This year our Christmas Lunch had two big differences and they were nothing to do with our menu arrangements which have always tended to remain quite traditional.

Difference number one was that it was our first Christmas Lunch in our new home!

Difference number two was that the lunch was cooked not on our standard gas cooker (which no longer exists in our new dwelling) but on (and in) a La Nordica wood cooker.

This required a little extra thought but we are pleased with our results:

Sandra’s lasagne:

her mammoth-sized chicken:

and my chocolate cake.

Our Christmas Lunch did take a little longer to cook. In particular we had problems in getting the oven up to the required temperature of 220 degrees C. (It never got beyond 180 degrees C; hints on improving this performance gratefully received). However, the results were delicious and particularly flavoursome – there is such a lot to be said in favour of ‘slow cooking’!

We were also able to enjoy our lovely lunch in the warmest of surroundings since the cast-iron stove, lined with red majolica tiles, is a great way to heat up our winter surroundings which are at an altitude above a thousand feet.

Cast-iron stoves were a standard feature of kitchens in by-gone times until they were superseded in the last century by gas and electric cookers. In the UK they continue to exist in the reincarnations of the Aga, invented by the Swede Gustav Dalen, and the Rayburn. Although the Rayburn has a wood-burning version the Aga (famously associated with an aristocratic ‘Aga-Saga’ country house lifestyle) is now powered by gas or electricity.

The Italian ‘Cucina economica’ is the basis for our Nordica which we inherited with our new house. It does not have to be on all the time, as distinct from an Aga. It only has one oven instead of the Aga’s multiplicity and, so importantly for our heavily forested part of the world where electric supply can sometime be cut off and where gas is not on line but has to be supplied in canisters, it happily feeds on a variety of timbers including acacia and holm-oak.

We are truly looking forward to further delicious ‘slow’ meals taken in warm surroundings and with the added benefits of much reduced gas and electricity bills.

Now I must be off downstairs to clean out the ash and to spread a bit of olive oil on our Nordica’s hob…

It’s now a week since we have been permanently living in our new home, a farmhouse situated in the hills surrounding Bagni Di Lucca. True, we signed the purchase document in early December but moving (which we have done ourselves using our trusty vintage Fiat Panda with the rear seats down and with a roof rack added) has taken several days. More important than that, however, has been our three remaining cats which have had to find their feline feet in our new dwelling. For the first week after our purchase we were still spending our nights at our old place in Longoio with the cats and even now at our new home they have not yet been allowed out of the house (as recommended by the Blue Cross who insist on a minimum of two weeks re-adaption).

Our new house (which is actually older than the French revolution) seems to have been specially made for us! From its gated entrance with a venerable chestnut tree:

its delightful location, quite isolated, surrounded by its own forest and with views extending from the appenines to Ponte a Serraglio:

the nice snugness of its living room, so essential for the often harsh appenine winters here:

the not inconsiderable outbuildings (after all our house was once a farm) with both pizza oven and barbecue grill tempting thoughts of warmer seasons:

all contribute to the feeling we have made the right choice.

We shall treasure the days we will spend here and hope to God they will be many!

The first lot of wood arrived at our new home yesterday. A full trailer load of holm oak, birch and acacia it seemed a daunting task to stack it all away. In fact it was a lot easier than it seemed and, thanks to Sandra’s organisational skills all was stored safely in our wood shed in an afternoon.

We have two items which use the wood as a source of fuel. In our living room there is a cast-iron stove and in the kitchen there’s the ‘cucina economica’, the italian equivalent of an aga, which produces both warmth for the ground floor and excellent slow cooking.

I don’t know how much wood-burning contributes towards global warming. Clearly wild-fires, especially those started deliberately, have a serious impact on the environment but what about domestic, controlled use of wood burning? Fortunately we live in a densely forested but not very densely populated area and there are few regulations limiting our use of wood as a fuel. But for how long will we be able to live like this in this woodland wonderland?

Yesterday, 12th December, at 6.15 pm our cat Cornelia crossed over the rainbow to rejoin her mother, her brothers and her sisters in that part of the happy hunting ground specially dedicated to felines. Born in a wood pile near our garden in 2005, the same year that we started to live in our old appenine village house, Corniglia was the last to survive of a brood of five kittens which, after a friend’s suggestion, I named after each of the five coastal towns of Liguria’s ‘Cinque Terre’. She was the most independent of the quintet and for most of her life she would not even allow herself to be touched by us, unlike her brothers who were rather more sociable with humans. More recently, however, Corniglia (or ‘Cornelia’, as she was usually pronounced) became more approachable and would allow herself to be patted and petted. Unfortunately her health began to suffer too and Corniglia became thinner and thinner until she seemed to weigh little more than a feather. Her fur too, once so bright and lustrous, became more and more unkempt. It was clear that our oldest cat, whose existence was contemporary with the start of our life in this mountain village, was finding it increasingly difficult to groom herself.

Cornelia had always been a ‘wild’ cat. For most of her life she had been very standoff-ish and very independent. She showed her strong character to the full in the last day spent with us. My wife had left Cornelia on the grey deckchair on the terrace. With the morning sun shining brightly and casting its rays upon the frozen landscape it became warmer to stay outside rather than inside our house. Cornelia so loved basking in that poignantly short winter warmth. Meanwhile we had to leave our old house to carry on moving our wordly goods to our new place. Sandra took one last look at Cornelia before we left. But she was no longer seated on the deckchair! We looked for her everywhere in and around the house. Cornelia was nowhere to be seen! Reluctantly we left the house returning, after completing our chores, five hours later. Cornelia was, again, nowhere to be seen! A thorough house search revealed nothing. Had she fallen in the water-tub? Had she been attacked by some wild animal? Had she so sadly, and like so many domestic animal companions, left the family home to seek some lonely spot in the forest to lay down her little body and die in peace far from those who loved her?

These thoughts circled round and round our restless minds until we became resigned to Cornelia’s final disappearance. It was then that Sandra decided to go into the garden. She opened the front door and, lo and behold, Cornelia suddenly appeared by her side! The little, emaciated cat stumbled a couple of times before Sandra picked her up and took her to the warmth of the fireplace. Yes, Cornelia was still alive! She had made the effort, for her, superhuman – or rather, superfeline – to wait for our return. We felt truly privileged and touched. Sandra took Cornelia upstairs and cradled her in her arms in the snugness of our bed.

(Last photo of Cornelia when still alive).

Our brave little independent cat, our Cornelia who had seen us into our house now left us sixteen years later at the time we too were leaving it. Wrapped in my wife’s arms, contented that she had garnered the little strength remaining to her and wait for us to return Cornelia gave up her last breath and entered that world where her soul would merge with those of her mother, brothers and sisters and become one with the great spirit of creation.

Sad but elated we left Cornelia: her fragile body which only that morning had still been able to leap up stairs and bend itself round corners, her fur, once so fine, but which now had become ragged because she was no longer able to properly look after, her eyes, her piercing eyes turned quite green as if staring into the vast eternity into which she was now entering, Cornelia now lay on the rocking chair ready to find her final resting place within mother earth.

That earth shall not be the surrounding of the old house where her partner tomcat Napoleon lies but our new home where we too, we trust, shall find our own final resting place.

Deep within our heart

shrivelled leaves remain scattered

and all whispers cease.

Location, location, location is in some respects even more important in Italian mountain villages than in our birth-city, London’s suburbs. In the Great Wen the ubiquitous semi will generally ensure a measure of longed-for privacy and allow easy car access and even a garage. This is as it ideally should be since parking creates the most ennervating of disputes, often leading to the courts and even, as in that recent sad UK case, the annihilation of an entire family…

One might think that a remote appenine village enveloped in beautifully extensive natural surroundings would not be tainted by such harassing matters regarding parking and privacy. After all, these settlements have usually less inhabitants than are contained in a suburban London close and many dwellings are only occupied during the summer as they are holiday homes.

However, this is not always the case and disputes will arise especially as regards land since most Italians, in common with the rest of the human species, have a strongly territorial instinct. Court cases and even, in one instance, murder have occurred in our part of the world and, no doubt, will continue to occur.

Of course, peaceful interaction depends largely on agreements regarding social space and every individual holds their own conception of this space. I have come across people who have moved from a private, isolated house in the heart of the mountains to a village centre, hemmed in on all sides by other dwellings, merely because they needed more social interaction. Conversely, others have escaped from their close-knit village to somewhere quite separate from other settlements because they could not take being so close to other humans on a daily basis.

Alone but not lonely seems to be the mantra today, especially in the wake of the pandemic which tempts even high government officials to waive sanitary rules in favour of illicit activities. We remain part of society but are not able to enjoy its benefits as we could before this hopelessly unending era of social distancing, mask-wearing and, covid passports.

In our case, the fact that we are not exempt from growing any older and that, therefore, such considerations as car access become even more important in villages originally designed for donkeys and mules has prompted us to make a move from our present location where we’ve lived for over fifteen years. We remain, however, in the same beautiful chestnut forest mountains of the appenines for we have grown accustomed to these ethereal surroundings. But we are now happily isolated from any village inconveniences and problems. Not alone, nevertheless, for, apart from the rich fauna and flora that keeps us company, we are rather closer to facilities like shops and cafes than before.

We certainly do not intend to become hermits living chaste lives in a wild and lonely place for we enjoy company and socializing but now have the privilege of deciding who we want to have around us. (Wild boars might disoblige but, at least they will less ingratiating than bipedal ones).

Life is too short and everything has a price in life but at least we have learnt the value of something and added to that human peace which precedes the ultimate peace which must await us all.

One can be living in an area for over fifteen years and ever discover new places which may be just a few minutes away. Below the village of Granaiola in our Comune of Bagni Di Lucca, for example, we came across a sweet dell containing a chapel near a hamlet.

The chapel, characteristic of so many others in our part of the world with its porch, bell-cote and austere nave, dates back to the eighteenth century and is dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows.

In Italy there are over a thousand religious buildings with this dedication. Indeed, we know of another chapel ‘of the snows’ near us at Boveglio for example.

According to tradition in the 4th century, under the pontificate of Pope Liberius, a noble and rich Roman patrician named Giovanni together with his wife, having no children, decided to offer their possessions to the Holy Virgin for the construction of a church dedicated to her. Our Lady appreciated their wish and appeared to the spouses in a dream on the night between 4 and 5 August, marking with a miracle the place where the church was to be built. The following morning the Roman couple went to the Pope to tell him about the dream they both had. Since the Pope also had the same dream, they went to the place indicated, the Esquiline Hill, which was found covered with snow in the middle of summer! They traced the perimeter of the new church following the surface of the snow-covered ground and had the sacred building built at the expense of the noble spouses. This building is the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a magnificent church which I visited when my University choir sang there: (https://longoio3.com/2017/10/05/towards-romes-santa-maria-maggiore/).

Although the Church no longer upholds the veracity of the story tradition still continues and every year a Mass is celebrated in these lonely chapels built to allow local farmers to worship without having to walk all the way to the main church. In any case the purity of The Virgin, born without sin according to believers and shortly to be celebrated in Italy’s national holiday of the Immaculate Conception on the 8th December, is beautifully symbolised by the image of snow.

A short distance away from this chapel in the woods is a hamlet consisting of a collection of substantial farmhouses. These have been excellently restored and with some marvellous garden landscaping are now very desirable holiday homes.

The views from this spot with a landscape swathed in long veils of misty clouds is quite magical!

It is possible to reach this area using a newly refurbished footpath called ‘la via del grano ‘ which runs from Ponte a Serraglio to Granaiola.

The hamlet’s new use has saved it from the dereliction which has been inflicted on so many of Italy’s abandoned villages. I just wish the same entrepreneurship could have been shown towards another Val Di Lima settlement: the crumbling village of Bugnano (which I describe at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/abandon-all-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here/).