In a grove beyond the Arno

[smokingboot]

surrounded by every colour and scent of rose, a huge cotton tree blows pollen over the lodge and down the meadow where the olive trees grow. The gardner rakes it all up each day, same as he mows the wildflowers, but somehow there's never any less of it; must be a trick of the light. There's a lot of light. Storms on the mountains, blossoms at the start of May, but mainly light, bleaching out the old stone of walls and farmhouses, stimulating funky spotted lizards into frenzied activity, feeding the vines, the roses, the barley, the fig trees, the cherry tree, the flame flowered quince, the olives, the olives and their cousins, the other olives.

I was going to be cultured this holiday, but then larians brought me to one of the most enchanting spots on earth, so beguiling that you just want to sit and stare and do nothing. At one point, sitting on the porch swing, I found myself imagining some future with us as a pair of old peeps, me a much rounder version of my grandma, him tending our sumptuous garden of roses, vines and olives. And a dovecote.

This is an unheard of pattern for my thoughts to take. Tuscany is ridiculously beautiful, a 'witching place!

Of course it should be. Etruscan witches were well known and feared, even by the Romans, though it didn't stop them kicking Tuscan arse eventually. There is a theory which links the Etruscan alphabet to the magical runes of Scandinavia. The Valdechiana, sometime swamp, sometime barbarian autostrada for Rome, sometime land of ancient settlements, is dotted with Etruscan artefacts and tombs. Guess how many I saw?
None.
Not one.
I didn't even get to the outside of one.
My scholarship fell by the wayside. The local spas got me instead. I've never been in a real one before; hot water pumped straight out of the earth, diverted into luxurious pools and bubbling jacuzzis, sheets of heat that pounded all the stress out of your sholders and muscles; oooh, it steamed and smelt eggy! But good! Like arriving in Hell and realising you liked it!


We knew we were in an enchanted land the first night, when we went out into the local village of Marciano Della Chiana and saw a huge blue star in the sky; far too big to be anything other than a planet, and too late, I thought, to be Venus. Below we caught sight of a toad clambering a mud bank. Poor old bufo was massive enough for larians to call him a monster, but in truth, his eyes were speckled and lovely as he scraped his way through the wildflowers, climbing up to Jupiter.

On the last night, larians, took me down into the olive grove and showed me fireflies. I haven't seen a firefly since the 90s, in North Wales. larians showed me a small star far below the ones over the mountains. It flew straight towards, between and over us, flickering on and off, near enough to touch. We didn't. We hugged each other instead.

And as to what happened between toad night and firefly night? I am going to write a great deal down, for my own memory's sake, and it will take more than one entry, but I promise to not spam up everyone else's friends page with my ramblings; The cut will be generously used.

Comments

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

That all sounds very romantic - apart from the image of him gardening whilst you bake him pie (yes I know I added the second bit), which is a little surprising!

By the way, when I was in the loo on the jumbo I just kept thinking of being swallowed by the flushing toilet thanks to our conversation about disaster porn! And there wasn't even any porn to precede the disaster (which might be why I'm safely here, on second thoughts).

Pie and gardens

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

I had to shake the romance off my brain like a spaniel shaking water off its ears!

As for that particular episode of disaster porn, I fear I will never actually write the story now - the event is now too horrible for my mere words to encapsulate!