It's no wonder that Italian politics is the way it is.

Nosing about today into the local history of Umbria in the Spoleto-Perugia area, the big horseshoe valley of the Tiber.

My local village church, San Martino, was rebuilt in 1815, as were most of the parish churches of this area. It's a really lovely building, and of course was built in the same spot as the older church from the 13th century. But I wondered why that particular date and why all the rebuilding around here, since all the churches up and down the country road here were all about the same date and by the same architect.

As it turns out, there's a very sound historical reason. Of course, I live in what was once the Papal States. And that's kind of where the problem begins.

The history of the Church in Italy is not a happy one, and of course has a lot to do with the 1000 year conflict between the Pope and the Emperor, that spilled over into various iterations through the ages, culminating in the catastrophe of the secularist/freemasonic revolt of 1870 and the disastrous farce of unification, an artificial construct that has little actual social reality.

But as Rome and the Papal States flipped back and forth between rule by France, rule by Naples/Sicily, rule by the pope, like an oscillating sprinkler, there were brief moments of peace. One of these was at the end of French rule in this area, the département Trasimène (prefecture of Spoleto) ended in 1814. I expect after Napoleon had finished imposing his weird ideas of religion and the relations between Church and State, there wasn't much in the way of Catholic life left around here, so rebuilding was a way of reviving Catholic culture. Look particularly at the dates 1815: Rome changed hands three times in a single year. Hardly surprising that steps were taken in the provinces to try to establish some kind of ecclesial order.

Later in the 19th century the secularist Italian rulers had another go at the Church, in much the same way and for much the same reason as the English Dissolution: a kind of national possession of odium fidei...

Here is a little blurb about the decree of the governor Gioacchino Pepoli of 1860 in which all the convents and monasteries in this area were stripped of their possessions.

The Italian Suppression in 1866

With regard to the religious suppression decreed by the Italian Government in 1866, there is no specific mention in the Records of the Convent.

It is known from other sources, though, that the first decree of expulsion was issued by the High Commissioner of the Government, Gioacchino Pepoli on November 1th, 1860, after the occupation of the regions of Marche and Umbria. Such decree contained a clause which stated that all mendicant friars could remain in their cloisters of residence, provided that they expressed their intention to do so. They then provided to do such request. The definitive decree arrived nonetheless on July 7th, 1866.

Leafing through the Provincial Records in S. Maria degli Angeli, we have found a historic document sent to the General Ministry by the Provincial B. Stefano from Castelplanio, in 1882: “S. Antonio of Paccian Vecchio”, diocese of Città della Pieve – The Friars were expelled from this Convent as well, on March 24th, 1864”. The Church remained closed, and the building as well as its surroundings were rented to third parties.

~

Who was this Pepoli guy, and how could he have had the power to just wipe out Catholic religious life with the stroke of a pen?

This was the period of the beginning of the great disaster that Italy is still suffering from today. This comes from the 1935 (Mussolini-period) Italian Encyclopaedia...

Note the little ting of approval...

"Well accepted to Napoleon III, he was among the most valid cooperators with him to make him benevolent to Italian politics, especially to the Piedmontese one. Liberate the Romagne (1859) and appointed governor of them L. Cipriani, the P. assumed the posts of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Finance, of which he was an expert connoisseur. Member of the Romagne assembly, governor of Umbria, when he was occupied (September 1860) by the Italian government, he administered the region with wisdom..."

The blurb comes from the historical notes of a former Franciscan convent that is now a swank agritourismo near Trasimeno (a common fate of many, many monasteries and convents in Italy, and increasingly so...)

The Convent of Sant’Antonio of Padua Pacciano Vecchio, situated in the diocese of Città della Pieve, dates back to 1496. Its construction was authorised on July 16 that year by Pope Alexander VI, addressing the inhabitants of Pacciano Vecchio and Panicale. He affirmed the importance of this authorization based on the need of the presence of priests who would spread God’s Word and celebrate the Holy Misteries. He therefore gave his permission to build the Convent (“which would have the indulgencies and privileges of all other churches”) with a Church -consecrated to Saint Antonio of Padua- a bell tower, the cemetery, a dormitory, a refectory, a cloister, vegetable gardens and the smithery.

There is a Memorial, found in the Parish Archives of Panicale which says: “The Convent of the Fathers of Sant’Antonio of Paccian Vecchio was founded at the expenses of people from Panicale and Pacciano in 1496, in the site of the prisons of the County of Pacciano Vecchio, granted by the Counts Baglioni”.

~

It's no wonder that Italian politics is the way it is. They've had hundreds of years of this or that foreign or domestic ideological power declaring itself to be the rulers of this country. It's not surprising that the ordinary people have developed their unique Italian form of mental stoicism, a kind of aggressive indifference to politics at the national and international level, and the instinct to simply ignore the larger issues and preserve the family and one's private holdings, to be concerned exclusively with the local area, to protect the local interests.

It is also enlightening to see where the current suppression of the Catholic Faith within the Church's own institutions came from. It was, of course, in part the work of Modernist and Neo-Modernist theologians mainly from northern Europe. But a study could be usefully made of how the anti-clerical and secularist suppressions of the 19th century affected the situation in Italy, France and Germany to generate a kind of episcopal hopelessness, a sort of culture of ecclesiastical despair in response to the apparently unending stream of catastrophes of the modern period in Europe.



~

Christus mansionem benedicat

Monache Agostiniane d'Urbino

Yes, sorry. I know I've been away a long time. Just found this lovely little video from Italian TV series "I passi del silenzio" - Footsteps of silence. It's a series of one hour videos showing a single day in the life of a monastery, with interviews. Beautifully shot, and if you have even a little Italian, very uplifting. I was surprised to hear them chanting the Magnificat at Vespers in Latin using the Chant.

I actually went up to Norcia for the Christmas weekend. It turned into five days in all, and was wonderful, though at first very painful and difficult. It was the first time I've been up since going to the house to fetch out my belongings, and the first time since the quake that I've been there just to be there, and not for "business" reasons. I wanted to make a proper retreat of it, and the monks very kindly allowed me to attend many of the Offices, including the whole thing on Christmas eve. From 1st Vespers then a break for a quick bit of dinner and a couple of good stout coffees to fuel the marathon, to Matins that started at 8pm and went straight through to Midnight Mass, then Laudes afterwards. We few who made it all the way through were there until 2:30 am.

The glorious experience of the Christmas Eve liturgy also cemented something in my soul. I feel as though my lines had finally been re-secured, to use a nautical image, that had been flapping wildly in a storm for over a year. This was the thing that remains deep in my heart after everything; that particular form of intimate communication with God in the liturgy of the Office. At once so intimidating and so enticing, a paradox. The incredible intensity of joy and the enormity of the silence, the not-about-you-ness of it is something close to terrifying.

After I got home, the innernet was off for a week or so, and I was happy to let it stay off for a bit and have a little in-house retreat. I've been given Isaiah to read along with the Office, and it's dense and intense, like 70% dark chocolate. You have to read very, very slowly, and something strange starts to happen when you do. Your perceptions of things alters in ways that are hard to describe. After a week or ten days of not much more than Isaiah, the Psalms and some sewing and housework, the din and clamour of the world - especially the frantic yammering of the internet - seems to become mostly irrelevant. It was hard to put it back on again.

Suddenly being face to face with the Living God without distractions, made me start to understand why people often flee from their vocations. We like our lives to be trivial & superficial, unchallenging and "normal". But we are no judge at all of what "normal" really is.

This world, and this life, is what we know. It's what we imagine we can control & understand. But only because of how small and limited we are. That whole vasty reality of God's is something we just don't want in our little house. We fear He won't fit, like a lion whose nose barely makes it into the door and whose shoulders could shake apart the whole house. The merest whisper of this titanic reality is more than we can bear. So we retreat and run.

It's a terrible thing, but it's the reason why I would prefer to watch Big Bang Theory and Star Wars videos on YouTube than be alone with the Lord God of Hosts. Thank God He never gives up chasing us, no matter how hard we try to avoid Him.

O Lord, increase my faith in You.

~
Some Norcia holiday pics.


Dolcezze, everyone's favourite pastry shop, re-opened in time for Christmas after months of renovation. One of only about 30 businesses still open or re-opened in Norcia.


... including the blessed Norcia pizza take-away. Best I've ever had, and an immensely cheering and encouraging sight to see when almost nothing else in the centro was open.


Norcia cows.


From the agritourismo on the hill next to the monastery, looking down to town and toward the valley entrance. Weather was very changeable, sunny, foggy, raining, brilliant clear nights and some wind. Never dull.


There were mornings, especially in November, when you would look out the window and see the fog settled into the valley looking like a huge bowl of milk.


They don't see many people that high up on the mountain at this time of year. All eyes were on us on our little hikes.


The trail leading up to the road from the Tana dei Lupi agritourismo. Fun early in the morning, but too dangerous at night. Fallen oak leaves covering big loose stones, but also at night lots of wolves, wild boar and other night hunters and gatherers. Good fun early in the beautiful mornings though.


On the way to Terce, a good stiff climb first thing in the morning.


The new chapel in monte.


The monks' presepio on Christmas morning.


What "crollate" means. This was one of the fanciest houses in town, next door to the monastery on the hill.


For just a few minutes before I had to go get on the bus, it was nice to feel normal again. Thank God the Seneca was not damaged.


And back at home, Pippy enjoying the wood stove in the kitchen in his inimitable way.


And over the front door. I've never done it before. Thanks Jamie for such a good explanation.

Christus mansionem benedicat.



~





~

That's rain again. I vaguely remember what it looks like...

Rome facing water rationing as Italy heatwave drags on

Important Garden n' Kitty report

We've had a terrible drought in Italy (and other places) through the entire length of the summer. I've read that the Italian farmers have collectively lost over a billion Euros. I was told they had quite a dry winter, which is crucial, and of course since I moved here in mid-April, we saw that we've had very little rain. It was mostly normal until about mid-May, and the temperature shot up to the mid-30s, then crept up to the low 40s(!!!) and just stayed there. Even the heat-loving kitties have been miserable. They run around all night happily enough, but spend their days stretched out full length in the coolest spots they can find in the house. Pippin hides under the bed on the marble floor, Bertie in the little space behind the table in the workroom and Henry in the shower stall. (They're all much happier now that we've moved though, and they obviously LOVE being back in the country. We're none of us town-creatures anymore.)

The last couple of days has been our first break in nearly a month. It's been so dry we've started to worry about the well, and I've been careful to save all the dish and washing water for the balcony giardino (flowers don't mind a little dish liquid or soap). The post under this one was dated June 28, and we had a couple of days of cooler temps and rain, and that was it until very early this morning. It started about 4:30 and is still gently falling now at eleven am. But the forecast is for today and a little bit more tomorrow, then the creep back up to the low 30s.

Henry in hunting mode

Annamaria has doggedly come every morning, earlier and earlier as it's been getting blisteringly hot by nine am, to water our orto, and often in the late afternoons. The rows are laid out so that you take a big hose, much thicker than an ordinary garden hose, that pumps water in a big flood that forms a river down to the very end of the row. You plant your plants along the edge of this channel so all the roots get a drink twice a day. It's the old contadini way. But the terrible heat has really retarded the growth of everything.


The tomatoes did OK, but some of them are quite mis-shapen. Annamaria's aubergines all came out well, but all very small. None more than the length of your palm. The cukes and squash haven't produced much fruit.


My pumpkins are lovely, but also very small. The peppers did alright, and I got quite a few of them, including some very hot ones! I think I'm going to try pickling them.

We're nearly to the end of the summer season now, and I've got a freezer full of tomatoes. I didn't weigh them but it's at least 60 pounds. The full sun all day has made them wonderfully sweet. The flowers on the terrace in the pots have had a more difficult time, and I've really learned a lot about which kinds of things do better in pots in full sun and which like a bit of a break part of the day. My sweet potatoes love the full sun, and after I put them in the biggest pots I had have turned into a beautiful sort of green waterfall, spreading their leafy vines in every direction.

The heat has been so ferocious and relentless that the fruit has all come in early, but a lot of it isn't very nice because of how little water they've had. The apples are small and hard, the plums all died on the branches and there were very few peaches. The figs seem to do well, and Annamaria told me I can have all of them if I like, since she can't eat them because of her diabetes. She showed me a jolly clever trick to bring them down without a ladder, using a stick and a pop bottle to make a picker, and I'll post a picture soon. The big fig tree on my bit has been extremely productive and though most of them are still green there are quite a few big, soft purple fruits waiting to be eaten. I love fresh figs, and I figure it's better me than the ants and wasps. I had a few this morning with breakfast and one or two had just barely started to ferment, and it crossed my mind that they might make a pretty good wine. I'm learning that you can make pretty much anything into booze with a packet of fresh yeast from the supermarket and a little creativity. The local garden centre/ferramenta guy has been helpful.

I've also seen to my surprise that the blackberries did pretty well. I've biked around a few times - like riding your bike through a furnace! yes, it makes a breeze but it's like sticking your face into an oven with the fan running - and seen loads of them by the sides of the roads and along the farm tracks. I'll have to go down to the river bank to see if there are any far enough away from the cultivated fields to avoid getting any pesticides or anything, but I do think it's worth while. Especially in the next day or so when the weather has decided to cooperate. There is also an abundance of sloes, and I think this is the year I do it!

~

All the rest of that boring stuff...

As for me, things are OK. Many thanks to everyone who has emailed and messaged me. I've really just been sort of busy and rather overwhelmed by the weather. Irish girls aren't really built for 40 degree heat, and it's especially draining the longer it goes on... and on... But I've been doing a lot of work-writing too. I've finished work on a large project (all for money, and for someone else, so no, you won't see it) and now the people I normally write for are bugging me to get back to their stuff. It's nice to be in demand, but it's pretty time-consuming too.

A piece I did for the Remnant explains more or less why I shut down the WUWTS blog, and Skodge has talked a bit about it too. We've been talking rather a lot lately about things, and how we should be writing about them, and he pretty much gives our conclusions here. When Mike posts the thing I did yesterday there'll be more. But for my part, I'm going to be changing focus a bit. I just think we've said as much as needs to be said. Steve especially has done extremely effective work (I was mostly fooling around and making jokes and being the class clown, which was fun for me, but not as useful.)

We know that there are a lot of people who have come to a greater understanding of what has been going on in the Church - certainly these miscreants have not felt the need to hold anything back so it's  been sort of hard to miss. So, now a much more pressing need is to try to help people figure out the answer to the question, "What now?" What do we do? And that is what I will be focusing on in the coming months. But not at my own blog, which I'm kind of tired of. Blogging isn't really writing and one only has so much energy; spend it blogging and there's not much left for real writing. I'm still compulsively posting on Twitter, but here at good old O'sP I think we're just going to carry on focusing on more homey, domestic and happy things. (Sorry if that's boring.)

A friend is coming to stay for a bit in about a month, and we are both thinking things along the same general lines. She wants to find out what she should do, and I am also going to be working out how to proceed. For a while I had thought we should move up north, where there is a little cluster of traditional Catholics in Italy up in the mountains. That's still a possibility, but I can't ignore the current facts either, and part of those are that this is the place God found for me - at the last possible moment. And to try to live in the current reality, with all its limits and struggles, in the place you find yourself hic et nunc is a big part of what St. Philip teaches.

So, I've set up the oratory in the house, have got to know the local people a little, including the curate, am settling in and trying to do the will of God for this moment in this place. We'll see how it goes.

And of course, that includes resolving the immediate problems that arise. A major one of which is transport. As I wrote in my piece yesterday, it was very difficult to find a place for a lot of reasons - 22,000 Umbrians looking for home after the quakes was a big one - part of which is that I can neither afford nor do I want to live in a city. But of course, cities are where you find the traditional liturgy, in our morbidly urbanized culture. I had to find a cheap enough place in the country, but one that was on a bus route that led to a Mass centre. I came very close to failing that task, and its one of the reasons I feel I should stay here that it is clear that, having exhausted all other possibilities, this is the place Divine Providence had in mind for me. (While I was looking, I was conscious of an idea that I was following a trail of supernatural breadcrumbs, rather than just casting randomly about.)

The only real problem is that though there is transport here it is extremely limited and unreliable, and dries up almost completely in the summers. Buses are oriented to getting the country kids to school; the "scolastica" routes are what we've got in the country and they all cease completely at the end of the school year. This leaves the little trenino - a little three -car diesel job that runs up and down the Tiber Valley from Terni up to Sansepolcro. The stop in our village is only one stop away from the next town that has a normal bus connection up to the city, (Perugia), about an 8 minute ride and only a buck for a ticket. All good, but on Sundays it only runs twice a day and its weekly schedule is... well... erratic, let's say.

I've come up with a solution and the job I took this spring will cover the expense: I'm going to buy a Piaggio Ape 50 (pronounced "Ah-pay," and it means "bee" in Italian.)


This is Italy's brilliant solution to low-cost local transport. It's a 50 cc, two-stroke engine, so the same as a Vespa, but the cab keeps the weather out and fits two people (at a bit of a squeeze) and best of all it is like a donkey in the amazing amount of stuff it can carry. They're not fast, but they get you where you're going. The license ("patenta") is very easy to get, requiring no test of any sort. You just go sign up at the local autoscuola for the little course, pay the 50 bucks and that's it. They're cheap to buy and dirt-cheap to run, and are a lot safer and more practical than a motorino. There's even an Ape 50 enthusiasts' club, and they have a rally every year where they race them!

They are actually becoming quite popular throughout Europe that is becoming very conscious of how much damage car are doing to our societies, and how terribly expensive they are now to run, what with governments weighing them down with excessive tax. There are a lot of them around Italy, because the Italians buy them for their teenagers. I know a guy in Marche who refurbishes old ones and he said he could get me a good reliable model for about 11 or 12 hundred, which I can do. People do all sorts of things with them. Of course they're mostly used by farmers and market gardeners, but also for deliveries in cities where they can fit down the tiny medieval streets. These days people are converting them into mobile coffee bars,

and even tricking them out as camper-vans.


And really, just look at that adorable thing; what's not to love! Skodge took one look and said, "Now that's a Hilarymobile if ever I saw one!"

I'm going to call it Broomhilda, of course.

~

So, that's pretty much where we are. I'm getting a new painting ready, but I don't think it would be very practical to sell. I'm doing it on a large slab of marble, so it's going to be extremely heavy, which means it would cost the earth to ship anywhere. As I go along I'll post some pics. If it turns out well enough, I might give it to the monks.



~

Italians

I love the Italians so much!

They're the craziest, most obstinate, hidebound and parochial people on earth, and they can drive you mad with their lack of logic and determination to do things only one way, even if it doesn't work.

But they've got the best hearts in the world, will give you their own shirt and force you to have dinner with them while you're wearing it.

After many years, I've learned that the way they do things is actually almost always the better way. Once you've managed to divest yourself of your Anglo-saxon/germanic utilitarian mindset, you realise that the Italians were right all along, and when you tell them that, they'll laugh out loud and invite you for a drink.

Dear Lord, please don't ever make me live anywhere else, ever again.



~

You don't have to live like they tell you: Jack's violin bows, Graydon's war bow, and landscaping with ancient tiles...

JACK from Grace Jackson on Vimeo.
Meet Jack. He's 93, and he makes violin bows to make ends meet.

"Life has its problems...it's how well you contend with those problems that's going to be the result..."

Graydon's Longbow

A friend of mine who lives as a "freelance hermit" at home with her family, praying and thinking about things in the Carmelite way, says that one of the most important things she learned in her three years in her Carmelite monastery was how crucial manual labour is.

I knew an independent-minded guy once who wanted to learn woodworking, and taught himself with a special project. He was fascinated with history and was greatly puzzled by the incredible success of the English yew longbow in the wars with France in the 14th and 15th centuries. He had friends who did archery and couldn't figure out how a bow could possibly punch an arrow through plate armour, as the English bow had done at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. So he decided to build one and test it out. He didn't have a workshop, so he just turned his apartment (third floor) living room into a workshop. He wanted the experiment to be completely authentic, so he used no power tools. He researched at the library and spoke to people who did hand woodwork.

In the end, he had built himself a laminated yew longbow, with all the materials according to period sources. It was huge. He was a big guy, standing at least 6 foot 4. But this thing was taller by far, unstrung. He was able to bend it, but only because he was so strong. I couldn't budge the thing. We tested it and it was an 85 pound pull. (A normal target archery bow is usually no more than about 30 pounds.) He brought it to archery practice one evening, and we all clustered around. He pulled, and the arrow made a sound like a bullet. Our ordinary target bows would go the full length of the indoor range, and leave the arrow well buried in the straw butt. With this terrifying weapon, the arrow went all the way through the butt and lodged itself an inch into the concrete cinder block behind it. He had brought along a piece of 16 gauge hot-rolled steel, quite a bit stronger than the steel of the knights' armour would have been. The arrow punched right through it. My friend was very pleased and we all congratulated him. Graydon was not the kind of guy who was interested in living the way other people lived.

Do something physical every day.

Early stages. Mid-March. The bean poles are partly bamboo poles I bought, and partly rose canes I collected. I've made some of the rose canes into an arch, and they have sprouted new wild rose shoots in the pots. Free roses!

Bertie, among the potted roses. The big glass thing is an old insulator that fell off a power pole. You find all sorts of cool things if you just get out of the house once in a while. 

Henry. All growed up and looking for things to kill. During our warm spell in March, he was catching a lizard a day. 

Pippy and the flowering plum tree.You can see the slope of the back garden looming up. That's the neighbour's retaining wall way up there. But the whole thing is now covered in widlflowers. And it's poppy season. The birds and butterflies love it.

I've moved on from merely gardening to starting full scale landscaping.




















I've decided to build a little pavement on the flat bit.



There is very little flat ground in the garden, with most of it being a very rocky slope of about 30-45 degrees with a thin layer of good soil. But the soil gets washed down the slope and lands on the little flat strip at the bottom. Out of this,

My veg patch. There are two rows of sunflowers on each end now. But I'm glad I didn't plant out the pumpkin seedlings. We had a nasty night of hard frost in mid-April that nearly killed my potatoes and has killed all the wisteria in town. I've got pumpkins, tomatoes and beets ready to go in. Maurizio at the monks' shop told me the locals only plant after Saint Rita's day, just to be sure.

I've dug a little veg patch, about eight feet long by three feet wide. There's room for a bit more, but the soil is very poor. I've been composting like mad, but really the best we can do is to do things in little patches, which I shore up with big stones (there's lots, and lots of stones) into steps. Everything else is in pots. There is a little squarish patch in front of the front porch thingy where there is soil but it's become very compacted and even the weeds won't really grow on it. But it's in a little alcove with pots of flowers on one side and the terraced slope on the other. If there were a little bit of pavement there, it would be a nice sheltered place to sit and have tea and maybe write in the summer. So I've started collecting tiles.


In this part of Italy, one of the most important building materials were these big, rectangular terracotta tiles, really just thin bricks, made from the local red clay and fired very hard. They're about 18 inches by 8 inches and two to three inches thick and were used to build walls and floors in the Old Days. All the ruins nearby are like little quarries of ancient and medieval building materials. And there are lots of these old houses and buildings obviously having simply been abandoned - probably hundreds of years ago - and forgotten. They sit like big piles of dressed and sometimes carved rocks in the middle of fields, often with the farmers just calmly ploughing and planting around them, as though they are just natural features of the landscape.

One of the bigger ruins. About a half hour hike from my house. 

This is just how things are in Italy. There's so much old stuff lying around that no one really cares about it. (I had always wondered how St. Francis of Assisi could have just found an old church and started rebuilding it. Where I come from, anything older than 75 years has a velvet rope around it and a preservation society. But I wonder no more. There are so many old ruined churches around here abouts that I have had half a mind to do the same thing, just for the fun of it.) A few weeks ago, I had a stomp around and discovered one of these ancient farm houses on the hill almost directly above my house. It was so tumbled that from the road further up it was entirely invisible, looking like just a hump in the ground with some hazel trees on it. But from the other side, you can see a big pit that was once the root cellar, the crumbling remains of walls and even a stone doorway with scraps of the old timber lintel. In front of it, once upon a long time ago, there had been a little pear orchard, and the trees are obviously still fruiting. Around and over top of it is a stand of hazel, mixed with wild roses. I'll be making a point of visiting it a great deal for building materials, and I'll take some pics for y'all next time I go up there.

There's little remaining of the house, though, and not much in the way of tiles. So to find those, I went the other day to a place near the bottom of the valley, about half way between here and the little village of Serravale, where the ruins of a medieval mill - quite a large and important one in its day, I guess - sits like a big pile of useful abandoned things. The place has three stone lined tunnels that run underneath where the water ran through and turned the millstones. But now, the tunnels run under what looks like a big hill, covered in grass and weeds and small trees on one side. On the other the remains of a whole large stone building can be found. No roof, but the walls mostly intact. You can climb up over the walls and down into the room, but there is a small hill of tumbled stones, clay bricks and tiles inside. It can be pretty dangerous, with everything being loose and lots of sharp, pointy bits sticking up, and the whole thing potentially sliding out from under your feet at any moment. It's so cool! I can't resist it.

The other day I went down there and collected up seven tiles, which together must have weighed about 50 pounds. It was all I could carry with my backpack, and I only just managed to get them back as far as my bike. I loaded them into the bike's baskets and pedalled very slowly back to town. I figure I could get maybe a dozen back if I go down with my wheelie shopping cart.

They're really beautiful tiles, with a patina of age on them, but good and sturdy, and each one different. Nothing like the thin, machine-made and artificially identical ceramic floor tiles you see in most people's terraces and houses. I've figured out that I could create a little rustico terrace with about 30 of them. Place them a little apart and fill in the spaces with a little potting soil and plant some of the wild thyme that grows on my rocky slope in between, so when you walk on them in the summer, the scent of thyme will fill the air.

The same rainy day I also brought home a collection of new plants. A beautiful aquilegia, three wild strawberry plants, some blue comfrey and a bunch of thyme.

You don't have to live like they tell you.



~

Winter art and fun, and a hoopoe

Saw one of these in the garden this morning.

One of the benefits of not having internet at home. I don't spend my mornings staring at the screen any more.

When I was a little kid, someone gave me a beautiful 19th century encyclopaedia of British bird life. I remember quite distinctly that the hoopoe particularly fascinated me. It's mostly African but my bird book says its mating territory is southern Europe, though they range (or did at the time my old book was published,) as far as southern Britain. I never thought I'd see one. It was just pecking about in the newly mown front garden. The books say they eat large insects, mostly, so I was surprised to see it in the garden, where you usually see seed-eaters.

I watched it until I could resist the urge no more and dashed to the front hall to grab my camera, but sure enough, it was nowhere to be seen when I got back. But from now on I'll be looking for them.

It's funny that I recognised it so instantly from a book I haven't looked at in probably 40 years.

It has certainly renewed my determination to build a bird feeder. I usually stand in front of the kitchen window in the mornings while I have my coffee and apple, and love watching the little tweeters coming and going. I'm really not much of a birder, but I can recognise a few species by sight. I wish I had the dough to just keep a camera at every window. But I've got two pairs of binos, and one of them does live on the kitchen windowsill most of the time.

Anyway, sorry about the no pics of the hoopoe thing. But here's a few pics from some of the winter adventures. 

Kitties' first snow day. Bertie got really into it. 

Henry and Pippin, not so much. 

But Pippy decided that he hates being left out more than he hates having cold feet. 

Day trip to Spoleto in February to visit the nearest art supply shop,
and hit the Indian for lunch,
then to the cathedral to get some shots of the
frescoes in the apse before the light went. A good day.

Crypt chapel of San Girolamo church in Spoleto. 11th century, but built out of the bits of the old temple of Jupiter that lies under it. 

Some of San. G's 11th century frescoes. Last Supper. 

Lots of climate control equipment on these. But you could walk right up to them. Even touch them, if you don't care. 

The arch built in the time of Tiberius to commemorate his son, Germanicus. At least, I think I remember that's what the sign said.  

The old Roman street. 

Absolutely stunning, riveting fresco inside San Girolamo.
This pic does no credit to its glowing magnificence whatever. 

Dreaming of professional development

Painting restoration courses in Florence.

One-year course

This course offers a comprehensive and accelerated program, giving a unique opportunity to acquire a wide range of knowledge and techniques related to your field of study.

　Along with practical classes of your major subject - combined with challenging homework and assignments – our Basic Art Lessons will provide you with fundamentals of arts and design.

　Furthermore, you will broaden and enrich your artistic experience - looking beyond the borders of your specialty – through our weekly guided Art Visits and monthly Art Stages.

　Through this program, you will not only acquire a solid foundation in your study area, but also develop specific, advanced skills, immersed in a stimulating learning environment. Moreover, you will have the chance to learn basic business practices, to start up you career as young professional. Diplomas are issued to those who pass the final exam.

At least I'd be able to save the airfare.



~

20 + C + M + B + 16

You really do have to be in Italy for a while to really get it.

Last night, after drinks I said good night to my friend and started walking home through the very quiet streets.

It was chilly and a dense heavy fog had settled on the town, so thick I could not see to the end of the road. I flipped my collar up and shoved my hands deeper into my pockets. The main street, normally bustling in warmer weather, was ringing in its silence, the only sound was my own shoes.

As I approached the Rome Gate, and passed the antiques shop, I was suddenly approached by a woman in a big pointy black hat with a long crooked nose who came as if by magic out of the fog. She was dressed in a long skirt with many carefully sewn-on patches, and wore a woolen shawl around her shoulders. She brandished the big twig broom she was carrying and came over to me with her arms stretched out.

She said, "EElaree! Auguri!"

I replied, "Befana!! Auguri!"

We kissed each others' cheeks and laughed and I went home happy with my Epiphany blessing from the old lady who still searches for the Christ Child.



~

... He'll be here all week...

Take my mayor... please... 

I'm starting to feel toward Frank how I ended up feeling about Berlusconi... it's a bloody train wreck, but hilarious.

Yes yes... we're all very upset... blah, blah, blah...Evil pope destroys Church, yadda yadda...

But the sheer Italianness of it all is starting to be pretty entertaining.

The difference, of course, is that Silvio always did stuff with sly grin, like he realized it was all a joke and he was letting you in on it. Frank, on the other hand, is deadly serious, particularly about himself and his own wonderfulness, which makes the whole thing even better.

Yesterday's Papal comedy sketch was pretty good. Did y'all see him diss the mayor of Rome?

Pope calls Rome Mayor Marino a "pretend Catholic."

...
The unforgiving assessment of Ignazio Marino -- a man the Italian media love to hate -- further heightened tensions between the pope and the mayor in the run-up to the start of the Holy Year of Mercy in December, with the Vatican fearful the Italian capital is ill-prepared for the millions of extra pilgrims.

There y'go. One for the "pope of mercy" files.

Of course, once again as usual with Pope Frank, the move wasn't exactly "speaking truth to power." Marino is just about the most hated man in the country right now. Rome is falling apart (more than usual) and the people who live there, as they wait on stifling hot subway trains that stop for half an hour in the tunnels between stations, spend their time thinking of all the things the Roman Mob used to do to unpopular Emperors. So, you know, pretty safe target.

And funny thing... just for no reason at all and out of the blue and stuff, the next day, the Rome cops came to the streets around the Vatican and ticketed every Vatican employee car they could find.


In case you've never been to the Eternal Dumpster, this is Rome on a completely normal day,

... and none of it ever distracts the Roman police from their important flirting-with-women investigations.

Today's update on the papal vaudeville act:

A Rome radio station decides to prank the Vatican (a popular form of entertainment for Roman radio personalities). Someone from the Radio 24 satirical programme, La Zanzara (The Mosquito) impersonating the Italian premier Matteo Renzi, calls Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Holy See's Pontifical Council for the Family and one of Frank's lower level lieutenants, asking him how the pope felt about Marino joining the papal entourage in Philadelphia.

Paglia replied, not without embarrassment, that Marino’s “exploitation” of the World Meeting of Families on 26 September “infuriated Number One [Pope Francis]”.

Asked by the Renzi impersonator whether Marino had “gate-crashed” the event, the prelate quickly agreed in the affirmative. “Marino was very insistent on seeing Pope Francis [in Philadelphia] and this annoyed the pope tremendously”, said Paglia, adding: “The mayor is a good man, a good person, but nobody on our behalf invited him.”

120% increase in Rome fender-benders as Romans listening to the radio in the car go limp with helpless laughter.

...

I realise Americans tend to take the whole Vatican thing with absolute deadly seriousness, following the papal lead. But Italians are somewhat more ... errr... irreverent.

This man commands a cwack dicastewy!
He wanks as high as any in Wome!

"Centuwian why do they titter so?"

"Just some Roman joke, sir."

"Are they... wagging me?"

"Oh NO sir!"

~

Bug-free living

Reason 10,096 for living in Norcia: I've already taken the mosquito curtains down.

We're past the Big Heat of the hottest summer on record (TBTG!!). I've had a couple in the sitting room and I've been bitten a few times when out on a stomp because I forgot to use the Muskol someone brought me from Canuckistan, but on the whole the mosquito thing that was such a misery and plague in S. Marinella is just not really a big issue here.

I had the curtains up this summer, but mostly kept the windows and shutters closed through the day to combat the heat. (It worked too, and when it was 38 outside, it was at leat 10 to 15 degrees cooler inside.) But now that the temperature has dropped and the nights are a little longer and a little cooler - enough that I'm pulling my cardies out of the box - the annoyance of fighting with the curtains has outweighed the usefulness of keeping the bugs out.

In this neighbourhood, with a dairy farm across the next field, the bigger issue than mozzies is flies. Got me onea them electric tennis racket things, which I'm getting pretty good with.

The contrast is with Santa Marinella, where if you don't have your windows screened and have nets over the bed, you will be eaten alive in summer. And by "summer" I mean April to the end of October. And even then, at the height of the season you have to sleep with a bottle of bug-off and a tube of antihistamine cream under your pillow. I used to routinely do a perimeter security check around the bed every night before climbing in to make sure there wasn't any little opening. You have to tuck the ends of the nets under the mattress. Even so, I would be bitten while sleeping at least three times a week. Wake up at two am, turn on the light and there the little bastard would be, stuck inside the net.

You got used to it, I suppose, (and of course it wasn't as bad as the arctic where the mosquitoes come literally in clouds) but the bugs were really miserable on the coast. I never went anywhere without a bottle of bug spray in my handbag.



~

Losing my religion

Today I went to Mass at the basilica of San Benedetto. The monks chanted the propers beautifully and Fr. Basil was in especially fine voice for the Gospel. All was lovely and there were few of the irritations that are usual during tourist season. There were a few non-townies but they seemed to understand at least the gist of what was going on.

I came in a little late (as usual) and sat next to a woman - about her mid-fifties - who was obviously a Roman. She appeared to be engrossed in prayer and gave all the responses in Latin without hesitation.

Immediately after the gospel, she turned to me and whispered, "Are these Benedictine monks?"

Me: ... < blink >... < blink > ...

Ah, you mean those guys up front in the long black robes, with the shaved heads and the big beards...? The ones doing flawless Gregorian Chant ... as if they do it every day? ... In the Basilica of San Benedetto ... that has statues and paintings of San Benedetto everywhere? In the church that was built over top of the birthplace of San Benedetto... like it says on all the signs around town...

Those guys?

Ah, yeah, those are Benedictine monks.

What the... ?

The other day, I met a lovely young nun who is forming a new community in the US, to pray for and support priests and teach the faith to younger people. She was making a little pilgrimage around some of Italy's holy sites and stopped in town for a day or so. We had a lovely chat and I showed her around some of the neat stuff we have. We went in to look at St. Lawrence parish, a tiny little 4th century church around the corner from the main piazza. It's still a church but the Sacrament has been removed and it is no longer used for Masses, and is falling slowly into decrepitude. That day it was full of a grand piano and a few rows of chairs, since it was being used as part of the Norcia music festival. The person in charge of this saw us come and and asked if either of us played. Sister said she did, and she was kindly invited to sit down. She played and sang quite a lovely song she had written about the graces of the priesthood, as was appropriate. She sang in English.

At the end of it, as we were being ushered to the door, the nice gentleman asked sister, "Are you Catholic?" This was a nun dressed in a full habit, floor length white tunic, blue cincture, white linen guimpe and very long blue veil. She didn't just look like a nun, she looked like every painting you've ever seen of Our Lady of Lourdes. She stammered, "Yes, yes, I'm Catholic. I'm a nun." Having had his question answered, our new friend nodded with satisfaction at having guessed correctly the meaning of her peculiar attire.

As we were proceeding back to the piazza, she turned to me with a look of complete incredulity.

I said, "Yes, the Italians remember that there used to be this thing called 'Catholicism,' but they can recall very little about the details."

We are coming to the point in Italy where it will shortly no longer be accurate to refer to them even as "cultural Catholics".


Apparently, this is true in Germany too:

Emergency Call: The following call to 110 (the German version of 911/999) was made in Aachen, Germany:

Police: "Police Hotline."

Caller: "Hello, my name is [...] I'd like to report a large group of people who are walking down the street with a bullhorn. One of them recited some biblical saying, and the people were repeating the same saying. It's pretty creepy."

Police: "Which saying?"

Caller: "Something biblical, like ... that they are leaving this world ... something about a shepherd and stuff."

Police: "How many people are there?"

Caller: "Unfortunately, I couldn't tell. My husband was watching them ... wait a second ..."

Caller's Husband (shouting in the background): "20 people!"

Caller: "He says 20 people."

Police: "They are just walking through the area?"

Caller: "At the moment they haven't done anything, but it seems strange. Just in case something were to happen."

Police: "What, exactly, were they saying?

Caller's Husband (background): "... 'holy Mary, Mother of God' ..."

Caller: "You know, that saying ... 'and the fruit of thy womb' ... that saying people are always repeating ... I'm not a church person."

Police: "That's probably a procession which is passing through the area."

Caller: "A what?"

Police: "A procession. It's nothing to be afraid of."

Caller: "That they are wandering around here saying these things?"

Police: "Yes, it's a solemn church parade. That's called a 'procession' around here."

Caller: "Oh, I see. I'm not familiar with that. I just thought, because they were saying these things..."

Police: "Right. It's a procession."

~

Hilary the Mountaineer!

Well, wasn't *that* an adventure! I duly climbed up Monte Vettore late Monday/early Tuesday. We left the parking area, already high in the Sibillini range above the Piano Grande of Castellucio, at about 11:30 pm and reached the summit at about 4:40 (well, my friend got there about 4:30). The climb up was hard, but coming back down was when I really understood that my knees are much older than my brain.

This is the first time since getting home about lunchtime on Tuesday that I feel able to open my eyes completely. The kitties are very annoyed with me because I ran out of their beloved tinned food yesterday and haven't had the wherewithal to go to the shops, so they've only had dry food since Monday, poor chaps.

My friend dropped me off at home and I forgot in my fog of exhaustion to thank him properly for giving me such an extraordinary experience. I unceremoniously dumped all my stuff in the front hall, had the most perfunctory splash in the bath before falling into bed. And there I more or less stayed until... well, pretty much until this morning.

I'll be working on a Thing about it today.

It looks like this: (my friend's photos will be coming, and will provide proof that I actually did it.)

...At the top it was surreal, like having climbed right out of this world and into another one. What impressed me most, apart from the surreal, dream-like quality of the entire affair, was the silence.
Being August, there was very little wind, and up on the upper slopes there were none of the usual beasties who make up the night time chorus down here. No cicadas, no birds, no insect or any other lively life. So each time we stopped (and yes, it was frequent, thank goodness my friend was very patient) what struck me most was the utter, utter silence, a sound one simply never hears down here in the swamps of dischord we call civilization.

We reached the top under an impossibly brilliant white moon, and by that time we were high enough that it was quite cold, and having done a mountain's worth of exercise, we were damp and there was a bit of wind, enough to create quite a chill. By the time we got to the very, very top, the sky all along the Adriatic horizon was all lighted with a pale, streaky glow. We looked down on the Cities of the Plain, all those towns and villages around Ascoli that are the destination of native Italians for their local holidays. Still, apart from the sounds we made ourselves, talking, setting up camera equipment, taking out snacks, there was no sound at all apart from the wind.

Waiting for the sun as we shivered and made jokes. The Adriatic was all shrouded with fog and the sun took an hour to appear, first as a little streak of brilliant ruby red in the midst of the fog, and then growing to a glowing red disk suspended an inch above the water, but even at that stage becoming hard to look at directly...

~

La Sampogna

The Sampogna is a wooden flute made from the sambuca tree, probably originally by mountain shepherds. There is also an Italian bagpipe, also used by shepherds...when there still were Italian shepherds that is, called a Zampogna.



"Pliny records the belief held by country folk that the shrillest pipes and the most sonorous horns were made of Elder trees which were grown out of reach of the sound of cock-crow. At the present day, Italian peasants construct a simple pipe, which they call sampogna, from the branches of this plant."

I can imagine, at least it seems reasonable to assume that the zampogna, that you hear all over Italy at Christmas, is named after the earlier simpler flute named after the Sambuca tree.



Herblore. It's fun!



~

Home-home, homity-home!

St. Benedict also thinks it's a bad idea ever to leave the house.

~

So far as is possible, the monastery ought to be so planned that all requirements, such as water, mill, garden and the various crafts, are all available inside the enclosure, so that there may be no need for the monks to go out abroad, for this is not at all good for their souls.

Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 66

Well, I'm home from the Old Smoke. It was great fun, and there was much excitement. Perhaps the best thing about conferences and meetings, especially when you've been doing the same sort of job for a very long time and some of the shine has worn off, is seeing old friends and respected colleagues. When I was a lay-about teenager, and terrified of entering adult life, I rather wish someone had sat me down and described the pleasures of working life, and how you create a social world for yourself of fascinating people, contacts and acquaintances, as well as close and enduring friendships, that will stand you well in every aspect of your life.

I must say that a weekend like that, no matter how difficult or tiring it may be (my brain kept whispering "You're forty-nine! You're forty-nine!") very much makes you appreciate the colourful, complex and deeply engaging landscape that a long and fruitful involvement in public work can create. I can't help but think that a big part of the reason people get addicted to these silly online fantasy games is that they have not made sufficient use of the real life they've been offered.

Life isn't just for "living," which I think many people equate with enduring until the weekend or until happy hour, it's for building. Your day to day life is really no more than a framework, a blank slate, like my little garden; just a piece of mostly empty ground with a few built-in advantages and disadvantages, upon which we must exercise our imagination and effort.

But I must say, I am very glad to be home. All the fun aside, the noise, the crowds, the confusion, the dirt and grub, the awful buses, the constant pestering at every corner by gypsy beggars... even the road surface, whether you're walking or biking or driving, is like a complete assault on the psyche. Rome is a hell of a lot of work to deal with, a great deal more than I'm comfortable dealing with, and I'm very, very glad I live far enough away to make it pretty impractical to go there more than once in a great while.

Norcia is certainly close enough to go if you have to, and - even better - for people to come here and visit quite a lot. In fact, I've had a nearly constant stream of visitors since I moved here, and there have been days when, if I wanted to get any work done, whether paid writing or simply gardening, I've had to pretty much avoid town altogether. I certainly don't lack a social life.

But nice as it is to see people coming through, and fun as it is to tell them all about it and show them around, and introduce them to the joys of stewed wild boar and monk-beer, it is very nice at the end of the day to go home and sit quietly upon one's own stoop, and sip the tea and watch the birds settling down for the night.



~

Snow for Christmas

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day in Rome for festivities with the Rome Traddigentsia:

Christmas Eve dinner in a fancy-schmancy fish place, (because of course, Christmas Eve is a "fast day"...so naturally the only possible choice was lobster...)

eating, drinking, worshipping, Christmas carols and never-ending fun; High Mass all hung about with 17th century polyphony;


then back to the flat to help with the cooking and all day long


the cool kids trooping through the house;



food and food and more food: prime rib on the day


and ham on Boxing Day, followed by apparently bottomless wine and


prosecco vats, followed in their turn by a dizzying array of exotic after-dinner drinks;


home-made paper crowns, presents, toasted nuts, clementines...

It was perfect.

But a little tiring, and I'm glad to be home again in the cold clean air.

Got the fire going as my friend Maria ventured down the hill for Compline. It was raining hard when she got in soaked and cold. I handed her a hot water bottle and a cup of tea, and then broke out the lemon liqueur. We read a little Italian while the cat inched ever-closer to the fire, then when I went to get a second glass of hoochies, glanced out the window and ...

SNOW!!

Tomorrow we're going to be walking down the hill for Mass and Office. But that's OK.

(All pics h/t to Fr. Athanasius)



~