This year the seasons have gone really crazy in Italy, especially in our area of Media Valle, just north of Lucca. For much of the first three months of this year temperatures were often well into their twenties and for weeks we had no precipitation at all. Camellias, which normally blossom at the end of March, were already budding in January and are still blossoming now over three months later, the longest time I have known our own camellia to come into flower.

Then in April things changed; temperatures actually went down and we had days of often precipitous rain. We hoped that things would brighten up in May yet worse was to come; our mountains, so long without their hoary blankets, were covered by snowfalls, clearly welcome to skiers but not so longed-for by farmers and gardeners.

A couple of days ago we went on one of our favourite trips: to the highest village in the Italian Apennines, San Pellegrino, nestling on the side of the main ridge at a height of  5003 feet. Our route became marked by extensive snowfalls; it truly seemed that we were just emerging from winter instead of being at the start of the merry month of May!

San Pellegrino strides between the regions of Tuscany and that of Emilia Romagna. Indeed, one of the bars has its counter divided between the two very different parts of the peninsula…

The village grew around a refuge for pilgrims crossing the mountains on the via Francigena in their way to Rome. The views we have enjoyed from this spot are truly wonderful but on this day everything was enveloped in mist.

What was still visible, however, were the two saints, San Pellegrino and San Bianco, in all their mummified glory. Pilgrims still come today and write their prayer wishes on a slip of paper which is deposited by the graceful shrine.

Meanwhile our own garden is showing defying colours against the louring greyness of the skies.