I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left

Well the end of 2008 is nearing and it’s time to reflect on the past 12 months. First of all an update on the events of the last couple of weeks. The weather up to Christmas eve was glorious. We went for some walks and carried on pruning trees, something we started over a month ago but was interrupted by the bad weather. On the 23rd we had an earthquake, 5.1 on the Richter scale, with the epicentre about 50 km Northwest of here (as the mole digs) on the other side of the Appenines. We noticed a slight tremor and I don’t think anything serious actually happened. The link for more details is http://cnt.rm.ingv.it/~earthquake/data_id/2205007630/event.php.

Christmas Day turned cloudy and we had our usual quiet day, eating and drinking lots. We are now drinking our own wine, which strictly speaking isn’t ready yet, but as it was sitting in our cold cantina at Villa, fermentation had simply stopped and wasn’t likely to restart again until late spring if at all. So it’s now a semi-sweet rosé, but still at a hefty 13% alcohol or thereabouts. The highlight of the Christmas dinner was the guinea fowl stuffed with a chestnut stuffing which I made and froze when the chestnuts were in abundance. Santa brought me a the new CD by Seasick Steve, “I Started Out With Nothing and I still Got Most Of It Left”. Seasick Steve is an excellent Blues musician who seemed to have suddenly shot to fame a year ago when he made an appearance at Jools Holland’s New Year Hootenany on British TV. He plays mostly his own music in the Delta Blues fashion and he has an inimitable story telling style. Not only tell his songs stories, but he quite literally tells stories on his CDs mostly about his former life as a hoboing tramp, travelling America by jumping onto trains or hitchhiking and generally living it rough. His great sense of humour always shows through, which is something I always appreciate in any art form, whether it’s music, painting, sculpture or conceptual art. Life’s too short to take everything serious. Check him out on http://www.seasicksteve.com/

Boxing Day the weather turned seriously cold with an icy wind going. Yesterday we appear to have mislaid our kitten. She somehow escaped, but was with her mummy at the time, so we weren’t too worried, but to date she has not returned (the mother has) and with temperature around freezing outside now, and with the amount of unused cellars and hidyholes in the village a search being almost impossible, we don’t hold out much hope of her returning. Shame as we just managed to get her confidence and she was very sweet.

Anyway, to return to Seasick Steve, the title of his album: “I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left” pretty much sums up our year and my life in general (not that I’m complaining, mind). It’s not entirely true of course either. We may have been broke at the beginning of the year and still are now, possibly even more so, but we have gained experience, friends, memories and a cat. We are still here against all the odds and we are healthy.

Let’s start our review of 2008 with this blog. I started it just over a year ago and find it useful in many ways. It disciplines me into actually doing things worth mentioning in the blog, it reminds me at what we have been up to at any particular time, when we planted, pruned, harvested what and I get the occasional contact and even tip from interested people all over the world, such as what to do with kaki from someone in China. I am amazed at how many people from so many different places reach my site. On the 29th of March I installed that little world visitor map at the top right of this page. From this I gather that 2,247 visits have been registered since, that’s just over 8 hits a day, from 75 different countries. Almost exactly one third came from the UK, which does not surprise me. Number two was the USA with 23%, which does surprise me, given that I don’t know many people there. Italy is at number 3 with 15% and Germany at number 4 with 6.5%. Amongst the also rans I’m surprised to have had more hits from India than from the Netherlands (I am Dutch), and even places like Vietnam, Madagascar and the Palestinian Territories featured. How do you people find me? I’d love to know and would appreciate some comments. People who have given me feedback to this site have been all positive, so I shall carry on for the time being.

On our agricultural activities, this is the first year we have more or less dedicated ourselves full-time to them (having pretty much given up the business with the deteriorating economic conditions) with encouraging results. We keep learning new things by the tried and trusted trial and error system. Amongst the new things learned this year was that it’s generally best to plant a particular crop, such as peas or broad beans just the once, rather than staggered to increase the length of time to harvest. There tends to be a window of time which will give the best crop, whilst early or late crops won’t do so well. If you have too much produce at that time we have discovered many new ways of preserving crops, which will then come in handy when you haven’ got much else. Circumstantial evidence recently also seems to indicate that moon phases do make a difference to crop success. We sowed to beds with peas within 10 days of each other, the first during the waxing moon in ground not previously enriched and the second during waning moon a terrace down in a bed that has had compost added the previous season. The latter had over half failing to shoot whilst the former is looking a lot healthier. We have had a similar experience with onions, which are supposed to be planted during the waning moon phase, and they did do better than those planted shortly before during the waxing moon. The trouble of course is, no matter how carefully you plan your farming year, something always crops up which puts you behind schedule, the weather most notably, or equipment failure slowing the rate of ploughing or pruning and other unforeseen events.

As far as our finances are concerned nothing much has improved. My endeavours in finding a job haven’t really got anywhere. I’m registered with most job agencies in the province, but if anything at all they come with jobs I am not qualified to do such as accountant for metal company or such like. I’ve tried to get a job grape picking with some of the larger vineyards in the area but also to no avail as they already have a plentiful supply of cheap and willing Eastern-Europeans on their books. One wanted a qualified oenolgist, but whilst I have an idea of the theory, I can’t lay claim to this title. Susan in the meantime will get some teaching work again in the new year. She is going to teach a couple of classes in Borghetto Vara, a small town in the Vara valley and is likely to get her job in Sarzana back, where she worked earlier this year.

All in all it’s been a good year, if it wasn’t for the constant lack of cash. But we’re getting there and looking with some confidence into 2009. Oh and the photo on top, I have no idea what these berries are either, we saw them on a walk recently. Maybe they are the ‘fruits of our labours’… Oh and I just noticed this is the 100th entry of this blog!

I'm Walking

Just a quick update. The weather has continued to be pretty ropey. Rome and Venice are under water and already December’s precipitation has exceeded all previous records all over Italy and the month is only half finished. This and the fact that I pulled a muscle in my back while attempting to lift a gas bottle, made last week fairly uneventful. We were invited to a lovely meal by friends of Pam and John in Calice on Sunday involving wild boar and goat, the kitten has become more trusting and my pair of boots have packed it in. They were only 4 years old, but I bought them cheap on a market. Now I have had to get my old walking boots back out of their retirement.

Yesterday the weather picked up a bit again and today we went on a long walk, working on the guide.

Born Under A Bad Sign

In the words of Albert King and other Blues greats, I must have been ‘born under a bad sign’, ‘for it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all’. Or maybe it’s the arrival in our house of those cats (‘My baby’s got a black cat bone’) or punishment for some other sin.

Things started going wrong on my birthday, 17 November. Incidentally many thanks for the various birthday greetings. The weather had been good around my birthday and we decided to get the olive harvest in. We picked a total of some 30 kg of healthy olives. It’s a bit of an awkward quantity, not really enough take to the mill to turn to oil, but a bit too much for simply eating. However we did pickle them all in brine, so shouldn’t have a shortage of eating olives in the house for a bit.


As we got home, I tried as usual to go onto my computer to check my e-mails and maybe post something on the blog, but no can do. I couldn’t go on-line. After trying various things with the help of Marco from next door, changing the modem twice, I only just now managed to get back on-line now. So sorry for any un-answered e-mails etc, and hence the long gap between postings here.

Two days after this mishap our baking oven gave up it’s ghost. I use it a lot, not least for making bread every other day. When we arrived here we bought the cheapest stove we could find and it seemed fine. The oven however can only be switched on with a timer, and the spring inside the timer had given way. I located a shop where I could order a replacement, but at a whopping €50 and a waiting time of 10 days. The whole bl***y thing cost only about €250, how can such a small part cost that much? Just as we are short on funds anyway. Well we had to bite the bullet and the machine is back in operation.

Next thing that went wrong was the chainsaw. I was trying to prune back an overgrown plum tree and the chain jumped off and bent slightly. The costs of that I have not yet assessed. I’m hoping I might be able to fix it myself. Finally today the second of our two mobile phones seems be on it’s last leg and I cannot afford to replace it. I don’t use it much, mostly for time keeping and emergencies, but it was handy for that. And I thought bad things happen in 3s not 4s.

Anyway it hasn’t all been bad. As for the cats mentioned earlier, you may remember me talking about Garfield. Roundabout my birthday he had decided to move in permanently, so we started buying a wee bit of food for him. He never seemed terribly hungry though and, for a stray cat, he looked remarkably well fed. One evening, after Garfield had settled on our bed, another cat poked it’s head through the door, a very skinny, even emaciated, black & white female. She did not look well at all, loosing hair off her hind legs, having a bright red bottom and looking very weak. So we fed her some too. We called her Dot, because of the black dot on her nose. She and Garfield seemed to get on fine with each other too as you can see.




Dot, to begin with, would never stay for very long either. A bite to eat, ½ hour’s rest and off she went again. After a few days of this, she had turned up again in the evening, had something to eat and a cuddle with Susan, and off she went again… only to reappear after 5 minutes with a little grey & white kitten in tow. Kitten, having been born in the wild and not seen many humans, went straight into hiding in my pyjama drawer and wouldn’t come out for 2 days. Now, 2 weeks later, he (or possibly she, we haven’t been able to assess that yet) has become a little braver, but is still shy. We called it Mickey (which could be short for Michael or Michaela after the patron saint of Ponzano Superiore). He stays 24/7 in the house now, Mummy Dot herself sees to it. It’s far too dangerous out there for little kittens.

Garfield in the meantime has been evicted. I saw how the lady next door specially cooked liver for him, shooing away other cats, so he clearly has understood the principal of survival of the fittest, the fittest being the cat that charms humans into feeding him well. He is doing well for himself, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to keep an intact tom cat with an intact female in our house, unless we wanted to breed them. So now we have been chosen to become cat owners. I actually wanted a dog really.

Other than that winter has arrived earlier than last year. The end of November, the beginning of December have been atrocious. Snow in the mountains, rain, hail, gale force winds and cold temperatures for days on end. We’ve been sitting around the fireplace, baking Christmas biscuits and trying to coax the kitten into trusting us. In the breaks of the weather I’ve pruned over half of the trees on our land in Arcola, planted garlic and did a general tidy up. Yesterday and today were fine and sunny again. We’ve only done one more walk for the guide (Aulla – Sarzana) because the weather didn’t allow for much more.

Volunteers Wanted!

The weather slowly has improved again. Thursday and Friday were quite mixed days with showers always threatening. So we used those two days to do some research. I have decided to write a book. Babette and Paul said they would help me with the printing and I have got it pretty much planned. It is to be a guide to walks around the Lunigiana, whereby I use the geographic term in it’s loosest definition as the provinces of La Spezia (Liguria) and Massa / Carrara (northern tip of Tuscany). The desire to write this guide was born from a frustration of the inaccuracies of even the most detailed maps of the area as well as of the general sign posting. I intend to include at least one walk for each ‘comune’ of those two provinces, give info on any sights along each walk, notes on history and nature, recommendations for places to eat and drink, public transport links, annual events, alongside detailed descriptions of the actual walks themselves with correct maps. I envisage including some 50 walks in the book and to put one day a week aside to research another for the next 12 months.

Now this is where I would like some help by anyone reading this who either lives nearby or is planning a holiday in the region. I need some people to try out the walks to see if my garbled directions make sense to them, before I launch the guide onto the unsuspecting public. Please send me an e-mail or leave a comment below. The above photo was taken on the walk we tried out this week. It’s a 5 ½ hour walk starting from the medieval centre of Santo Stefano di Magra, through quiet woodlands up to Ponzano Superiore with it’s narrow alleyways and sweeping views, down to the valley again past a Victorian style ceramics factory and back to Santo Stefano via the Regional Nature Park along the river Magra with it’s varied birdlife. Herons, storks and even flamingos are amongst the visitors during migration times.

Today the weather turned bright again, but with a strong wind blowing. I had planned on picking my olives today, but with the high winds I decided not climb the top of a 10 foot ladder. Instead we took down the tomato and bean plants, which have finally finished for the year. Mind you I still picked a good kilo of beans today! We also planted onions today, about 100 each of brown and red ones. In previous years I unsuccessfully tried to grow them from seed, now I just planted small bulbs to grow them to bigger ones. Whilst this is marginally more expensive then buying seeds, I’m hoping the results will be better. I also bought a dozen Brussel sprout plants. Last year’s grown from seed didn’t do to well either and were mostly eaten by some nasty bright red bug with a ferocious appetite. We also picked the first kaki of the year, so I shall make some of my famous ‘I can’t believe it’s not mago chutney’ chutney tomorrow. For the recipe look up this blog 6 December last year.

Of Stray cats and Pilgrims

This is our latest house mate up there; we call him Garfield, because he is the spitting image of the famous cartoon cat. He does not seem to belong to anyone in particular, but he’s a clever cat and knows how to beg. On balmy nights he does not mind striding the alleys of Ponzano Superiore, but on rainy ones like tonight he seeks shelter with softies like us. As you can see he already feels quite at home and he fell asleep as soon as he had finished reading a couple of chapters of this thriller. He purrs very loudly and at night he has been known to snore loudly, but he’s such a dear we can’t bring ourselves to throw him out.

The weather just started to turn again this afternoon. This morning we were in Villa under grey skies, bottling the cider (it’s delicious!) and carrying on the strimming job until we succumbed to a fine drizzle slowly making work unpleasant. By the time we got home we were enveloped in low cloud and the rain set in in earnest. The weekend and Monday was mostly fine, with just the odd light shower on Saturday. Our neighbours used the dry spell to get their heavy olive crops in, but we decided to delay as at least one of our trees bears a particularly late ripening variety. We on the other hand got on top of the weeding on the late vegetable beds.

Yesterday we had some pilgrim visitors: Babette and Paul, the authors of a guide to the Via Francigena, the ancient pilgrim’s route from Canterbury to Rome, came to see us while re-checking part of the route for a new edition. We had them around for lunch which extended to an all day affair. We found we had a lot of things in common, including a certain wanderlust, and it was a real pleasure finally meeting them in the flesh after having known them for some time purely as ‘virtual friends’ from the internet. I had a feeling we would be on a similar wavelength, but you never quite know until you actually meet people. They are planning to move closer to us, from Brittany to the Provence and I for one hope to see them again in the not too distant future. On their books see http://www.pilgrimagepublications.com/

The Calm After the Storm

Well the weather sure has been playing up again! Saturday turned out nice, which was just as well as we went to a Guy Faulkes celebration with a bunch of ex-pats further up in the Lunigiana. It’s funny the things you do when you move abroad. I’ve never attended a bonfire night in November when I lived in England; for a start I always have had sympathies for the anarchist burning down the Houses of Parliament. Well after all the rains we had had the bonfire never lit anyway, but we had some fireworks, mulled wine and bangers and mash and a jolly time was had by all. On the way there we stopped at Villa to check on the progress of the wine and cider. The cider has nearly finished fermenting and smells divine. Shame there’s going to be less than 15 litres by the time we’ll siphon it off it’s sedimets. Won’t last us long the way we drink…

Sunday afternoon the rains set in again and it soon developed into a downpour, which lasted all through Monday and Tuesday, culminating in an enormous thunderstorm Wednesday early morning. The photo was taken in the morning after the skies finally started clearing again. As usual after a storm our phone lines were down again and have only just now come back on. Luckily the power cuts only lasted a few minutes and water supplies remained uninterrupted this time. After having been stuck indoors for over 2 days, we were glad to get out again yesterday to check both in Arcola and Villa for any storm damage. Everything was fine albeit muddy.

All that rain and the still relatively mild temperatures meant that weeds are coming back in record time. My radicchio, Swiss chard, fennel, and cabbage that I sowed relatively late are all covered in weeds. We were going to attack them today as the weather looked fine this morning looking out of our window facing south. However as we arrived on the west facing side of the house we saw dark clouds brewing and even heard a few distant rumbles of thunder. We went to Arcola anyway, but, sod’s law, as soon as arrived there it started to drizzle. This is the trouble if you don’t live next to your land. It’s fine just nipping in and out of the house, but for us it’s a 10 km trek every time.

We picked a few more windfall olives though, as I put the first lot into jars. I followed another recipe out of ‘Liguria in arbanella’ (I shall add this book to the list at the bottom of this blog), Olive alla Taggiasca. Taggiasca is also the name of the best olive variety in Liguria, although ours are almost certainly Razzola. Taggiasca is a very small variety giving very delicate, fruity flavours, whilst Razzola is slightly bigger and a bit more spicy in flavour.

To preserve them for eating you immerse the olives in a brine of 1 tbsp of salt to 1 litre of water for 4 days, changing the brine daily. Then you make a brine with 150g salt to 1 litre of water, add a large sprig of rosemary, a bunch of thyme and 8-10 bay leaves and bring the lot to the boil. Simmer for 3 minutes and leave to cool. Drain the olives and fill into jars, adding a small sprig each of rosemary and thyme and a bay leaf. Drain the herbs from the brine and top up the jars with the herb-infused brine. Seal and wait for some 40 days to 2 months.

Finally, I (or rather this blog) have had a mention on the forum of Italy magazine (http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/) in the last couple of days and visitor numbers have jumped up all of a sudden during the couple of days I couldn’t even get on the net. So thank you to the person concerned based in the Marche I believe and welcome to any new readers. I shall add the link to the forum to my other links on the side. It’s a useful forum for anyone interested in all things Italian.

Oh when the Saints…

Well tomorrow is All Saints (whatever that actually means; is it the day for all the saints that don’t get a mention during the rest of the year?), and winter is definitively approaching. The clocks have gone back (don’t you hate it when that happens; I never know which way they go or what day, my tummy tells me to be hungry well before lunchtime, and it’s just disorientating) and the evenings are dark early now.

At the weekend the weather was still fine and we went to the chestnut sagra in Barbarasco again, this time with James who was over. Tuesday afternoon the clouds and wind started closing in though. By Wednesday the temperatures dropped significantly and we were enveloped in clouds and gale force winds swept through our village. I spent those 2 days servicing an old mountain bike of ours. The one I had been using is slowly starting to fall apart. It only cost me £50 10 years ago, so it did me quite well until now.

Yesterday a brief break in the rain was forecast, so I went to see Franco the bicycle man to sort a couple of things I could not do on my own, a bent chain and gear mechanism. He just got a big pair of pliers and bent everything into shape, straightened a buckle in the rear wheel, oiled the lot, pumped up the tyres and adjusted the gears. All in all just under half an hours work and he insisted on being paid with a cup of coffee. When I in turn insisted in putting a €5 note in his hand he rummaged through his pockets to give me €3 change. Well, can’t complain can I?

Susan in the meantime had started to walk to Arcola to our land and I met up with her half way there. On the land I was amazed to still pick a large bagful of green beans. This particular variety has done me extremely well! I think the seeds were a cheap bag from one of the discount stores. They are a dwarf variety that I planted so close together that weeds had practically no chance of getting through. They have been producing sweet, string-less beans since about July and there are still more to pick now. I have already dried a few of the beans, so that I can sow them out again next year. Don’t know what the variety is called, but they’ve been exceptionally successful.

We also still picked a few strawberries and a good bagful of windfall olives. It’s turning out to be a very good olive year this year, by general consent all over Italy. They are more plentiful and earlier than in previous years and are not too badly affected by maggots. We’ll wait for a drier day to pick them in the next week or 2. While we were still on the land the rain returned and we still had to make the long way home exposed to the elements.

During the night we had some serious storms and today it’s been bucketing down most of the day. So today, for the first time we have lit a fire in the kitchen, more as an antidote against the doom and gloom outside and to roast some chestnuts, rather than against the actual cold.