Not in wet and windy England

Eight degrees at 8:30am. Cloudy with occasional sunshine. Thinking about the rain-sodden Cumbrians...the best we can do here is a particularly heavy dew.

Sermon

Ten degrees at 8:30am in Cannobio. Cloudy. Dry.

"Will the woman in the red dress please SIT DOWN!"
San Gottardo gives a sermon,
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore.

HELP! HELP! HELP!

Can anyone among the mothers and teachers out there suggest a well-known English Christmas carol or song that I might possibly be able to teach a bunch of 5-year-olds??? I'm thinking Away in a manger...Am I insane?

On the way

A marvellous, marvellous, heart-lifting day at Lago Maggiore! Sunshine, warmth, drifts of white mist, the blue shapes of the hills and mountains beyond. And the yellows, russets and reds of the dying leaves. This morning AJ said that in his considered five-year-old opinion autumn is the most beautiful season of all. I tend to agree with him.

Sentiero waymarkers overgrown with moss

Via delle Genti between Carmine Superiore and Cannero

Quote of the week No. 31 : the middle ages

Ten degrees at 8:30am. Wet and slippery underfoot, thick strands of fog above our heads, which are down, watching our feet. A fire salamander day.

Recently, I had cause to spend an unhappy sixty minutes contemplating my own mortality. I had been summoned by telephone to the GP's surgery following some tests, and of course, between the call and the appointment, my mind, armed with all sorts of possibilities kindly supplied by NHS Direct, dwelt in the house of mortal terror. My future in that hour before I heard the words "Beh....niente! (oh....nothing!)" shrank to an imagined couple of years, a couple of months, a few weeks, a few days.

After I heard those words, my life grew and extended itself once more into a full four-score years ten (that's inflation for you), and today I find myself celebrating what may or may not be mid-life. Plenty of people have had plenty of ruefully funny things to say about mid-life, and it's difficult to choose between them, so here's a selection to make my peers laugh...

"Middle age: when you want to see how long your car will last rather than how fast it will go." - Anonymous

"Middle age is when a guy keeps turning lights off for economic rather than romantic reasons."

- Lillian Carter

"Middle age is when you're faced with two temptations and you choose the one that will get you home by nine o'clock."

- Ronald Reagan

and, finally, my personal favourite...

"Middle age is when you're old enough to know better but still young enough to do it."

- Anonymous

Happy Monday! (And don't do anything I wouldn't do!)

Madonna in the clouds

Weather cold, damp and gloomy.

And now for something completely different and wholly unrelated...

Madonna and Child

Piazza S. Ambrogio, Cannobio

Via Sasso Carmine

Seven degrees at 8:30am. Weak sun. Dry.

Via Sasso Carmine, in Cannobio's antico borgo.

Early morning discovery

Again six degrees at 8:30am. The benches dotted along the mulattiera up to Carmine Superiore are pools of warmth in the sunshine. A good excuse to sit for a while and ponder our luck to be living here between the glittering lake and the snowcapped mountains.

Hawk strike on palazzo pollo yesterday. Luckily, the chickens thought with their spinal cords and to a girl fled to the warm darkness of the coop, a place where not many right-thinking hawks will boldly go. "Luckily, no-one was hurt", but there were plenty of ruffled feathers - all over the floor of the run.

So this morning I was out and about in the 6am pre-dawn repairing the protective wiring (having had a rather disturbed night populated with dancing penguins, carnival transvestites on stilts and hawks with scimitar beaks). I found the chicks - like the sprogs I left behind in the house - still sleeping. As the pre-dawn painted the sky behind the mountains and studded it with a single star (God doodling), I worked away with little white widgets, green netting and near-frozen fingers.

Then I made a discovery. The only sound in the gloom was what has to be one of the most soothing sounds in the world (after a night of dancing penguins and carnival transvestites on stilts) : the gentle purr of chickens snoring...

Down to 6° at 8:30am. Clear skies and a cold wind.

Autumn in Piemonte No. 5

Eight degrees at 8:30am and glitteringly sunny. But there's something in the air. People are feeling colder for some reason, judging by the number of people who told me this morning how very cold it is (though it's not). Perhaps it's the snow crowning the peaks all around making people feel shivery...

Slick, wet leaves and prickly chestnut husks on the sentiero up to Carmine.

A booby-trap for bambini.

Quote of the week No. 30: Today in 1989

Ten degrees at midday. Cold, damp, misty. Occasional gentle rainshowers.

"The Wall ... will still exist in 50, even in 100 years."

I guess Erich Honecker, when he pronounced these words on January 19, 1989 was either bluffing or hadn't reckoned with the "many small people who in many small places [did] many small things [and altered] the face of the world" (for source, see here).

Or, to be totally cynical, the surge of people across the Wall in those heady days may not so much have been down to fear of the Stasi or politcal idealism, but more to do with the pulling power of Coca Cola and electronic goods.

Cynicism aside...

On November 9 1989, I was sleeping fairly rough on the floor of a Bangkok guesthouse. This was not my first taste of Asia (I had already the previous year been in Hong Kong and Macao researching a book), but the months that followed took me on a great adventure inspired in part by the more idealistic elements of what was happening back in the heart of Europe.

And I returned home in time to see the German reunification celebrations. A different person. A different Europe. A different world.

So where were you when the Berlin Wall fell?

Autumn in Piemonte No. 4

Rainy, and damp-in-the-bones cold. The snow lies now on even the nearest hilltops. In Carmine, there are several chimneys smoking - it's good to see our friends here so far out of the summer season.

Autumn sunrise over Lago Maggiore.

Autumn in Piemonte No. 3

A magnificent warm-in-the-sun morning. A lovely breakfast-in-the-churchyard morning. A wonderful ... oh dear, mackerel sky morning. An overcast and cold afternoon. A rainy evening.

Three sisters, Verbania Pallanza.

Firewood

Eight degrees at eight-thirty. Weather much as yesterday with the addition of puddles from last night's rain.

"Chop all this into matchsticks by morning, miller's daughter, and you shall be queen."

Where's Rumplestiltskin when you need him?

Remember, remember

Chilly and damp. Overcast.

Remember, remember

The fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot

I see no reason

Why gunpowder and treason

Ever should be forgot.

No vast autumn bonfires here tonight. No magical boxes of Standard Fireworks, all red and purple from Maddens' locked glass cabinet and hidden until now in the garage. No Catherine wheels or Roman candles, no rockets in milk bottles, no volcanoes. No Uncle Geoff and his mates lighting blue touch paper with their cigarettes. No hotdogs or potatoes in their jackets.

No scarecrows in dolls' prams outside the church hall. No "Penny for the Guy".

No frosty night crackling with the smell of gunpowder. No frozen little fingers, woolly hats. No Christmas-coming-soon.

My children don't know this English autumn rite. Don't know the story of Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby and Father Garnet, of the desperate plot they hatched not far from where I was born. Haven't stared, goggle-eyed, when learning of their gruesome end.

I wonder if they will have room in their lives for two histories?

A minute for Madeleine/Dedica un minuto per Madeleine

Nine degrees at 8:30am. Every leaf, every twig, every shaggy dog, every child's hat, every cat's ear, every piode, every petal. Everything is dripping. And in the hills not so far above us, it's not dripping but snowing.

Please take one minute of your day today to watch this video...
Per favore dedica un minuto oggi per guardare questo video...






Learn about the work of CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

Autumn in Piemonte No. 2

A magnificent day! We started with 7° at 8:30 and by 12:30, the temperature had soared to 26°. Dry. Azure skies. Changing colours all around.

First snowfall on the nearest of the Swiss Alps, 14th October.

Seen from Cannobio

The first snow quickly melted away in the sunshine. But today, any peak worth its salt round about is again tipped white.

All Souls

All Souls has turned out grey, misty and dribbling mournful rain.

The children are sick. The cats are sick. The chickens are moulting and definitely look sick. Oh yes, and Mama is sick. And we're now into our fourth week of continuous sickness, and I've counted at least five separate bugs.

When you're considering motherhood, why does no-one ever tell you about autumn term at kindergarten?