11 POGGIO, November 2003
Saturday 1
It is warm enough to sit outside. Grey skies and a warm wind, which I think is carrying yet more rain, which causes the trees to speak. I hear the wind can confuse you, especially the sirocco. I prefer it to the cold, biting tramontana. I love the sound of the wuthering sound the wind makes as it goes through the cover on the chimney. The rain no longer comes in after Claudio climbed up there, hurting his back to fix it.
Breakfast, and I want to heat up my roll. Here I am reminded of the breakfasts we used to eat in
Sunday 2
The dogs are barking. Someone goes around feeding the stray dogs, mine included. I’ve been told it is Louisa’s mother who feeds the stray dogs and foxes so they won’t go after the chickens. Some say this doesn’t work.
I put the heat on in the hopes that the dark laundry hanging on the radiators would dry and then I fell asleep. I need a day inside the house. I know that going to see Merry at Remo’s is a
My colleague calls to tell me he can’t come out riding because he’s working. He tells me it’s the first time he’s had to work on a weekend, which I find hard to believe knowing he comes from a cattle and sheep rearing family. Here there are flood rains and mud flows down hillsides. Riding would not have been much fun. Down at Remo’s I’m told that Merry and another filly had to be moved from their boxes because water rushed down the hillside, through the little window at the back of the box, which is built into a hillside. By the time I saw her she was dry and calm.
Mary Rose misbehaves at the end of her rope in a way I have not seen before. Rearing and bucking when I take her out to eat grass. I let her out onto the sand field so she could get rid of some of the kinks. She blows hard like a stallion, lifting her head with her tail held high. She rears and bucks, not to threaten me, she’s playing. I think they want us to join in and of course we can’t.
In spite of the grey day, back at the house, I wash the white laundry and hang it on my new resin clothes drying rack. Then, I saw fire irons in the same shop and bought those too. These cost 15 euro. In the market they were 50 euro. I have paper to burn and lots of wood, but I still don’t feel like building a serious fire, which I feel I must fire sit until it goes out, which can take at least three hours.
Matisse caught a blue tit, as it was still alive I tried to save it. It flew around the kitchen battering itself against the window. I kept Matisse out of the kitchen; he seems to think I’m helping him. Finally I caught the bird and threw it out the open window. He hid himself in the ivy over the fence. One wing, although not broken, had lost a lot of feathers; I found most of them in the bathroom.
Monday 3
I heard the horses in the night. Maybe I had not put the fence back securely enough. Nutmeg was on the wrong side and would not come through the space I made for her. She chose another place where there was barbed wire, as she came back through the fence she pulled it all down. I need to buy electric fencing to replace the barbed wire. I will call Roberto who is supposed to fix the fence. I suppose no one calls or comes because it is raining.
I must wean Nutmeg. Now I understand it is something that you do before rather than later. It is how sweet, how sweet and then how dangerous, because the tiny foal has turned into a giant overnight. I have not got a halter on her and I need to worm her.
Porgy seems to be able to release himself when tied. I’ve seen him do it. He scratches ever so carefully, and if he is very lucky he undoes the catch and he is off the lead and free. He seems to have a plan; he has that kind of look about him.
My contract has been extended until the 21 November. I am certainly not doing very much. What I do gets changed fifty million times and sent out with spelling mistakes that I don’t get to change because I’m not the last in the line to look at the document.
Am feeling very tired because of all the dreams. Boys with cats, horses. Remo and family, moving furniture for a man, who was about to leave and then hay fell and I think it fell on the man Remo was saying goodbye to, saying his wife was a witch. All this was mixed in with a telling of 1001 nights that I was listening to on the BBC. Then there was Mara who had a café with horses to rent. A very busy night for dreaming.
Trouble with horses. I feel out of control with my life. Fences are down. I need a secure fence. How long am I here? How long do I have a job? Where do I go from here? Symbols of my life, downed fences and horses with barbed wire marks across their bodies.
Tuesday 4 and Wednesday 5
No entries.
Thursday 6
I have been feeling as though I am coming down with a cold. Then suddenly I feel better, as though something turned out right. Was it my colleagues emails commenting on my writing style, one says I have a bouncy style, another calls it poetic. Or maybe it was someone telling me that Friday is tomorrow. Or was it finding my travelling buddy Marina on the train. She always travels in the same place so that her friends will know where to find her. Continuity, something I am not good at.
Remo tells me they lost the grey cat. He had a bad habit of climbing into cars or into the cabs of trucks. Most times he was brought back again. This time he has gone for good.
I go see a colleague who has to review the work I’m doing. I tell him I can’t send him the whole document with photos and graphs because it will crash my machine. He points to his, another old clunker. He is in a senior position and has to process vast quantities of material and the powers that be can’t get him a good computer. He has an outdated machine, just like the one on my desk.
He tells me he sees a lot of mistakes, and I wonder if he has been sent the correct version. I am still working on it. I know that several versions can be floating around. I don’t leave documents I’m still editing on the share drive because my work has disappeared from there, but I don’t tell the pale-eyed man.
Vincenzo has been here. The water hose has been moved and brush cut from somewhere.
Friday 7
No entry.
Saturday 8
I have found a very busy person who answers all my emailed questions; however silly they may seem to someone who does not have to edit. Heaven. I am filled with gratitude.
I hear the rain. It is a grey drizzly day, the sort of day that if I was at Penny’s house in
Sunday 9
I heard a horse with a loose shoe. It was Sophie on Toby coming round to ask me for supper.
It is a soft, quiet. Remo was here telling me to put the fillies in the field and keep the mother in. They have chosen the other way around. He tells me all the horses look good, but that I must separate Sully and the foal. This seems to be something I find hard to do. He tells me that Sully’s udder will drip milk for a while. I am to check that it does not get swollen. I have read that I don’t have to milk her and that the milk will be reabsorbed into her body.
I have bought a mushroom block and put it in the cantina. It looks like wood shavings stuck together, but I’m told that I must place it in such a way that the mushrooms can sprout all the way around six sides. I placed it on an old bookshelf that I found lying on its back in the dark.
Shooting season and guns are going off in the woods where, further away, I know they are hunting wild boar, which are raised to be shot, like pheasants.
Monday 10
I am suffering from a cold, can’t be that bad because I had a huge lunch. A colleague from
Pat is back from
Tuesday 11
When I left for work in the morning I found a red car at the side of the road without licence plates. I called the carabineri. After about 18 rings they answered. I was glad that I didn’t have any kind of real emergency when would have needed them to answer quickly. I am put through to Bracciano. I tell them it is no emergency and am handed over to yet another voice. I tell this man about the car.
Later, I call Judith. She tells me she saw it being taken away on the back of a truck. I worry all day because the dogs were barking as though at someone. I then start to worry about the horses. I have a pretty rotten day.
I buy a small torch to put in my bag, which cost 7 euro. It hardly works. I should have tried it out in the store. However, it seems to speed me getting into the house because I can now find the lock in the kitchen door to place the key.
At work, I am creating a data base. I cut and paste. What I paste is completely different from what shows up. I call my Dutch colleague to come and watch. He says this is about the strangest thing he has ever seen. I’m glad that I’m not imagining things.
Driving along the road to Poggio I see a fox cross the road in front of the car. It stops and watches the car as I drive by. It seems so unafraid and seemed to glide across the road as though its paws barely touched the ground. I do not know if it is male or female.
Wednesday 12 to Friday 14
No entries.
Saturday 15
It sounds like rain. The cats are inside. I hear Matisse “talking” to Houdini. One of them is busy clawing the back of the sofa. I think it is Houdini, the babysitter.
Matisse goes across the road. Sometimes I try and stop him and he rolls around in the middle of the road. Or he lies there blinking at me, his anxious care-taker, before he saunters off into the big woods.
Sunday 16
Remo tells me he is working slowly with Merry. He tells me she wouldn’t let him get on his back until recently. He didn’t try while I was watching as there were too many people around.
While talking to the electrician, down at Remo’s, I was startled when a crow flew onto my shoulder. There was a wave of good feelings, a flutter of wings and then he was there. The electrician came and took him off my shoulder. This was the first time this tame crow had flown onto my shoulder. Maybe it was because I was eating a piece of bread.
From where I sit on the bed, I can see Matisse sitting on the bathroom mat looking up at the window. Although you cannot see through this window, I think he watches the shadows of the leaves outside as the move in the wind.
Monday 17 to Friday 21
No entries.
Saturday 22
I got through my last day at work. Many colleagues asked for my home email. I went to say goodbye to my boss who was rushing out of his office. He put his arm out. I don’t know whether he was to put it on my shoulder. He said, “I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.” I said, “Goodbye” and he shouts, “Send me your home email,” I said. “You will loose it!” “I know,” he says, “but send it anyway,” and like the white rabbit in
Sunday 23
I return from my errands and find Vincenzo rapidly picking all the kiwi from the vine. I didn’t think this fair since I’m paying for the water which kept them alive all summer long. I was very angry and I know he won’t understand why.
I complain to Pat, who reminds me I’m supposed to be looking for a house to buy. “With what?” I ask her. She reminds me that she didn’t have any money when she went looking for the apartment she lives in now. Do the work. She tells me. The money will come. Pat is always telling me exactly what I tell other people. Why I can’t take my own advice. I don’t know. Hard of hearing at close range, I guess.
Guns pop far away in the woods.
I think of going to my doctor for a check up. The last time I was there the secretary was telling people off for lining up in front of her. She made them line up beside her. Perhaps she never thought of it. If the line forms beside her then the person next in line can read what is being entered in the computer for the one in front. Maybe I can call and make an appointment instead of going in.
Monday 24
I’ve been amusing myself by practicing looking fierce. I don’t know when it might come in useful. I tried out the look in the supermarket and had the staff jumping to help me. It seems overly effective, and better take another look in the mirror to see what I look like. I had to speak calming words to them because all I needed was a new plastic card so I can take part in discounts and gaining points for consumer items I’ve never wanted to buy, ever.
I’m down at Remo’s. He gets on Merry’s back. She doesn’t like this. She keeps one eye on me. I ask him later if the horses act differently if the owner is around. I never got an answer because he may not have heard my question. After, I took Merry to cool down, to eat grass.
Coming back along the lake road I find a little dog that has just been hit by a car lying in the road. Possibly by the people in the car that passed in such a hurry. I saw it look at me before it died. I took the little dog and buried it in my garden under the rose bushes. The dogs kept a respectful distance. They seemed as concerned as I felt. The neck was broken. I know I wished to feel some kind of reaction as I lifted it up off the road. Even if it had been gratitude at being held gently in the last seconds of life.
I had seen the same dog on Saturday being let out of a car by a couple. At the time I thought they were letting the dog out to pee. Not such an odd place, because there is enough of a grassy edge to the road, even though the cars rush past.
Tuesday 25
Porgy is sleeping in the kitchen. In the mornings when I go in to make my coffee he rolls over on his back, with his feet in the air, and grins at me. I rub his white tummy, which is not as clean feeling as a cat. He then leaps to his feet to go out, I open the door and Houdini comes in. He turns his nose up at Matisse’s leftovers. He has a point. Those particular leftovers have been there for two days.
I had a dream. The radio was on and was bothering me. Dreadful, chaotic music and a hyper announcer. I tried to turn it off. No use. Tried to unplug it. I managed that but the music continued. I woke up enough to realise the music was on, the radio was on. I was then able to turn the radio off. Phew, it turned off. No magical continuing mad announcer.
Wednesday 26
It is raining again. I go out and the horses are wet to the touch. They have shelter, but stand around in the rain. I will keep them in the stalls today. Feed them hay and feed until the sun shines again.
I watched Merry being trained. Remo sent me off to buy giant plastic bottles of shampoo and conditioner. This was so I could give her a bath and wash her mane and tail. Being an Appaloosa she is not exactly graced with a full and flowing tail. Or mane for that matter. It sticks up in the air making her look mischievous. After her bath he put a red blanket on her.
I remember when Remo was training Federica’s horse, Akim. The first time I saw her ride him I saw this Arab stallion arch his neck and step out so carefully. I felt he was different to when Remo, the trainer rode him. There seems to be a feeling between Federica and her horse. Beautiful to watch.
Porgy was not interested in what I gave him to eat. He looked at me and gave a healthy burp. So, I expect my neighbours have been out feeding stray dogs and foxes. How can I explain to Porgy that he has done nothing wrong. It just makes me apoplectic when the dogs don’t want to eat the food I go and buy with my hard earned money. As Roberto once said, I should just let the neighbours feed my dogs. They are not exactly mine anyway. They came with the house.
Thursday 27
I was very depressed about going into
Flora tells me she remembers feeling secure with her family in
I used to feel a certain security when I knew my brother was with Patrice, his first wife. I had, still have, a lot of my books stored in their attic. I gave them to my nephew, but he wants me to be there before he will trawl through my boxes. There are books there that I would not mind reading for the first time, or again, for the third time.
Went to the gynaecologist. He tells me to call him, to come and see him and not to make an appointment. He tells me that to make an appointment only costs me money. To nip in and see him costs nothing. I forget all the things I want to say to him. He seems so busy with mountains of pregnant women waiting along the corridor and here he is offering me free question time.
He batters on like an express train. Is this why husbands and wives or women with their friends will go together, so there are two sets of ears to listen.
Recently, a friend asked me to go into a specialist with her. I was amazed that she couldn’t remember a single word he’d said to her. I did. This is why I’d been brought along. My friend, being an ex-nurse knows that people go deaf when a doctor is telling them something. They may be afraid to hear what is being said to them.
Friday 28
It rains torrential downpours for seconds and then nothing. Outside I hear the birds singing and then nothing. No. The birds are singing. Maybe they know the sun will shine today. My cat would like to be outside. As I get dressed, and am wondering how many layers to put on, the heavens open and the rain comes down, again. By the time I go out to feed the horses the rain has stopped.
I have bought Gabriella Garcia Marques book, his almost autobiography. I went into the snob bookshop in Bracciano. The woman pulled the hardcover book off the shelf at the same moment I found the soft-cover book. The words are the same. It is not a present. Even my friends would accept a paperback book from me. One even gave me a used paperback book. A very funny cookery book, written in the fifties for single people. She said it was out of print and she’d searched ages for it. I read it every so often. It has some good ideas and is very funny.
This book tells you what you must cook for a house party when you have overnight guests. Tells you how to fix all the meals over the weekend. It is written for an
The dogs are barking, there is the smell of my old fire from a few days ago. The minibus turns on the corner, leaving dense clouds of diesel fumes, which is one of the drawbacks of living in the country where the bus turns. At least I don’t feel isolated. One day I’ll take the bus into Bracciano. Although I no longer like to shop there because it is too difficult to park and I have succumbed to buying food in a supermarket and not from the butcher, the baker, the fishmonger, the market for fruit in season.
Saturday 29
Matisse is looking at me with a concerned expression. It is Saturday, one of the days the dogs go wild. I think someone creates a dog feast for them. Once I followed the dogs through the woods. At one point they seemed to think I was joining them, until they realised I was cross that they had escaped once again from the hectare of land, which obviously they felt was not enough for them.
My painting teacher, Rolando, called and I’ll start back with my painting course on Monday.
I’m beginning to think Matisse is the most intelligent being living in this house, me included. He peers into my face when I’m angry with the dogs or the horses. He has no fear of me. I was angry with him only once when he insisted on walking on the computer keyboard while I was working on a document with a deadline. I’d picked him up and dropped him on the floor. He hid for hours, and I was the one in the end who felt punished.
Now my cat asks to go out. He reaches for the keys dangling from the lock at the kitchen door. As I’m mopping the floor I notice how Houdini begins to look worried. Matisse puts one paw around Houdini’s neck and licks his ear. Is he telling him not to worry, that I’m not planning on attacking him with the wet and dripping mop?
Sunday 30
There is another dog in the garden. A huge brindle dog, seems quite young but it didn’t want to come near me.
I’m hibernating. I feel like diving inside myself and being quiet. I don’t look forward to the long drive to Viterbo by myself. I don’t mind going, it is driving back by myself in the dark in my old Ford Fiesta. However, I put my bag together for my painting class anyway.
I call Pat and tell her I’m wearing a skirt. She tells me not to tell anyone because it might shock them because I wear skirts so seldom. Anyway, Pat tells me Liza’s sister says she, “Wants to dress like Rosemary”. How is that? I ask Pat. “You know,” says Pat, “Like you’ve just come in from seeing the horses.”
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