They're in the trees, they're coming...

We've just been to see Betwixt at the Trafalgar Studios. It's a fairly surreal experience from beginning to end, and not without its flaws, but it's well worth a punt... particularly if you're interested the almost extinct art form of musical theatre written by British composers. The cast are tremendous. Steven Webb, who I'm told is also the partner of Stephen Fry, is a very fine comic actor, but it was most exciting to see the legend that is Ellen Greene live on stage. Greene played Audrey in the film version of Little Shop of Horrors. The Trafalgar Studios is a tiny theatre which seats less than 100, and we were right on the front row. The man who sold us the tickets joked that, "Ms Greene will be siting in your lap." And he was right. I wouldn't want to have been sitting anywhere else. She is a remarkable performer particularly when she bursts into song. She has a fragility about her; a deeply moving vulnerability. She ripped herself apart in her last number - rather needlessly in terms of the material she was performing, but it's what we all wanted to see, because it's what she does like no other performer. It will go down in my list of all time theatrical highs, which include watching Bernadette Peters singing Send in the Clowns and Maggie Smith performing A Bed Amongst the Lentils.

London is bristling tonight. It's on edge. There was rioting all last night, and more is expected. I don't like the idea that my birthday could go down in history as the date of the worst rioting ever experienced in this country. I wish they'd all go and do something more constructive... like commit suicide. My Dad rightly points out that we probably just need a few days of solid rain to send everyone back inside.

It's the only topic of conversation I've heard on my travels today. I've walked past countless people in little clusters on street corners proffering various thoughts and philosophies. "Society is melting" said one woman in a broad New Zealand accent, "I blame the parents. They don't even know their childrens' names." "It's the olympics" said a cockney bloke outside the dole office, "they're diverting too many funds away from people who need it." "Too many years of prosperity," said the Asian man in the shop, "those looters are just too used to having everything given to them on a plate..." And so it goes on. Reason after reason. But we don't need reasons. We need curfews, and jail terms.

We've heard that Kentish Town is in danger tonight, which is suddenly a bit too close for comfort. Our gym was closed early, and as we drove through the district tonight, the place was like a ghost town with shops that would usually be open, dark and shuttered, and all the pubs closed and boarded over. We saw no signs of violence or looting, but the night is young...

We bought tomatoes in Muswell Hill, where people are also worried. Rumours begin to fly around. A homeless person was telling the world that a gang was coming up from Camden Town. I think he was frightened. Though it pains me to say it, I've felt a remarkable sense of community in London today; people wishing each other a good night, and urging each other to stay safe. Perhaps a little external threat does no one any harm...

350 years ago, Pepys wrote an incredibly long diary entry with very little substance! Mr Pearse, the purser was apparently dying, and called Pepys to his bedside to ask him to remain a friend to Mr Pearse after his death. Pepys didn't think he seemed that ill, so took the request with a pinch of salt. Whilst Mr Pearce was dying, or not dying, Thomas Hayter, Pepys' clerk, was about to become a father. Elizabeth Pepys was dispatched to help with the birth (long before official midwives, one assumes), but by midnight, there was still no sign of a child. Pepys, meanwhile, was out drinking and ogling the ladies... Some things never change...

I fell in love with a swan

It’s my birthday, and I’ve been in Cambridge all day.

The flight home last night was bumpy, but not horrific. I am by no means a natural flier, but I’ve found a way to put myself in a sort of trance during take-off, which has always been the bit that makes me the most terrified. I used to sit and write in a diary; streams of cataclysmic nonsense, which fuelled the fear and turned me into a useless lunatic. My new form of self-hypnotism involves counting very slowly to 180. By the time I get to the magic number, the fasten seat belt signs have been switched off, and everything is okay.
I slept the night at my parents, who live about a 15 minute drive from Stansted, which is perfect for Ryan Air flights. When I arrived at the airport, brother Edward, Sascha and Meriel were there to meet me. We drove home, ate a bit of food, chatted for a while and then went to bed.

We drove to Cambridge after breakfast. Nathan and Sam met us at a car park on the edge of the City. I could see them both sitting under a tree, quite some distance away, and when Nathan saw me, he started jumping up and down like a small child, before sprinting the best part of 200 metres to give me a massive hug. It was so lovely to see him again... and Sam for that matter.

Brother Edward managed to hire a King’s College punt, which was very exciting. One of the benefits of being a graduate from one of the Cambridge colleges which back onto the river is the ability to hire a private punt. Sadly, the punt we ended up with came with a very short pole, which made steering a little difficult, but it did the job, and when you’re in one of the purple King’s College punts, which all have their own names, you feel proud as punch as you drift up stream. You're definitely not a tourist if you're drifting along in one of them...

The other feature of hiring a college punt is that you get to wheel the boat up the rollers which link the River Cam with the river Granta. The Granta is the part of the river which meanders its way out of the city centre and into the Cambridgeshire countryside. Dragging a punt up a small hill is hard work, but great fun.

Nathan was attacked by a swan...

I did really well for presents. The highlight of the clutch has to be the bouquet of flowers that Edward and Sascha gave me. Allow me to explain... I recently decided I wanted the Fisher Price airport. I’m sure many people reading this will remember Fisher Price toys. I had loads as a child. There was a little camper van, a school, a garage, a fire station... there was even a hospital. I had many of them, but always wanted the airport. The airport came with its own plane, a terminus and two mini-helecopters. It radiated the glamour of 1970s air travel. I think it was probably a bit too expensive for my parents' budget, and as a result, it was always the one that I wanted the most. Anyway, Brother Edward bought one for me for Christmas and it now sits very proudly on the shelves in our sitting room, ready to be played with by any passing god-child. Because it was a second-hand toy, it only came with a few rather non-descript mini-people to drive the airport cars and sit in the little plastic plane. As children we had a large collection of figures, all of which we named. One was called Helen, one was called Carrie, one was called Butch, and most bizarrely, the little woman with the blue body and attractive blonde hair was called Sally-Anna. Since Christmas, I'd been longing to find some of these little people...

When I looked at the birthday bouquet, I noticed that one or two of these longed-for figures were poking up through the red and orange flowers. A closer inspection revealed that they were attached to little wooden sticks, and there were at least twenty of them; all shapes, colours and sizes. They looked so lovely within the flowers. I don’t know why such a simple thing should seem so exciting, or how a childhood toy could fill me with so much joy, but it did.

Mez and the birthday bundle

We had cream teas in the Orchard at Grantchester, all the while being disturbed by a near apocalyptic number of wasps, which were the first I’d seen this year. The women in the cafe said they'd never known them to be such a problem before. The act of opening a miniature pot of jam brought scores of the little blighters flying over.

Grantchester meadows

For the entire day, the subject of conversation has repeatedly returned to the riots which have spread from Tottenham to Hackney to Lewisham to Birmingham and now to Leeds. It's very upsetting. It feels like society is breaking down. People have had enough and are snapping left, right and centre. Sam lives close to Lewisham, and was quite worried about getting home. Sad, bad times...

August 8th, 1661 and Pepys had been engaged by the Lord Privy Seal to do some work, but when he turned up, first in the morning, and then again after lunch, the Lord was nowhere to be seen, which angered Pepys, understandably.

He went instead with his bezzie mate, Mr Moore, and a French servant of Lord Sandwich to a tavern close to the Savoy, where they met the musician Humphrey Madge. The Frenchman manage to utterly enrage Madge by claiming French music was far superior to English music... So much, in fact, that Madge stormed out of the pub... I'm not surprised. La musique de France c'est merd, innit.

Picnic by the river

I spend a lot of my time looking at blue

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.

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!

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?

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.

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

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.