In an earlier post I bemoaned the fact that when we arrived in May, Tuscany was green – bright green – not the usual mix of faded summer colours that, for us, have always defined the area. What a difference 6 weeks makes.
Tag Archives: Toscana
Jean and the girls in the Campo
I thought I had posted this photograph before but looking back, I haven’t. It’s the day the whole family went to Siena. And in true form Jean is looking lovely, Poppie is looking cute and Daisy (partly obscured) is, well, see for yourself.
The Mowday family in the Campo, Siena.
Washday at our Pa
Life in Tuscany isn’t all fine chianti and al dente pasta you know. The washing still needs to be done and Tuesday is as good a day as any other. A load of washing costs €3 for casual guests but is built into our weekly rent. Given the rate at which we go through clothes that’s about $NZ500 which can be spent on fine chianti and al dente pasta.
Washing drying beside our cottage on a sunny summer morning.
Visitors from distant shores
We are starting to plan for the arrival of summer visitors. Today we bought a small freezer which now holds pride of place in the kitchen (and the dining room and part of the lounge) so we can do ice cubes, gelato and actually store meat for more than a day or two. And get beer really cold in a hurry.
The barbecue is being specified at present. We are thinking charcoal as that seems to be the accepted norm. Around here gas seems to be for gattino – look it up. Also a slew of other home comforts are being put in place because it’s the beginning of the visitor season.
In the next month and a half we have visitors galore.
Villa Crognole outside Radda in Chanti.
First up we catch up with Jean’s friend Kate Maclean who worked with Jean at Clemenger. Kate and her partner are working in the UK. Kate’s family are coming over from New Zealand for a holiday which involves a week in a villa in Chianti. It has been arranged through our villa wizard Olga and is the same one we stayed at in 2006. A fantastic place. We are popping up for drinks and dinner in mid June.
Next up is a flying weekend visit by Gill from the UK. We are thinking pool life combined with excellent meals in Siena. And the odd bottle of New Zealand Chardonnay mixed in.
At the start of July the Mowday family packs the car and leaves Tuscany heading for Positano where we have rented an apartment off the lovely family who own and run Eden Roc Hotel. The really good news is we get full hotel privileges (pool, bar tab, meals on the terrace, Tony’s cappuccino for breakfast, etc) but stay off site so the dogs don’t disturb the hotel’s peace and quiet. We are there for two weeks and Jean’s sister Charmaine, brother-in-law Mike and their baby James arrive towards the end of the stay.
Jean, Josh, Andre, Gill and Jordan around the pool in 2010 while the dolphin watches on.
Back to Toscana with Charmaine, Mike and Jimmy for a week and then Gill, Josh and Jordan arrive from London with Andre following after his pilgrimage to the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. We are still looking for large, slightly disturbing, inflatable animals to go in the pool prior to their arrival.
We are also expecting a mate from work, Danny Malone, to put in an appearance at the end of July on his 2011 European trip to round things out. An excellent month at our place.
We then head south to Rome for a weekend at the end of July with Charmaine, Mike and James before aiming the Peugeot at Nice for a car swap in early August – and a week at the delightful Hotel Welcome in Villefranche sur mer. See an earlier post for rave reviews.
After that we are ready to welcome other kiwi visitors – you know who you are – through August and September as the summer crawls to an end and our thoughts turn to autumn.
Excitingly it looks like our old friend Isabel and Charlie will be visiting in late September/early October as well. I think I can call Isabel an “old” friend as we both have had very significant birthdays this year.
Let the fun commence.
Bugs and other thingies
Something for our visitors to remember – Tuscany has bugs and crawlies. As well as endowing Tuscany with beautiful countryside and light that artists would die for, God also provided Tuscany with its fair share of things that crawl, fly, jump and hop.
Those of you who know Jean know she’s not great with things that crawl, fly, jump or hop. In fact it’s not unknown for her to do a funny little dance accompanied by a high pitched scream when some poor creature makes an appearance on the floor or stupidly flies in the door. And that was in relatively bug free New Zealand.
Here things are much more exciting. By category:
Flying things
Apart from the usual pesky flies, we have humming birds (which look like giant wasps) and hornets which actually are giant wasps and make a sound not unlike a weed-eater when they approach the cottage. We have mosquitoess (only starting to appear) and sandflies (not dangerous to humans but they can carry some nasty dog diseases) and numerous other things that flit past the cottage each day.
Crawling things
This is a big category. We have millipedes and centipedes and the odd earwig. We have spiders of all shapes and sizes although Jean’s jandal is doing an excellent job of keeping the local population under control.
Two Geckos meet on our terrace.
Geckos are everywhere at present and find the brick terrace ideal for sunning themselves. We have one particular gecko which seems to spend the most time sunning himself on our terrace and who seems to call our place home. He has lost half his tail and defends our front door heroically from any other geckos that dare to show up.
There is another class of crawling thing which we’ll call “don’t know what it is but crickey it runs fast” and there are a lot of these.
A passing Gecko poses for a photo.
We haven’t seen any scorpions yet but it’s early days.
Jumping things
We have a resident cottage frog which traverses the verandah each evening going from somewhere to somewhere else. Although he is classed under “jumping things” he seems to spend most of his time walking.
Hopping things
To be honest we haven’t spotted any hopping things as yet but I’m sure they are out there.
Fighting back
Never let it be said we are quitters. We have armed ourselves with the latest in bug protection to fight back. We have a bug zapper for the verandah, mosquito deterrents for inside and out, magic stickers for the windows that kill flies, an old fashioned fly swap and, of course, Jean’s deadly jandal.
Bring it on I say.
Ten minutes down the road
Having explored as far afield as Radda in Chianti north of Siena and Buonconvento in the south, yesterday we strayed closer to home in Monteroni D’Arbia. This small hamlet is only 10 minutes from the cottage and is the centre of our small district.
We first visited on market day about 3 weeks ago when the main shopping area was filled with stalls selling everything from clothes to meat to household appliances. Every day of the week there is a market in another local town and, rather than them just being a tourist attraction, they are an important part of local life both economically and socially.
We attracted quite a bit of attention walking around, possibly because of our inherent elegance, but more likely because we had the girls with us. Daisy will, as you know gentle reader, take on any dog she sees be it Doberman or Chihuahua so our walk through the market involved a ballet of side steps and distractions as we spotted any oncoming dogs.
Without the market Monteroni D’Arbia is still a delightful place to walk and browse the local shops. It’s not a picture postcard Tuscan village but rather a good honest working town. We stopped for a drink in the cafe on the main road and Jean shopped for plants and containers for our front verandah over the summer. Once again our mix of bad Italian, sign language and the good nature of the locals triumphed and we returned home with everything we wanted – including takeout pizza and beer for dinner.
All up, a good day.
Rainy afternoon in Siena
Yesterday we had our third language lesson in Siena. The day started out sunny but with thunderstorms rumbling around the hills in the distance. By 4pm our lesson had finished and we adjourned to a bar in the Campo for a well earned drink or two. The thunder was closer and the sun had been replaced by clouds although the temperature remained in the low 20s. Clearly the locals expected unsettled weather as the awnings and umbrellas that protect the bars and restaurants around the Campo from the sun had been kept in place.
Rain falling in the Campo.
At 5pm the heavens opened and the rain came down. Big, fat drops and unusually for someone from Wellington who expects rain to fall horizontally, they came straight down.
The crowded Campo emptied immediately as tourists rushed for shelter, some in shops but the majority straight to the nearest bar – all forced to buy drinks they didn’t really want at Campo prices. The Sinese locals produced umbrellas and continued going about their business as if nothing had happened. After 10 minutes the rain eased, the skies lightened and tourists flooded back into the Campo. All about €10 poorer for their drink.
More rain.
We took this opportunity to make our way back to the Peugeot congratulating ourselves on our timing. Not so fast, about halfway to the car the rain started again and, like everyone else we headed for the nearest shelter. In our case it was a bag shop in one of Siena’s small side streets. But for the period of the rain it sold umbrellas – as did every other shop in Siena. Bins of brightly colored umbrellas had appeared from nowhere and were prominently displayed just inside the shop doors. We took two – €16, Grazie.
Yet more rain.
However Siena is described it is, above all, a city of merchant traders.
Please note: photographs used have been digitally enhanced to highlight moody weather.
Daisy is getting old
Daisy had her 14th birthday in January. This would make her about 85 in human years and like any elderly person she is slowing down. Things that were easy for her a year ago are now a challenge. A walk around the property in the evening wears her out, her back legs seem to have a mind of their own occasionally, and when she does the head to tail shake on the tiled floor often she ends up flat on her stomach with legs splayed.
Admirably she take all this in her stride and soldiers on.
She is still her cantankerous, independent, stubborn old self. She dutifully protects the cottage from any potential intruders including Mrs Patrizia and Fabiana when they deliver our fresh laundry or simply call in for a chat.
Daisy sleeping
Lately Daisy has struggled to jump up onto the bed at night and will grudgingly accept a helping hand up when it’s offered. If no help is forthcoming being Daisy she simply finds somewhere else to sleep – in this case on my neatly folded clothes on the shelf just inside the bedroom door.
What’s the travel accessory you should never leave home without?
I used to think it was noise cancelling headphones. But I was wrong. Headphones might be good for the luxury traveller taking short jaunts to foreign climes but for us long term, hard core, down to earth travellers the perfect companion is a Leatherman Blast.
My "must have" travel accessory.
I was given the aforementioned tool for my 50th birthday – thank you Charmaine, Mike and James – and it has proved invaluable. It can cut, screw, saw or slice pretty much anything. Whether it’s mundane tasks like tightening a screw on a wobbly pot handle or more exotic uses like an ice pick to de-ice a dodgy fridge, it’s ideal.
Recently it was put to use erecting some temporary wire fencing around our terrace to give Daisy and Poppie some indoor/outdoor flow without the chance of them doing a runner.
Mission accomplished thanks largely to the Blast.
One warning, if you bring something like this on holiday don’t pack it in your hand luggage. The 4 inch knife blade might be a bit tough to explain to those nice gentlemen from Homelands Security.
Poppie meets the new fence.
Wednesday Sunset
Sunset from our cottage
Another of those no reason posts really – other than this was the sunset last night from the verandah of our cottage.
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Regular readers of the blog may notice the addition of a “email subscription” button on the right of the page. Subscribing means that you will receive an email every time there is a new post to the blog.
This would also be a great way to catch the posts that are put up and then suddenly removed for linguistic reasons (Jean says they don’t make sense) or social reasons (Jean says I really can’t say things like that).
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Learning Italian
I never realised that learning Italian was a competitive sport. But around the cottage this is starting to be the case.
Jean's homework.
We had our first lesson last Friday and were plunged into the realm of verbs – both the regular and the irregular. I must have been away the day they covered all this in school so not only was I learning Italian I was also learning the structure of language – in Italian. Suffice it to say I don’t think I’m going to be a star pupil.
My lovely wife, however, was taking it all in, chipping in with useful comments and questions and making copious notes along the way. After an hour my brain was full and our tutor, Mauro, realising that nothing more was going in asked us to do a little homework for the next lesson. Nothing too taxing but homework none the less.
We adjourned to a bar around the Campo in Siena for a well deserved drink and discussion. We were pleased with the lesson and with our choice of language school. Yes, there was some homework to do but, let’s face it, we didn’t have a lot else to do. It should be easy – no stress.
Yesterday morning I rose at my usual time of 10am, refreshed my cup of tea in the kitchen, and wandered out to the verandah. There, hunched over her notes with cigarette in hand, was my wife furiously scribbling homework notes, completing sentences, scouring the dictionary for nouns, and filling page after page with perfectly executed Italian.
Now to put things in context, I’d spent upwards of 15 minutes the previous day sitting by the pool jotting down some random notes which I thought might cover the homework. I had included a rather good doodle of an Italian villa on a hill with a Cypress tree next to it – not strictly part of the homework but I’m sure I would get extra marks for it.
I could see where this was going and I wasn’t going to stand for it. The last 24 hours has seen a flurry of activity as notes are made about notes, verbs are conjugated and nouns are possessed and repossessed. Conversation has been non-existent and the only sound has been the occasional sentence said aloud in italian to test pronunciation.
Alas I fear it is all to no avail as every time I sneak a look at Jean’s work I see myself drifting further behind the pace. My only hope is that time honoured excuse – the dog ate my homework.
Now, where is Daisy?
Updates on the move
I’ve just downloaded an app to my iphone that means I can update the blog anywhere, while I’m doing anything.
Or in this case lying by the pool on a sunny afternoon doing nothing.
Everywhere we go – cars!
Some of the more observant of you may have noticed that in some of our photos of Siena used in another post, there was a considerable crowd assembled outside the Palazzo Publicco in the Campo.
Initially we had no idea why they were there (to celebrate our return to Siena – probably not) or why part of the Campo was being blocked off and officials were running around putting up barriers, blowing whistles and generally ordering people around in the Italian way.
The first clue we had was the sound of high powered engines approaching through the narrow Sienese streets. The second clue was the appearance of some very expensive high performance motor cars which paraded through the Campo. The final clue was the large sticker on each car with a number and the moniker “Miglia 1000”.
It was the day the 2011 Miglia rally came through Siena. The Miglia is an annual rally event for historic cars of note or significance. That means very expensive cars or very old cars, or both. This year it included a Ferrari tribute to the Miglia as well – so that would be more expensive, very new cars. It took around 4 hours for all the cars to go through the Campo on their way north but it was a chance to see some cars that you would normally only be able to see in museums – including a genuine Porsche 550 Spyder.
For those of you who might like to participate in this event next year the entry fee is a mere €6,360.
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- The Milia arrives in Siena
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- The Milia arrives in Siena
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- The Milia arrives in Siena
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- A vehicle close to my heart
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- The Milia arrives in Siena
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- The Milia arrives in Siena
Back to school
There’s a degree of nervousness around the cottage today. It’s the first Italian lesson this afternoon which means a double stress. Firstly we have to apply our brains to something other than – pool day or not a pool day – and secondly we actually have to be somewhere at a pre arranged time. Almost like a meeting.
But as with all things Italian there is a twist. And the twist was an invitation we got from our language school to lunch last Wednesday. It was an opportunity to get to know the staff and some of the other pupils before starting lessons. Everyone bought something for the meal and we spent 2 hours chatting in a mix of Italian, English and occasionally other obscure languages as required.
The students are all nationalities, ages and backgrounds. Everything from an Australian art student brushing up her Italian on the way to the Venice Biennale where she is one of the hosts at the Oz site, to a retired Irishman who was taking a group from one of the local Sinese contrada to have lunch with the Irish ambassador in Rome on Saturday. He had learnt Italian at the school previously and was just taking a few “top up” lessons in anticipation of the visit.
Anyway, enough of this writing, I must go and get my school books ready.
La dolce far niente 