Confession

The sky is a battleship grey; it is pouring with rain; it is freezing cold. I cannot believe we were so recently cavorting in the picture book landscape and eating our hearts out (oh yes we were, boar stew does nothing for the heart).

Wrapped in my florentine shawl (with holes, beastly moths), feet on the raised hearth in the big kitchen, fire loaded up, glass of something, and Peter Temple's Dead Point in hand, I have given up on the finer points of 17th century constitutional behaviour in England, and -

I am eating the pandoro!

Datura

This evening I found the datura sheltering in the dining room (the big terrace has become too cold and windswept) had burst into pink and golden bell-shaped flowers.

Call To Arms! Scendiamo in Piazza!

In piazza per salvare la campagna toscana simbolo del made in Italy!

La campagna toscana è la piu' sfruttata come simbolo del paesaggio in Italia e all'estero, che in ben nove casi su dieci non hanno però nulla a che fare con la realtà produttiva territoriale che rischia invece di scomparire per l'assenza di una politica agricola regionale adeguata a difendere e valorizzare le eccellenze presenti: dal vino all'olio, dalla carne per la fiorentina ai fiori, dagli allevamenti fino all'agriturismo.

In pericolo c'è un patrimonio imprenditoriale, gastronomico, ambientale e paesaggistico unico costruito nei secoli, che non ha nulla da invidiare alle bellezze artistiche storiche, senza il quale la Toscana e l'Italia non saranno piu' le stesse con un impatto incalcolabile sull'economia generale.

Per tutelare il vero Made in Tuscany ed evitare che la regione si trasformi in location cinematografica, senza alcun legame con l'agricoltura locale, migliaia di imprenditori agricoli della Coldiretti con centinaia di trattori scenderanno in piazza giovedì 27 novembre 2008 a Firenze con un corteo che partirà alle ore 9,30 dalla Fortezza da Basso e dopo aver sfilato per le strade del centro si concluderà a Piazza Santa Croce.

Si tratta della piu' grande manifestazione di agricoltori mai avvenuta nella storia della città e della Regione durante la quale sono previsti presidi di trattori in punti strategici della città, ma anche carri allegorici e la prima esposizioni di falsi prodotti che fanno della campagna toscana la piu' taroccata in Italia e nel mondo.

I'm sure you can all understand that. The exploitation of the centuries- old, constructed beauties of the Tuscan landscape by all and sundry must yield something to those of us who maintain and cherish it; oil, wine and other agricultural produce famed throughout the world is being falsified by inferior produce from elsewhere, and there must be a control on this; (I expect Prada isn't too keen on the fake handbags either, but that's for another day). While the festive floats and pairs of oxen parade through the historic centre, the tractors will take control of the choke points of the city (that'll be quite a sight on the city ringroads).

The march ends in piazza Santa Croce, so it's Cibreo for a late lunch.

Ambivalence: or Avanti Popolo alla Primavera di Bellezza

The Coldiretti (direct cultivators, effectively small farmers) called today. There are to be major demonstrations in regional capitals in favour of increased provision from the European Union and the Italian government for support to agriculture.

ABSOLUTELY!

We are to march through the centre of Florence, banners waving, drums beating like the Rites of Spring, for more money for the olive-picking classes. I do not know if we will be emptying tractor loads of agricultural waste on the steps of the Comune di Firenze in the piazza della Signoria, or lading the square with a kind of harvest festival. Or whether that should be the seat of regional government; indeed, I don't know where the seat of regional government is, but I'm sure my fellow marchers will take me there.

Nor am I sure what we will be singing as many of the independent yeomanry are well to the right of centre . Best if I brush up on Giovinezza as well as Bella Ciao this evening.

Now, what shall I wear?

Florence centre = tailleur, tights, heels and gloves (and that's just the men). Labourer in the fields and vineyards of Tuscany = boots, trousers and windproof jacket.

I wonder where I could get some tailored wellingtons.

Update

We're to take the tractors. Mine's a red Lamborghini. And the animals - lovely white chianini, in pairs, with their plaited manes and tails in red ribbons, tiny delicate feet hoofing it along the Calzaiuoli. Flocks of woolly sheep on the Lungarni.

Now I know what we shall sing:

'di doman non c’ è certezza. '

So we'd better have some money now.

Going to London for a Haircut

Dinner time, safely home. Mr HG had roasted peppers on the hot coals and dressed them in the new oil, and evil quantities of garlic; toasted some bread and rubbed it with salt and drenched it in same oil, and waved a pair of marinaded slices of best chianina at the fire.

£20 billion, I opened with, hopeful for my country.

Northern Rock, de-mutualised building society, close on £60 billion, he enunciated with admirable clarity considering what he was chewing at the time. Probably more, he swallowed.

VAT rates lowered, I offered.

Who pays IVA? (that's VAT in Italian).

We do?

Lots. But if we were offered a rate reduction can you see us fondling kittens and smiling at little ducklings and giving it to anyone else?

Taxing the rich!

Not again!

If you were advising the Minister of Finance..?

Always fun.

What would you do then?

Quadruple it. Make everyone else in the universe do it pro rata. Also, lots of what they say they'll do is outside the Union limits. Although that would be good, if all those limits were lifted. I gave a talk on that once at Munich. Perhaps I should shout. Remember? You went for a walk in the Englischer Garten with the man with a tombstone in his suitcase? You were quite upset.

So were you. So were the other guests. It was midnightish and he came from the Carpathians!

Anyway, how much DID you spend then?

Well, they kept saying there weren't any more as the factory had closed, the specialist shop was closed, the stock would be in next week, they didn't quite have the design I was looking for but something very close and it would be cheaper...

Nice hair .

Update

Mr HG vindicated. Munich talk finally bears fruit. Growth and Stability Pact suspended. Hah.

Branding

Finished! On this most beautiful of blue days the last olives were plucked and the containers are stacked, ready for the mill. Nets are combed of twigs and bits of bramble, holes mended, folded, and tied away till next Autumn.

It's all a bit boring actually. The idea they've all been at it since 1629 (in our case) says a lot for strength of mind. Our PR man has offered to design us labels (after all these years) and we are suggesting what our oil should have as its brand. I would like a lion with 'out of the strong came forth sweetness' but there might be a bit of a problem with the treacle sellers, it seems. So I've retired hurt. Well, it is golden and syrupy and comes in a tin.

Exchange Is No Robbery

Best in the world oil is going for eight euros fifty a litre. Which is less than the production costs. How did I get caught up in baby economics? We've got lots of oil but so has everyone else. Honestly - I can do much harder economics than this.

So if you want some glorious oil you will have to come and drink it here - for free - then at least I can put you all under an obligation. Anthropology strikes again.

Very Quiet In A Cloud

It is still astonishing to live surrounded by mountains - low mountains, almost high hills, but they are called mountains. They curve in a huge arc round the Arno valley, rising slowly from the river and its flood plain into the sand peaks and spikes, the cliffs and outcrops of former islands when all of the plain was an inland sea, then start being serious just after Monculi and all the other cities, towns and villages standing on the tallest of the islands.

As they climb the vegetation changes through tender, to temperate to tough, like a toytown version of a serious mountain region. The settlements do that too; go from the grandeur of Florence, the beauties of the hilltop cities with their churches and their palaces, and into pocket versions with only half a dozen stony streets and a couple of serious houses surrounded by former castle walls.

Only right now I am sitting inside a cloud and can't see a thing, not even the garden, and if I go onto the terrace will be wringing wet in seconds. Light the fire and read a book just like in London; even the light is that solid whitish grey. Oh well.

Finished

Not the harvesting - me. Monday 8am sharp the horny-handed sons of toil move in and get the crop down to t'mill by Wednesday evening. (The negotiated share-cropping rate this year is 6 kilos of oil for every 100k of olives picked.) Or else.

Or else it can stay on the trees.

Aching All Over

Last afternoon we loaded up the vehicles (nothing like a Landy Defender for swallowing a whale, but even the littlies did their part and turned round) and took the crop picked by the English squad to the mill. They are all back at their day jobs now but after the first shock of the sheer pain induced by agricultural labour, left still pausing to pick the odd olive off the trees lining the road. We cleared the home fields, the main road (which was christened Olive Drove), and down as far as the water-cooling system, covered for the winter.

Eating the various dishes of game the hunters donate the conversation turned to why some things are regarded as inedible. I couldn't cope with the tiny birds, skewered whole, roasted on a spit in front of the fire, and crunched down, heads, beaks, bones and all followed by spitting out the bits, so beloved of rustic Tuscan life. But the worst offering was from our PR man (who had displayed a remarkable fully-trained childhood working on farms and got the hang of olive picking in a trice, including the vacuous trance needed to keep at it for hours). He had a friend who specialised in cooking the bits of everything the rest of us don't feel happy about eating. Nervously dipping his spoon into a large pot of unnameable stew, he drew out an udder. "You've had those in your mouth before" remarked another exhausted worker, "Often. Did you eat it?"

The oil is simply magnificent. A bright, translucent, well - olive - green, very slightly peppery, as new oil should be. At a stroke the remnants of last year's pathetic crop (struck down by The Fly) has become cooking oil; overnight first cold pressing super virgin... is for chips.

The lower fields towards the village, and the top field that was once the vineyard alla francese but was converted to olives on the abandonment of trying to make a fine French wine from a pig's ear, await the fresh assault on Monday. A third down, two to go. It's usual to mill everything in one go, but olives cannot hang about; once picked they like to be crushed to give of their best. And stakhanovite work inputs were not enough in this year of plenty. Also, we couldn't resist finding out how it would be.

Next year there will have to be some serious investment in lorries and other machinery but for 2008 we returned, just once, to the 17th century.

Handcrafted

The capo squadra had to call rain stopped play at 4pm yesterday. The olives really musn't get wet - so nets, pallets, containers, ladders, people all made a dash through the fields to the house. But they weren't released to read books, write papers, have a nice lie down, or talk among themselves.

Local kindly hands guided them through the rituals of picking out all the bits of twig and leaf that get caught up and thrown into the baskets in the rush to use all available light and clement weather. So they stretched out cloths across the floor of the boiler room and sieved through chicken wire frames and wondered if they would ever be able to think again, or walk, or even raise their arms higher than their shoulders.

There are machines, of course, serried ranks of moving belts and filters and observant workers with their hair in nets picking off the baddies. Then the whole shebang roars down a chute and enters a sealed system of chopping and crushing and squeezing and quality control and bottling and labelling and boxing and is transported off to Harrods and Waitrose and Sainsburys and Tesco and Asda - on down the chain as the pressing gets crueller and crueller and the chemical levels to extract the remaining oil get higher and higher.

But that's Mr HG's cousin. He's got a fattore and all the trimmings, including the hectares. We've got me, and the few, the valiant few. There are enough to go to the mill even now, though. And our oil is better than his. Of course it is; every olive has been personally selected.

Perhaps It Will Rain

After walking the fields today (that's what it's called, according to the Archers, when you go and look at how things are getting on all over the farm, isn't it?) I am afraid.

All those trees, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, covered in green and black olives, ridiculously tall, and growing out of ploughed fields that are really hard to move about in, even in wellies, or hanging dangerously over terracing and rocky outcrops. Apart from that there has been a deliberate starting of the day an hour earlier. First light is now too early. And all these people set to tear fruit from branch for hours and hours and days and days. GULP.