Bluebells from Scotland in an Italian garden

This evening at some friends' house enjoying a glass of wine and some olives and watching the sun go down over their cherry tree, my glance fell on some bluebells growing beside the path. As you know from my post from last year, or if you're new readers I'll tell you now that most of the world's bluebells grow in Britain and it is very unusual to see them elsewhere.
Our friends explained that the bluebells were brought back from Scotland in 1945. Their father had been a prisoner of war in Scotland and had fallen in love not only with the Scottish lassies but also with the bluebells. He had planted the bluebells and the whole family considered them an heirloom. Each year a member of the family would take a cutting and now everyone had bluebells in their gardens.
What a lovely symbol of hope and friendship.
It filled my heart with such joy and happiness to see bluebells on an April evening in an Italian garden brought from Scotland with love.

Bluebells brought from Scotland in 1945

Watching the sun go down over the cherry orchard

What a lovely cherry tree

Keep it light, without being heavy

The vast blue sky makes the mountains look small

My favourite Bluebell wood

A climb to the top of the hill to see the windmill ,clears the mind

Looking at my lovely photograph of the Bluebell wood I can feel all the sensations I would have walking through it. The scents of the flowers and fresh greenery , the light breeze through my hair, the scufflings in the undergrowth, the cuckoo and the wood pigeons calling each other.

In Italy there are also many lovely places where Nature's bounty can be enjoyed. The thick carpets of primroses and violets have given way to ferns and wild orchids , the cuckoo and the wood pigeons are calling here too along with all the blackbirds and thrushes. 

When I think of these scenes I think of how you must go lightly when out in these places. No trampling all the flowers and greenery underfoot, no startling the wildlife, no disturbing of nesting places, no  leaving behind rubbish or harmful substances. Thinking like this you realise that being light is not the same as being superficial not at all. Go through the day with a light touch and a light heart and a light attitude to who and what is around you, together with your depth of love for the beauty in the world and the people in it.

Italy has beautiful uncontaminated lakes and mountains. the Dolomites are a World heritage site

Il mese delle Rose , il mese di Maria

sans espine, without thorns

Roses in a variety of colours

Yellow roses can  mean jealousy

Il n'est rose sans espine, There are no roses without thorns, often used to talk about love

In Italy May is known as the month of Mary and the month of roses. Often you will find a little chapel that is opened specially and everyone is given a rose. Roses are in full bloom in all the gardens in every colour of the rainbow. Pink English roses are treasured for their delicate beauty and are at their best in May before the sizzling heat of summer.. Roses are often considered to be the most beautiful of flowers. Their colours, their scent , their soft velvety petals. Each colour has a meaning in the language of flowers. Red is for true love , yellow- jealousy, white and pink for weddings. You just have to watch out for the thorns and wear gloves when gardening. Non ci sono rose senza spine, there are no roses without thorns.

May must be the most green or eco- friendly month. No need for central heating or air- conditioning. You can ride your bike without fear of bronchitis or dehydration, you can stay out in the sun all day , you can sleep at night. There is the whole of the  summer to look forward to , There is beauty all around us. No wonder poets have been inspired by May for centuries.

Just one problem here , now is the time to change over our wardrobes and shake out all our summer dresses, but why oh why don't they fit .?

All through the winter

To keep myself warm

I ate bananas and potatoes

And polenta made with corn

But now the summer's coming

I'm regretting all of that

Cos looking in the mirror

I realise I am fat .

Angie

three red roses for true love

A little chapel used to bless roses for Mary

The magical merry month of May

And after April
When May follows
And the white-throat builds
And all the swallows, Robert Browning,

Every year on the first of May the moment I wake up I am aware of its magic. My heart is singing like the birdsong outside my window It is surely the most beautiful day of the year. Nature is full of promise and beauty. The green is still fresh and bright, colours of the blossoms can still be seen, the cuckoo is calling. Over the centuries hundreds of poems have been written about this lovely month which starts today. My mum used to tell me about how they still had a May pole and chose a May queen to celebrate May Day. Just in case I get a lot of disappointed clicks I'd better explain that Maypole dancing has nothing to do with Pole dancing. We Brits drew the short straw when it comes to traditional dancing. No sensual sambas or belly dancing for us. Just clomping and stomping around doing things like Morris dancing The Irish did manage to spice things up a bit with River dance though The Maypole dancing has been revived in some villages and Primary schools in Britain. The last proper Maypole was taken down in London in the 18th  century.
There are lots of sayings about May, they mostly warn us not to trust the temperature at this time of year. The bright sunny days can be followed by treacherous winds and cold nights.
 Cast not a clout, till May is out, it is unclear whether this means not to take off your warm clothes until the month of May is over, or until the May blossom is out.
May blossom is another name for the Hawthorn blossom, which some think brings bad luck if you take it indoors.

Shear your sheep in May
and shear them all away.

A cold May and a windy
A full barn will find ye

He who daff's his coat on a winter's day
will gladly put it on in May.

Chaucer wrote a pretty poem about the Hawthorn, or May, blossom, bringing all his lusty sensuality to the countryside.

Among the many buds proclaiming May
Decking the fields in holiday array,
Striving who shall surpass in braverie,
Marke the faire flowering of the hawthorne tree
Who finely clothed in a robe of white
Fills full the wanton eye with May's delight.


In Italy the first of May is traditionally La Festa del lavoro. It doesn't matter which day of the week it is on it is always a holiday. There is a big concert in Piazza S.Giovanni in Rome and being such a sunny country people flock to the sea and lakes to enjoy the sweet May sunshine which doesn't have the fierce heat that is round the corner. It is a holiday to celebrate the workers from factories, the ones that keep everything going and I can't think of a more lovely day than the first of May to rejoice in freedom and solidarity.

Of the many poems to choose from to celebrate the first of May I have chosen this one by Wordsworth to start of with. I'm sure I speak for most of us when I say that his poems seem to say exactly what I feel and would express like that if I could. I'm really glad he's done it for us.

Ode, William Wordsworth

While earth herself is adorning
This sweet May morning
And the children are culling
On every side
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers, while the sun shines warm
And the babe leaps up on it's mother's arm-

Then sing ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song
And let the young lambs bound as to the tuber's sound
We in thought will join your throng
Ye that pipe and ye that play
Ye that through your hearts today
Feel the gladness of the May.

Hawthorn or May blossom

Water lilies in bud

Elderflower, the flowers can be used to make a drink like champagne, so I'm told

Wild roses , very popular with buzzing insects

Subtle sounds

This morning I started to describe to an Italian friend the Silent disco that my niece had had at her wedding.
"siccome in Inghilterra è vietato fare rumore dopo mezza notte.." I began. Her eyebrows shot up and she said something about" you Northerners and the No sex please we're British reputation," then we collapsed in laughter as we both realised what she had understood.
I had said that as in England it is forbidden to make noise after midnight..my niece had organised a silent disco, using headphones.
I had made fare rumore sound like fare l'amore, which means to make love..I always had had a problem with mumbling, my dad was always telling me to enunciate.
Pronunciation can lead to misunderstandings. When I taught English many students had trouble distinguishing between "tusk" and "task", "uncle" and "ankle". A teacher friend that had worked all over the world told me an anecdote about students who pronounced, hat,heart, hurt ,hot,hit ,heat all in exactly the same way, ht. The same thing easily can happen to me when speaking Italian, like this morning. I find it difficult to tell if a word has a double consonant. One thing is to have an accent and cause a few laughs having coffee with a friend, another is for a professional person, like a lawyer or politician. Then it is often more advisable to have an interpreter even if you understand everything.
When I taught children I liked using stick men drawings. No artistic talent needed at all. They loved them and it was a great way to keep them busy and learning without even realising it. I got the idea from my French teacher at school, who embedded forever the extremely useful word for hedgehog in my brain.Hèrisson sounds like hairy son, with an English accent, but I don't know if the French would understand it.
The most difficult sound for me to pronounce in Italian was gli. This is used to mean the, in front of certain words, like gli sforzi, or to mean to him/her, as in gli scrisse una lettera, I wrote a letter to him.To help me and give me practise, my brother-in-law taught me to say Aglio,Oglio e parapiglia. Aglio-garlic, Oglio-the name of a river, parapiglia-confusion,commotion.
The Silent disco was amazing, I was too old to attend all of it, but we heard it was wonderful.



Ankle and uncle can be hard to distinguish

Words with double consonants have to be pronounced carefully
mollo-soak,molo-pier or jetty. palla-ball, pala-spade

It will be difficult to forget the French word for hedgehog after seeing this

April showers bring May flowers

Tulips bring welcome colour to the garden in April

There is lots to do in a garden in the Spring

The woods are full of fresh green leaves, sweet smells and bright wild flowers

Today is the first of April and after having played a few practical jokes and had some light relief it is probably a bit sort of cheesy but it is hard not to recite Robert Browning's (1812-1889) poem "Oh to be in England"
So here it is to refresh your memory .

Home thoughts from abroad

Oh to be in England

Now that April's there.

And whoever wakes in England

Sees,some morning,unaware,

That the lowedt boughs and the brusheood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now!

Well that is the first verse because it is only the first day and the second verse mentions May. We want to enjoy April now and the lovely light evenings.

When my Mum first came to stay with me in Italy it was March. She would tell me every day that she had to be back for the English spring. There was nothing like it in the whole world, she had to get back for it. I worked so hard to show her the delights of the Italian Spring, the thick, white cherry blossom, the carpets of pink and purple peach and apricot blossom, the magnolias, the Judas trees, mimosa, the jasmine, camelias and the beautiful lakes and hillsides. I did win her over in the end, especially as we had lots of cappuccinos and mushroom risottos on the way. A lot of our deep feelings of nostalgia probably come from what we grew to love as children.We were nearer the ground then, breathing in the heady smells, surrounded by birdsong while playing outside, delighting in the feel of the grass and the ferns and the  deep heady smells of the countryside.

These are some photos of my English Spring.

the Hambleden valley

April Fool's Day, Pesce d'Aprile

The first  day of April is known as April Fool's Day in Britain, and Pesce d'Aprile  April Fish day in Italy.. In Britain it is traditional to tell someone something wrong and make them believe it is the truth. My mum might have said to my Dad, ^Oh no! it's really late, it's 8-o-clock" when really it was only 7-o-clock, and then get him all worked up in a fluster and then laugh and say"April Fool ^. These sort of practical jokes never made him laugh as much as they did her,they had a different type of sense of humour. My first memory of being made an April Fool was when the nicest boy in my class told me that the hem of my skirt had come unstitched. Of course I looked down and tried to find the problem, only to have him quietly say ^April Fool^. I was about eight years old at the time and actually felt happy that he had picked me out. He then gave me a poem that said Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you".
My first experience of April Fool in Italy was having flour thrown all over me and then having to act as though it was great fun to go home on the bus covered in white powder.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) wrote an essay on April Fool's day and he reminds us that a little playing the fool is good for us .

April Fool's Day

The compliments of the season to my worthy masters and a merry first of April to us all! Beshrew the man who on such a day as this, the general festival, should affect to stand aloof. I love a Fool - as naturally as if I were of kith and kin to him. I have never made an acquaintance that lasted; or a friendship that answered; with any that had not some tincture of the absurd in their characters. the more laughable blunders that a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or overreach you. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition.

 

In Italy, Fish are a traditional symbol of the first of April, Pesce d'Aprile

Chocolate fish waiting to be eaten on April Fool's Day in Italy

Sixpence to see the sea

Looking at the photos of  Devonshire and Liguria  being battered by giant waves causing terrible damage to homes and territory in the past few days, makes us realise once again how precious and vulnerable and fragile our coastlines are.
Britain and Italy seem to me to complement each other very well, each country finding something to admire about the other. One thing they have in common though, is an extensive coastline, that needs protecting, and the fact that nowhere is very far from the sea. In Britain, I think no-one is ever more than seventy miles from the sea. In Italy it's probably less.
For us, a trip to the sea was a magical adventure. As we left our beloved beech woods and leafy lanes behind, we would drive through the New Forest, admiring the ponies, the trees, the fords, the gorse bushes as we made our way to the seaside. The nearest seaside for us was the south coast of England. Sussex,Dorset,Hampshire,Devon.When we were nearly there, our Dad would say "Sixpence for the first one to see the sea". The sixpence was irrelevant, it didn't matter who won. Our reward was something much more precious and lasting.What it did, was make us intensely aware of the wonderful moment when you first see that bright, sparkling strip of blue on the horizon.A childhood feeling that has never gone away. There it was, the sea, la mer, il mare. That marvellous, microcosm world. The sound of the seagulls soaring overhead, the promise of an ice-cream, sticks of rock to take home for friends at school, naughty postcards to be giggled over surreptitiously,the sand between your toes, buckets and spades to use for treasures, fishing net for exploring rock pools, kites to fly on the beach. All the time, ever present the soothing noise of the waves, the smell of the salt and the spray.The huge expanding mass of the sea, with it's tides depending on the pull of the moon, how wonderful is all that. The Dorset coast has wonderful rock formations with names like Old Harry. The Devonshire coast has incredible cliff top walks and Cornwall is just simply beautiful.
In Italy the coastline is quite spectacular too. Here there is the added joy of more reliable sunshine. the first time we went to the beach at Jesolo I was overwhelmed by the vast expanse of soft white sand, that stayed dry because there is so little tide. We have since, seen more of the coastline, from Puglia to Tuscany and of course, Liguria and Emilia Romagna. It is all lovely.
 To get the same thrill of seeing that amazing strip of sparkling blue in the distance, promising so much that is wonderful, the ideal approach for me, is coming down towards Genova on the motorway from Piacenza. That is where I would say to my children "Sixpence for the first one to see the sea.!"