Sette Mese: Going missing, going home, getting warm, getting stung, grapes, ‘grandma’ and the gang of four, grinding, gazebo and GEORGE CLOONEY!!!

Juliet writes:

BOO!

Happy Halloween :o)

It’s certainly been a roller-coaster month since my last missive.

I’m sure that most of you are aware from my panic-stricken emails, Weed went missing for five days. Like a Wild West renegade, ‘Wanted’ posters were put up all around town, offering a small reward. In addition to the many supportive emails from friends back home (thank you xxx), our wonderful neighbours offered to keep an eye out and one lady even called with a possible sighting. In the absence of children, Weed is our furry equivalent – she is older than our marriage and her bewhiskered love has got us through many hard times. We were beside ourselves with worry. Then, as if nothing had happened, she nonchalantly turned up late one night, promptly ate four sachets of cat food and fell asleep on our bed for the whole night. We think she may have been accidentally locked up in one of the buildings at the nunnery as she was warm, dry, clean and tick-free. Anyway, much rejoicing all-round. What was so lovely was that for several weeks afterwards, many neighbours asked after her and were genuinely delighted to hear of her return.

Anyway, Weed is fully settled in again, back to hissing at the kitten (who has finally learned to wee outside and has almost stopped biting ankles) and seems fine.

During Weed’s impromptu holiday, we were nicely distracted by the ‘Vendemmia’ or grape harvest (see slideshow above). This involved P and I working flat-out in the beautiful October sunshine for one 12-hour day and one morning, filling 24 large buckets full of grapes – 16 white and 8 black. It should have been a much easier, quicker process but we were learners and the vines were very unruly. Many complicated yoga positions were assumed in order to reach the fruit and snip it off.

Then it was time to help out neighbours Leo and Elena Lanzoni with theirs, in return for them letting us borrow their pressing equipment. They ended up with 20 buckets of black and 10 of white (luckily roughly the same quantity of each colour when mixed with ours). Almost the same amount of grapes, albeit with 12 of us helping, took only 15 minutes to reap. Oh, for next Autumn when ours should be pruned, propped and promptly pickable.

That evening, we had a wonderful vendemmia dinner hosted by the Lanzoni’s with 12 friends and neighbours – all Italian. We managed to converse, mainly with gestures and imagination, over a few glasses of Guiseppe’s local rosso – not barollo or brunello but surprisingly good – very smooth and velvety.

Peter and I had great fun learning about the processing, which all took place in Leo’s garage complete with spangly new equipment. Did you know that the processing for white is utterly different from the black? (If you did, is your name Oz Clarke?) For example, while the white is left to rest after just three days, the daily processing for the red has only just finished (3 weeks later). As you can imagine, P thoroughly enjoyed tinkering with tanks, valves and sieves, while I cleaned up and helped with the pumping. It should all be ready to drink early in the New Year and the total crop works out at 800 litres – that’s 400 litres each (200 red, 200 white), which should last us a week or two, hopefully :o)

The day after the vendemmia, there was no time to flop as mum (AKA the cats’ grandma) arrived on her very first visit to Italy, along with my Aunty Anne . Thank you for persuading mum to get on the plane, aunty. We gave them the usual tour of the house and grounds, plus a day pottering locally and a trip to Portovenere, which mum absolutely adored. We then plonked them rather rudely on the train for a 4-day trip to Florence that I had organised. I think mum was smitten with La Dolce Vita, despite having a craving for egg and chips after 4 days of pasta and risotto! Due to a diary balls-up on my behalf, we then had a morning of manic cleaning, washing and ironing before the Gang of Four arrived in the form of Penny, Peter H, El Reado and Sue. Despite the lack of sun on some days and the erratic shower, much merriment, cheese and wine was had by all. You were all the perfect guests – positive, generous and helpful. And you wouldn’t even let us do the washing up! The most memorable moment came in the form of a sunny boat trip around the islands near the Cinque Terre. Pure heaven.

On the fourth day, we met up with mum and aunty again in Pisa, showed them the tower, had a lovely sunny lunch and drove them back to the airport for them to catch the same flight back with Penny and Peter H. Time to flop yet? Ah no. We had to zoom back to the nunnery to annoy El Reado and Sue who were staying an extra night.

Very sadly, the week beforehand, my dear friend Natalie’s lovely mum Ann lost her valiant battle with cancer. So after our guests had left, I had one day to organise things before flying back to Blighty myself to offer what support I could to Natters and her sister. It was a terribly sad reason to be back in the UK, but I was very glad I was there. And on the positive side, it was lovely to spend time playing with daughter Caitlin and her cousins, hug Natters as much as possible, have a chat with hubby Matt and meet the Irish family.

While I was away, P managed – for the third time in 7 months – to have a bad reaction to a sting from a large, nasty Italian waspy thing. When I saw his hand at the airport, I thought it was a marigold glove blown up. Poor man. I need to prod him into going to the GP here and getting an adrenalin epi-pen, as his reactions get worse each time and it has taken longer for it finally to look normal again.

You need some jolly news now, right? Well, at last we have a stufo and a heater at the nunnery so our noses have defrosted in time for winter – hoorah! Ok, that’s not exactly mind-blowingly exciting stuff, but I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to be warm again.

As to Lecci, I have sourced and ordered a cheap claw-foot bath and some original 1920s door handles, while P has managed to secure some compensation for the missing bits of our kitchen. He and Jim have been cracking on with the wall grinding, although it’s a slow business. I am trying to sand down the doors, also a slow business. But at least we are keeping out of mischief and keeping out of the storms that have plagued us for the last few days. The high winds even ripped up our gazebo and threw it, in a mangled mess, into a ditch 200 feet away from its original position. Oops.

You will be amazed to hear (not) that we still have no definite builder. Ennio – our first choice – cannot start until February and we have to be out of the nunnery by the end of March so we have had to turn him down. 8 weeks – even by UK standards, wouldn’t be enough to make our dust pit habitable! However, while I was away, P was introduced to Marco. A lovely-sounding professional builder with a whole team of experts just itching to make Lecci nice again. It depends on his quote, but he sounds great. Will keep you posted.

And the most exciting news in the last 7 months? Marco’s wife (an ex-Miss Italia contender… steady on chaps!) is a friend of a friend of George Clooney! AND he is house hunting in our valley!!! Last year – so the rumour goes - he was travelling around here on his bike and broke down up a mountain nearby. Some locals, who had no idea who he was, took him in, cooked him a typical Lunigianese feast and put him up for the night for free. Ever since, he has been enamoured with the beauty of the area and the kindness of the people (we can certainly relate to that, Mr Clooney). On the plus side, we could be neighbours with one of the world’s biggest sex symbols, plus all his celeb friends including Brad and Angelina. On the downside, every woman in the universe will want to move here, including my mother, and I am not sure that our marriage could withstand a visit from Brad (yum) or Angelina (P says yum)!

Will write a new gossip column in the next blog :o)

Ciao per ora. Hope you are all keeping warm and surviving the snow. XXXX

Sei Mese (6 months): Convents, cold, carpenters, charred body parts and collecting grapes

Juliet writes:

Cara amici,

Newsflash: We have moved. In one piece. With cats. And wine rack. Hoorah!

A big thank you to Simon McBride – international photographer to the rich, famous and alcoholic, and a dear friend of ours – who helped us valiantly and uncomplainingly with our move. We will give you our return unpacking services when you come to bella Lunigiana for good next month…

So here we are at the old Convento di Carmine in Cerignano, only a 5 minute walk to our wonderful Lecci. While we currently have only one kerosene heater to keep us warm, leaky taps and a fridge which hums loudly, the nunnery more than makes up for it with an abundance of squirrels (my first sighting of both a red and black!), birds, wild flowers, fruit trees, stunning views and sheer peace. Gone are the days of having to listen to Italian game shows at 10 million decibels from next door. No more are the long journeys home through steep, sharp bends. Away with the dodgy twin beds and naff kitchen. We now live in luxurious, spacious surroundings with only the distant eeyoring of a donkey to disturb the sanctuary.

We wake up every day in our beautiful carved mahogany bed, look up at the arched ceiling and peer out of the window at 17th century murals and a 16th century well in the cloisters below. Then we walk the two miles to the kitchen for a proper cup of coffee in a proper cafetiere on a proper hob.

Each day we go for a walk around the grounds (17 hectares) with Weed and Tumble. There is the lower route – winding fairly steeply through fields of wild flowers, bracken and pine trees to the river, waterfall and woodland dell below. Or we take the path around the nunnery walls, pass the church and crumbling ancient stone outbuildings and climb up to the top, where I wish we could bottle the view of Fivizzano, church spires and mountains beyond and post it to you all.

Many a noble Italian family clamours to have their daughter’s wedding reception here: they are already booked up for next summer. And for us it’s only £100 per week and we have it all to ourselves!

While the sun shines every day, the nights are now quite frosty. Thankfully our delightful new landlord/lady will install a stufo (traditional Italian wood or pellet stove/heater) next week, so the icicles on our noses should melt.

The cats absolutely love it here – so much space to explore, so many lizards to taunt –and there has been almost no hissing at each other. Yesterday they even ate in the same area at the same time with only one token growl from Weed. And on our walk yesterday they touched noses. We nearly fainted! Tumble has had a few accidents: one poo in the bidet (how convenient!) and a couple of wees in unsavoury places, but I think she is finally getting the hang of this garden toilet lark. The Marigolds are on standby just in case…

We feel so privileged to be here and I really hope you can come and visit the convent before we move – hopefully for the last time – to our own meagre surroundings. Dirty habits are optional :o)

All else is well. Hopefully we will collect our plucked and polished Jaguar tomorrow, so no more billows of smoke from the engine - hoorah. We both have our Carte d’Identita now. So it’s official: we are Italian residents (but British citizens for the moment). I think the admin chap at the Comune is a bit short-sighted – he has described Peter’s hair as white (not yet!) and mine as black.

At Lecci, we have arranged for the convent’s carpenter to restore and double-glaze our windows. We are meeting with the gas people this week. The electrician is in the wings waiting for the builder/plumber who is in talks with our geometra, also this week. Based on past record, please don’t hold your breath, but I hope that in a couple of weeks’ time, we will have permissions, so really can start knocking down walls and doing the big stuff before the onset of winter. Hmmmm, have you heard that before?

The Irish-English contingency are doing a sterling job of pretty much everything else. Jim has dug out a ditch for drain water, tweaked some windows so they shut, removed the old bathroom (at last we have a big kitchen!) and knocked out the floor of the little loo on the landing (at last we have a big hall!).

Meanwhile, P has been diamond grinding the walls. It took him a day to do just one and a half walls – only another 16 to go, plus 5 ceilings. Maybe the man at the Comune saw him do this because his hair (in fact his entire body) was white with plaster dust. He has also managed to severely bruise a finger carrying old stones around the garden and burnt his hair and one and a half eyebrows off while starting a bonfire (we don’t learn do we?!), so he looks really handsome at the moment :o)

I have had a bit of a break away from it all, trying to unpack again, catch up on admin and settle the cats in. Which is good because I tried weeding the veggie patch yesterday when I wasn’t feeling A1 and ended up slumped back at the nunnery on morphine. Oops. I guess there will be less heavy-duty stuff to do over winter, plus less guests, so I should recover.

However, next Saturday will be a hive of activity: it is Grape Day for our borgo, so we will not only be picking ours but also helping to pick our friends Leo and Elena’s in return for their winemaking skills. They have just become grandparents for the first time – a beautiful boy called Andrea, so they will need all the help (and wine) they can get.

Then, the very next day we have my mum and aunt arriving for 5 days. It’s mum’s first time in Italy, despite a life-time love affair with it (she hates flying), so that’s terribly exciting.

A day after they leave, we have the Gang of Four coming: Peter H and Penny Cooper who we met in Sri Lanka, and Sue and El Reado, from P’s debauched days as a tennis-playing, gin drinking batchelor. They are all bonkers and great company so it should be a hoot.

Then of course, it will be olive picking time. We only have about 25 trees, but it’s a time comsuming task as each olive needs to be de-leafed, de-stalked, cleaned and left to dry out for a few days.

Did I say that we would rest over winter? Oh good.

Ciao per ora, carissimo amici. Hope you are all keeping warm and well and surviving the economic storm. Miss you all dearly. XXXX