06 Poggio June 2003

POGGIO, June 2003

Sunday 1 June

It was a sunny day and I prepared ten panels with rabbit skin glue and then gesso. The surfaces are not smooth as glass, but the way I paint I don’t think that matters.

There are scouts in the woods across the road. They stayed up shouting at each other until quite late. Actually, it was not so dreadful because there was so much happiness. I’d tied Porgy up because I can only imagine how much barking he can cram in with all these young visitors in the woods.

There is very little grass in the field. Some rain has fallen and I can see that I’ll have to tie up the kiwi vines because the flowers are so heavy they cause the branches to break off and fall to the ground.

Cherokee has been limping because a colony of tics is living in her paw pad. She allowed me to look, although she rumbled at me the whole time, seeming to say, “If I bite you please forgive me because I will have done it without thinking.” I pulled a tic off and treated her with Front Line. I am infected with fleas because they’re all hanging out in the bottom of the chest of drawers, where I will put bay leaves. In Jamaica I used to put Sour Sop leaves under the bed to take care of the flea populations that sprouted there left by the cats and dogs. I’m not sure that it worked.

I can see Pepita’s ribs. Donato once said that you should barely see the ribs of a healthy horse. Now Pepita has her head through the gate to see if there is any food. I think they miss the human company. Merry is coming in for a drink of water. No. She came to look at me sitting out at the stone table outside the kitchen, writing. She was being tortured by flies and I managed to get fly repellent on her face without being kicked.

The horses thought they would come into the garden, where Matisse was ready to play with them. However, I don’t think he has realised there are now two. He and Merry have touched noses a couple of times. Matisse gets up high on the gate post where Merry raises her muzzle to meet his tiny pink nose.

I have been feeding apples to Merry. Pepita does not yet know what to make of them.

Monday 2 June

Cherokee, who never looks very happy, looks more cheerful. Matisse prised me out of bed at 6.14am, I suppose because Houdini was around. Now they’re both galloping around the house. Eight cat feet on the tiles are not silent.

I think it was the other red cat that bit Houdini. This outsider cat arched his back and rubbed himself under Porgy’s chin. Matisse my black and white cat chased Porgy the black and white dog. Poor Porgy gets tied up, because this seems to keep the other dogs quiet. Cuts the barking down to silence.

Pat came to lunch, in at one and out at six. Folks who come here don’t seem to want to leave.

I’m fortunate to be here. A nice house in a beautiful woods. However, no job. I never seem to get the combination right. Such as, good job, own nice house in beautiful location with wonder relationship with sweet, sensitive, very wealthy man who loves horse, dogs, cats and me.

I think of Virginia Wolfe. I admit that I’ve never read any books by her because she killed herself. I’ve been too afraid to be drawn into her depression. I’m afraid to recognise my own demons. It is for this reason that I read comedy or biographies, or books on science. I write this because Pat lent me The Hours to read. She tells me I would appreciate it better had I read Virginia Wolfe. I’ve been told that our depression allows us to see the world from a different perspective. I think it was Caroline who really helped me get through it and over it and to throw it out, or to treat it like a cold. Get into bed, drink lots of water and read a good book.

Tuesday 3 June

The pink horse (Merry) is no longer pink. My little horse who was once a red roan is turning white.

Luigi and Anthea’s horses are back on the other side of the fence where Merry is now calling to them.

While Bettina and Julia were here I found two little bird wings on the floor in the gallery/living room. I am very distressed by the thought that there might be a little bird out there without its wings. Pat assures me that the rest of the bird is down inside one of the cats.

The grass is growing nicely in the shade. Not the right choice of plant for someone who does not own a lawnmower. I smell the heavy sweet scent of the Stephanotis growing at the front of the house. Pat tells me the smell gives her a headache. I’m sorry for her. Then, I didn’t like the smell of jackfruit until I tasted it.

From where I sit I do not see the branches of the trees, only thick leaves.

Wednesday 4 June

The dogs went mad last night. Yesterday they did the same thing and I saw a line of baby pigs trotting down the pathway in the woods across the road. Cherokee had her sad dark brown eyes fixed on something out of my line of vision. It turned out to be a man who threw something in the rubbish container on the corner and turned back down the road whence he had come. I saw that he had a moustache.

Does this same man clear his throat on the other side of the hedge? The air is so still right now that sounds must travel further and more efficiently. All the air molecules standing close together with open hands and passing the sounds along with care.

I have to go into Rome and hope that Matisse shows up before I go. He seems too young and foolish to be left out on his own while I’m away. Yesterday he was waiting at the gate to be let out onto the road into the big wide world. Then he was down by the corner of the garden where I see a hole in the old gate. I’d been intent on keeping the dogs in, but now I don’t know if I can ever keep a cat in. Houdini is out all the time and not much seems to happen to him; he does get bitten badly and the bites become infected and I end up having to nurse him back to health.

I have done something I am living to regret. I threw out my paint covered clothes. I have others that can move up (or down) into their slot, but not as efficiently. Maybe I should only have thrown the shirt out and not the pants. The clothes get so stiff with paint and stick out. In the increasing heat they are uncomfortable to wear. I could have put them away for the summer and thought about it again in the cool of autumn. It was the long sleeves, wet around my wrists that bothered me the most.

Thursday 5 June

At Bracciano station there were a man and a woman trying to buy train tickets for nineteen people. The ticket seller was being nice to them. I know these guys; although we are not on a first name basis. I kept asking the couple why they left home if all they could do was laugh about how people could not understand them. The man tells me softly that he was not doing that. A young man beside me steps in to take over the translation and speed up the ticket buying process.

At the art store I buy gesso di Bolognia. I saw there was also a gesso di Madrid. The man at the art store recognises me and explains how these types of gesso are mixed to give a smoother surface. Rolando talks of surfaces like glass. I realise I should sandpaper the panels before I paint on the rabbit skin glue, I should also sandpaper in between the layers of gesso.

Visited Flora in her shop. The same paintings on the walls and the same odd artefacts. In front of two men she tells me in English that I must never think of getting married; that getting married is to have children; that a man in the house is a heavy thing. I keep silent because sometimes in these situations I have too many words to say and know I don’t have the time to say them.

Madia shows up while I’m visiting Flora. She kisses me with such tenderness. I had never understood if she was actually going out with Aldo an old beau of mine, or if they were only ever close friends. Flora said something about this and I said, “I know, Madia told me.” Flora seemed shocked. I have always admired Madia, who once followed a man from Kazakhstan to Rome with her small son; he may have neglected to tell her he was married.

Returning from Rome on the train, there was a young woman dressed as an art student reading a huge book on art. I read those books myself, but not to take an exam. When I went to art college in Canada I dressed like the young woman in clothes that did not quite hang together right. Maybe I dressed as I thought an artist would dress, but I can’t remember actually thinking that way at the time. I didn’t get up in the morning and think I’ll wear my paint covered blue jeans and paint covered tee shirt because an artist would wear these clothes. I remember most her huge black hot, sweat producing boots.

Cherokee is lying close by. Is she sleeping because she is tired or is she on the way out? She whimpers when I touch the lump on her chest. I know a few dogs with these lumps. If she ever seems to be in too much pain, then I will…I don’t know. We’ll see what I will do if ever we get to that point. I don’t touch the lump. For now she seems to be OK. No pain. Just sleeping.

Friday 6 June

My sister Melanie had another baby. She e-mailed Patrice. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I’m afraid the children will grow up not knowing they have an aunt. I’m hurt she never once told me she was expecting a baby. However, I do know the baby was planned. The tea-leaf reader saw him coming and Melanie was very pleased. My sister had told me how she hadn’t expected to enjoy being a mother so much. The man she married was already a father of three and, I think, a good one.

I call the landlords. I know Vincenzo has been here. Water in the tank for the horses. Grass cut. Ladder moved. I do not find him.

Renzo the man from the household appliance store was here. He showed up on a fine old motorbike, tall and lean looking in his blue jeans and blue-jeans shirt. He was a lot different than he was the first time I met him. I felt he had acted like a subservient being. This time he seemed to be himself; although I don’t know him. He even asked me about the horses and said a neighbour of his may have hay I could buy. His son is a blond Adonis, someone I might think of sending on an errand to climb a glass mountain to bring my brother or my sister back from the evil princess or prince.

Julia has called to tell me she will definitely be coming to help me put the paintings up for my show. I was thinking I would be doing this on my own.

The dogs certainly do not get themselves up until after eight o’clock. I open the window to find Navaho stretched across the driveway by the gate. He doesn’t even lift his head or open his eyes. Cherokee has just surfaced from the bottom of the garden. I usually find her sleeping at the front of the house where the stephanotis is in blooming and scenting the warm air.

So peaceful.

Went to Rolando’s art class. He tells me my paintings are beautiful. OK. But why am I so dissatisfied? He seems to want me to be doing something different. He may suggest figures. I want to do a long painting, the little laughing nude woman. The rest of the class tell me I am fast. I am, says Rolando, because I work with colour and do not have to bother with chiaroscuro, light and shade Not that I would know what that really means. He makes sure that I understand there will be another lesson on Monday.

Saturday 7 June

I think you begin to develop another sense working with horses, it begins as a survival tactic. I begin to “hear” movement or feel that I “hear”. Do I? It is difficult to say.

I think of writing. Maybe Lorne Brown, an old storytelling friend would help. Last I heard from him was when he wrote to tell me Alice Kane had died. He wrote to say that before she’d died she’d been moved to a new nursing home and had brightened up considerably, being able to recognise her friends and join in conversations. How old was she? Ninety-five? 100?

How can I turn my life into Grimm Tales that have journeys and tasks in them and end up resolved and happy. I don’t know. Garrison Keillor said that he was the master of the long pause. I can top that. I may not even begin.

Sunday 8 June

Sophie, Judith and Paul’s daughter, rides by on her horse. She doesn’t stop, wave or say hello. I find this very English.

I see pictures of myself from the Caribbean party I held at the house. My eyes look BLUE? and my hair looks too red. It IS red, says Pat. I think of going natural, being like those woman with their long faded hair, natural, of accepting the passing of the years. Sophie rides by again on Toby, her Welsh Cob, who turns to look at me. He at least recognises my voice.

When I returned from Rome the man was here with the tractor to cut the grass in the fields. What a tragedy. The weeds were so bad that I asked him to cut both sides. I was sick of the weeds, even though the horses would have eaten them anyway. As soon as he’d finished cutting, the rain fell hard for half an hour. The horses escaped onto the side of the field that was cut first. They galloped up and down and then let me catch them with a bucket of feed.

I was invited to a party at Remo’s. It was down where the horses are stabled, a few tables and some folks I recognised. I was called by his parents Simonetta and Donato to sit with them. I learned that I must let the horses eat the grass in the field until MARCH. Then I must take them off the side I want to leave to make hay, which should be cut in MAY (not June). I said I wanted to improve the hay and Donato said he would be putting in alfalfa. After they had finished with his land they could come up to me. This happens in September. By September it is hoped that I have some kind of job.

I asked Donato to name my new little foal, as I’m not good at names. He tells me he keeps a list of names and reuses them over the years in cycles, and here I thought it was spontaneous. He tells me that the word RED for all the horse names stands for Remo, Emmanuel and Donato. I hear myself speak miserably bad Italian because I do not see anyone. I seem to have got to the party a little late as dinner was in the process of being served. The steaks were lovely. From Tolfa. There was a really good wine from Cerveteri.

On returning to Poggio I find the horses are on the wrong side of the fence. I expected the worst. The wooden pole I’d used to barricade the entrance to the next field in front of the barn was down. I managed to get the horses back on the side I wanted them. Pepita has a bad barbed wire scratch on the inside of one of her front legs. I touched it with disinfectant. I will have to get a halter on her. Will keep both horses in for a few days and work on this. No good having a horse that I cannot touch.

Monday 9 June

Julia helped me hang the show. She’s good. I put the paintings around and she made suggestions. I forget that Bettina, her mother, is a painter and Julia probably helped her set up shows in the past. I made Bettina laugh when I reported that Julia had told me, “It is not everyday that the daughter of Bettina Shaw-Lawrence helps hang a show.” I’d told Julia I’ be setting off in the morning all tense and nervous. I’ve been told I must do more shows so that I won’t be so nervous. I think my prices are too low. My paintings used to cost 400,000 lire in the old days and I’ve placed them at 200 euro. Kurt from England tells me I should quote my prices in Sterling. He tells me that no one will buy an inexpensive painting. He may be right.

Because of the hay crises, there isn’t any hay. Donato tells me about cubes of hay. It turns out that these are pellets. I find that I’m a traditionalist. Actually I’m a beginner and would prefer to deal with old style hay made up into bales. I still have 25 bales of hay. I have been giving the horses about one bale and 1.5 kg of feed and they seem to be calmer and happier. They are probably not as hungry. Donato tells me to feed the horses up to 10 kg, which includes hay plus feed everyday. The one bale should last one horse three days.

I had lunch with Edith (from Trinidad). She tells me that Cynthia’s sister died suddenly. I hear she was considered very overweight. I tell Edith about Mummy. I (we, no one) ever saw her as overweight. She was light on her feet, well dressed, full of life. When she was comatose in the hospital it took six nurses to wash her and turn her over in the bed. I’d not noticed, until then, that my mother was a whale.

Tuesday 10 June

Came back from my painting class in Viterbo. My farmer neighbours Rosanno and Luigi were here baling up my bad hay. Actually Luigi drives a Cotral bus and Rosanno owns his own heavy equipment, so they are modern farmers. Rosanno told me I’d have collected good hay if I’d kept the horses on one side of the field and left the other just for hay. As I say, I’m a beginner. He tells me I’m not to worry about hay because he’ll have enough to sell me over the winter.

I watch Luigi and Rosanno pick up the bales. The tractor is left to drive itself at a slow speed, giving them enough time to pick up the bales and stack them on the trailer.

Mary Rose was biting Pepita on the rump to make her gallop round the field. This is what Rais used to do to her. Mary Rose also seemed to think she was going to spend the night in the garden. I don’t know how secure the garden is and I know I wouldn’t have slept with her clumping around the house. One thing to have horses in the garden when I can keep an eye on them and another when there is no one to protect my lettuce patch.

I have noticed that the cherries on the old tree are finished. I could have eaten many more. They were really good. The birds have got them as I cannot climb as high as they can get by flying there. Vincenzo had asked me to get someone to cut the dead tree limb. I have a feeling this is a job that he should be arranging and paying for, not me.

Wednesday 11 June

Luigi and Anthea’s five horses are in the field on the other side of the fence. Pepita was no longer interested in hay or feed when she saw them and wanted to run to greet them.

The dogs have been up all night. Matisse (the cat) got me up at dawn, when I turned on the BBC they were talking about it being four o’clock. He had rattled the cat food bags and as I shot out of bed he was looking at me from the door to see what affect this noise would have on me. Later in the morning I chase Matisse, he escapes under a bush and then leaps at me and goes to hide under another bush where he allows me to catch him. I should let him out all day, but it is so hot. This is a two shower day. One in the morning and another tonight.

Simonetta, Remo’s mother, took me to find the feed store. I wouldn’t have found it, as it is not sign posted because it’s a working farm where they manufacture the pellets from grass or alfalfa, so there is no store.

The Bulgarian man who used to work with Roberto was at my gate. He tells me he’s left Roberto (as soon as he’d put him “in regular”). This young man will soon learn that working with Roberto was not such a hell. Roberto works hard and expects the folks who work with him to do the same. He takes them to breakfast and makes sure they stop and have lunch. I know this because I’ve seen when they’ve come to work for me. This Bulgarian wanted to be the boss man, although I saw that he would put down his tools as soon as it was five o’clock and want to go home.

Thursday 12 June

Annie met me at my show and told me she’d asked her husband if she could buy one of my paintings. She tells me he says I’m too expensive. I tell her I lowered my prices. She picked out two paintings and paid me 500 euro on account for the one I’d called Yellow Dawn. I told her how I’d tried to buy a painting back from Aldo, an old beau, and he’d tried to charge me more.

Roberto showed up in the evening. He spent about an hour looking at my neighbour’s jobs, I was there to translate. He says he doesn’t want to spray the olive trees. He says folks who own olives do this themselves. Judith doesn’t want to spray because she has been diagnosed with a type of leukaemia that is “sleeping” at the moment. It takes about a week for the smell to go away and the olive trees are right up close to the house.

The night was quieter, although Cherokee seemed to need to bark sonorously through the night. Once I opened the window to see what all the fuss was about and saw the corner of the garden lit by car headlights, and then the car turned slowly into the roadway beside the house. Maybe they were stopping to throw rubbish into the bins on the corner. Last night I tied Porgy to a tree, he seemed quite content, or resigned. It makes for a much quieter night. The horses were left out in the field in the cool. Now I’ll bring them in when it is hot in the day. On the other hand, I should let them decide whether they want to be in or out.

I see that the field has bald spots. Pity I can’t water the grass.

My stomach was a wreck even before I ate two pieces of chocolate cake and drank a beer. I was in such agony. I put it down to drinking too cold water in this heat. I won’t be doing that again.

The horses are calmly eating the grass left in the garden. Cherokee is softly snoring in her spot by the broad-leafed plant. The stephanotis is in bloom, the scent sweet and heavy. I have opened the front door, which I’ve never used, because I prefer the kitchen side of the house, just so I can enjoy the scent.

I see Sophie on Toby, it is almost dark. I tell her I could rent a horse from Mara and show her some of the trails. She tells me she rides at night because she can’t stand the heat. I was brought up in the heat of Jamaica. Not full time, but long enough to know that heat is something you cannot fight. You must slow down.

Friday 13 June

I’ve decide to buy the “horse nuts” and not bother about trying to look for hay. We are supposed to be living through the hottest days in 50 years. No rain.

I’ve been studying for a course on the environment given through the Open University. As usual, I am not doing what I would have liked to do, which is physics. I thought I’d do something to improve my chances at a job. I’m shocked to read a village was lost when shale was moved to make cement at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. There were only a hundred people in the village, mostly fishermen.

Saturday 14 June

Well, we are to have “the birthday party”. I don’t feel like a party at all. Annie tells me I’m 50 only once in a life time and that I would feel sad if I didn’t do something.

Horrors! The horses are not eating the hay.

I am at the supermarket with Judith and we run into Anthea who tells me someone tried to break into their house with a pick axe. When my dogs bark I don’t always get up to look. I did get up last night, twice. I thought the dogs were barking at the horses, but the horses were lying down at the far corner of the field and the dogs were barking through the gate.

How nice! Matisse stalks by Porgy and the dog opens one eye to look at my cat and then goes back to sleep, possibly glad that Matisse is not attacking him.

My hay-cutting neighbour asked if he’d charged me too much. I told him I’d prefer to pay him 250 euro than an electrician. I think that if he asked me if he charged me too much then maybe he did and is feeling guilty about it. I don’t have a clue how much cutting and baling half a hectare of hay is worth.

Sunday 15 June

Matisse was attempting to wake me. I’d been up already and must have fallen back to sleep. It was 7.45am, late. The orange cats were waiting on the kitchen windowsill, expecting to be fed.

As I rattled the buckets, the horses came in from the field. I realised that it may be impossible to spray Pepita’s small wound unless I have control of her head. It took about 20 minutes to get a halter on. I made her go around the small enclosure and maybe she finally figured it would be less work if she just stood and let me put the halter on. I’m a bit fed up with having to start from scratch every time I need to put medication on her wound.

As I was getting into the car to leave, Vincenzo showed up to look at the “macchina al gas”, which is the old gas cooker. He wanted me to help him haul it outside so he could pull it to bits. It used to be that the town would send someone out to pick up unwanted furniture and equipment. For a small charge they take it directly to the dump. This service seems to have been discontinued when the right leaning politicians took over city hall in Bracciano.

The car’s fan belt broke. I think it broke at the level crossing going down to Remo’s place. I seem to have been able to drive to Anguillara and to Bracciano and back to Poggio. I’d stopped at the gas station and asked Signora Anna if I should always have the battery light on. Now I realise the battery was not charging properly because the fan belt was in shreds. On my safe return to the house, I opened the car hood/bonnet and said to the olive tree, “Someone is looking over me”.

I see that Houdini and Matisse are engrossed in looking for lizards. Matisse was up on the top of the old water trough and Houdini down. Now they’ve switched positions. The lizard looks as though it’s stuck. Not stuck. Turns out there were two lizards, possibly a male and a female. I realise that I know nothing about lizards. Not a thing. Only feel forever shame about the time I allowed one to be shot by Richard, a childhood sometimes friend. I will never forget how it raised its front leg, seeming to plead for mercy, which never came.

Lizards make my skin shiver, but I am getting over this. I see so many of them and try to save as many as I can from Matisse. They have already lost their tail by the time I get to them.

I’d been to visit Rodolfo and Patrizia to ask about hay prices. Patrizia understood completely. I tell her that because I am a foreigner I can’t help but feel I’m being charged more than an Italian. She tells me that this is not true. The truth is that as a single women we are charged more. She assures me that she is always paying a higher price than her neighbours, because she is a woman and not from the area. “And I’m Italian,” she adds.

Monday 16 June

I must now fix the car. Bettina and Julia came to lunch at 12.30pm and left at 6.30pm. We all had a nap. I suppose there is nothing to stop me from just getting up from the table and saying, “I’m off to bed, see you later”. I’d asked Pat to take me to the mechanic. I’d asked Julia, but Bettina said, softly, “She’s not an early riser,” and when I said that Pat was coming at 10.00am she said, “Oh dear!” as though they never saw that time of day.

I am fed up with Pepita acting as though I’m about to club her when I put the halter on. Today, I made hissing sounds with my breath through my teeth, so that when the can with the blue liquid sprays her she will not be afraid. She raises her head. So now I have left the lead rope on her, so that she can begin training herself. Sometimes they get too clever too fast and learn not to step on the rope before they have learned the lesson of “giving”.

Merry still pulls back when I lead her, so now I turn away from her and lean into the rope and she follows. She seems to have decided that there is no more reason to “fight”.

Matisse has taken off. He was under my feet while I was feeding the horses, probably wondering when his turn would come. He woke me early by trampling on me with extremely heavy and pointed cat feet. He meowed loudly and his tail was twitching. I must have gone back to sleep because when I reawakened he was stretched full length beside me relaxed and happy.

A really ugly looking bird has just rested on the fence. Maybe a very large baby bird taking a break from learning to fly. In New Mexico I remember the Blue Jays and the Cardinals, they always surprised me. They would flash by and shine in the sun with their jewel-like colouring, blue or red.

The horses are not eating the hay, which is already mouldy. It emits a great heat, making me think of spontaneous combustion, a thing my father once told me about. How some things can heat from within and burst into flames. I think damp hay in a zinc-covered barn was one of them. I give the horses what I can and wonder where I can put the rest of the hay. At the moment it is in what used to be a garage, and before that it was a stall where cows were kept. The horses don’t look thin, but I wonder if they are just puffed up…with worms or with mouldy hay?

I hear a cat around the corner. Yes. His head comes around the door and disappears again. Sometimes I wonder if I am being watched as much as I watch him.

Peter, my brother, called last night. A quick call to check my address. Our sister Melanie has had a baby boy. I said that I never knew Melanie was even pregnant. “Neither did I!” he tells me. He told me the baby was two months premature and that he’d spoken to Melanie and to Mummy. They tell my brother the baby looks like him.

The horses have been eating the oak tree, meaning that the grass is thin on the ground. It is cooler today, but there is still a heat haze.

Tuesday 17 June

Matisse and Houdini were down by the gate at the corner of the garden. Houdini leapt up onto the gate and Matisse followed him. I was down there like a shot. This is right on the corner of the road where cars whiz by. I call Matisse. Miracle, he turns around and comes back, but then would not let me catch him after he’d found his way back through the gate, which made me wonder if he’d already done this trip before. Up over the gate, over the road, back over the road and through the gate at the bottom, where there is a very large dog-sized hole.

Wednesday 18 June

When the horses are in the garden, I sit at the outside table and hope that this is enough to protect my little lettuce patch, growing in a raised flower bed along with two small rosemary bushes. I cannot tell if the horses have already devastated the lettuce, or just sniffed it. I see that it is now standing up alright. Taking another look I think the lettuce looks nibbled at by a very large animal with big teeth and hooves.

A dog exploded into barking. I think it was Porgy barking at things only he could hear. His bark seems to be squeezed out of him almost as if against his will, as he looks at the ground, which is why I thought of the title, “Barking at the Ground”.

I gave the horses a choice. Garden or field, they picked the garden. Merry did eat the straw-looking hay. I know Pepita was eating something because I got up in the night, when the dogs were barking a lot. I think that I must almost be sleep walking because the memory of the horses in the dark and the invisible noisy dogs has a dreamlike quality. Pepita comes out of the open door of the stall to look at me. I hear munching sounds. She usually has at least one stalk of something protruding from the side of her mouth giving her a surprised look. Merry was nowhere to be seen, then I saw the tips of her ears because she was lying down. I think she must feel more secure in the stall as she seems to lie down there.

I am wearing men’s oversize shorts. I now wear them because I lost weight. Funnily enough I bought them when I was a lot fatter and thought they’d make me look slimmer. They did not because I filled them. Now, even Pat says they look nice. I don’t know how “cool” they are.

I’m seeing many lizards running around without their tails. I’m surprised at their resilience Matisse had found the one in the house. I don’t know how long he has been playing with it. I’d found it and saved it. I put it in my hat, carried it outside to drop it into the middle of the rose bushes, where I felt it would be safe, and it would not let go of the hat rim. I find them to be tenacious, fierce little beasts. I’m glad they are no longer the size of a house.

What’s this? Matisse has a naked bum. How this happened I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to bother him unless I try to look at it and then he bites me. Not as in bite, but he takes my hand in his mouth and holds me.

I give the dogs biscuits. Navaho eats his lying down and shifts over to the bowl beside his without getting up. I see no reason to change this feed if they are eating it so well.

Thursday 19 June

Porgy is lying down barking. He looks at me to see how many barks he is going to get away with without me screaming at him.

Peter called last night. He says something about not being able to call again using his cell phone. I hear his voice falter. He tells me he saw trucks up to their hoods, they were big as “big as my dump truck”. There must be a flood somewhere in the States. I don’t have a television and get my news from the radio and newspapers.

Last night when I was trying to catch Matisse (now, is this real or do I make it up?) Houdini is out in the garden watching me chase Matisse, who is now under the fir tree with the branches touching the ground. Houdini leaps up and runs around the corner of the fence on the house side. Matisse leaps up and follows Houdini, right into the house – oops! – Caught! I hear Matisse thumping around the house and yowling. He was so cross at being tricked again. Hey! If even Houdini thinks Matisse should be inside, then I think a cat should know.

I let Matisse out on the cobalt blue cat lead. Red would have been better for my black and white cat. He was so cross he bit me, but again, he holds my hand in his mouth and no marks are left. Cats have such sharp teeth that I imagine there would be bite marks no matter how they held their mouths. I have often been surprised by the lizards left for dead, without a mark on them; maybe they die of fright.

There is a strong wind blowing and the horses are in their stalls. Remo says he keeps his horses in, if he can, out of the wind. He says it makes them nervous.

Friday 20 June

I hear the sound of munching coming from the stalls and hope the horses are eating that dreadful hay. These beasties get bored sitting inside, I’ll be able to let them out because this wind is not as strong as it was yesterday.

Matisse is on the table bothering Houdini who sat up and looked at me with an expression I read as, “Can’t you control this child?”

I must call Annie to find out what time they expect to arrive here tomorrow. I need to run around in the morning. I have beer, need more wine, need to buy sausages from Bracciano. Just one loaf of bread. I seem to go overboard when I buy the crispy crusty bread, and a little amount of salad because only I seem to eat it.

There are a couple of fearless blackbirds. I don’t know where they come from. They were not here before, not so blatantly, unless they have been watching me and figure I will save them from the cats, which I will attempt to do if I am around.

How come I have not started to paint horses? Take photos. I find it odd that horses, cats and dogs get as camera shy as any human when you point a camera at them. I suppose it is scary when a human they know suddenly covers their face with a large dark object and aims it at them. However, Matisse has settled down to being photographed, when it is Liza taking the photograph. Matisse likes Liza. How can I tell? He doesn’t leave the room when she enters, but comes to her and wants to cuddle up to her as soon as she sits down. She was the one who took him in first and called me and asked if I would like a kitten. She told me she knew he was male because of the way he walked, which brings me to thinking that there must be basic ways male and female cats walk. I ask her about this and she is amazed that she ever said such a thing.

Merry was eating the roses yesterday and I said not a word. They were already dying down and I see how well they did after she nibbled them the last time.

Somewhere in the world, perhaps at home in Jamaica, is the little painting I did of the Sufi kitchen at Torreone in New Mexico. I am thinking of it because I am sitting looking at the water trough through the kiwi vine hanging down and think about doing a painting.

It is paradise here in the summer, but in the winter? I look across a field empty of grass, the towering old chestnut trees and the dark Cyprus tree in Anthea and Luigi’s garden. Across the road is the worked chestnut woods. At certain times of the day, the lane is shaded and I can walk in the shadow of the trees, cool as water, knowing that the hot sun is beating down overhead.

Saturday 21 June

Midsummer’s day. From this point on the days get shorter.

Julia comes with me to take my paintings down. We go to Cerveteri where Julia wants to eat lunch. I find it too hot. There is a woman who recognises me. She used to be a secretary in an office I worked in for a few short days doing some editing. She looks so young and happy. “I’ve retired,” she tells me. Julia orders a quarter litre of wine. I say, “How can you drink wine in this heat?”

Annie tells me she wants to buy the wine for the party. She and her husband will be staying the night. I am sleeping on the little camp bed in the “studio”. Matisse sleeps there too. He squeaks in the night when I roll over and almost squash him. It is “his” bed anyway. He took it over some time back, I suppose I am only borrowing it from him.

I had a dream. I was in a place where tall people came out of the woods. One wore a horse’s head. They moved as though they were many metres tall. Up close they were people with cat ears. There was a man and a woman dressed in white. It was the man who wore the horse’s head. It deserves a painting. I felt curious about these people. I was not frightened.

Sunday 22 June

Annie and Tonino came. I had almost finished what I wanted to do. They bought me a cake, they did not have to. I did not have candles. Who needs candles when you are 50? Luigi and Anthea, Pat, Julia and Bettina and Aldo, Judith and Paul all came to my birthday party. I took pictures of Aldo barbecuing the sausages. Aldo says his son, who is buying a house with his help, wants to buy one of my paintings. He once wanted a yellow painting. An abstract I painted while studying with Alberto Parres. However, Federico has bought a red couch and he does not want to appear “Romanista”, a Rome football club supporter with his red couch and yellow painting.

Yesterday I had blackbirds in the garden. Today it is magpies. At night, when I turn the light off I hear the screech owl call as it sweeps through the dark on soft silent wings.

After the barbecue Annie and I spent a long while putting the fire out. We poured so many litres of water on it. I thought the metal grill of the barbecue would float away.

Everyone agrees that “Barking at the Ground” would be an excellent book title. Now, what did I want to write about? I said I wanted to write a boring book where nothing happens, like a French movie (which I particularly enjoy). “Slow,” says Annie, who is French. I really like French movies, there is a sense of the slowness and the unexpectedness of life. I want to write a book that people will pick up and read again and again, just for the slow pace of it.

Fruit, bread, tart, coffee, yogurt. I tell my neighbour Judith that Annie and Tonino are my first (non-paying) guests. I now sleep five I tell her (including myself).

Monday 23 June

We saved Pepita from killing herself in the manger. We were having lunch. Merry and Pepita were in the stall, there was a sound of scuffling. I did not think much of it because Merry is always pushing Pepita around. Then Merry goes in and out of the stall in quick succession, without Pepita tagging close behind her. I find Pepita is stuck inside the narrow, deep manger, which is built with wooden rails so that a few calves can eat side by side.

One moment Annie was looking into the stall and the two horses were standing. Now Pepita is lying stuck. I have heard how a colt died in exactly this way when it fell into the manger and broke its neck struggling to get out. Pepita lies still, she is breathing hard and rolls her eyes looking at me. I call Remo on his cell phone. I borrow a chainsaw from my neighbours. I call Roberto.

Remo arrives. He had been on the way to the beach. He is dressed in beach clothes. He shouts at me to get out of the way and unhooks the filly from the manger. Annie is telling me to breath and is talking quietly to Pepita. I am frozen useless. Remo shouts at me that a kick from a foal will break my leg. We get a halter on her head. Get her standing. Remo tells me to give him the hose, run the water. He gives Pepita a shower to lower her temperature and to calm her.

Remo leaves telling me to call him immediately when ever there is something wrong with the horses. He tells me to call him and NOT to go near the horses because a panicked kicking horse can break limbs, its own or mine. As he leaves, Roberto arrives.

Penny calls. She wants me to go and spend a week with her and her family near Sienna. If I can find someone to look after all the beasts I will go.

Tonino tells me that I could do a bed and breakfast in this place. I do not have to feel embarrassed.

Tuesday 24 June

I get up late. I am tired. The dogs barked all night. Something happens on a Monday night that does not happen during the week.

I am glad to see that Pepita is feeling good enough to get up to her tricks. Today I wanted to lead the horses together and she was having none of it. Until Merry turned and looked at her, and must have said some kind of horse thing to her because she quietened down and I could easily lead both of them. Merry also seems to be treating her (full) sister better after the accident.

I see that it is time to catch Matisse and bring him in. He gets a kind of stoned look when he is out. I think he has such a great time chasing lizards he gets dizzy. He has not yet learned to pace himself in the heat. At this hour the orange cats have found a nice quiet place in the shade. One curled in a flower pot in the shade of the hydrangeas, the other in a cool part of the barn.

Wednesday 25 June

I was a wreck when I got up. Matisse also slept through until 7.30am and did not beat me up to be fed until I was on my feet. The dogs barked all night. I would have tied Porgy up but Luisa was in her yard and Porgy was waiting beside the fence. I was watching Pepita move. The worst part is that the stifle looks swollen. It is difficult to measure how it should look, by measuring one horse against the other because Pepita is smaller and slimmer, more like a little race horse and Merry is more robust looking.

Thursday 26 June

I dreamed I had a huge room and another room to the kitchen. Like the kitchen my friend Greg had, long and narrow but filled with all the exactly right things someone who knows how to cook fills their kitchen with. I suddenly realised I HAD ROOM TO GROW. In another scene I was at a book signing party for an Iranian writer. I was in a tourist place and just by chance. Matisse was with me. At one point we were bowled over by a large wave. I worry that he will get wet, catch pneumonia and die. We relaxed into the wave. Matisse didn’t struggle to be free, then we got out before the next green rolling wave hit. He escaped at that point. The next time I saw him he was on top of a wallaby’s head and being bounced around the garden in the tourist area at the book signing party. I took a book for the Iranian woman writer to sign. She was very beautiful. I bought it from a sullen-faced man who gave me many book marks advertising other books. As I took more bookmarks from a rack a woman said, “Oh I leave these all behind.” I replied, “I hand them on”. It was here the dream seemed to change to that of me finding that I was in my house with extra rooms that I never knew about. Dreams, of course, are symbolic, or speak to us in symbols we may or may not understand. I understand that it is our subconscious speaking to us in symbols. Anyway, after this dream I am feeling so much lighter.

Friday 27 June

The dogs barked this morning and a man’s voice responded. When I got up the kitchen door was open. It is the inside catch that prevents it from opening entirely. I know this door clicks open by itself, much in the same way the bedroom door will.

I stopped by Remo’s and picked up some feed. Remo tells me he will be bring Sully and her foal here because they now have too many horses. I told Remo that I would give Cornelia to him to cover all my bills. He said “No, not now”. When it is time to do the accounts we will talk about it then. I could feel the tears pricking my eyes waiting to fall. This family is sometimes more my family than my own family. They have taught me what family is.

I was in the rose garden in Rome. Coming back along the road towards the FAO building I saw a family. The man was taking a picture of his wife and child. He was heavily built. As I came closer I saw the kindest, sweetest face, and caught the glance he gave his wife as he handed her the camera. Love and kindness, admiration and respect.

On the train coming back to Bracciano from Rome I see how difficult life is for the visitor. All the name signs at all the stations have been pulled off while the backgrounds are being given a fresh coat of paint. The only one that is left on is the last one you see as the platform is left behind. I noticed this because I could hear an out of sight boy repeatedly asks where he was. The man sitting in front of me smiles. I noticed how nice his shoes were. My mother said that the best way to pick a man was to look at his teeth and his shoes (yes the same things you look at when buying a horse; teeth and feet). Yes my mother was brought up on a farm, They kept horses.

As I opened the kitchen door on my return, Matisse leapt out, later he hung around me licking my legs and allowing me to pick him up. Porgy had something in his ear and while yelping in pain he crept along the ground towards me. I was touched that he thought I would know how to help him.

Saturday 28 June

Remo has brought Sully and her baby. I’m glad that Merry’s domineering mother is back to keep her in line. I had put Pepita to eat by herself. Pepita has now linked having a halter put on her head with being fed, so she now stands still. Both horses now let me hug their heads. I trimmed the blond bits off Pepita’s black mane, twisting the ends like I once saw in a magazine so that it trims in a ragged and not straight line. She shook her mane out after all the attention to feel it sit right on her neck again.

Vincenzo was here. Again he has done something that he has done before. He cut the hedge outside. The first time he said the horses could eat what he cut. He sees the horses on one side of the field and puts the cut vegetation where they cannot reach it. I pick it up and carry it over to them. “Oh, the horses won’t eat that,” he said. I told him, “But it was you who suggested that they would”. I think that one of us is a little wobbly in the head.

There were two mushrooms under a tree. Vincenzo tells me they are edible, but I won’t be eating them until I hear this from someone else. I might eat them, get ill and then he will say, but I told her not to eat them.

It is nice to see the horses and to know that Sully has another foal growing inside of her. I see her new one here has dark spots on her legs. I wonder if these will let her pass as being a coloured Appaloosa. Some dark spots may only be the baby coat coming off in patches. This foal is almost brave enough to sniff me under the watchful eye of her mother. Merry has melted to see such a little one, she drove the baby back to Sully when she strayed too far away.

The dogs barked all night. I opened the shutters to peek out. The cool night air came in. If only I had the courage to leave the shutters open through the night, but I can’t without a wrought iron grill.

Matisse is up crawling through the kiwi vines. He is now up on the roof. Yesterday while I was waiting for Remo, Porgy, Cherokee and Matisse all came to see what I was up to. Matisse ran towards the road and then did not put a paw on the asphalt at the end of the lane but made a swift left turn and was up over the fence. The day before I was stroking Houdini’s swollen belly, worms or had he just eaten? and suddenly he was up from a relaxed lying being stroked position up on all four paws. Don’t know why.

Matisse must have done his rounds. He is now lying on the cool travertine top of the table I am writing on.

Sunday 29 June

Matisse got me up. I must have been in a very deep sleep because he seemed quite concerned. I must have gone to sleep again because it was almost eight when I woke up and there was “Reporting Religion” on the BBC.

Porgy didn’t do much barking last night, I only heard Cherokee. In the morning I spoke to Porgy and he whimpered back. Maybe it is the heat. I expect Cherokee and Navaho to be asleep the whole time because they are so much older.

This morning I was surprised to find that I had good hay cut from “my” field. Really good, sweet-smelling hay. I am pleased. The bales from the side of the field nearest the road were quite mouldy. The horses eat it because I select the best bits, wash it. I scatter the rest on the bald spots on the field. I heard the next door neighbours say, “but she gives them hay”. Have no idea why. It is summer and there isn’t any grass so I expect that most people are feeding hay to their horses.

I heard rain in the night, but when I went out in the morning I found the ground hard and dry as a bone. Grass is growing, but not in the bald spots.

When I go out to feed the horses, Matisse follows me to the field. It is nice to see that he is not afraid of them, but he remains cautious. He may be curious about what it is that I give them to eat.

I open the kitchen window to find Houdini and his nameless brother crouching there. They prefer the crunchy cat food. The outside cats refuse to eat the canned food I bought for them. I notice they prefer fish to chicken, so why I bought the chicken flavour I don’t know.

Monday 30 June

The car wouldn’t start and I called Pat intending to ask her to help me. She sounded as though she had flu on the phone. I wonder if I sound so dreadful when people speak to me first thing in the morning. Then I asked her to help me and she cheered up no end.

On the way to Remo’s to pick up feed Pat told me that Katherine’s little apartment had been broken into. The Carabineri had gone to Mara, because Katherine’s dog is there while she’s away. Someone had gone to tell Roberto, who owns the restaurant Katherine goes to often. Mara called Gillian because she was taking people out riding, Gillian called Liza because she was just back from Viterbo and was too tired. Liza called Pat because she had people visiting. Pat went and found the door was still wide open. She called Leslie her (for me overpriced) handyman to come and fix the door. No one has told Katherine because they don’t want to spoil her vacation.

Now Cherokee is having a dream. Her back legs are running and her front legs twitch.

I called Judith my neighbour and she sent her husband. Turned out the car’s battery needed charging. He leant me their charger and it took all day but in the evening I was able to return it. They invited me to dinner. Paul cooked. Excellent Chinese type cuisine.

I am calling Roberto. Matisse is sharpening his claws. Roberto does not answer. He is so cute, my cat. He did not batter me to get me up in the morning.

I have decided to call the distrustful orange cat Trusty, in the hopes this will change his nature. He still acts as though he thinks I will shoot him with a water pistol any time I get up close.

Judith tells me she has become quite fond of her chickens. She is a new chicken owner, so is surprised at herself. I had a rooster once that I bought in a market in Jamaica because he was so beautiful. I’d never owned a rooster before. He lived all by his own sad self in his cage until my father stewed him in a pot one hungry night. I still have a photograph of him in my big box of pictures.

Merry and the little foal eye each other. Merry was herding the little one away from the fence. The little one tried to sniff me and then squeaked in surprise (do we smell that bad?).