. Pepys was, as you’d expect, almost ecstatic with joy, so much that he went back again for the afternoon service. During an evening stroll, Roger Pepys told his cousin how worried he was about the state of things in Parliament. The younger MPs were, apparently, “the most profane, swearing fellows that ever he heard in his life.” They went to bed worrying that this roguish element would bring war to the country again. Hmm.... Tony Blair, anyone?
treacle light
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
So if the skies stay dark we may live on in comets and stars
Last night we visited a town in the mountains called Atri. It’s stunningly beautiful and filled to the brim with piazzas and ancient buildings, all of which have astonishing views over the alluvial plain which stretches down to the coast.
We went to a sort of festival. Each of the towns in the neighbourhood has an event once a year, where everyone heads onto the streets for singing, dancing and homemade grub.
I think we were all hoping that Atri’s fiesta would take place on the ancient streets around the old town square, and were fairly disappointed to find it in the car-park of a 1960s concrete hospital. It was, nevertheless, an eye-opening experience. As you enter the area, you go to a little man in a wooden hut, who gives you tokens for various types of food. A pasta dish is 5 euros, for example, and a salad is 2. You then walk along a line, trade in your tokens, and are served by various ladies from the village, who pile up your plastic plate with heaps of spaghetti, none of which, of course, are vegetarian. I think I ended up with a plate of tomatoes and a portion of chips. The food here is generally brilliant for vegetarians, but they do insist on flinging bits of old carcass at it!
You eat your food at trestle tables whilst a terrible bands plays oom-pah music on a stage. The singer was particularly awful. You could have reversed a lorry through her vibrato. The poor dear sounded like she was being fuelled by a series of bellows. To make matters worse, she looked like a 50 year old baby doll with blond ringlets and over-sized shoes. The Chuckle Brothers seemed to be accompanying her on accordion and keyboard. It was all highly parochial, and I loved every second.
We made our excuses and headed for the Old Town, listening to ABBA very loudly on the car stereo as we travelled. We sat in a lovely-looking restaurant outside the town’s theatre, and started to play game of cards. What we didn’t realise was that playing cards – or any form of gambling, in fact – requires a permit in Italy, so within seconds, the manager of the establishment had come over to ask us to stop what we were doing, which seemed absolute madness nd made me feel like a common criminal.
The lifestyle here is wonderful, however. At midnight there were still small children sitting with their parents in various cafes, and everything feels incredibly safe. There’s an antiques stall on one of the oldest streets, which is entirely al fresco. At the end of the evening, they simply cover over what they’re selling with a piece of tarpaulin, attached with a bit of gaffa tape in the corners. Anyone could come along and steel it... but they don’t.
On the way home, we stopped and looked over a wall at the top of the town. By day it's apparently one of the greatest views in the area. By night, it's a sea of tiny little white and orange lights shining like stars in an ink black sky. I found the experience inexplicably, yet overwhelmingly moving.
350 years ago, Pepys was up with the lark, and riding away from Ware in the driving rain. He travelled most of the way to Cambridge with a “letter-carrier” and arrived in the city feeling tired and wet. His horse was particularly exhausted. He dined with two of his cousins at Trinity Hall before heading to the Rose pub, where he stayed til late, drinking and laughing. He slept the night in a village outside Cambridge called Impington, and was given the best chamber in the house, which obviously pleased him greatly.
We went to a sort of festival. Each of the towns in the neighbourhood has an event once a year, where everyone heads onto the streets for singing, dancing and homemade grub.
I think we were all hoping that Atri’s fiesta would take place on the ancient streets around the old town square, and were fairly disappointed to find it in the car-park of a 1960s concrete hospital. It was, nevertheless, an eye-opening experience. As you enter the area, you go to a little man in a wooden hut, who gives you tokens for various types of food. A pasta dish is 5 euros, for example, and a salad is 2. You then walk along a line, trade in your tokens, and are served by various ladies from the village, who pile up your plastic plate with heaps of spaghetti, none of which, of course, are vegetarian. I think I ended up with a plate of tomatoes and a portion of chips. The food here is generally brilliant for vegetarians, but they do insist on flinging bits of old carcass at it!
You eat your food at trestle tables whilst a terrible bands plays oom-pah music on a stage. The singer was particularly awful. You could have reversed a lorry through her vibrato. The poor dear sounded like she was being fuelled by a series of bellows. To make matters worse, she looked like a 50 year old baby doll with blond ringlets and over-sized shoes. The Chuckle Brothers seemed to be accompanying her on accordion and keyboard. It was all highly parochial, and I loved every second.
We made our excuses and headed for the Old Town, listening to ABBA very loudly on the car stereo as we travelled. We sat in a lovely-looking restaurant outside the town’s theatre, and started to play game of cards. What we didn’t realise was that playing cards – or any form of gambling, in fact – requires a permit in Italy, so within seconds, the manager of the establishment had come over to ask us to stop what we were doing, which seemed absolute madness nd made me feel like a common criminal.
The lifestyle here is wonderful, however. At midnight there were still small children sitting with their parents in various cafes, and everything feels incredibly safe. There’s an antiques stall on one of the oldest streets, which is entirely al fresco. At the end of the evening, they simply cover over what they’re selling with a piece of tarpaulin, attached with a bit of gaffa tape in the corners. Anyone could come along and steel it... but they don’t.
On the way home, we stopped and looked over a wall at the top of the town. By day it's apparently one of the greatest views in the area. By night, it's a sea of tiny little white and orange lights shining like stars in an ink black sky. I found the experience inexplicably, yet overwhelmingly moving.
350 years ago, Pepys was up with the lark, and riding away from Ware in the driving rain. He travelled most of the way to Cambridge with a “letter-carrier” and arrived in the city feeling tired and wet. His horse was particularly exhausted. He dined with two of his cousins at Trinity Hall before heading to the Rose pub, where he stayed til late, drinking and laughing. He slept the night in a village outside Cambridge called Impington, and was given the best chamber in the house, which obviously pleased him greatly.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust
Day 4 of the holiday, and I’m finally beginning to relax. I actually managed to sit on a deck chair for at least an hour today without going into a panic, or thinking about a million and one things I needed to do when I got back to England. I went jogging first thing, which, yet again was close to hell on earth, but the feeling of flinging my exhausted body into a cooling sea afterwards was worth every second of discomfort.
The company here is fabulous. I’m very much enjoying being with Julie, and we’re currently hanging out with one of her friends from London, who’s come to the area with his family. His two teenage children are great company, mostly because I think they reckon I’m quite cool. I’ve written before how remarkable it feels to be validated by a teenager. I think they mostly like me because I have a tendency to simply say whatever comes into my head, no matter how rude or surreal it is. I’ve found the oddest things tumbling out of my mouth since we’ve been here. I think it’s the heat!
Our beach-baby routine now includes a twice daily visit from the Granita man, who uses a strange shaped tool to strip slushy shavings from a big block of ice that he wheels across the beach on a trolley. He has a mouth-watering array of delicious syrups which he pours onto cupfuls of ice. You can have a combination of two flavours, but I recommend the black cherry. It’s rich and very adult. Porn in a cup – and so much more delicious than Slush Puppies back home.
Speaking of back home, I’m told the weather in England is ridiculously warm at the moment. I’m not sure I entirely approve. Surely I’m meant to go home looking sun-kissed and relaxed. People should look at me in the street and feel jealous that I’ve obviously been somewhere hot and relaxing. I could end up looking like this simply by sitting in Highgate Wood for a few hours!
Eyebrow update... Definitely going copper...
350 years ago, Pepys decided to go to Cambridge by horseback. He doesn’t tell us a great deal about the journey, other than that he’d got as far as Ware by the evening. It was there that he met a fellmonger; a man who deals in animal hides. He was a Quaker – a recent convert to the cause – and wanted to tell Pepys what a wicked man he’d been before converting. All sounds suspiciously "born again" to me... but then again, I guess that' exactly what it was.
The company here is fabulous. I’m very much enjoying being with Julie, and we’re currently hanging out with one of her friends from London, who’s come to the area with his family. His two teenage children are great company, mostly because I think they reckon I’m quite cool. I’ve written before how remarkable it feels to be validated by a teenager. I think they mostly like me because I have a tendency to simply say whatever comes into my head, no matter how rude or surreal it is. I’ve found the oddest things tumbling out of my mouth since we’ve been here. I think it’s the heat!
Our beach-baby routine now includes a twice daily visit from the Granita man, who uses a strange shaped tool to strip slushy shavings from a big block of ice that he wheels across the beach on a trolley. He has a mouth-watering array of delicious syrups which he pours onto cupfuls of ice. You can have a combination of two flavours, but I recommend the black cherry. It’s rich and very adult. Porn in a cup – and so much more delicious than Slush Puppies back home.
Speaking of back home, I’m told the weather in England is ridiculously warm at the moment. I’m not sure I entirely approve. Surely I’m meant to go home looking sun-kissed and relaxed. People should look at me in the street and feel jealous that I’ve obviously been somewhere hot and relaxing. I could end up looking like this simply by sitting in Highgate Wood for a few hours!
Eyebrow update... Definitely going copper...
350 years ago, Pepys decided to go to Cambridge by horseback. He doesn’t tell us a great deal about the journey, other than that he’d got as far as Ware by the evening. It was there that he met a fellmonger; a man who deals in animal hides. He was a Quaker – a recent convert to the cause – and wanted to tell Pepys what a wicked man he’d been before converting. All sounds suspiciously "born again" to me... but then again, I guess that' exactly what it was.
Outside Julie's house
breaking down in France
The farm above Julie's house
Monday, 1 August 2011
The most beautiful iridescent blue
I finally seem to have internet capability after a two day period in an Italian black spot. Life in the mountains is so relaxed and slow-paced that no one understands the need to be instantly contactable. I have been texting my blogs to Nathan, so apologies if they haven't been up to my usual standards!
It’s clouded over this afternoon for the first time since we’ve been here. Those with envious dispositions will be upset to hear that I’ve gone a lovely shade of brown. My hair, on the other hand, feels like straw, my eyebrows are going orange and my lips and skin are permanently encrusted in sand, salt and mountain dust. I guess these things are a small price to pay.
I feel like I’m gradually slowing down; gradually relaxing, although the 15 year-old daughter of a friend of Julie’s just shouted “Bhatti Boy” at me, which made my skin freeze. I’m not altogether sure she knows what the term means, and quite how offensive it is. I also think it might have been part of another conversation that I wasn’t party to. I don’t really want to ask why she said it for fear of opening a can of worms in front of her father. She seemed genuinely horrified when I recoiled, and I later over-heard her saying that she thought it was simply something that rappers said! They also say "nigger" quite a lot, but I'm convinced she wouldn't have shouted that at a passing black person! There also seemed to be a simultaneous conversation going on with the lady who owns the beach hut who was asking Julie what “girlfriend” meant in the context of an English older woman asking if she could rent a room for her “girlfriend and herself.” One assumes there was a little hint of homophobia here as well. I'm choosing to believe that she was just asking the question so that she wouldn't offend the woman later on by assuming she was straight.
I went jogging this morning through a glorious grove of trees which lines the beach. It was fairly early in the morning, but I immediately regretted my decision to run a) in the extraordinary heat and b) without socks. I returned, sweating like a pig, and covered in blisters.
The food here is sensational. I have seldom tasted such incredible fruit and vegetables. Tomatoes are in season at the moment; great big beefy things which taste like the sun; sweet and rich. Yesterday I ate two nectarines which were like honey.
350 years ago, and Pepys went with the two Sir Williams to Walthamstowe to visit Mrs Browne, and the baby they'd watched being Christened on a muddy day in May. They ate a venison pasty and caught up on the gossip du jour, which scandalously revolved around Sir William Batten's wife, who was apparently a "man's whore", although Pepys chose not to believe the tittle tattle.
It’s clouded over this afternoon for the first time since we’ve been here. Those with envious dispositions will be upset to hear that I’ve gone a lovely shade of brown. My hair, on the other hand, feels like straw, my eyebrows are going orange and my lips and skin are permanently encrusted in sand, salt and mountain dust. I guess these things are a small price to pay.
I feel like I’m gradually slowing down; gradually relaxing, although the 15 year-old daughter of a friend of Julie’s just shouted “Bhatti Boy” at me, which made my skin freeze. I’m not altogether sure she knows what the term means, and quite how offensive it is. I also think it might have been part of another conversation that I wasn’t party to. I don’t really want to ask why she said it for fear of opening a can of worms in front of her father. She seemed genuinely horrified when I recoiled, and I later over-heard her saying that she thought it was simply something that rappers said! They also say "nigger" quite a lot, but I'm convinced she wouldn't have shouted that at a passing black person! There also seemed to be a simultaneous conversation going on with the lady who owns the beach hut who was asking Julie what “girlfriend” meant in the context of an English older woman asking if she could rent a room for her “girlfriend and herself.” One assumes there was a little hint of homophobia here as well. I'm choosing to believe that she was just asking the question so that she wouldn't offend the woman later on by assuming she was straight.
I went jogging this morning through a glorious grove of trees which lines the beach. It was fairly early in the morning, but I immediately regretted my decision to run a) in the extraordinary heat and b) without socks. I returned, sweating like a pig, and covered in blisters.
The food here is sensational. I have seldom tasted such incredible fruit and vegetables. Tomatoes are in season at the moment; great big beefy things which taste like the sun; sweet and rich. Yesterday I ate two nectarines which were like honey.
350 years ago, and Pepys went with the two Sir Williams to Walthamstowe to visit Mrs Browne, and the baby they'd watched being Christened on a muddy day in May. They ate a venison pasty and caught up on the gossip du jour, which scandalously revolved around Sir William Batten's wife, who was apparently a "man's whore", although Pepys chose not to believe the tittle tattle.
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