07 Poggio, July 2003

Here is Houdini soaking up the sun.

07 Poggio, July 2003

Tuesday 1 July

I was struggling with my painting during painting class. At one point I was about to give up and Rolando put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Brava!”. How did he know I was not feeling brava at all?

Later, Pat called and asked me if I knew it was the last class. Well it may have been for some of us but, as I have seen in the past, it is not for all of us. It is the last class for those of us who do not want to continue through the summer. This means that I’ll have to go and get my painting. No doubt I’ll find out if it’s also the “last” class for me. When I get home I find that I’m dripping wet with sweat from the hot drive.

This morning the sky is grey, a welcome change to startling cloudless blue!

In this hay famine Roberto tells me he’s moved 600 bales of hay for a film star neighbour I have never really met. Where did she get it? I ask him. And he doesn’t tell me. He says she booked it in January.So had I.

Matisse had a dead bird inside. I didn’t touch it. I got one of my old socks and tossed it out the window. There was a sadness in this bird, which died with an expression that tells me it had been about to do something and then been caught by my cat. I did not touch it, maybe because I didn’t want to feel the warmth of its body and know that it had been killed recently. I don’t know if Matisse actually means to kill the birds he goes after. His intense play kills birds or lizards. He doesn’t eat them.

It would make me very happy if it rained. The “girls” are in the garden. Vincenzo has arrived, I hope not.

Wednesday 2 July

All night long the dogs barked and howled. I remember Matisse wanting me up from a long time. I was even up at six and fell back to sleep. I’ in training just in case I get an office job in Rome. The earlier the better to get into work. I will set up the ironing board so I can iron my going into work clothes.

I set the alarm for six in the morning because I want to know how long it takes to feed four horses. Two was two to five minutes and three takes longer. I walk around like a zombie. If I have good hay I can just throw it down on the ground. Last night I checked the bales. I’d left the bad hay out and the horses had eaten everything except the rotten part, as expected. It is Sully who seems to have taught the others to eat this hay. Before they would nibble one strand and kick the rest around. Some of these bales are really rotten. I may put the hay in the stall and turn the side barn, which was a garage, into a shelter for my mares.

I speak of making changes to the stalls, cementing the floor. Remo reminds me that I’m only renting this place.

I cleaned the field on the other side of the fence, where I used to keep the horses. Now I want to pull out the bad hay and leave it in the sun. The mould may dry out of it. This dreadful hay cost me 6 euro a bale.

I tried to feed the foal out of her own bucket. In the beginning she accepted the feed, but I see that Sully lets her eat from her bucket. Sully takes a break and looks off into the distance while finishing a mouthful, then the foal gets her turn. The others keep their heads inside their buckets until they are down to licking up the crumbs and nibbling on the edges to get the last taste of feed. One bag, 25 kg, seems to last three days. I used to wonder how come we used to get through so much feed when I was feeding two horses with Remo in a town not far from here.

Sully’s last foal is very tall and large. Eros is her father. I won’t know if the spots on her legs are real spots or her coat changing. Now she has wandered off with Pepita.

I see that when Matisse and Houdini greet each other they rub foreheads and “chirp” at each other.

Thursday 3 July

A woman stops and tells me how beautiful my horses are. It is the mythical actress who lives up the hill, the one who bought 600 bales of hay. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any of her films. I no longer own a TV. I notice her intense dark eyes. I find her an attractive person, maybe charismatic. I’d once seen Robert Redford on the streets of New York, and had felt the same kind of “ping”.

I watch Claudio my builder friend. He is with houses like Remo is with horses. He passes his hand over the surface of the wall and knows what is going on underneath. He tells me there is no magic in it. He feels changes in the plaster with his finger tips, or sees the changes.

Friday 4 July

I was on the train to Rome and had the feeling that there was a friend travelling at the same time. I walked along the train and sat down. When we got to the next station I looked up to find an old friend I’d not seen in a long while had boarded the train. Poor man he was still half undressed, and looked more like a man from the fields than the one I knew in the office. As I talked to him he transformed himself from wild, handsome, shaggy man in open necked shirt to tame, neat and tidy and just going to the office.

Edith, my friend from Trinidad, gave me beautiful grown up clothes for my birthday. A cotton knit sweater in a toffee-clay colour I’d never have bought for myself, but looks good on me. I changed into it in the bathroom at her office and put on lipstick.

In the evening I am in the “studio” on the computer. Matisse comes to check to see what I’m up to. Sometimes I’ve left the door into the bedroom open, where Houdini goes to eat Matisse’s special food. I know Matisse takes him in there himself. I see him hanging out by the door to see if I’m coming. Then both cats come tearing out, knocking me over in their haste to escape. What they think I will do to them I don’t know.

Saturday 5 July

I had asked a man if I could buy 400 bales of hay from him, and he balked. I made a mistake. I should have asked for fewer bales, like 50 or so, and then he may have said yes.

I have discovered the landowners have been stockpiling my checks, which makes me feel rich when I go to the bank and I think I have more money than I think. I have decided to pay them cash from now on, so at least that is over and done with and I don’t feel richer than I really am, as I’m not too swift on keeping a budget.

I’ve been cleaning up in the field, picking up pooh and any wet hay and putting it on the cosmic dump, which is my name for the compost heap. I see that Sully eats whatever hay I give her with obvious enjoyment, the mouldy hay, which I left out in the sun to dry, has rehabilitated itself. Feeding the horses takes five minutes if I have the buckets ready from the night before. I will pile up the hay on one side of the fence and hope all the dogs don’t pee on it at once.

Phoned FAO, where I’ve been offered employment. I was told that there were other candidates. There were? I was told I’d be informed IF I was to be working. She put me through to her boss, who told me “Goodness no, you are the only candidate and you can start on the fifteenth.” Relief! Even so, I was up at six and the horses were fed by six thirty.

Sunday 6 July

The landlords, Marguerita and Vincenzo, arrived. She wore a dress in two layers, the outer level see through and the under part white. However, this part was stuffed into her knickers at the back. I wondered if I should tell her about it, and in the end did. As I did so I knew that I should have pretended not to notice. She wanted to know when I was going to pay the rent, because she needed the money to fix up (another) house. I’m told they don’t want to fix the house I’m living in because it is on agricultural land and is therefore worthless. This kind of thinking amazes me. I think that house owners would be happy that a tenant would notice things that needed fixing. I know I’m responsible for some part of this; Claudio, the builder, knows and I will ask him. Pat tells me you must live in a rented place as if it is your own.

The horses were in the garden until they shot in one direction and my cat in the other. I don’t know what happened, unless they startled each other. So, now the horses are back in the field and Matisse is walking along the top of the fence passing them on his way out from the barn and back.

The little filly coyly allows me to touch her. She does not know this but it is the beginning of the end of her absolute freedom.

One of the dogs is snoring. I haven’t seen Navaho for a good while. I thought he had died when I saw the totally immobile belly of a dog across the garden. The dog turned out to be a sunbathing Cherokee, the calf-sized golden-coloured wire-haired hound with large dark sad eyes.

Monday 7 July

The horses are eating the dreadful hay. Myrtho, my friend from Haiti, and her Italian husband were out to pick fruit in the garden, “To eat,” she tells me, “not to cook”. So we picked all the tiny plums off the little tree in the front garden. I also sent them off with rock hard pears and a few plums from across the field. These are the kind that you must pick up off the ground because the ones on the tree are not yet ripe. The best tasting plums I’ve eaten, ever.

The horses are all eating together peacefully from their bright blue ex-paint buckets. Matisse was out there with them. He was followed by the foal as he marched into the field and sat down. Then he became aware that all the horses were headed towards him to take a closer look. He snipped back through the gate and sat beside Sully while she ate her feed in peace.

The foal should be weaned at six months. She is only three months old and already huge.

Claudio is coming by to put the cap on the chimney, which had blown off allowing the rain to pour in (if it does rain). I will ask Claudio about the washing machine, which seems to throw out water when it’s turned off, which it doesn’t do if turned on.

Tuesday 8 July

We were supposed to be having our last art class. But I think Rolando relaxes with the group he has, even me, who he seems to ignore, maybe because he doesn’t want to interrupt my stream of thought.

Vincenzo was here. Poor fellow he “fixed” the door to the cantina/basement, so it looks the same as it did before. I think his wife still thinks he is twenty years old and with the same energy. He has the right idea of fixing something and then his will trickles away in the heat, age and not having the right tools. I looked at his handiwork and asked, “Is it finished?” He told me how “bravo” he was and how the previous tenant used to pay him to do things around the garden. I think she was paying less rent and probably found that if she paid him to come on one day, then he didn’t come on all the others. I find it odd that I would be paying the owner of the house to come and fix things on his own property.

I should give the foal her own bucket of feed. Now she kicks her mother’s bucket, Sully’s head flies up, “What’s that?” The foal sneaks her head in for a mouthful. The foal has lost weight. I see her ribs under her baby hair coat. Merry is very sweet with the little foal, but has been hysterical with Pepita and kicked her today.

Wednesday 9 July

I went to look at hay with my neighbour Judith. It is a drive over towards Sutri, which means the hay will have to be transported some distance. Neither of us are experts, but Judith says I’m more expert than she is. We are taken to look at the hay standing in the field, looks prickly to me. There is the hard brownish-red stuff that looks like wire plants, stuff my horses are already leaving aside. We are told horses love hard hay. I don’t know. I’m not so sure, but we are both desperate for hay and will try anything.

Thursday 10 July

I would have been starting work today, but it was moved to the fifteenth. I am to wait for the letter “offering me work”, which is ridiculous because the person who was to send it to me is on holiday and now we have to wait until they return.

I was over at Judith’s because the furniture man got lost going to her house and I needed to talk to him on the phone and explain the route. I was over at her house for breakfast: slice of homemade bread with butter and jam. Then the hay man showed up and I booked 200 bales for the end of the month.

I bought a too big black plastic container for water and when I got it to Poggio realised the horses won’t be able to get their heads to the bottom of it.

Luigi passed by on his big chestnut horse. This is the Luigi who helped with cutting the little hay I had in my field. We talked about the foal and horse manure, what else?

Friday 11 July

Matisse must be hungry; he is eating the outside cat food. I need to make him a place he can come in and out as he pleases. Pat says not to make it at ground level because everything will come in. Fact is I know that the other cats will come in and out as well.

Vincenzo was here. He spent a lot of time suspending the old telegraph pole, which was discarded by the telephone people when they came to put up the new pole. It is now acting as a fence. On one end it is propped up by a rickety old metal step ladder, the other is suspended from the ceiling of the lean-to barn by some metal rope. I will need to lower it because the foal can skip underneath.

Vincenzo is upset that his cement cistern no longer holds water. I found it so difficult to clean; it probably developed a crack when I knocked it over to drain all the water out. After doing this a couple of times I noticed there was a bung in one corner at the bottom. It had been covered over my muck and grime.

Vincenzo was still here when Judith came by to borrow my fax machine. He was leaving with a huge sack balanced between his legs on his ancient motorbike. He has been here every day this week picking up fruit from the trees.

The telephone company called and asked me why I’d not paid my bill. I said it was because I had no money. The woman was very nice; she asked me if I had a little problem. “Yes,” I said, “I have no work”. I know I was doing this as an experiment. I know I will be working soon enough and then the money will start to come in again and the bills will all be paid.

I love to hear the horses munching on their hay, it must be one of the most relaxing sounds. Sully seems to blow her nose a lot. Maybe it is one after the other, one does it and the rest follow.

Saturday 12 July

I did my Saturday jobs on Friday and now I’m down to 5 euro. I called Roberto to ask if he could loan me some money as I was waiting for my new bank card.

A man called from FAO. He apologised for the lateness of the offer of employment. I was told that the man who was handling my file had gone away. His call caught me unawares. I had asked the Virgin of Guadalupe (I’m not even a Catholic) for the work email before Monday. So it had to come on the Friday.

Cherokee is snoring. Matisse sounded as though he was snoring in the night. When I checked I saw that he was growling and his tail was twitching in the way a cat’s tail will when it is annoyed.

I made another mistaken purchase. A bright green hose in the supermarket turns out to be a bit wimpy. There are 25 m of it. I’ve put the horses on the road side of the field where there are a line of huge chestnut trees giving ample shade. In this heat no one is doing any galloping.

I have been picking the figs off the tree at the corner of the garden beside the road. I have eaten so many. I wonder if there is some kind of stated limit. I eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, alone or with prosciutto. It is cool under the fig tree, with a slight buzzing from insects. These figs are plump with velvety green skins.

Sunday 13 July

Roberto came quite late last night, after dark. We talked, and just before he left he pushed 300 euro into my hands as a loan to pay my phone bill and my Rome train ticket for the week. He gave me the usual lecture about keeping too many horses on land that does not belong to me. He adds, unless they are “cavalli di razza” purebred. “These are”, I said, “Appaloosa” he has not heard of the breed.

He confirms that the screeching sound I hear at night is a barn owl, civetto. He tells me I am putting on weight again because I do not move. He tells me the dogs are all overweight. I said that I think my next door neighbour is feeding them. He says, “Yes”, in a way that I think he knows. He told me to stop feeding them and if they go back to a normal size then I will know.

An equine somebody has made a pooh in Pepita’s eating area. A giant mound of pooh, obviously premeditated. I suspect the innocent-looking Merry.

Vincenzo has been here nearly every day this week to clean out the lean-to of all the old furniture and accumulated junk. I have decided that if I have nothing positive to say to him, then I must remain silent.

Monday 14 July

Liza dropped by and bought one of my paintings. A watercolour sketch I’d made for two other paintings. It is of Sully and Merry, when she was a foal.

I see that Cherokee has bitten herself, where the hair is coming out. I touch her in that place she looks concerned, as if to tell me not to touch her there. She has a tumour on her teats. She is so old I don’t know if there would be any cure now. I hope that she is not in too much pain.

I must remember to water the horses before going to bed at night. This takes time.

I find that I have written out a list of qualities (and possessions) I think my next male companion should have. He would have land, horses, a Range Rover, a horse trailer for at least two horses. Someone who would be happy that I had horses, dogs, cats. Happy that I painted. Someone with a sense of humour. Comfortably off with a big kitchen where I could bake bread, cakes and make jams. Hopefully they’d like to cook too, international cuisine with an emphasis on the spicy and exotic. There would be place for a large vegetable garden. Maybe sheep or cows. A house big enough to have my friends and family to stay. I don’t actually ever go anywhere I would meet such a person. I am such a stay-at-home. Searching on the internet fills me with panic (I might actually find someone).

Tuesday 15 July

I will not be going into work today. They offered me a job for 54 dollars a day. Looking back over my records, I find I used to be paid 150 dollars a day. They looked it up and said they had made a mistake. Someone I think had left off a one. I asked them for a raise. They are giving it to me.

My kitchen will not be fixed. Renzo the kitchen man fell to the ground from one of those tiny flying machines that carry one or two people. When I am in the store his daughter (?) tells me that he had a haemorrhage inside and was cut from the base of his throat all the way down so they could reach and staunch the flow of blood. He is still in hospital.

The blacksmith came to measure the guest bathroom window for the grill for my cat exit and entrance. He looks both ugly and beautiful at the same time, as I imagine Hephaestus would have looked. Somewhere I still have that wonderful book, The God Beneath the Sea. He tells me that four years ago someone called him about putting up wrought iron gates at the front of the house. This is something I have been thinking about. It would mean that I could keep those locked and the doors open and the air (and all the animals) could sweep through.

I am not looking forward to being tired all the time. When I start work again I know that I will be looking for a corner to flop during lunch, for a nap. Judith says her husband doesn’t eat lunch. I wonder if he naps at his desk because he gets up at 5.30am to go to work to be in bed by 9pm on a weekday.

People in Rome are pale and drained looking. It is too hot to be outside so they stay in the air-conditioned building until it is time to go home.

I need to find my cat and feed him. He was so tired. I found him on the bed sleeping on the dirty t-shirt I had put out to set my feet on when sitting on the bed to read.

Wednesday 16 July and Thursday 17 July

I’m up at 4.30am. I didn’t sleep a wink. A dog barked all night. I could still hear it barking as I got up, although muffled, as though it had been brought inside.

Went to work and it was a useless day. I was told they didn’t have a computer for me. I said “That’s OK. I have one at home, I can easily work from home.” A computer materialised itself in seconds flat. My boss wanted to give me a “consultancy”, but the powers that be gave me something named a “subscriber” contract. This means I’m barred from buying food at the in-house supermarket, where I understand Italian products (we are in Italy) cost more than you can get them outside. I was given a medical by a cute guy. I am slightly overweight. I know. This is beer, wine, chocolate cake and NO EXERCISE.

Friday 18 July

A dog has been barking, not all night, only on two second cues, which just about amounts to the same thing. He or she started very early in the morning.

Have heard from Kurt and Penny who say they’re coming to stay with me Saturday night. I have been wasting time looking for Matisse, who I want to keep in while I am away since Trusty (who doesn’t trust anyone) attacks him.

Saturday 19 July

Penny and Kurt are not coming tonight; they would get here too late. I want to send them the scenic route, but they may want to come dashing down from Sienna on the autostrada. Penny is talking about a place they are near. It sounds like The Turbo. It takes me a few hours to realise she must have been talking about Viterbo.

When I get up early, Matisse comes and watches me feed the horses. Not only him, but I see that the other cats join him.

It was in the early hours of the morning that I went out to the car to get my maps. I find they are a lot better than I thought and I should rely on them instead of my suspect inner radar to get me around. I’m OK on a mountain where it is clearly an up or down situation.

Came home and found an upturned barrel under a tree. Obviously Vincenzo was here. I see that the water is low in the containers I’ve put out for the horses. He may not be naturally inclined to top up the water.

Sunday 20 July

Little cat is stretched up and scratching himself. A while ago he was practicing running along the top of the fence. It is quite attractive in blue-grey ancient chestnut poles.

I see that Cherokee sleeps with her head under the two stacked chairs. I wonder if she feels protected, but I think it is because she has always lain in that spot in the summer before there were any chairs to put her head under.

Matisse is left outside and he joins the welcoming committee of three dogs and the two orange cats on my return. I had to stop the car and put him behind the gate because he was sitting in the middle of the driveway washing himself as I was backing in.

The horses are so beautiful in the morning. I see them backlit and tipped with golden light. Two bays, one Leopard and one “Almost Leopard”, which is Merry.

I am expecting Penny, Kurt and their youngest boy Bryn around 11.00am. So I will be cooking a ratatouille and maybe rice or a potato salad. If they want to go out to lunch that is also good, but I don’t think so if they have been driving for hours. They’d called me at 10.30 at night, “are you in bed?” asks Penny. I was. I told her that I was listening to the BBC.

Monday 21 July

Matisse went missing because Kurt had let him out of the studio. They don’t understand my high anxiety about my kitten. “Foxes”, I say and “we haven’t been here long” and “he’s used to being in an apartment”. I stayed out in the garden a while with Penny, sitting up waiting for Matisse to show up. I felt silly being so nervous about the cat. I realise it was not just the cat. It was starting back at work, wishing that I was richer, wishing that I had grown up differently and had got a proper job. Anyway, in the end Matisse came in through the window I’d left open in the studio, where I was sleeping on the little cot bed.

Tuesday 22 July

While Penny, Kurt and Bryn were here everything was placed upside down, not so unpleasant. Matisse seemed to be afraid of Kurt, who is very tall, I was anxious about starting work again, having forgotten when I actually got up and which trains I used to take. They all come to work with me in the morning. Kurt mentions my “Commuter walk” and laughs. He finds it very funny that I should even know how to walk in such a way. They come into Rome to spend the day looking at the sites.

Kurt and Penny had wanted to take me out last night, after work. In the end they thanked me for making them stay in. We had a relaxing meal. I cooked sausages, pasta and left over ratatouille. I also gave them black olives, bread and they supplied some good red wine. No one had space for chocolate cake or peaches. After two nights of chasing Matisse around the garden, Penny sat with me while I whined about how he was lost for ever, and then he skipped into the house. As I told Penny, “it is me I worry about because I can’t sleep if my little cat is not curled up at the bottom of the bed”.

Matisse passes on his soft white feet, no sound. I am home a whole hour earlier because I caught the 5.10pm train, giving me a whole extra hour playing in paradise.

Wednesday 23 July

I let Matisse out at 4.45 in the morning and see him all the way across the field and then suddenly right in front of me. He must run widdershins around the field at something near the speed of light. I expect he has his route.

Friday 25 July

Missed a day, such a muddle with work and getting up early and sleeping early.

Had lunch with Annie who I thought looked so nice in her leopard print clothes, “Old” she says as she speeds away in her fancy silver sports car.

This morning Matisse skipped out the bedroom window and then I heard meowing and he wanted to come back in again. I had thought of putting wrought iron on the bedroom window and then thought that if I’d put it on the front of the house it might have acted as a temptation, because they would see the window left open. On the other hand, who is going to try to break into a window that faces the road?

It is so quiet, not even the birds are singing, no wind, the heat holds the leaves up on the trees.

Saturday 26 July

I need five outfits for next week. Actually I used to know a woman who used to wear one outfit for the whole week. I never noticed until Annie pointed it out to me. Do people really notice what I wear?

I was just wondering what happened to Matisse because I could not find him in his regular spots. Then he floats by and disappears again. I realise he could do this because I’d left the kitchen window open. He does this trick where he skips out one window and in the other, as though he is stitching the inside world securely into the outside world. He will do this so often that I become dizzy and have to close the windows.

Trusty is now playing with something and he is about to be pounced on by Matisse. Not advisable.

Sunday 27 July

I have paid for horse medication and now don’t know if I will be able to get it down into the foal. Those belonging to Emmanuelle, Remo’s brother, are used to being handled from birth. Mine are only half way tame.

Pat was here. Sometimes it is like having a pal my own age and not someone the age of my mother. I realise that in two years I will be the age my mother was when she had the stroke, 52. My brother makes a big thing of this, maybe because they share the same birthday. Pat looked at Cherokee’s tumour. I said that I would let her keep on going until she seemed to be in too much pain, and then I’ll let her sleep. I know my friend Penny would not agree. She has seen a couple of her ancient animals live to the very last breath of their lives. Can I bear to see an animal suffering?

My cat was whining to go out, so I opened the kitchen door and felt the rush of hot air come in. I grabbed him back in. He is now resigned to the fact that I won’t allow either of us to be cooked in this heat. I’d already let him out at 4.30 in the morning and he was back at 11.30; if it is this hot tomorrow, little cat will remain inside. He goes cross-eyed and does not seem to have the intelligence to look for a cool spot to curl up in. He is still a kitten, and after being cooped up in an apartment for some of his life, I expect he just wants to keep going. One lizard pulls him onto the next. And then there are the butterflies.

I expect I will find the horses are in the shade of the hazelnut trees. Not that I see them much, even living practically on top of each other. It is so hot right now that no one is looking for closer contact. I am allowed time to give strokes and pats in the cool of the morning or the evening.

Vincenzo was here to assist his nephews in the illegal dumping of the old gas cooker in the woods.

I took Houdini to the vet. I should have checked first to find out who would be there. It was a man I didn’t know. I asked him if he would write a prescription for worm medicine for the horses. This all has to be written up in triplicate. He tells me he is not a horse vet, as though I should be impressed by this news. I show him the book of medicines on the shelf and guide him to the page with the horse worm medicine and then I had to point to the product I needed.

Monday 28 July

I went through the whole day thinking I would never see my cell phone again. Fact is I found it in the car where it had fallen out of my dress pocket. Well, at least it didn’t fall out at the station.

I woke up this morning to find that Pepita had yet another wound, this time behind the hoof. She was not galloping in for breakfast with her sister. She is so sweet, although I get so angry with her because things happen to her. I washed her leg and then tried to spray her with the blue spray to keep the flies out of the wound. It was a miracle that she allowed me to lift her hoof to get a good angle for the spray. I went around the field to look for wire on the ground. I only found the spot the dogs crawl through, Navaho’s hair was stuck there. Now I know why it is so easy for them to go missing and why the barking comes from far away across the fields and on the other side of the woods.

Matisse went to the window, meowed and Houdini showed up for dinner. I find a bird’s wing is under my chair, who put it there I don’t know. I spent some time looking around the house for Matisse and then found him inside on the wooden step ladder I leave beside the kitchen window so he can look out at the world in comfort. Flora passing on her horse says she sees him there looking like a Staffordshire ornament.

The woman next door called across the field separating our houses to ask if she could give the dogs some chicken feet. She tells me they always run up when she drives home. I would do the same. It is best she continues to feed them every so often because I don’t know how long I will be in this house. However, when I come in it smells like home, as in Jamaica. Maybe it is the animal feed I keep in the kitchen. Or the spices I use to cook. We used to keep the animal feed in the store room, which was just off from our kitchen in Jamaica. This store-room used to be the kitchen in my grandmother’s day. This is where Leah cooked on a wood burning stove. The kitchen walls were black. Were they like that because of the smoke? Or because they had been painted black I never knew. It always seemed like a special place to be, filled with some kind of magic that may have been attached to my memory of Leah, my grandmother’s cook and my special friend.

Tuesday 29 July

I have to take Houdini back to the vet again. Maybe I should have explained that I have to come all the way from Rome.

During the night I went to check on the horses. Merry was eating anything she could find left on the ground. I looked for Sully and suddenly became aware that I was holding my breath. I thought she had escaped. Then I saw her standing out in the middle of the field. Sully is a Leopard Appaloosa, meaning she is white with large brownish black spots all over her body. More than once, I’ve missed her in broad daylight. I am reminded of the phrase “can’t see for looking”. Horses can stand so still. Maybe Appaloosas were initially “created” by the Nez Pearce (spelling?) the original breeders, to blend in with their surrounding. Sully can go missing while standing in dappled shade.

Wednesday 30 July

I let Matisse out and went off to Rome for the day.

Driving to the station I pass a man on a bicycle with a rough unshaven face. As I pass he covers his face to light a cigarette. Was this a thief on the way to break into my house and steal…what?

I go to work everyday in an office without walls. There are goodness knows how many of us lined up at desks with computers. This is a temporary situation. I look up and there are people looking back at me around the sides of their computers. After my isolated existence I could be excused for feeling the need to run home in the evening.

I take Houdini to the vet. The same man is there. He gives Houdini an all round cure all injection. This vet says he recognises me, not my cat. I would prefer a veterinarian to remember the fur covered being, and not me.

Thursday 31 July

I see a friend on the train. She sits and listens to me and is perfectly still and silent. I find this disconcerting. I remind myself she is English and may have been trained to listen by the Samaritans; I know she volunteers for them.

Judith’s daughter, Sophie calls me at 9.30 at night to arrange for me to look after their animals while they are away. I was almost asleep. I asked her to make sure everything I needed would be in plain view, like dog bowls and hay nets. One time I helped them out and I spent a lot of time looking for things. As it turned out, this was not their fault as house-sitters had moved things around.