An old sports encyclopedia writes ‘cricket: the sport of kings and the king of sports.’ At school Wednesday and Saturday afternoons were dedicated to the playing of cricket. Frankly I was no good at it although I do remember scoring a couple of six runs.. After leaving school I remember on occasion playing the game with staff on the green patch behind the F.E. college where I was a lecturer in I.T.

For a long time in my new residence in Italy cricket completely vanished from my thoughts. My Italian grandfather had called it ‘the mysterious game’ and it seemed near impossible to explain the rules of the game to him and most other Italians.

However, I did recollect a visit of an Italian women’s cricket team to London where they played a match against an English team. I thought this combination very strange at the time.

Much like the English football lionesses cricket and women’s cricket has captured the minds of many Italians thanks in major part to the Sri Lankan community in whose country of origin cricket has been a much loved national sport ever since the time of the British Raj. Indeed, Italy is now doing remarkably well in women’s cricket.

For instance, from 9 to 12 August 2021, the Italian women’s national cricket team played a series of five matches against Austria in Rome. August 9th, just after the end of the Olympic Games, was a historic day for Italian cricket. For the first time ever the Italian women’s national cricket team played an official match recognized by the International Cricket Council. Austria had already played eight matches and became 51st in the international rankings.

From 2013 to 2016, an Italian women’s national team played around twenty unofficial matches, also winning two European tournaments. After a two-year stop, in 2019 the new Federal Council relaunched women’s cricket by promoting a first tournament at the end of the season. In 2020, despite Covid, the women’s championship, won by the Roma Cricket Club, was reborn and in the summer of 2021 the rebirth of the women’s national team was confirmed.

It was only when I visited Lucca’s Sri Lanka bazaar to restock my supply of red lentils, ginger beer and ginger biscuits, curry and other spices that I realised I’d already met a member of the Italian women’s national cricket team. The shopkeeper there, looking at my picture of the ravishing dancing girls in the Kathina festival procession we had attended a few weeks ago at Ponte a Moriano, said ‘the dancing girl to the right is a member of the team

Her name is Kanankege:

I looked at the other names in the Italian women’s cricket team. They are, together with the local teams they play with:

Araliya Kankanamage Teshani Charunika (Roma CC)
Aththidi Panagoda LIyanage Dona Rashini Sadunika (Padova CC)
Asuramanage Nimesha Ekanayake (Roma CC)
Batagoda Herath Mudiyanselage Gayathri Kanchana (Roma CC)
Diminguwarige Niroshni Pushpa Kumari (Senza squadra)
Etewakwda Vedanalamge Wasundara Malmadhiri Karunarathna(Lucca CC)
Kanankege Pasindi Sewmini (Lucca CC)
Landage Anusha Lakmali (Lucca CC)
Mahamalage Fernando Thilini Chathurika (Roma CC)
Malwatta Liyanage Sadalee Vasana Fernando (Royal Padova CC)
Nanayakkara Mahaguruge Dilaisha Rishani Fernando (Roma CC)
Parana Muhandiramge Virgini Kusinara Chathuri Fernando (Padova CC)
Peddrick Jansa Bolonghe Kumudu Niranjala (Roma CC)
Ranasinghe Arachchige Dona Thilini Rupika (Padova CC)
Sabelli Sarah Jane (Roma CC)
Samarasinghe Arachchige Don Hasanthi Dayana PreamaSamarasingha (Roma CC)
Samarawickrama Dishani (Roma CC)
W.M. Hiruni Nimalika Perera (Royal Padova CC)
Warnakulasuriya Thamel Anne Serena (Padova CC)
Withanage Sharon Andromida  (Roma CC)

So it can be easily seen that most of the cricket team members are of Sri Lankan heritage!

It’s surely another occasion when immigrants can help out a country. This time it’s the turn of a sport: cricket, Italian cricket. Long may Italian women’s cricket flourish in the ‘Bel Paese’! And may it, perhaps, encourage more Italian women to move out of macho-male dominated ‘calcio’ field into something better.

What a wonderful way to conclude one’s Sunday! A visit to Monti di Villa’s nativity enactment (presepe vivente) complete with local trades,

wines and entertainers

all set in a splendid winter appennine sunset.

We are now coming to the end of our cycle of mud and thermal baths at Bagni di Lucca’s Bernabo’ establishment. Every Friday morning for the past two months we have attended the re-opened Bernabo’ with our dressing gowns and crocs for another wallow in sybaritic languor.

Why did we feel the need to come here? It was, for me, because I’ve been having problems with my elbow and knee joints and something on my left cheek. Between our family doctor and the epidermist it was suggested that I attend the baths.

Sadly the Varraud baths are still closed and awaiting a shining knight in the form of a manager who will reopen them. However, the Bernabo’ has come to the rescue in a big way. It’s thanks to Bernabo’ that Bagni di Lucca can still call itself a living thermal establishment.

The baths can obviously be used if one is a private patient but we were lucky that thanks to an agreement between Bernabo’ and the Italian national health service we are allowed to use it at a much reduced rate. It would still be worth it, however, at the standard price since Giancarla’s management is top class.

Upon entry to the baths I am led to my cubicle. Here, as I lie on a couch, Giancarla spreads mud over my affected areas. The stuff is hot and clean (yes, mud can be clean); not like the one we were caked in when playing rugby at my secondary school, Dulwich college.

After twenty minutes Giancarla, or one of her helpers, re-enters my room and removes and washes the mud off as I enter one of establishment’s marble baths which date back to the Napoleonic era when one of its clients was Elisa, princess of Lucca and sister of the emperor, so inaccurately portrayed in Ridley Scott’s recent film.

I love the way the hot thermal waters splash into the marble basin and slowly cover my whole body in the soothing liquid. Before the advent of home bathrooms and boilers this experience was probably the only time the local populace received a proper wash. At other times they would – as malicious rumour has it – stand under the drops when it rained – like today!

Or perhaps, as so many of us like to do – plunge in the cool summer waters of our local river Lima, so replete with translucent pools.

At our appointment this week the Bernabo’ displayed Christmas decorations set up for its clients’ delectation.

I especially liked the twinkling lights scattering over the elegant octagonal pool.

We wish Giancarla and her devoted team our best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Giancarla has done sterling work in restoring honour and pride to Bagni di Lucca’s thermal spa tradition and its reputation.

I don’t have to be a Swann and Flanderish hippo to enjoy the excellent curative qualities of glorious mud.

Already I feel a whole lot better thanks to Bagni di Lucca’s magic waters.

Now that winter temperatures have hesitatingly descended upon our part of the world it’s important to have a reasonable amount of wood for us to burn in our cast-iron (ghisa) stufa or stove. I say hesitatingly because yesterday morning the car’s windscreen had iced up and today the temperature is over 15c. By Sunday it will again have dropped to below zero. At least, however, the hurricane winds we have recently been experiencing have lessened in force.

The easiest way to get wood, of course, is to phone up the local timber merchant who will deliver the goods at easy reach of one’s wood-hut. When we lived at Longoio the delivery was dumped on the road outside and we had to quickly clear the driveway to stack the logs against the inner wall of our garden. This operation usually took more than a day and was somewhat exhausting as we had to use a wheelbarrow up a slope to transport our fuel.

At our new abode it’s a lot easier. We have our own private driveway and have even built our own timber shed.

Why then haven’t we yet ordered our winter supplies? For two reasons. First we still have a lot of wood left over from last year especially since that winter wasn’t particularly harsh. Second, we are surrounded by woods and they are our own woods. Many of the trees have been felled by the electricity board when they were maintaining their high voltage lines and found that these were being interfered with by high branches. Some other trees, mainly that infestatory species of acacia with blood-letting thorns, which grows like a many-headed hydra, have been cut down by my trusty battery-powered electric chain saw.

I also have a petrol-powered example but, dissuaded by nightmarish tales of what these can do, have rarely used it. The thought of parts of my body being mixed up with bits of trees is too much to handle! The electric saw is perfect for small acacias, can be used as a very useful pruning tool and also for cutting fallen branches into a size suitable for feeding into that stufa.

In this way I’ve built up a series of woodpiles in part of the woods above us on what we call terrace two.

The challenge is how to transport these piles of logs to the timber shed below. Take them down in a rucksack? Use a trolley? Or put them bags?
My system so far had been to simply roll the logs down the steep slope that separates terrace two from terrace one.

What are these terraces anyway? In an age where most hill slopes in our valley were once cultivated, and where barley and spelt fields spread over large distances as subsistence crops, terraces were clearly defined. After the last war, with the drift of local populations to work in the factories of Italy’s ‘miracolo’ – the economic miracle which created the country’s modern industrial revolution, terraces were increasingly abandoned with trees and shrubs taking over.

In the case of our house we have delineated five terraces which we labelled as follows.

Minus one: below our house between the cellars and the road.

Zero: our house and the driveway and parking area.

Plus One: where our lawn and main kitchen garden are.

Plus two: where most of our wood comes from.

Plus three: where the trees chopped down by the electricity company is situated.

Anyway I soon discovered there are two ways of keeping warm (apart from staying in bed in the mornings): to light a fire and to go wooding!