People here take their holidays in the most extraordinary places. Probably it springs from their residence in what most regard as an idyllic place to go on holiday. Off they set to Mauritania, Iraq, Afghanistan...., the better to enjoy their earthly paradise on return home.
This story in today's WSJ :
'Afghan police said militants beheaded six Afghans for cooperating with government authorities. ... a seventh Afghan man is being treated for serious neck injuries.'
was greeted with the local response - 'three times they miss then you're let off'... and - 'keep still'.
Thursday 31 December 2009
Friday 25 December 2009
Tuesday 22 December 2009
Yes! Oil Is Us.
Calls on the landlines can be irritating; rooms to cover, stairs to dash up or down, unheated bits to fly through. Not this time. The fattore from Florence was gathering in supplies of good oil to meet international orders, even small quantities.
Yes! We have oil. Yes! It's the best. Yes! we can take some for sampling. Price to be negotiated - well, it might be upwards, how desperate are they to have arrived at Monculi?
Yes! We have oil. Yes! It's the best. Yes! we can take some for sampling. Price to be negotiated - well, it might be upwards, how desperate are they to have arrived at Monculi?
Sunday 20 December 2009
Impressive
Depending which windows we look from there is a view of just about every rooftop in the village. Not one has lost its mantle of snow. Even the houses with skylights have insulation so effective the skylights are still snow-covered.
This is the result, undoubtedly, of the European Union funded availability of grants for housing insulation. When I came here with the New Dawning to renovate what had been discarded so long ago - other times and another country - snow would have been sliding off every roof, threatening passers-by. The Comune served me with a notice to immediately repair all gutters giving onto the pubic street (seeing as I was here and they could at last get hold of somebody responsible). Now it would not matter if there were none at all, until the thaw comes. Every last degree of heat is inside the buildings. The News has shown the gorgeousness of various cities under snow, but there is no suggestion of a breakdown in power supplies.
I was unnerved by the snow and ice-clearing yesterday morning. Luca with a giant squeezy bottle of pink alcohol rather than men broadcasting salt before the shovellers and sweepers seemed unconcerned about potential inflammability. Salt harms cars, so it seems alcohol is the de-icer of choice in Monculi.
This is the result, undoubtedly, of the European Union funded availability of grants for housing insulation. When I came here with the New Dawning to renovate what had been discarded so long ago - other times and another country - snow would have been sliding off every roof, threatening passers-by. The Comune served me with a notice to immediately repair all gutters giving onto the pubic street (seeing as I was here and they could at last get hold of somebody responsible). Now it would not matter if there were none at all, until the thaw comes. Every last degree of heat is inside the buildings. The News has shown the gorgeousness of various cities under snow, but there is no suggestion of a breakdown in power supplies.
I was unnerved by the snow and ice-clearing yesterday morning. Luca with a giant squeezy bottle of pink alcohol rather than men broadcasting salt before the shovellers and sweepers seemed unconcerned about potential inflammability. Salt harms cars, so it seems alcohol is the de-icer of choice in Monculi.
Saturday 19 December 2009
Climate Change overwhelms Monculi
Snow has covered everything. Deep snow and it's freezing cold. This snow is more than settled - it's settled in. It has also brought down a large branch from the pine tree doing duty as an olmo in the middle of the piazza. Unfortunately my little red Lancia caught it. Couldn't come down on the Landy, which would have shrugged it off. It can't even be taken down the hill to be mended because it hasn't any chains.
From the upstairs sala windows I can watch the cars skidding round the bends towards the city - chains are no exaggeration - so no festive outing to the last market before Christmas to load up with tinsel and toffee, pomegranates and pandoro and presents wrapped like works of art (the bookshop does particularly fine Bauhaus-style wraps, it must be the all those geometric forms dictating style).
I shall boil a fine piece of beef with some veal bones that Mr HG skated across to the butcher for earlier; carrots, celery, a red onion; make a maionese of hard-boiled eggs and chopped capers with the new oil. There is pearl barley I brought back from Poland in the store cupboard, and long leaves of tightly crinkled dark green cabbage, beet leaves, a big jar of those summer-bottled tomatoes, so resented then but so welcome now, thank you for all that hard bottling work, some of those white, fluffy potatoes -not the yellow, waxy small ones - and we'll have soup for a seige.
Good thing I dressed in my velveteen track suit this morning, with fluffy socks and one of those fleecy-lined undershirts from Brussels; I must have known I wasn't going across the doors even before I opened the shutters. The light was all wrong, the bells were muffled, no footsteps on their way to Mass; open the window, unlatch, push, and it wasn't just the cold that took the breath away. Miles and miles and miles of perfect white.
From the upstairs sala windows I can watch the cars skidding round the bends towards the city - chains are no exaggeration - so no festive outing to the last market before Christmas to load up with tinsel and toffee, pomegranates and pandoro and presents wrapped like works of art (the bookshop does particularly fine Bauhaus-style wraps, it must be the all those geometric forms dictating style).
I shall boil a fine piece of beef with some veal bones that Mr HG skated across to the butcher for earlier; carrots, celery, a red onion; make a maionese of hard-boiled eggs and chopped capers with the new oil. There is pearl barley I brought back from Poland in the store cupboard, and long leaves of tightly crinkled dark green cabbage, beet leaves, a big jar of those summer-bottled tomatoes, so resented then but so welcome now, thank you for all that hard bottling work, some of those white, fluffy potatoes -not the yellow, waxy small ones - and we'll have soup for a seige.
Good thing I dressed in my velveteen track suit this morning, with fluffy socks and one of those fleecy-lined undershirts from Brussels; I must have known I wasn't going across the doors even before I opened the shutters. The light was all wrong, the bells were muffled, no footsteps on their way to Mass; open the window, unlatch, push, and it wasn't just the cold that took the breath away. Miles and miles and miles of perfect white.
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