POGGIO, May 2003
Wednesday 1 May
It is a bleak grey day. The dogs barked almost all night. I don’t go out and check; although one night I will. During the day they bark at joggers, cars, cars parked across the road, bikes, motorini, people walking dogs, dogs, horses, Merry and the ground.
Jancis is bringing out a friend of hers, who she tells me, is happy to see an untidy place. Am I feeling flattered? Consoled? Insulted? I think I am untidy but not dirty. There is a difference. I remember staying in an apartment where the bathtub was filled with plants, encrusted with dirt. Maybe it was the only place they had to keep their growing things while they were away; making it easy for the house-sitter to water them.
I think I belong to Porgy. One night it was so quiet. I heard dogs, way off in the distance. I thought the dogs must have abandoned me. Went out and called softly, Porgy, Porgy and he came tickering out of the dark. Amazing how quickly he learned his name. How Houdini picked up on his new name. I suppose I know Matisse’s meow for, “I want to go out,” and “Hey! Who shut the door to the kitty litter”; a distraught yowl.
Had many dreams. In one I’m on a plane as it touches down. The pilot is asked to speak to the enemy guard. We had already flown one mission and were flying a second, more dangerous. I don’t know what I was doing on the plane. One book would state that I was dreaming one of my parents (or even grandparent’s) experiences. As in memory is locked up in the cells, in the DNA. I would not be surprised. I had tried to read this book in French, too complicated, and now will look for it in English or Italian.
Thursday 2 May
There was a lot of traffic and Jancis took a long time to get here. They did not do as I told them, to avoid Bracciano and Trevigniano. The woman who came with Jancis is quite some fun. While they were here Matisse went missing. Had to endure questions like, “How do you know so much about horses?” Me, “I don’t know anything about horses”. Them, “But you must know a lot about horses.” Me, “Why?” Them, “You have one”. I did not explain that I also have a car and I know even less about that.
I went to talk to the neighbours children and noticed the young boy they were playing volley ball with was their father. Merry was beside me by the fence. She rears, “What you doing?” I ask her. One of the girls tells me she’s playing. I ask them if they have seen a small black and white cat. No. I ask my other neighbours if they have seen my cat. No. I am told that no cat ever goes into their garden. I don’t tell them that I see Houdini and his cat friends.
Matisse came back around nine at night, then it was as though he did not recognise me. He sniffed the ground where Jancis’ friend has been sitting and decided it must be safe to stick around. He smelled of old musty things, not like a cat just coming in from the great outdoors. He had a scratch on his nose, slightly worse than the one Fat Cat had given him.
“At least now you know he knows his way home,” says Pat, who has three cats that play under cars and roll around in the middle of the road outside her house. “You must let them follow their own destiny,” she tells me many times over. I am glad I never had children. If I’m like this with a cat I would have been a dreadful mother.
Friday 3 May
Today is soft and grey. The birds sing and Matisse is walking like a tough cat.
Saturday 4 May
A cuckoo, dew on the grass, which looks softer than if there had been rain.
Judith called and invited me to lunch. Her cousins are here, there will be a barbecue. The cousins, one works with the Fair Trade organization.
At night the dogs seem to sleep outside my bedroom window. It is warmer there because the sun travels around from the back to the front of the house. It is also more protected. They either seem to be there or in the barn when it rains.
It is so beautiful here. I have in some ways found my small paradise on earth. Garden, land for the horses, hay barn and stalls. Yesterday scouts showed up for water. The fountain on the road isn’t working. How could I refuse? They were sweet. Across in the woods children in scout uniform set up tents.
Sunday 5 May
Matisse goes missing in the chicken coop. No chickens there anymore. This is the dusty smelling place, he may find mice there.
Spent the whole day at home. It was so quiet. I think all the neighbours must be away, or I am coming in as they are going out.
In the morning I cannot tell what the weather is like until I open up the shutters in the kitchen. The ground seems dark because it is shaded by the trees, so I don’t see the full glory of the day until I open the windows and see the sky.
Someone was whistling in the woods. Porgy had his head on one side. I called him and he shook his head, “Can’t you see I’m concentrating?” and he wandered off to the corner of the garden to listen better. I woke in the night, seemed I heard Porgy whimper in a way a dog will if you hold its nose too tight and they can’t breath. Or was it me or the tail end of a dream.
Horses are calling to each other.
Matisse has shown up in the long grass beside the water fountain. I cannot go towards him or he will bound away. Suddenly he comes running. Why? He jumped from somewhere. He stops and looks attentively towards the barn. I see nothing except grey stone and zinc.
At the barbecue the English people were dressed in pastel colours for spring and summer. Here in
Monday 6 May
Merry spent the night inside. I went to check on her because the dogs were kicking up such a fuss. I looked over the stable half door and she was lying on the ground. She made to get up but then realised it was only me.
The man came to measure the kitchen. By five in the afternoon he had done a dreadful drawing. Not even a crawl space underneath to hide more stuff. The price quoted is 2,400 euro, ridiculous.
I had planned to stay in and paint and study in the afternoon. Vincenzo showed up to water the kiwi vines. He tells me I must do this every three or four days. He causes a flooding and a small river runs under the vines.
I had a dream where I was a leopard or a cheetah; I attacked a man who did not give me work. Not to kill him; I gained respect. I have never had this kind of dream before.
I hear horses in the woods, or a little beyond. Merry has calmed down; Matisse is up on the pergola that holds up the kiwi vines. There were buds on the rose bushes, even the ones Merry has been eating.
It is so peaceful here I feel the spaces between my cells relaxing. A crow is…well can’t say he or she is singing. Sheep are passing and I hear the soft sound of bells tied around their necks. If I get up and run and get my camera they will have already passed. Porgy barks at the corner. I see a large white Maremmano dog up ahead barking back at Porgy, warning not greeting. The sheep will feel protected.
Tuesday 7 May
Matisse has climbed from the pergola up into a tree. A bird flies out.
I went to see “horse Mara”. The dogs followed me because I was on foot. Navaho was happy to turn back, Cherokee became small and cringing and then turned for home. Porgy, when I say go home or casa, he looks around to see who I am talking to. Then he follows me at a respectful distance.
I suppose when visiting Mara a person should turn up half an hour later than planned. There were people there, who were preparing to go for a ride. Porgy seemed to be looking for Lilly, the rough coated black dog that used to be there. But Lilly has recently succumbed to poison. They tell me it is the man with the pigs and goats.
I lunged Merry. She goes alright in one direction. I have read that until you ask them to go in the other direction they don’t quite understand that you are making them do something they might not want to be doing. She rears, not aggressively, protesting. She seems confused and hurt that this human being is asking her to go around to the RIGHT.
I walked across the field and took photos of the plants. The light needs to be much stronger for the type of film I have in the camera. Today is overcast, cooler than yesterday. I was happy to have the cool house. I hope to have carpets down for next winter, like the previous tenant although I hear they suffered from fleas. Maybe this is why there are so many broken down vacuum cleaners in the store room. I should try them out, maybe one still works.
Matisse goes missing and I see him sitting, looking, watching the small creatures in the hedgerows. He caught a lizard’s tail and brought it wiggling. He played with it between sleeping Navaho’s great paws. We have come a long way when Matisse can sniff Navaho’s paws.
Matisse has just refused his expensive dry cat food. He sniffs it and sweeps his paw over it, “bleah!” Now he dances after a fly, swats it and brings it to his mouth and eats it. He licks his lips. At least I won’t have to buy fly spray.
Wednesday 8 May
A neighbour calls to ask if I will find out about the buteri, the Italian cowfolks lunch. I drove to Canale Monterano to find out the information. I think about going myself, but these are events it is best turn up on a horse.
I was waving at a man I thought was the “Man with a hat”. I thought I knew him. Turns out I don’t know this one at all. He was not unpleasant, untidily sporty, fashionably dressed. I was a mess, but now I have found where my summer clothes have been hiding, so there is hope.
I cleaned out the barn, the way Vincenzo told me to, scraping out the old hay between the logs, lifting the logs, getting out the mouldy earth. When I pulled away the last bale a rat leapt away and I found a nest of tiny baby rats born a few days ago. Who can kill someone else’s babies? So, I put another bale in front of the nest, hopefully leaving a hole that is too small for a cat and big enough for a rat to get into.
Matisse comes in with his ears flattened out sideways. He catches the poor fly that has been buzzing around the kitchen, now he has eaten that too. I suppose they are pure protein. I didn’t know that cats ate flies.
It is a grey cloudy day. I would have liked to keep a weather diary, plotting rainfall (When?) and temperature.
Thursday 9 May
Received a call from a market research company asking if I would shop for them. I said I had already done this for them and had always had a hard time finding whatever they had wanted me to be looking for. It turned out they knew the product would be difficult to find, which is why they had asked me to go find it and buy it in the first place. For me this was one big exercise in frustration. This time the ground rules are different. I shop for new items and send the empty package and get to keep whatever is inside. Will it be something I can eat? Will it be something that I need, pet food?
Judith has shown up with a loaf of bread. She makes it fresh in her bread maker. So I will now have bread and honey for breakfast.
Friday May 10
Went down to Remo’s who said we could put the filly on the van; by the time I get there he had already gone. I spent two and one half hours in the pen with the filly. Merry’s sister, they are similar, even to the expression they have in their eyes. She was not letting me touch her. Then Remo came by to check on how I was doing. As soon as she saw him she bucked and squealed. He had to catch her to worm her. As soon as he left she allowed me to touch her. Neck, back, rump scratches. He would not have believed it.
I took Pat to the physiotherapist. They have a rinky-dink machine that they hook her up to. It is supposed to stimulate the muscles. Then she was given a rather painful 15 minute massage on her broken foot. I then took Pat around the lake for a very slow drive. My car is filthy and I must clean the windows so that I can at least see out. This is dangerous. The muffler, which was broken, seems to have healed itself. Maybe it got jogged out of place and then got jogged back.
As I write my little cat is battering his head against my hand. He purrs loudly. This morning Porgy comes up to the stone table outside the kitchen door. Matisse is standing on top taking tentative swipes at Porgy’s head as he passes something Houdini will do. This is the first time I see him do this.
Saturday 11 May
Porgy is fast asleep. All the dogs are. I wonder if they have been poisoned. I came out in the night and Navaho and Porgy were there. A boy went by on a motorbike the dogs went after him. He turned around to frighten the dogs. I told him that would only make it worse. The boy may know nothing about dogs. I was fixing the hole in the gate at the front with a metal fronted door off a kitchen cupboard and barbed wire. I tell the boy that I’m trying to help him by blocking the corner exit where the dogs leave to bark at him.
I now know that Remo trains horses in a specific manner. If you, as the rider, do not know the commands the horse is confused. Click the tongue to make the horse go from halt to walk, from walk to trot, trot to canter. Then whoa to make the horse stop. Shift weight to the left to go left, to the right to go right. I am riding Cornelia. Nothing. Remo says, “How do you make that sound to make horses go?” I do that and off she goes clockwork. No amount of kicking had any effect.
I note that the dogs spend the whole night up barking and the whole day sleeping. Maybe they will sleep more when the weather gets hotter.
I was in the pen trying to put a halter on the mystery horse when Simonetta’s brother showed up. I didn’t know he knew so much about horses. He was giving me a lot of advice. I listened. Kept my mouth shut. Remo tells me a lot of folks will tell you how to do things. I find I have to do them in my own way, since I’m in this body beside this horse and forming this rapport.
Sunday 12 May
Is it true or is it my imagination. I get anxious about Matisse and Houdini is around. I say, “Where’s Matisse?” and minutes later they show up together. Pat says if Houdini knows his name then he knows Matisse’s. “Are they intelligent, or are they intelligent,” adds Pat. She has been in contact with cats longer than I have.
The neighbours are back. I have not heard them playing ball for a long time. I let Merry out and she was harassing the dogs and then the dogs were chasing her. I shouted at the dogs to stop. Then I saw Merry lean across the neighbour’s fence to eat their roses causing Louisa to put her hands on her hips and ask my horse what she thought she was doing. I go out, show myself. Merry gallops across the field towards me and stands prettily while I put her halter on. She wanted time in the garden before being put to bed, it was already quite dark. At least my neighbours have seen me with an apron on; white plastic with yellow and pink tulip type flowers all over it. I have also been seen on warm days wearing my stripy shorts,
Matisse meows and eyes the grate of the fireplace. I pick him up and carry him to the cat litter box, which I’ve just cleaned. Anyway, for me it is clean. For my cat there is nowhere to place a paw. I imagine that if he were human he would always be dressed in a suit and tie. Houdini, on the other hand, would be dressed in sports clothes. Possibly soft velvety corduroy pants, an old floppy jacket and cotton t-shirt.
Merry is calling to a horse, she gets a reply. I listen to the birds in the morning and I wonder about a lot of things. Is Merry on heat again? Every 21 days.
Fat Cat is nowhere to be seen. Is Houdini looking concerned? He looks up on the pergola; he may also be looking for Matisse.
Someone was talking to the neighbours. “She doesn’t know. She’s a foreigner. However, she has horses”. I feel my neighbours like me because their children shine when they see me. I don’t know how else to describe it. A little kid with his father calls to me. They are looking for their male cat and looks like a Siamese. A tom cat that has probably gone off wandering in search of a harem. Pat says male cats may go missing for a long time and can live without eating for 15 days.
A horse in the woods, maybe Antea’s horse. I’ll tell Remo I think it best to halter train the filly before bringing her here. It will be easier for me. I don’t yet have a fenced area so I can’t exactly enclose her anywhere if there is need. It took me two months to put a halter on Merry because I did not want to take away her freedom. In the end I thought it better me than someone else.
Tuesday 13 May
Tina took me to the painting class in Viterbo. At 80 she looks very young. I spoke to Pat after and told her we had driven the whole way in second gear. In fact, it was not me who said that. It was Pat who said she had decided to drive to the art class on her own because Tina never changes gears. She should really have an automatic. I had my heart in my mouth. Tina drives better then someone else I know who will talk to me as she is whizzing along the road. Lift both hands off the steering wheel to make a point, and looks at me to check that I am not asleep and that she has my full attention. We are protected by the driving god or goddess and she is not even Italian.
The Maestro was in a mood I get into. Scratchy and bear like. He was working on the portrait of the girl. He tells us she is not beautiful. I hear this painting has taken four years. He is working in mixed media, tempera and oil. I see that he is again working in tempera. He tells me he uses lemon or onion to lift the oil from the oil paint. Then he can work again in tempera. He tells me that you cannot get the highlights in oil that you can in tempera. There is more control.
The cats were here play fighting. Houdini is like a Zen master with his pupil. Matisse does not kick Houdini with his back legs. It is as though he is saying, “If I am in this position, then I would make a kicking motion with my back legs”, which he then demonstrates in slow motion.
Wednesday 14 May
I was able to leave Merry out because Antea and Luigi’s horses were in the field beyond the fence. It looks like rain. Hot yesterday and people were driving badly. I had forgotten people drive this way from May through September. In many cases I don’t think the drivers are locals.
For example, I wait for a young girl to cross the road and the car driver behind hoots the car horn at me. Then I am making a left hand turn at a traffic light, a car speeds by on my left hand side; enough to cause intense and deep surprise with a sharp intake of breath and palpitations.
Thursday 15 May
I have 20 people coming to my house. I am to buy 40 sausages.
In
I skipped around the corner from the paint store to see Flora in her shop. She asks if I want to go riding at
I go to the hardware store in
Friday 16 May
I got the halter on Pepita. I had heard Remo tell me another name, but it did not matter in the end. I feel it is a lot easier for me to put a halter on a horse when I know its name.
Around
I hear thunder. No its not, its Merry galloping up the length of the field.
The young man helping at Remo’s sees me with Pepita and her head collar is on. Like Merry she gets a soft sleepy look in her eyes when I tell her “Brava!”. It was too much to make her walk on the lead rope, but she did. The other foals standing watching around the pen at the time all whinnied at the same time, reminding me of spectators at a football match when someone has done something surprising.
I feel these colts/fillies want to be touched. They ask to be touched but are so afraid. Indeed they should be because the first time we touch them, or think of touching them, we are also reflecting on the time we will train this young horse, take away its freedom. So, at the first contact of fingers against hide I feel their hide and backs or necks slip away. It is as though our touch burns an imprint into their hide.
Merry is calling to the other horses. With any luck Pepita will be coming here soon. So she won’t be feeling so lonely in her field. Vincenzo came, he is also without hay. I need 400 bales, which will cost 1,200 euro if I have to pay it all at once.
Matisse caught a fledgling. Maybe it fell from the nest. Its parents are the birds that make the funny backwards and forwards mechanical sound. I heard them briefly this morning. I saved it and took it back out into the garden. I didn’t know what to do with it. I had no raw meat, maybe it’s a vegetarian. Its parents were frantic in the trees. I didn’t know where their nest was. I had put it back on the ground and it had crawled under a leaf to hide. Breaks my heart that I don’t know the first thing about tiny birds. I don’t know much of anything at all.
Saturday 17 May
Claudio has arrived with the guy who will turn the wall, as in close the cupboard space in the bedroom and recreate the original hallway. He is now cutting the wall with a pruning saw. If he had a circular saw he would be done in less than five minutes. I hope he has measured before cutting. I am keeping my mouth shut. This builder drives a very swish car with Polish licence plates.
I have found that if I tie Porgy up in the night I have a quiet night’s sleep.
I hear that a childhood friend’s daughter has been killed in a car crash,
Sunday 18 May
In the night Matisse makes a peeping sound, more like a bird than a cat. I am sleeping on my belly. He gently touches the end of my nose with a paw. I turn over and he crawls into the space beside me curls around himself, purring, “Good human!”
The man took all day to fix the wall. The boy on the motorino was shooting in the woods. I wonder if he was also shooting at the dogs because they were all in the kitchen and there was no thunder.
I had to rescue Matisse who got stuck up a tree. He had dashed up the pear tree, which has not been pruned for years and grows straight up into the sky. He stands and mews at me, “Do something!” He seemed most perturbed when I turned my back on him, “Meh, meh?” I went to get Vincenzo’s shorter wooden ladder and had to climb the last little bit. I pulled my kitty down by the scruff of his neck. He didn’t struggle and I carried him back inside. He needs to learn to come down backwards, in the same way a human does. Back feet first, but I did not think of teaching him that. No doubt he would have worked it out for himself eventually.
Thirty people are coming today. Matisse gets shut in the bedroom, too many cars. The dogs were quiet last night, no barking at all.
When I get down to the horses there is no water and I am asked to help bring the tube across the fast road around the lake. Pepita is already standing in the pen “caught”, waiting for me? I am feeling bad tempered and had decided that if I feel this way then I won’t try and work with horses. However, my bad temperedness is ignored and I’m accepted into the small herd. Training to lead continues.
It is so quiet I think everyone must have gone away to the beach. I cannot lie on a beach because my legs get restless and I have to go for long walks. In summer this is not as pleasant in
Monday 19 May
I would say the party was a success; although we had two types of rice and two types of chicken and my sausages got taken home by Edith and Cynthia and some frozen by me. Somebody’s Polish girlfriend took over the barbecue to cook the chicken and the sausages were forgotten.
I started reading Dervla Murphy’s book Full Tilt. Pat said she felt I should read it because she can see me doing such things: cycling from
Only with all the people here did I remember to look up at the kiwi flowers. Edith’s husband Luigi tells me the cherries are full of worms. He sat in my studio with the sun hat my brother sent me happily listening to the Formula I races. I would have liked to take a photo and hope that someone did. At the party I hear someone say, “He must not sleep all the time because it is then that he will get depressed.” Others go into the field and cut cicoria, I did not know there was so much. I gathered up horse manure in plastic bags to send in expensive cars to
It is a soft, cool, bright day with not a cloud in sight. Too cool to read or write outside.
Tuesday 20 May
I drove myself to the painting class. I took about 45 minutes to get there, I drove quite slowly. It is quicker on the back roads. It is more pleasant because there is not much racing traffic, it is not a particularly beautiful road.
Tina was in the class working on a portrait of a dead friend. She asked Maestro’s opinion and he said that she should put more colour in the face. He sits and demonstrates and although he puts down a colour I would never use on a human face the portrait immediately looks more life like. She has also brought a painting she did of the Maestro in a suit and tie. He looks more like an insurance salesman. Later, he helps me out to the car. I shake hands with him, a thing I tend to do with men I’d prefer to be kissing.
Merry is out in the field, this makes my life a lot easier. She will nip at me, not through evil intent, she is treating me the same way she would another horse. Only, if she nips me in the back of the neck I’ll be done for. John Lyons (The Perfect Horse) writes that it is one of the times he will shout loudly at a horse, if it nibbles, or worse tries to bite him. He advises a few seconds of uproar, mayhem and shouting. This is the only time he advises taking such action.
Others say that you must kindly pay “too much” attention to their muzzles. I find this works, because they begin to hold their faces away when you go to groom them.
Edith has given me a lovely carrying basket from
Wednesday 21 May
I wonder if I am suffering from low blood pressure. Pat and Jancis have complained about feeling tired. I wonder if it has to do with the weather. I wake up early and listen to the BBC then promptly fall back to sleep again.
Rushed to the corner to break up the dogs who were barking and howling. My English neighbour’s youngest son is there standing with his hands on his hips. He is a small boy, his stance says, “I dare you!” The dogs may have found it threatening. He is not much bigger than Navaho or Cherokee. I run out with my decorative green horsewhip and the dogs scatter. It is then I notice that the older sister is there, “Hello Rosemary,” she says. I also see that she has the family dog on a lead, which is probably why the dogs are making such a fuss.
After the barking there is a deep, touchable silence. It is much cooler today. Last night I fed the dogs mixing their food with a garden trowel. There are so many apples and bananas left over from the party. Merry can eat most of the apples, since there are too many for me. The bananas will get carried in the car for emergency snacks.
Again I wonder about my experiment. How much would I have to sleep, meaning how many days, before I would feel awake. I feel it is true that the more I sleep the sleepier I may become. I remember a yoga teacher in the States telling me that when I feel this way I must just MOVE! As in motion, not in moving house…perhaps this is another word I have misunderstood.
There is banging and clattering in the kitchen. Matisse just returned. For such a small cat he makes a lot of noise, like a couple of furniture removers shifting chairs and tables.
Thursday 22 May
Went to play with Pepita, fed her water and felt she was cross with me for some reason. After it being so easy to put a halter on her head it becomes difficult. Remo shows up to say we can put her on the trailer on Friday.
I had cut up apples for Merry because I thought about putting her in the stall out of the wind and rain. Before this, I put her in the garden to graze with only a cord around her neck since the halter was still on Pepita’s head. I go to get the apples. No apples. A puzzle. Did the dogs eat them? Thinking they were soft bones?
Shopped for the market research firm. They ask for all products with NEW written on them. I notice that the breakfast cereals all have this word in big bright letters. If only to state NEW formula, or NEW crunchiness. I look for food or any items at the supermarket that do not bear the word NEW. Am I a traditionalist? I seek out items with whole grains, things in cardboard boxes, with not much plastic.
Poor Matisse will not be going out today. There is a strong wind and Fat Cat is out there waiting for him like a shark in the tall grass.
Friday 23 May
I waited for Mirto, became confused about the time I was to meet her and was leaving as she was arriving. She apologises. I glance at myself in reflecting glass and do not look bad, even though my clothes seem to be those of a farmer just back from the fields. Farmers at least dress properly to go into town, even in their Sunday best. Men look at us, mostly Mirto because of she is stately, beautiful and draws attention; me because I look wild and unkempt beside her. She takes me to eat at a restaurant with an exhibition of paintings hanging on the walls. The man who is supposed to give the OK for my work is Marek the Czech artist I know. Mirto has all the makings of a good friend of mine. In common with all my closest friends she finds me or whatever I say funny. This does me good, and prevents me from taking myself too seriously.
Pepita is to come today. I also hear from a friend who had promised me hay that she can no longer sell me any. This year she has 40 percent less hay then she was expecting and will have to buy herself. I am surprisingly unconcerned by this.
Saturday 24 May
Matisse has a morning routine. He cries and thumps around, pushes something noisy onto the floor. When he hears movement, I may roll over onto my back, he settles down curled up almost under my chin, across my neck and under my nose, which is not very comfortable.
Pepita is now here. I went to help bring her and could not find the horses where they usually are. They had found a slight dip behind a tree out of the wind. I got Elegance and Pepita into the round pen as though it was a normal day. This time Pepita had her halter on so I could clip the lead rope to her before she could even think. Emmanuelle, Remo’s brother, tells me I have improved. This is high praise, because his horses are always so tame. Remo gave Pepita a little tranquilizer as this was the first time we would be transporting her.
I was asked to lead her onto the van, but I got told off because I was too far away from her. I am told that she has to feel that I am close to her. I have to give her confidence. I had wanted to give her more room to go forward. It was true, the closer I got the more confident Pepita became.
Vincenzo was at the house. He rang the gate bell because he had forgotten his key. He had come for grass for his rabbits and to water the kiwi, which I have not been watering. I tell Vincenzo that I am sending my mare to a stallion. “To a Maremmano?” he asks. No, I tell him, to an Appaloosa, like Merry with spots. He smiles and shakes his head. He may only know about Maremmano horses although I know he went to the Calgary Stamped one year. He pulls out his old scythe, beautiful, someone would probably pay a mint for it. He shows me how to use it, lets me try a few swings, but this is something that will need a lot of practice. Scything requires the graceful uplifting movement of a trained dancer and involves not getting your legs cut in the process.
My shopping job entails buying litres of detergent and softeners that I don’t know if I can ever use. I decant these into large bottles, since the company only wants the plastic containers. Matisse leaps for a long legged fly and drops vertically onto the bottles tipping them and breaking two of them. Broken glass and lethally slippery liquid everywhere. I rinse him off as best I can and shut him away while I clean up the broken glass. The slippery liquid takes a long time to get off my hands.
After, as I write my diary, Matisse comes up to me with his, “Are you alright?” squeaky sound. I am not angry. I am relieved this happened before I went out and not after.
Sunday 25 May
I don’t know if I will be celebrating my birthday. If others want to then I won’t tell them no. I will have to let Liza know because she has already written a note in her book.
Matisse has settled on the nice cushions Annie brought for the plastic chairs. Roberto showed up to tell me he thinks I should not try to make hay, but should cut the field to clean it. He tells me that if I had wanted hay then I should have left the horses on only one side of the field and left the other to make hay. I am very new at this game. The bales will be heavy with weeds.
Matisse wants me up and out of bed by
I tell Roberto that I want holes dug for a round pen. I tell him I will buy a circular saw and drill and make it on my own. He reminds me that I cannot build a round pen on my own, unless I have extremely long arms. “Who will hold the other end?” he asks. Right. He has a point.
I have a dream about particles in suspension. All particles of the same mass are together. “Along the line of acidity,” said a man in the dream. I have no idea about this at all.
Vincenzo complains that the weather is upside down. It is interesting to read in the Dervla Murphy book (Full Tilt) that the British were being blamed for the change in world weather patterns because they had been testing nuclear war heads in the atmosphere.
Monday 26 May
There are a lot of dead branches on the kiwi. Vincenzo tells me it is the wind. I have also seen the cats up there and both Matisse and Houdini chew on the fallen branches. Maybe I should try this. In fact, if the fruit is good to eat why wouldn’t the branch be?
I take ages to write up the product descriptions for my shopping job. The labels are filled with words in Italian I cannot find in either of my giant, many-paged dictionaries.
Tuesday 27 May
I am asked to lunch by an old friend. He feeds me leftovers from a dinner he gave the night before. My revenge is to tell him that I don’t eat pasta. SHOCK. I love telling Italians that I don’t eat pasta. I am not telling the truth.
My friend is having trouble getting his data line from the phone company. He makes the same mistake I do and shouts at the person who takes his call. They hang up on him. He calls back. I am glad to see that Italians have the same problems with the phone company that I do. I sometimes think it is because I am a foreign single woman. Not true at all.
Vincenzo shows up. I have drunk two beers and am need of a sleep. I tell him I will ask the neighbour to cut the grass in the field, since if the old grass is cut the new grass can grow better.
Wednesday 28 May
Missed a day.
Thursday 29 May
I was sleeping so deeply. When I woke up I found Matisse sitting at the bottom of the bed looking at me with a grave and thoughtful cat expression. Maybe it was his plaintive meow that woke me up. He was not interested in cuddles. He gets me out of bed earlier and earlier.
Saw paintings by an Iranian woman in a cafeteria. They are highly coloured and I feel they are violent. I think about culture. About clothing and identity. I am not sure why, but I remember, , my mother sent me the latest fashions from England, when I was in Canada; hot pants, tight blouses and one beautiful soft cotton blue dress. Clothes I wore to art school. My friend Patti told me the hot pants with the hand stitched across the rear end were not for me. You are a quiet and shy person, she said. These clothes tell people you are someone you are not. She was right. I wore them because my mother spent good money buying them. I wore them because I understood they were clothes my mother would have liked to have worn herself, and having a lot of weight on her at the time, she could not.
Merry is happy she now has Pepita to chase around the field, in the same way that Rais used to chase her around the field. Bites on the bum and a lot of galloping. I need to put a better lock on the gate. One that does not look as though you could cut through the chain with a pair of scissors.
Found a dead rat and a dead lizard in the horses’ water container, a black plastic bin. It looked like a young rat. Quite handsome, looked more like a deer then a rat. I have a feeling that we are all related.
Matisse is at the end of the table as I write. Birds sing. Matisse drops to the ground with a trilling purr sound. He wants to pat the sleeping Cherokee on the nose. It does not look as though it is going to be a gentle pat. He seems to have his claws out.
Friday 30 May
Vincenzo was here. He seems to have been told that I am a writer and that I am writing something. I actually work as an editor, although Italians don’t seem to have this word in their vocabulary. (This is still a rough draft please don’t judge me! I need to start somewhere). Vincenzo is now scything the grass in the garden for his rabbits. I see new green shoots are coming up. He tells me sheep eat everything. I am always thinking of buying a sheep because the Little Prince had one to eat down the baobab trees. Vincenzo tells me sheep are bad. I wonder, how bad can a sheep get? I imagine a sheep running around the garden with its teeth bared. Anyway, he explains, it is only that the sheep will eat everything.
The grass is so high the horses’ heads disappear into it. Vincenzo said he’d tried to give them some of the grass he cut. He does what I do and speaks for them. He says they come over and tell him, “Thank you, thank you very much, very kind.” And go back to eating the grass in the field.
I tie Porgy up and notice that the “punishment” extends itself to all the dogs. They all act as though they have been tied up.
During the night, I open the window to lean out into the garden, listening and waiting to hear a sound. Nothing. The darkness is spoiled by the street lamp brightening the ground with its cold pale light.
Saturday 31 May
Took Pat to my favourite lakeside restaurant for an ice cream. There is a sense of urgency as people rush around. A storm is brewing, pewter grey clouds hang over the lake, we wait for thunder and lightening. I want to wait and watch the storm. We are so close to the lake, here we can watch as just across the narrow road the waves are whipped up by the wind, more like a storm at sea than on an inland lake.
There was a thunderstorm and the horses were in the middle of the field. I call to them and they look at me. They stand in the field and wait in the rain. I tell my accountant that I have a filly to sell. He tells me he knows someone who keeps horses for a hobby. Merry is getting spots, she gets lighter and lighter as her coat changes. An Appaloosa thing.
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