Ok Mr. God, you've had your fun. First you try to drown us, then you shake our house about and now you dump all that white stuff on us. What is next? Pestilence? Locusts? Ronny the Milkman and 5th rider of the acopolypse.. alocopyspse...? We've had gail force winds and snow for the last 18 hours, just as we thought winter was going to be cancelled this year! It is to last for about 10 days!
In the absence of a camera to record the event here some archive footage of last time it snowed. Meet some of my crazy neighbours:
Should we decide to leave here, there are some people from this village I'm really going to miss. The following is a concert held last Christmas involving Mauro on accordeon and pipes as well as Iacobo (an Italian who teaches Irish to the Irish) and Corrado. Unfortunately we had missed the concert ourselves as we were in the mountains over Christmas. Thank God for You Tube!
Right, enough of all that. I'm going to hibernate now. Someone wake me up in March... ;)
Showing posts with label traditional music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traditional music. Show all posts
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Monday, 31 August 2009
Surprise lumchtime concert
A quick final post for August. Yesterday we had some friends over for lunch. Friends, that is in the sense of the Irish proverb: "Strangers are friends you just haven't met yet". Anyway, as we were arriving at the dessert our next door neighbour Mauro and a couple of his musical friends dropped by to give us a surprise lunchtime concert. The regular readers of this blog may remember me mentioning Mauro and his band Tandarandan (www.tandarandan.it) playing traditional Lunigiana music. These new friends of ours must have thought we hired a few professional musicians to impress them and make it look spontaneous.
The land produces abundant amounts of food, tomatoes, aubergines, figs, peaches to name but a few things. I'm still out of any serious work with my damaged arm. If it doesn't get any better soon, I may have to have it x-rayed again.
We been having to water almost daily on the land though. August has been very hot throughout. They keep forecasting rain, sometimes it's threatening, like this build-up of cloud below or a rumble of thunder from beyond the mountains, but so far it has stayed dry. There was one shower at the beginning of the month and that's it. If it goes on like this we might try a rain dance.
The land produces abundant amounts of food, tomatoes, aubergines, figs, peaches to name but a few things. I'm still out of any serious work with my damaged arm. If it doesn't get any better soon, I may have to have it x-rayed again.
We been having to water almost daily on the land though. August has been very hot throughout. They keep forecasting rain, sometimes it's threatening, like this build-up of cloud below or a rumble of thunder from beyond the mountains, but so far it has stayed dry. There was one shower at the beginning of the month and that's it. If it goes on like this we might try a rain dance.
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Long tome no hear...
Sorry it's been a while, lots has happened since the last post. I'm not trying to come up with excuses, but... Well first of all I was away for a few days at the end of June, beginning of July. Had to take the car to Germany for an MOT. Good news it has passed, bad news it wasn't cheap. I'd rather do wothout motorised transport, but can't quite do without it.
Well then as soon as I had returned we were struck by lightning, which melted my computer monitor and the old modem. I managed to get an old monitor off someone for nothing, but it wasn't worth replacing the modem as we were waiting for a new telephone line from Fastweb with a proper broadband connection at last! Yes we have turned our backs on Telecom, despite warnings from people that you'll never know what service you will be getting with these people. Well I reckoned it couldn't get any worse, and so far so good.
So today a premier for this blog: A moving picture with sound! Last night was the annual Musicalmangiando event in our village, a festa with, as the name suggests, there's food and music, but also art and general merryment. The music was supposed to be supplied by our neighbour Mauro and his band Tandarandan, but for some reason this was changed by the organisers. Instead we had fire jugglers and our friend Silvio with some mates playing Rennaissance music. That's what you can hear and see a sample of above if you have a fast enough internet connection.
The food was as usual the Cusina d'Sa' Steu', the cuisine of Santo Stefano, although Remo, the brains behind promoting the local specialities is getting on a bit and semi-retired, so I felt that the standards were slipping a wee bit. For a start quantities weren't as gut-splitting as usual. Mind you when I mentioned that after the desserts, someone found me another plate of roast rabbit. The other good thing was of course that the man pouring the grappa afterwards gave Susan and me an extra helping calling us the number one and two supporters of the Cusina d'Sa' Steu'. Besides he said, anyone as mad as us riding our bikes up and down our hill is probably in need of an extra helping of strong liquor...
Below you see the antipasti being served on the way up from the main piazza:
And then under the last rays of sunshine we settled down for the main courses on the little piazza in fron of our house. In the centre of the picture with her purple back to us and the bare arms is Susan and opposite her our lovely neighbours Susannah and Marco.
Other updates as to what happened on the land etc. coming up in the next few days.Saturday, 3 January 2009
Above you see some pictures of the traditional New Year’s jam session at Pegaso bar in Arcola (http://www.pegasolive.it/). This year they did it the more informal way around a table rather than on stage and included musicians of the Irish band the Tullamores, including our neighbour Marco on banjo and guitar and the proprietor of the Pegaso Andrea on guitar, vocals and mandolin as well as members of Tandarandan(http://www.tandarandan.it/), playing traditional music of the Lunigiana, including our neighbour Mauro on accordion. I put in a stint of traditional “freestyle” Irish dancing à la Michael Flatley of Riverdance! It was a great night again as usual, but my legs are still a bit sore….
I hope you all got into the New Year ok. We celebrated at our neighbours Marco and Susanna. Somehow we where still eating when the clock struck 12. The weather since the last post had been mostly very nice, albeit cold, except for New Year’s Eve itself. As darkness fell a cloud enveloped our hilltop village, making for very unpleasant damp weather, and did not lift until morning. That meant that whereas we normally get a prime view of all the firework displays for a 100 miles around, all we saw this year was the odd hint of a flash in the fog. Well never mind.
The festive season now coming to an end (still Epiphany to come up on the 6th) we started get stuck into some work again today. I’ve had the chainsaw fixed and it works better than ever before. The old chain that I had to replace was as blunt as, as, as… as a really blunt thing, and the new chain cut through the cherry tree which needed felling like a hot knife through butter. We filled the car to bursting with wood. I really should have it registered as an agricultural vehicle to pay less.
I hope you all got into the New Year ok. We celebrated at our neighbours Marco and Susanna. Somehow we where still eating when the clock struck 12. The weather since the last post had been mostly very nice, albeit cold, except for New Year’s Eve itself. As darkness fell a cloud enveloped our hilltop village, making for very unpleasant damp weather, and did not lift until morning. That meant that whereas we normally get a prime view of all the firework displays for a 100 miles around, all we saw this year was the odd hint of a flash in the fog. Well never mind.
The festive season now coming to an end (still Epiphany to come up on the 6th) we started get stuck into some work again today. I’ve had the chainsaw fixed and it works better than ever before. The old chain that I had to replace was as blunt as, as, as… as a really blunt thing, and the new chain cut through the cherry tree which needed felling like a hot knife through butter. We filled the car to bursting with wood. I really should have it registered as an agricultural vehicle to pay less.
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Jam session under the stars
Last night we organised a big jam session on the little piazza outside our house. Our English friends Pam and John, who have a holiday home in Calice al Cornoviglio, have had musical visitors from France. So after much to-ing and fro-ing we managed to get them together with our musical neighbours for a session under the stars. I took it upon myself to cater for over a dozen people, which was no mean feat, considering we had a budget of about €1.33 or thereabouts. I attempted to make the local snack ‘farinata’, which is basically just a mixture of chickpea flour, water and olive oil, which is baked in the oven on a flat baking tray. It was only a limited success, as I discovered that our oven does not stand on an even surface and as the batter is pretty runny it turned out thick one end and thin on the other. Well, since the foreign visitors did not know what it was supposed to look like I just about got away with it.
Next I made my own variation of the local mes-ciüa soup, which was invented by the dock workers of La Spezia. They gathered up any bits of grain or dried pulses which had escaped from sacks while ships were being loaded and unloaded. Now the main ingredients are chickpeas, dried beans and pearl grain. I added a bit of celery and some herbs to embellish it all. Next I made a large pot of spaghetti with a roast tomato sauce. Next an ‘anything-I-could-find-in-the-garden-quiche’, which included aubergines, courgettes, green beans, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, basil and pancetta (didn’t find that in the garden). And finally I served some blackberry tartlets made from wild blackberries.
Luckily the visitors brought plenty of wine so this turned into a lovely festa. Soon we were joined by quite a few of our fellow villagers who were attracted by the sounds of the accordion, pipes, fiddle and hurdy-gurdy (or vielle as Sheila the player of that instrument preferred it to be called). Soon there was even dancing going on. We were celebrating until about 1 o’clock in the morning. I hope we didn’t keep the priest, who lives next to the piazza, too much from his beauty sleep. He obviously didn’t feel inclined to join in.
On this frugal living I just came across a great ‘Independent’ article, here’s the link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-thrifty-foodie-how-to-eat-better-but-pay-less-836638.html. I have recently invested in the book mentioned in there: ‘Food for Free’ by Richard Mabey. It’s got descriptions of over 100 edible plants, berries, mushrooms, seaweed and shellfish, fully illustrated and with recipes. And in it’s newest addistion it comes pocket-sized, so I carry it with me at all times now. We have just tried out the Pontack Sauce recipe on Thursday. It’s made from Elderberries, red wine or vinegar and various spices and is to be used as a condiment, which goes particularly well with liver. Apparently it gets better with age (somewhere I’ve read it should be kept at least 7 years, but we had a try after about 7 minutes), which is just as well as I made over 2 litres of it. It has an interesting sweet and sour flavour with lovely dark fruity notes and an all staining deep red colour. Also on Thursday I’ve made fig jam with the second crop of figs. It was odd this year, the same fig tree produced one crop in late June, then nothing until now, then a second crop just as big as the first.
Next I made my own variation of the local mes-ciüa soup, which was invented by the dock workers of La Spezia. They gathered up any bits of grain or dried pulses which had escaped from sacks while ships were being loaded and unloaded. Now the main ingredients are chickpeas, dried beans and pearl grain. I added a bit of celery and some herbs to embellish it all. Next I made a large pot of spaghetti with a roast tomato sauce. Next an ‘anything-I-could-find-in-the-garden-quiche’, which included aubergines, courgettes, green beans, cherry tomatoes, green peppers, basil and pancetta (didn’t find that in the garden). And finally I served some blackberry tartlets made from wild blackberries.
Luckily the visitors brought plenty of wine so this turned into a lovely festa. Soon we were joined by quite a few of our fellow villagers who were attracted by the sounds of the accordion, pipes, fiddle and hurdy-gurdy (or vielle as Sheila the player of that instrument preferred it to be called). Soon there was even dancing going on. We were celebrating until about 1 o’clock in the morning. I hope we didn’t keep the priest, who lives next to the piazza, too much from his beauty sleep. He obviously didn’t feel inclined to join in.
On this frugal living I just came across a great ‘Independent’ article, here’s the link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-thrifty-foodie-how-to-eat-better-but-pay-less-836638.html. I have recently invested in the book mentioned in there: ‘Food for Free’ by Richard Mabey. It’s got descriptions of over 100 edible plants, berries, mushrooms, seaweed and shellfish, fully illustrated and with recipes. And in it’s newest addistion it comes pocket-sized, so I carry it with me at all times now. We have just tried out the Pontack Sauce recipe on Thursday. It’s made from Elderberries, red wine or vinegar and various spices and is to be used as a condiment, which goes particularly well with liver. Apparently it gets better with age (somewhere I’ve read it should be kept at least 7 years, but we had a try after about 7 minutes), which is just as well as I made over 2 litres of it. It has an interesting sweet and sour flavour with lovely dark fruity notes and an all staining deep red colour. Also on Thursday I’ve made fig jam with the second crop of figs. It was odd this year, the same fig tree produced one crop in late June, then nothing until now, then a second crop just as big as the first.
A final word about the weather, although the weather forecast keeps forecasting rain 'within the next few days', this hasn't happened yet, not even threatened to. The thermometer seems stuck at around 29 during the day and 19 at night.
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
rain, rain, rain...
This is possibly the longest stretch of unsettled weather we’ve experienced since we’ve come to Italy almost 4 years ago. Ever since James and Alison arrived last Sunday we haven’t had a day without rain, some of it heavy with thunder storms, hail and all. It hasn’t been particularly cold though, so everything got a real growth boost, especially the weeds. The day before the rains started I strimmed the top 10 terraces at Arcola almost back to ground level and in 9 days the grass has grown back by about 2 inches and as for the bamboo… I have heard that bamboo is the fastest growing plant on earth and I can well believe it, up to 3 foot in a week!
So what were we up to in the last week? Saturday we were invited to a book launch. Our neighbour, Mauro Manicardi, who I have mentioned previously in this blog for playing traditional music with his band Tandarandan, has finally after 8 years of research finished his book on the music of the Lunigiana and the Val di Vara. The traditional music of the region has not very many proponents any more and Mauro has interviewed many of the older folk in the villages and recorded many of their tunes and songs (both in print in this book as well as on CD with his band). There are also articles on the carnival traditions and dance steps to accompany the music. The launch took place at a museum in La Spezia and of course it included some musical samples and some aperitivi. Here is a link to the official website of Tandarandan: http://www.tandarandan.it/. This Thursday both Mauro and our other neighbour Marco will be playing in a concert with Riccardo Borghetti again. Remember we saw them playing at his official launch of Riccardo’s new CD. This time it’s going to be a proper public concert at the Teatro Civico in La Spezia. So, something to look forward to.
Yesterday James, who is a bit of a whiz kid when it comes to plumbing, came out to our plot in Arcola. We always had a water tap out there, but could never quite work out how to get it properly connected. So we kept either borrowing water from the neighbour or carry some up in large canister’s. This was not nearly enough during last year’s extremely dry winter and summer. In the pouring rain yesterday we bent over a manhole in the road looking at some seriously corroded piping and dodgy connections. After a lot of experimenting around we finally got all 4 valves between the main pipe and our tap open and hallelujah, there was water! James from now on will be venerated as the water god by us. Not only did he fix our water connection, but whenever he is in Italy, it’s raining. Next time we are threatened by a drought we’ll just pray to him to come over…
Today finally it stopped raining for long enough to do some work on the land. We sowed some runner beans (dolico), parsley, rocket and 2 types of lettuce (green and iceberg). In the flowering cycle the sweet cherries and pears are now finished and the apples (above) and sour cherries are in flower.
So what were we up to in the last week? Saturday we were invited to a book launch. Our neighbour, Mauro Manicardi, who I have mentioned previously in this blog for playing traditional music with his band Tandarandan, has finally after 8 years of research finished his book on the music of the Lunigiana and the Val di Vara. The traditional music of the region has not very many proponents any more and Mauro has interviewed many of the older folk in the villages and recorded many of their tunes and songs (both in print in this book as well as on CD with his band). There are also articles on the carnival traditions and dance steps to accompany the music. The launch took place at a museum in La Spezia and of course it included some musical samples and some aperitivi. Here is a link to the official website of Tandarandan: http://www.tandarandan.it/. This Thursday both Mauro and our other neighbour Marco will be playing in a concert with Riccardo Borghetti again. Remember we saw them playing at his official launch of Riccardo’s new CD. This time it’s going to be a proper public concert at the Teatro Civico in La Spezia. So, something to look forward to.
Yesterday James, who is a bit of a whiz kid when it comes to plumbing, came out to our plot in Arcola. We always had a water tap out there, but could never quite work out how to get it properly connected. So we kept either borrowing water from the neighbour or carry some up in large canister’s. This was not nearly enough during last year’s extremely dry winter and summer. In the pouring rain yesterday we bent over a manhole in the road looking at some seriously corroded piping and dodgy connections. After a lot of experimenting around we finally got all 4 valves between the main pipe and our tap open and hallelujah, there was water! James from now on will be venerated as the water god by us. Not only did he fix our water connection, but whenever he is in Italy, it’s raining. Next time we are threatened by a drought we’ll just pray to him to come over…
Today finally it stopped raining for long enough to do some work on the land. We sowed some runner beans (dolico), parsley, rocket and 2 types of lettuce (green and iceberg). In the flowering cycle the sweet cherries and pears are now finished and the apples (above) and sour cherries are in flower.
Friday, 15 February 2008
Quando ‘r pèo I fa ‘r grizin
Quando ‘r pèo I fa ‘r grizin
Lascia ‘a môssa e date ar vin
(When the hair turns grey,
Leave the women and date wine)
Riccardo Borghetti
Just as I thought I’m getting the hang of Italian we get invited to the launch of the latest CD of local hero and troubadour Riccardo Borghetti, who sings all his songs in Spezzini, the dialect of La Spezia! Women instead of donne become môssa. ‘k’ sounds become slurred ‘g’ sounds (as in the g in George when you’ve had a bit too much to drink). ‘tch’ sounds become ‘ss’ sounds and a load of other confusions. Everything becomes softer, a bit like Portuguese in sound, although influences are more French apparently. Riccardo Borghetti is the most famous current musician in the province, his greatest claim to fame being the fact that he wrote the supporter song for Spezia football club, after they got promoted to Serie B last season. We managed to get an invite to this exclusive event, because, in addition to his usual band he needed an extra accordion player (our neighbour Mauro) and a banjo player (our neighbour Marco). Incidentally, Marco reckons with me and him both playing the banjo, Ponzano Superiore possibly has the largest concentration of banjo players in Italy.
The music? Well his voice is certainly distinct, especially after several cigarettes and glasses of red wine. Folk-pop probably describes it best. Bits of Country and even rock come out in between, certainly a sense of humour, no… it sort of grows on you. The man doesn’t have a web-site as far as I can see, otherwise I’d direct you towards it for a sound sample. After the show there was traditional food: farinata (little chickpea fritters) and mes-ciua (a soup consisting of chickpeas, cannelloni beans and farro) and wine from the nearby Cinque Terre. And afterwards we went to Ali’s Pub next to the market in La Spezia with Marco and Susana and their parents. Really nice evening out!
Susan in the meantime has nearly finished her first week’s teaching. And it hasn’t turned out as bad as she had feared. She takes 10 different classes, which means she only has to prepare one lesson a week. I told her it would be good idea to start with a sporty theme in her first lesson to get their attention, as most Italian kids are sports mad. So as there are the 6-Nations on at the moment she tried to interest them in some rugby: Contrast and compare football versus rugby. Amongst the things we came up with was in football they dive and feign injury, but if a rugby player stays down he’s broken a leg! Anyway, some classes seem to have been better than others, but certainly manageable. Next week she’ll do Irish music. I on the other hand will be away from Sunday to Wednesday or so for a couple of wine tasting events in Germany with one of my clients.
On the agricultural front, we haven’t done much on the land, but I sowed a lot of things indoors. Here’s the list: peppers, cucumbers, 3 types of tomatoes, melons, aubergines, chervil, basil, savoury, tarragon, dill and chillies. If only half of this takes we’ll be well supplied over the summer and autumn.
Lascia ‘a môssa e date ar vin
(When the hair turns grey,
Leave the women and date wine)
Riccardo Borghetti
Just as I thought I’m getting the hang of Italian we get invited to the launch of the latest CD of local hero and troubadour Riccardo Borghetti, who sings all his songs in Spezzini, the dialect of La Spezia! Women instead of donne become môssa. ‘k’ sounds become slurred ‘g’ sounds (as in the g in George when you’ve had a bit too much to drink). ‘tch’ sounds become ‘ss’ sounds and a load of other confusions. Everything becomes softer, a bit like Portuguese in sound, although influences are more French apparently. Riccardo Borghetti is the most famous current musician in the province, his greatest claim to fame being the fact that he wrote the supporter song for Spezia football club, after they got promoted to Serie B last season. We managed to get an invite to this exclusive event, because, in addition to his usual band he needed an extra accordion player (our neighbour Mauro) and a banjo player (our neighbour Marco). Incidentally, Marco reckons with me and him both playing the banjo, Ponzano Superiore possibly has the largest concentration of banjo players in Italy.
The music? Well his voice is certainly distinct, especially after several cigarettes and glasses of red wine. Folk-pop probably describes it best. Bits of Country and even rock come out in between, certainly a sense of humour, no… it sort of grows on you. The man doesn’t have a web-site as far as I can see, otherwise I’d direct you towards it for a sound sample. After the show there was traditional food: farinata (little chickpea fritters) and mes-ciua (a soup consisting of chickpeas, cannelloni beans and farro) and wine from the nearby Cinque Terre. And afterwards we went to Ali’s Pub next to the market in La Spezia with Marco and Susana and their parents. Really nice evening out!
Susan in the meantime has nearly finished her first week’s teaching. And it hasn’t turned out as bad as she had feared. She takes 10 different classes, which means she only has to prepare one lesson a week. I told her it would be good idea to start with a sporty theme in her first lesson to get their attention, as most Italian kids are sports mad. So as there are the 6-Nations on at the moment she tried to interest them in some rugby: Contrast and compare football versus rugby. Amongst the things we came up with was in football they dive and feign injury, but if a rugby player stays down he’s broken a leg! Anyway, some classes seem to have been better than others, but certainly manageable. Next week she’ll do Irish music. I on the other hand will be away from Sunday to Wednesday or so for a couple of wine tasting events in Germany with one of my clients.
On the agricultural front, we haven’t done much on the land, but I sowed a lot of things indoors. Here’s the list: peppers, cucumbers, 3 types of tomatoes, melons, aubergines, chervil, basil, savoury, tarragon, dill and chillies. If only half of this takes we’ll be well supplied over the summer and autumn.
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Olive wood, Christmas and Tandarandan
The forecast was for 3 days rain in a row, starting from today. Looking out of the window we saw it threatening over the sea, but that gave us a few hours to gather a bit of wood that we would be needing if the weather would keep us indoors. Whilst there is piles of wood over at George’s in Villa, it’s not of the highest quality and not quite dry enough. So we went over to our plot, where a few overgrown olive trees were waiting to be reduced significantly in size.
In the last few years we have been doing this by hand, but whoever has ever tried cutting olive wood will know: it’s a job and a half! A trunk of say 12 inches in diameter will take the best part of a week to saw and hack through and will blunt your saw and axe into the bargain and leave you with blisters on your hands. Now, thanks to George, we have a chainsaw. We bought it on the opening sale of the new hyper-market at the bottom of our hill. It copes with clearing the weed trees off George’s land no problem, but olive wood… Every few minutes the chain needed re-tightening and the job was still a bit of a struggle. However, it was way better than by hand and we managed to fill a couple of baskets before the rains arrived. Olive wood is the best wood for burning even when slightly green. It burns slowly and gives off a lot of heat. And there is a lovely smell coming off the smoke. It should be enough to keep us warm over the holidays.
Last night we saw our neighbour Mauro with his band at Pegaso in Arcola. It was a great evening. They play traditional music of the Lunigiana region. Now this might not sound too exciting, especially if you have attended the odd village dance in the region, where the ‘duck song’ seems to be an eternal favourite. They officially launched their new album ‘Adalgisiana’ yesterday (although I’ve had a copy since my birthday last month). It is all instrumental, the instruments being a guitar, an accordion, 2 violins (or 1 violin and 2 bagpipes) and, my favourite, a hurdy-gurdy. Now until a few weeks ago you could have hit me over the head with one and I wouldn’t have known what a hurdy-gurdy is. You sort of turn a handle on the bulbous looking instrument on your lap and press some keys down. The result is a sort off rhythmic sawing sound.
The music they play is really, after much research, a revival of an ancient, almost extinct, music tradition, which has Celtic influences as well as some almost gypsy-like leanings, but is essentially dance music: polka, mazurka, waltz etc. And like all good folk music, you can’t help but tap your feet, fingers and all to it. Shame Pegaso is too small a venue to have started a dance in the middle of the hall.
One final word comparing Italian Christmas to Christmas in England. Whereas of course you get the inevitable commercial spin, supermarkets with flashing decorations, Jingle Bells out of tinny speakers etc, it’s not nearly as bad as the UK. Today, I know from experience, is the most important shopping day of the year in the UK, Saturday before Christmas, and you’ll come across multitudes of very stressed looking people and queue endlessly at the checkouts. Here on the other hand, we needed just a few bits for the weekend and tried a medium-sized supermarket in Arcola, hoping on the last Saturday before Christmas they would for once not shut for lunch. How wrong we were, lunch is sacred! So we went to another supermarket, which we knew normally opened over lunch in the centre of Sarzana. To our amazement it was almost empty (of customers not merchandise), no queues. Now I can’t think of a shop in England, which wouldn’t be pandemonium pretty much all day today and extending their opening hours.
The photos above are of Tandarandan at Pegaso last night and the Christmas decorations at the entrance to Ponzano Superiore. After such a long contribution today, I think this will be me off air until Christmas. So Happy Christmas to all of you out there in Cyber-land and hopefully hear from you soon.
In the last few years we have been doing this by hand, but whoever has ever tried cutting olive wood will know: it’s a job and a half! A trunk of say 12 inches in diameter will take the best part of a week to saw and hack through and will blunt your saw and axe into the bargain and leave you with blisters on your hands. Now, thanks to George, we have a chainsaw. We bought it on the opening sale of the new hyper-market at the bottom of our hill. It copes with clearing the weed trees off George’s land no problem, but olive wood… Every few minutes the chain needed re-tightening and the job was still a bit of a struggle. However, it was way better than by hand and we managed to fill a couple of baskets before the rains arrived. Olive wood is the best wood for burning even when slightly green. It burns slowly and gives off a lot of heat. And there is a lovely smell coming off the smoke. It should be enough to keep us warm over the holidays.
Last night we saw our neighbour Mauro with his band at Pegaso in Arcola. It was a great evening. They play traditional music of the Lunigiana region. Now this might not sound too exciting, especially if you have attended the odd village dance in the region, where the ‘duck song’ seems to be an eternal favourite. They officially launched their new album ‘Adalgisiana’ yesterday (although I’ve had a copy since my birthday last month). It is all instrumental, the instruments being a guitar, an accordion, 2 violins (or 1 violin and 2 bagpipes) and, my favourite, a hurdy-gurdy. Now until a few weeks ago you could have hit me over the head with one and I wouldn’t have known what a hurdy-gurdy is. You sort of turn a handle on the bulbous looking instrument on your lap and press some keys down. The result is a sort off rhythmic sawing sound.
The music they play is really, after much research, a revival of an ancient, almost extinct, music tradition, which has Celtic influences as well as some almost gypsy-like leanings, but is essentially dance music: polka, mazurka, waltz etc. And like all good folk music, you can’t help but tap your feet, fingers and all to it. Shame Pegaso is too small a venue to have started a dance in the middle of the hall.
One final word comparing Italian Christmas to Christmas in England. Whereas of course you get the inevitable commercial spin, supermarkets with flashing decorations, Jingle Bells out of tinny speakers etc, it’s not nearly as bad as the UK. Today, I know from experience, is the most important shopping day of the year in the UK, Saturday before Christmas, and you’ll come across multitudes of very stressed looking people and queue endlessly at the checkouts. Here on the other hand, we needed just a few bits for the weekend and tried a medium-sized supermarket in Arcola, hoping on the last Saturday before Christmas they would for once not shut for lunch. How wrong we were, lunch is sacred! So we went to another supermarket, which we knew normally opened over lunch in the centre of Sarzana. To our amazement it was almost empty (of customers not merchandise), no queues. Now I can’t think of a shop in England, which wouldn’t be pandemonium pretty much all day today and extending their opening hours.
The photos above are of Tandarandan at Pegaso last night and the Christmas decorations at the entrance to Ponzano Superiore. After such a long contribution today, I think this will be me off air until Christmas. So Happy Christmas to all of you out there in Cyber-land and hopefully hear from you soon.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
There’s a cold wind blowing
Yesterday and today the weather has turned decidedly chilly with a stiff easterly breeze sweeping the country. Yesterday we had a quick look around our plot in Arcola, but with the east facing aspect, we nearly got blown off. All this concentrated our minds on gathering more wood at George’s plot in Villa. So we went today and saw the first snow flakes of the year. It’s always 2 or 3 degrees colder out there. However most of the time it was bright and we had a nice fire going and we brought a flask of soup. As you can see we filled the car up with wood and the cottage has another large pile inside. We have now nearly cut down the little wood outside the house. Next we are going to have to prune the vines and clear another jungle to the right of the entrance.
Mind you we have been having to dodge the bullets and fight off the dogs of the wild boar hunters up there too. It was only due to Susan wearing red and stoking a fire and me handling a noisy chainsaw, that we weren’t mistaken for wild boar!
We took our baskets filled with goodies to our neighbours this evening. They were quite impressed by the basket weaving and asked incredulously whether we really made those ourselves. They were just being nice to us I think. For anyone reading this living nearby, Mauro and his Tandarandan are playing live coming Friday the 21st at Pegaso Music Club in Arcola and Marco and his Tullamores are playing Irish music at the same venue on Sunday the 4th January. For more on Pegaso check out http://www.pegasolive.it/.
Mind you we have been having to dodge the bullets and fight off the dogs of the wild boar hunters up there too. It was only due to Susan wearing red and stoking a fire and me handling a noisy chainsaw, that we weren’t mistaken for wild boar!
We took our baskets filled with goodies to our neighbours this evening. They were quite impressed by the basket weaving and asked incredulously whether we really made those ourselves. They were just being nice to us I think. For anyone reading this living nearby, Mauro and his Tandarandan are playing live coming Friday the 21st at Pegaso Music Club in Arcola and Marco and his Tullamores are playing Irish music at the same venue on Sunday the 4th January. For more on Pegaso check out http://www.pegasolive.it/.
Oh and ps: No one entered the ugly basket competition, so I knooowww, say no more. I know when I'm not loved. Nobody wants my baskets. Pah! We'll just give them all to our unsuspecting neighbours who feel obliged to be polite about them. There!
Sunday, 9 December 2007
Nice weekend
There were a couple of interesting bits of news this weekend. First I have been contacted via this blog by a couple, Babette and Paul, who run a website about pilgrim's ways in Europe in general and the Via Francigena in particular. They have travelled the entire route from Canterbury to Rome first on horseback, then by bicycle. They are now in the process of writing a guide about it and wanted to know about accommodation around us. Those of you who have already visited us, will have met and possibly stayed with our lovely neighbours Marco and Susannah. They have long been thinking of letting their guest room out to passing travellers, but thought no one was going to climb up several flights of stairs to stay in fairly basic accommodation. If however, these travellers had just crossed the mountains from Aulla, they’ll probably be glad of the warm welcome that Marco and Susannah would afford them. So, after I just went over to have a chat with them, the B&B at Marco and Susannah’s is now officially open! The view from their guest toilet alone is worth the entry money. Have a look at the Website of Paul and Babette at http://www.pilgrimagepublications.com/ and check the link to their blog on their travels earlier this year. Their motivation for pilgrim’s routes is born out of their conviction for eco-friendly travel, i.e. on horseback, by bike or on foot, which is something I can only endorse. So do check them out!
The other thing that made this rainy day a bit more interesting was our other neighbour Mauro coming over for a favour. He plays the accordion and bagpipes in a traditional folk band, Tandarandan. They play traditional dances of the Lunigiana region. We saw them playing a couple of weeks ago and they are very good. They found a write-up to their latest CD on a Belgian web-site, but couldn’t understand it as it was in Dutch. So I just gave him a translation of this glowing review. For those of you who understand Dutch, check it out on http://www.folkroddels.be/artikels/35644.html. For the rest of you, if you want a flavour of some traditional music of the region check out their web-site on http://www.tandarandan.it/ and click on ascolta for some samples. See the photo above for Mauro in action.
The other thing that made this rainy day a bit more interesting was our other neighbour Mauro coming over for a favour. He plays the accordion and bagpipes in a traditional folk band, Tandarandan. They play traditional dances of the Lunigiana region. We saw them playing a couple of weeks ago and they are very good. They found a write-up to their latest CD on a Belgian web-site, but couldn’t understand it as it was in Dutch. So I just gave him a translation of this glowing review. For those of you who understand Dutch, check it out on http://www.folkroddels.be/artikels/35644.html. For the rest of you, if you want a flavour of some traditional music of the region check out their web-site on http://www.tandarandan.it/ and click on ascolta for some samples. See the photo above for Mauro in action.
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