First off let me start by saying our thoughts and prayers go out to all who died and those continuing to be affected by the Japanese earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
In the wake of the disaster that struck Japan last month the Italian media was alight with news of the impending radioactive cloud that was due to pass over Italy. To cap it all rain was forecast to hit the mountains at the same time. I felt it was only right to tell the kids about what was going on before they found out about it from their friends at school. We never seem to get time to watch the news and it was only by chance that we got a newspaper that told of the two days to go before the clouds stuck the country.
While trying to play down the risks, I explained to the eldest children what had happened and what the media was saying was going to happen. With the likelihood of heavy rain it was safer to tell them not to stay out in the rain and to keep their hoods up. Okay so this was a bit of an overreaction but to tell the truth who among us knows what the real damage could be so it’s always better to be cautious.
When the rains began I was driving home and, quite by chance, listening to the news on the Italian radio. I say by chance because in the mountains the radio is extremely hit and miss with what seems like thousands of channels all trying to broadcast on the same frequency. While the radio phased between two channels, alternating between dance and rock music, the news started and I managed to catch snatches of the latest instructions from the ministry of health about the situation. I was pleased to hear that there was to be no risk to the human population but there was a slight risk to fish. What a relief. It meant that I could tell the children it was really all clear and they could stop going round with their jackets pulled over their heads. They’ve got coats with hoods but they were not considered fashionable enough so jackets were worn instead. I’m
still wondering how it is fashionable to be seen walking around with the collar of your jacket pulled over your head.
Anyway, I started to tell them the good news about what I’d heard and how the only likely effect was maybe to fish when one of them piped up and asked. ‘Will our fish be okay?’
‘Pardon?’ Came my puzzled reply as I desperately tried to remember whether we had any fish in our growing menagerie.
‘You know. Our fish.’ She responded full of concern.
‘Which ones?’ It was the safest reply as I still tried to recall even having a fish pond. Maybe we had some in the little stream outside the house. I was baffled.
‘The goldfish. Will they be alright?’
The realisation stuck me and I remembered that we did indeed have two goldfish. I laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Well unless they are going to open the lid, jump down off the windowsill and creep outside while nobodies looking then I’m pretty sure they are going to be okay’ I replied to my concerned 12 year old.
Last year we discovered that we’ve actually got a good supply of red grapes on our vines at the side of the house. After spending hours picking them and eating as much as we could we were at a loss with what to do with the rest of them. Tony decided that maybe we could make wine from them since he’d heard that some of the locals made their own homemade wine and understanding that it could even be quite palatable.
He looked on the Internet and found a site that told you how to make Ghetto wine without having to fork out on all the usual wine making equipment. It seemed like an ideal plan so we mashed up the grapes and placed them into a container so that they could start to ferment. Everyone got involved it was very messy but good fun.
We checked daily to see how the process was going. It was great, the grapes started fermenting and we were in business.
After the fermenting stage had died down we went into the bottling stage. Anything would do we felt, mainly because we didn’t have any proper equipment and we couldn’t find the original web site again. Old wine bottles and plastic bottles were pressed into action.
Bottling went well and we didn’t loose too much of our lovely wine during this stage. It was really starting to smell the part now so we were all pleased with our progress. Only about six weeks to wait now until we could sample our vino at Christmas. It was all very exciting.
Having nowhere else to store our produce, we left the bottles in the kitchen and also partly because we wanted to keep an eye on things.
That’s when the problems started. Bulging plastic bottles and the one part of the process that, as we later found out, we’d forgotten to think about. The gas!!! We later found out you’re meant to have a little u tube affair on the top of the bottle in order to let the gas out and keep the air from coming into contact with the wine.
Anyway not overly daunted by this problem, Tony decided that we could just unscrew the tops slightly in order to let the gas out much as you do with a bottle of lemonade that’s fizzing up. Great, problem solved!!
We religiously did this on a daily basis and all was well in the garden again. The gas that was coming out had a distinctly winey smell to it so we were back on track.
The thing about making wine is that it’s a long process and daily routine took over so the calming down process kind of slipped from being daily to every couple of days or just when we remembered or felt like it.
One morning we were getting ready for our Saturday outing to the market at a town close by. It was the usual chaos of trying to get the youngest children ready whilst trying to get ready ourselves. Tony had gone down stairs to make the morning coffee when there was an almighty pop, clunk and sploosh noise from downstairs.
‘What was that?’ I shouted. The kids were all stunned into silence just looking at each other.
‘Err. Nothing?’ came the questioning response from Tony.
We all dropped what we were doing and rushed down to the kitchen.
Tony was standing there with a bottle in one hand and the lid in the other. He was also standing in a pool of ‘wine’. In fact he was covered in the stuff and looking very sheepish. It was also raining ‘wine’ in the house. It was everywhere.
As we’ve probably mentioned we’ve got plenty of fruit here which is why we don’t really mind the goings on with the local inhabitants from the village sneaking around and taking some of the fruit while they think we’re not looking.
It’s quite bizarre really as you can watch someone taking the long route to our fruit trees over the hills and through the long grass.
‘Here we go again’. Word spreads around the house quickly and we go into our standard routine. Silence descends which is about the only time it ever does.
We tend to watch them from behind the net curtains and just at the opportune moment open a window. It’s funny to see what they do. Some ‘hit the deck’ in the long grass like they’re on some sort of military operation only to get up moments later holding something aloft as if to say ‘found it’ while making out their putting something back in their eye. All I can say is that long grass and finding contact lenses doesn’t mix so if they thing we’re buying that they’re sadly mistaken but it’s all part of the fun.
The other thing we do is wait until they are just about to pick the fruit and then open the window. It’s amazing see them feel the leaves of the trees and nodding their heads as they make their way up the path into the forest. After that you end up closing the window and watch them as they sneak back through the trees surveying the house until they think it’s safe. Patience is a virtue and it certainly makes the kids happy during the long summers here when they’re bored.
Eventually we let them take what they want before going outside and casually enquiring ‘what’s in the bag’. It’s surprising how many of the characters seem to forget, year on year, who owns the trees and all the fruit they bear.
We get them coming up during other seasons as well for different things but that’s another story.
Most people think of wild boar as being a thing of the past and the thing about living in the mountains is that the past is the present here. The kettle is a matter for debate in the local bars and broadband is obviously some sort of wide elastic band. Anyway this is beside the point because to add to the lists of things that I want to make my paradise complete I upped the ante by suggesting that a pig for the house may be a good thing. I’d seen the films and a cute little pig curling up in front of the fire and watching TV while sharing the popcorn seemed like a good idea. That was, of course, until my husband drove down to the village one day and not a few hundred meters from the car park came across three big wild boars and what looked like a lot of small animals. Stopping the car he realised that the small animals where twelve to fifteen piglets hot tailing it across the road after their parents. As he told me afterwards, my husband had just one thought at that time, ‘piglet’. The last piglet, because there’s always one, saw the car and turned back . With his hand on the door handle my husband levered the door. ‘Piglet’, he thought. His next thought was ’bugger this’, as he saw one of the adult wild boars turn back for the stray. When he got home he told me of how he very nearly got out of the car to get me my pig. It’s just one of those things but I know that one day he’ll return to the house with a wild board piglet in his arms screaming ’shut the bloody door’ as the parents come charging after.
Car hire in Morgallo. Where to stay in Morgallo. The internet is a wonderful place and the advertisers are so comical. I did a search for Morgallo and found sites that offer car hire and places to stay in Morgallo!!! Well I’ve got a spare bed and I can offer my mum and dad’s car if you want but to be honest we’re the only people who live here and I’ve never seen the car rental place unless of course it’s hidden away in one of the baraccas’ and the only open it at night when we’re all in bed. Mind you I have heard strange noises at night but I’m fairly sure it’s the guy knicking our apples and not tourists looking for a car to rent.
How do you get a chicken off the coup when it’s laying an egg? No this is not a joke. When one of our daughters got home to be told that lunch would be delayed because a chicken was sitting on top of the integral part of her fried egg sandwich she was not best pleased. She rushed out the door armed with an item of footwear and returned a few minutes later saying ‘that’s how you get a chicken off the coup’. When asked how she managed to get the eggs she replied ‘I just belted the side of the basket with the shoe until the chicken decided that it would be best to get off. Now start frying!!’
I guess this is one of those lessons you learn having stood there for a full ten minutes before hand trying to coax the chicken from the roost.