The white lace hat

It was a beautiful June just before the First World War. The ten-year old Lucy and her parents were spending their holidays on the lakes. Lucy had a long blond hair and beautiful big eyes. The girl lived in her own little world and didn’t need friends to play with. Lucy’s best friend was nature. She loved flowers, trees and animals, but mostly focused her attention on butterflies. Lucy always said that she would be entomologist. Her collection of these most attractive was wonderful because it had the diversity of species and colours.
One day, while she was walking with her parents and their friends along the lakeside, she saw a fantastic yellow butterfly. Lucy had to catch this specimen for her collection. She started to run. The butterfly danced lightly, drawing circles in the air. Lucy was so delighted and excited that she completely forgot about the surrounding world. She didn’t notice when she lost her white lace hat. The bushes gradually changed into forest trees and then trees into marsh plants. Lucy didn’t manage to catch the butterfly and suddenly realized that her body got caught in the bog. She panicked, screamed and cried but nobody heard her voice. Only the butterfly circled around her head, even after she disappeared.
Lucy’s parents and the police searched for her a long time. The white lace hat was found between bushes the next year, when snow melted. After Lucy’s death only her rainbow collection reminded her parents of how a colorful character Lucy was.

Epiphanies – watching Toto

The four days in Bagnena were the combination of extended Christmas magic, complete relaxation, oblivion and peculiar epiphanic experiences. As the New Year nights got longer, days grew shorter; densely packed with festive events they seemed refreshing and fulfilling. Unexpectedly, Bagnena had its rare moments of winter business, much of which focused simply on warming the place up. The thick stone walls, so blessed in summer, now made us all do the jobs some of us had never had a chance to try – chopping wood, keeping the fire alive and, since the bedrooms had no heating, preparing hot water bottles for the night. Lodged in one of the south-west bedrooms, I enjoyed all benefits of it. The sun woke me the moment it rose over the hills and kept warming the room for most of the day so the pile of heavy bedding on the king-sized antique bed always seemed to retain some warmth from the previous night. The walk to the bathroom, however, promptly reminded me of the true character of winter in Italian countryside. Typically, the first of us to enter the kitchen cum lounge had to make the fire and prepare coffee for those who had a lie-in, and over the next hour, joined in one by one, wrapped up in sweaters and scarves. Soon, by one o’clock, the temperature outside was high enough to allow an al fresco lunch on the terrace with the spectacular backdrop of gold-coloured slopes and snowy peaks beyond. That white-washed kitchen and the music room were the places where we huddled round fireplaces to start and end each day with drinks, roast almonds and chestnuts we had brought from walks in the surrounding wood, stories told, stories listened to …
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two thousand and eight pros and cons

Honestly? (pro)
‘Life’s a bitch and then you die’ (con)
No, I definitely haven’t come to terms with myself (con)
A wasted time? (con)
But who cares? (pro)
What choice is there anyway? (pro)
This’d probably be something completely different tomorrow (pro)
But it’d be too late, cause it’s today, the New Year’s Day, isn’t it? (pro)
See how relative things are (con)
No, I definitely have no will to continue until two thousand and eight, ten is enough (pro)

Before it’s too late

Most people I know make New Year’s promises. Sometimes they are really solemn, others are made because of a habit or routine. I don’t mean that they have no chance to keep them.
Do you know what is the most popular New Year’s resolution? – to lose weight or give up smoking. For some persons it’s a real challenge.
This year I made my resolution too: I promise myself to enjoy what I have, because we often appreciate the importance of people, feelings or things when we’ve lost them. So I’ll just try to be more contented, more happy before it’s late, before I become a bitter woman.

I’d like to propose a toast

And here’s to I!
The man who cannot deny
But thinks that he is really fine.
The man who doesn’t like to be
In the center of everything
But he couldn’t think of anything else
Like writing this poem about someone else.
I have to tell you, believe me, it’s true
He likes to work fifteen hours a day
But when he has a day off, or two,
He sleeps until one pm.
The man who doesn’t like
When people get drunk
But he has so much fun
At the weekend,
With a bottle of whisky per hour.
I’ll drink to him!

Epiphanies – Bagnena

It’s amazing that I should have come across those pictures now. Taken four years ago this week, a large set, salvaged from my old Mac, buried in a deeply nested folder on the hard drive. They tell many stories. Fast rewind.

Eight friends, all from the four corners of the world, flew to Italy to celebrate the New Year and a birthday in a Tuscan castello, a two-hour drive from Pisa. I, meanwhile, took a train from Rome where I had spent Christmas and was to return there after the New Year break in the hills. The solitude of an explorer gripped me when I got off the train in Arezzo and found myself among a handful of passengers on a slow train to Rassina, a small market-town, off the beaten track, at the bottom of the valley. The azure sky in December and half-barren hills, drenched in sunlight, heightened a sense of alienation that I always felt at provincial train stations and bus stops. A mini-bus with the burly woman driver took me from the square to the village of Talla, another half-an-hour winding ride uphill. The village looked small and ancient, but somehow gave the impression of being a secure place. I knew my destination, Bagnena, was very near, perhaps up the street round the corner. Rather than phoning my friends and letting them pick me up, I decided to walk but talking to the men in the bar made it obvious I was wrong. Apparently, there was Santa Bagnena – the village, and my Bagnena – the lonely villa I was heading for. In no time it was figured out how to get to the latter. Giuseppe, a scruffy, cheerful looking local, with a broad gap-toothed smile, was more than happy to take me there in his rusty Fiat that badly needed a mechanic and wash, just as its driver needed a shave before the New Year. It took his barking and coughing machine more than a quarter to reach the top of the steep hill, where, 3 kilometres from and 200 hundred metres above Talla, was Bagnena itself. Giuseppe refused to take any money for his stunt. I entered the building the moment my friends were getting ready for lunch.

The epiphany – true pilgrims do not have money on them.

Bagnena

Dearest Connie,

 

I write to you in a much happier frame of mind because something wonderful has just happened that I must tell you about at once.

I was sitting on a bench in the town’s park. I was looking at the snow and snowflakes falling from the sky. It was a snowy, freezing day and it was cold in my house too. In the park there wasn’t anybody because everybody was celebrating Christmas and eating dinner with their families. I was thinking about my family when I suddenly saw something shining on the ground. At first I thought it was a coin or something like this, but I heard in my head that I should see what it is. I got up and went up to the object. When I realised what it was I was shocked! It was your lost ring! You were looking for it every day when you lost it! I took the ring and all the memories connected with you came back to my mind! I started to cry because I missed you very much! I came back home and went to sleep.

I hope we meet somewhere and I’ll give you back your ring.

Best wishes,

Maudin

In Provence

I’m in the south of France. Its name is Provence. I feel very good! I see a lot of beautiful greenery around because it’s far far away from Paris and there aren’t smog and rubbish. There aren’t a lot of people so there is usually silence. I hear nothing. I love this feeling because I can relax all the time. I arrived here to buy quickly a lot of delicious red wine. I love this alcohol and I don’t have any in my house. I fell in love with this place. I bought a small mansion and now I have an own winery. My wine isn’t good enough for drinking yet but practice makes you perfect.

At a lake

I’m by a really huge lake. On the lake there are a lot of strange birds. I’ve never seen them before. I see a beautiful sunset. I feel very good in that place but I’m without my friends and I don’t have anybody to talk to. I smell wet grass because earlier there was a light rain. This place is very beautiful. But next time I’ll come here with my friends.

2008 rewind (3)

Pros:
personal life blooming;
sadly, said goodbye to a few good colleagues but, happily, met new ones;
set up a new huuuge garden that’s going to look fantastic in a few years’ time;
got a nice, unexpected invitation to a New Year’s Eve party (turned it down, though);
got the best present in the world, which can unpack only in summer;

Cons:
who cares if there were any! :)

P.S. A Happy New Year to you all.

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