Category Archives: Fornoli

I.T.’s All Here!

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What is an essential shop? This question has often been asked and debated in these pandemic times. Only the other day in our local supermarket I found this situation on one of the shelf aisles.

Evidently saucepans and drying-up cloths are not essential. (Hurrah – a good excuse not to be able to do the washing up). Neither are knickers and pants, it seems. Of course, the reason why these items are red-and-white buntinged off is that smaller shops selling these items have been closed. So at least let’s keep the competition fair.

For different customers, anyway, there are different varieties of essential supplies. Nail bars are not what I would consider an essential shop for me – although I realise the Bagni di Lucca fair sex may think differently — unless it’s the sort of nail to hang pictures on walls. The world’s oldest profession has strong claim to state that its wares constitute essential services although I can’t honestly remember when (or if) I last used them since my marriage remains definitely way off the rocks (unless she murders me first).

One type of shop which has of necessity been classified as supplying essential items is the computer sales and supplies outlet. Certainly they have been providing sterling service in an age which has seen the use of information technology expanding almost exponentially. This is especially the case in Italy which frankly was a late developer in using I. T. before the current pandemic. True, pupils of schools in the Lucca area had been supplied with tablets and teachers were increasingly attending training courses as a result (their pupils seemed to already know how to use the technology and, indeed, were instructing their teachers on its use…). However, it was when schools were shut down and when the only method of instruction became distance learning that the use of information technology fully blossomed in Italy. If there is any positive outcome from this ghastly pandemic, which is still holding the peninsula in its thrall despite increasing vaccinations then it is that Covid-19 has assisted in transforming a largely pre-digital population into ever increasingly using information technology.

Of course information technology has to be properly maintained and kept up to date if it is to be efficacious. Despite my own I.T. background I have been very grateful for the PC Start computer shop in Fornoli run by the indomitable Maurizio Canelli. His excellent service was first mentioned in my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/06/09/another-gadget-to-go-wrong/

Wow that appeared already eight years ago!

My laptop seemed to be on its last gasps not so long ago despite its excellent conversion to solid state technology by Maurizio. (See my post on that at https://longoio3.com/2019/09/18/a-new-start-for-my-pc/). What then was going wrong instead? It was an ageing motherboard. But how could one obtain a replacement for it? What is not often realised in these covidian days is that supply chains are ever more difficult to keep up and that includes supplies of motherboards, the working framework of all personal computers. It was truly difficult to find a motherboard, indeed almost as difficult as getting a new laptop to my specifications.

Maurizio performed a miracle and this morning I was able to collect my resuscitated laptop with its new motherboard and all necessary upgrades – it was almost like an Easter resurrection – and the result are here in my first post not written on a mobile phone for some time.

Buying a new IT gadget may just simply mean that you’ve bought another thing to go wrong! If it does do that then I suggest the local shop in Fornoli, “PC Start”, run by Maurizio. (Details:

Pc Start Di Canelli Maurizio

Assistenza E Vendita Informatica

V. Papa Giovanni Xxiii – Fornoli, 27
55021 Bagni Di Lucca
Tel.: (+39) 058386484)

The young man took over from the redoubtable Gino some years ago and he is just as reliable. I didn’t think that the shop would extend to telephony but I went there to enquire about accessories for my new smart-phone and Maurizio was able to supply me with an increased external memory and a USB cable to up/download my phone data and install them without any problems.

Of course, with mainstream computing (if there will be such a thing for much longer – we’ll soon be going around with combined mobile-camera-iPod-pc-torch and shaver to boot, the size of a credit card) Maurizio can assist also with setting up a Wi-Fi network, routers etc. quite apart from selling a range of tablets, laptops and so on. And for accessories, PC start can supply you with that maddeningly frustrating item – the ink cartridge both in original and equivalent cheap variety.

But the best thing is that Maurizio is actually willing to talk and advise you if you are not sure about your IT project requirements and, furthermore, will also make calls to sort out any mess you’ve got yourself into as a result of your own-hands-on experience (not happened to me yet, glad to note).

Long live local shops I say.

So I have no hesitation in recommending Maurizio Canelli’s expertise to anyone who has a computer in poor health and needs some advice on what cure to effect. Whether it’s repairing, upgrading or buying a ne w machine, Maurizio is the man.

Not forgetting, of course, that the shop also supplies all those essential items like printer cartridges, paper, speakers, routers, etc. which are part and parcel of running a computer.

Maurizio has a web site at:

http://www.pc-start.it

And a Facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/canelli.pcstart/

which includes details about opening times, facilities available and special offers and discounts including the Mammalucco Fornoli traders discount card and the Cashback world scheme.

Main details again:

PC START

V. Papa Giovanni Xxiii – Fornoli, 27
55021 Bagni Di Lucca
Tel.: (+39) 058386484)

IMPORTANT COVID-19 UPDATE FROM MAURIZIO:

As for the previous Lockdowns, PC start in Fornoli remains open as a Shop and Laboratory. In the self-certification form just specify the reason for your journey (PC Repair, Purchase of Accessories and Inks for Printers, etc.  …). As has been happening for several months now, the supply of Computers, especially Laptops, is still difficult due to a lack of electronic components. Production is significantly under demand and we don’t know when it will return to normal pace. For now, the printer cartridges are holding up, but I don’t know for how long. In this period, I am successfully carrying out a process of speeding up old Laptops (Francis Pettitt’s included!). For any information, do not hesitate to contact me. Here on Facebook, by E-Mail: info@pc-start.it, or at 327 2217386 also on WhatsApp.

(PS Maurizio’s has full anti -covid precautions in place.)

New Health Reaches Fornoli

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While having our car‘s wheel alignment attended to in Fornoli (which has its fair share of excellent garages) I had a look at the building site where Bagni di Lucca’s new health centre is taking shape.

It has been a long time in the making. Already at the start of the millennium there was a project to replace the current building occupying the local health centre.

In 2011 the project was almost abandoned but at last, in 2019, contracts were signed and in January this year building work started on the new centre which will be built on one level and, in addition to consulting rooms, will contain a hall. The whole building will naturally comply with the latest energy saving requirements.

Actually I didn’t see any sign of workmen on the site when I viewed it yesterday. However, what I did notice was that the building work is taking shape. I also noted the extra logistics required, in addition to the standard health and safety regulations in view of the present situation

The present site occupies part of a private house and, especially with the social distancing regulations caused by the current pandemic, is increasingly cramped. Indeed, it has been necessary to install an outdoor canopy to contain the overflow of clients attending.

It will be a very good thing for Bagni di Lucca when the new health centre is finally completed, hopefully by the end of this difficult year. It’s also going to be another first for Fornoli, which has been dubbed ‘The New Bagni di Lucca.’

Happiness is a Carnival Game

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Carnivals are in full swing in Italy at this time of year and bridge the gap between Christmas and Easter festivities. If you follow my blog you’ll know that I’ve written several times about this fabulous event when children and adults join together and have fun dressing up, participating in fantastic floats and, hopefully, winning the prizes for the best display. As many of you will know the word ‘Carnevale’ means ‘farewell to meat’ for the festivity is a final fling before the forty days of Lenten fasting. In the UK, pancake day (next Tuesday 25th February) is celebrated here as Martedì Grasso (mardi gras) or ‘fat Tuesday’ – the day before Ash Wednesday.

Here are just a few posts I’ve talked about ‘Il Carnevale’ in:

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/its-carnival-time-again/

https://longoio3.com/2019/03/06/over-the-moon-at-fornolis-carnival/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/14/fabulous-fun-at-fornolis-carnival/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/02/bagni-di-luccas-three-carnival-venues/

https://longoio3.com/2018/01/29/its-carnival-time-in-viareggio/

https://longoio3.com/2019/02/17/enter-the-spirit-of-il-carnevale-at-bagni-di-lucca/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/22/loads-of-bread-and-confetti-at-bdls-casino/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/15/korea-in-lucca-and-lucca-in-korea/

https://longoio3.com/2018/01/30/viareggios-bubbleman/

Viareggio holds the biggest and best carnival in our part of the world. However, there are many minor carnivals held in local villages. On Sunday, for example, we attended Valdottavo’s ‘Carnevale’. The floats were brilliantly imaginative for such a small place and fun was truly had by all, especially the children of course!

 

(Photos courtesy of Alexandra Cipriani)

All these local carnivals are free and have an intimacy which the Viareggio event, although stupendous, doesn’t quite have.

This Sunday, starting at 2 pm, Fornoli will have its very own special carnival. Organised by Marco Nicoli’s wizardry and the local Mammalucco association its theme will be the Olympic Games. I wonder what the floats will reveal. As usual it’s going to be really difficult to decide on the winner and, as a member of the jury, it’s going to be a tough choice for me!

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Be there if you can! The weather will be fine too….

 

A Chopped-up Knight and Much Else

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Last Sunday’s concert in Borgo a Mozzano’s “il bello e il buono” series took place in the town of Diecimo which, as its name implies, is ten Roman miles north of Lucca. As an added bonus we were treated before the event to a guided tour of the town’s remarkable Romanesque pieve (parish church) by Silvia Valentini, an estate agent and local historian.

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Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the church was begun in the twelfth century by order of the Countess Matilde di Canossa (see my post on this remarkable mediaeval woman, who was also responsible for our area’s distinctive Devil’s bridge or Ponte della Maddalena, at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/11/15/borgo-a-mozzanos-matilde/) .

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(Our recent ‘piena’ on the Serchio)

The church, which consists of a nave, two aisles and a large semi-circular apse, is built of local dark-hued limestone blocks.

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Above its entrance door is a beautiful carved lintel which our guide suggested represents the parable of the Vineyard. (See Matthew, Chapter 20, verses 1 to 6).

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I particularly liked the little carvings on the apse cornice and a distinctive ‘ocular’ window. Be aware, too, that the lower of the two entrances of the campanile lead into the town gaol.

 

Next to the nave stands the imposing bell tower, with its characteristic succession of single, bifurcate, trifurcate and quadrifurcate windowed stages.

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The pieve’s stately interior has sculptures dating from the first half of the thirteenth century.

 

There’s a bas-relief depicting the prophet Isaiah, two column-bearing lions and a capital with eagles.

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The sad thing is that these sculptures are all that remain of a pulpit which was once on the same scale as that which can still be admired in Barga cathedral. The eighteenth century was not so appreciative and the pulpit, (or ambo as it’s technically known as), was crudely dismantled and largely dispersed.

I absolutely adore these lions: one is seen attacking the evil monster hydra:

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The other is fending off an attack from a heretic who is trying to stab its throat with a dagger.

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Clearly the lions are symbols of the Church Triumphant.

 

Other sculptures include a thirteenth-century hexagonal baptismal font demonstrating that once Roman Catholic baptism meant complete immersion – still practised by some Christian denominations to this day (e.g. the Baptists and the Church of Latter Day Saints).

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There’s an outstanding Roman sarcophagus adorned with lion masks:

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There’s also this strange slab depicting a knight almost hidden behind a large shield and locally known as King Pepin. Silvia theorised with regard to two odd features of this sculpture

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One, it’s not that the knight is a dwarf but that the horse merely carries, as was the wont of the times, the helmet of the dead knight in a funeral procession. It’s rather like the British army’s tradition of mounting a dead warrior’s boots upside down in the stirrups.

Two, the lower part of the slab was quickly finished off by an apprentice, hence its clumsy appearance.  Perhaps the knight had lost favour or his descendants failed to finish paying for the monument?

After this enjoyable and instructive visit we made our way towards the birth-house of Diecimo’s local hero, Saint Giovanni Leonardi, passing his recently-erected statue near the churchyard on the way.

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San Leonardi was the youngest of seven children born to artisan parents in Diecimo. Aged seventeen, he began a ten-year study to become a certified pharmacist’s assistant in Lucca. Later, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1572.

Among Leonardi’s achievements was to gather a group of volunteers to work in hospitals and prisons. He was also an important contributor to the devotional movement known as the Counter-Reformation and took much interest in the Council of Trent reforms as a result of which he founded a congregation of secular priests, the Lucca fathers, which still exists to this day under the name ‘Congregation of the Mother of God”.

Indeed, our host at San Giovanni Leonardi’s house, padre Francesco Petrillo, is a member of this order which has in recent years returned to minister at its founder’s birthplace.

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He displayed to us the sweet presepi or Christmas cribs in the pieve’s sacristy which he makes himself and sells to boost church funds.

 

Padre Petrillo also showed us the precious collection of saintly reliquaries containing the bones of various martyrs.

 

There’s much more to say about San Giovanni Leonardi: his resilient personality and his friendship with Saint Philip Neri (without whom London would not have had its Brompton oratory), for example.

Leonardi was made a saint in 1938 by Pope Pius XI; his liturgical feast is celebrated on October the 9th and his relics lie in the church in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome. Diecimo, however, has the honour of his birthplace and housing a museum dedicated to him:

Not surprisingly, Saint Giovanni Leonardi is the patron saint of chemists given his long career in this occupation. (I wonder how many Boots assistants know that…)

The fourth concert of the musical season promoted by the Borgo a Mozzano’s Salotti music school was an absolute treat. ..I don’t think I’ve been so enveloped by guitarists: the room was small and I was triphonically surrounded by the players. No problem, the music was brilliantly performed (and with acoustic guitars there’s no problem of anything being too loud).

The Lydian Guitar Trio is formed by Nicola Fenzi, Dario Atzori and Giacomo Brunini (the artistic director of the festival) and the programme ranged from the classical period to the present day with music by Filippo Gragnani, Astor Piazzolla, Paul Hindemith, and contemporary composers Antonio Gabriele Martinique and Luca Guidi. It was particularly enjoyable to have living composers in the packed room introducing their music and they could have had no better set of musicians to perform their adventurous offerings.

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The encore was a repeat of one of four beautiful Basque tunes; it was truly an utterly memorable way to spend a somewhat intemperate evening.

If you are a Fornolian try not to miss next Sunday’s concert, on the first of December, which will take place at 5 pm in Fornoli’s parish church. It’ll be presented by our journalist in resident and master of ceremonies Marco Nicoli and is sure to be another delectable way to spend a late autumn afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Fornoli’s Fish Friday

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One doesn’t have to be a Roman Catholic to enjoy a fish meal on a Friday, although this Papal ordinance constitutes one of the five precepts of the Church. In the words of the Catechism:

“You will observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence from meat on the days prescribed by the Church.”

These days include all Fridays, in memory of the death of Jesus on Good Friday.  In addition the fish is a symbol of Christ: Greek for fish is ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthys), the acronym for Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr which translates into English as ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’.

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Current concepts regarding personal well-being and responsibility towards that of our planet enforce the importance of fasting or having a day where meat is not eaten. This, for me, underlines the emphasis Pope Francis has given towards the safeguarding of our beautiful Mother Earth. Indeed, the Pope, following his recent visit to New Delhi, one of the world’s most fascinating but also one of its most polluted cities, has, in the latest version of the Roman Catholic catechism, placed crimes against our planets as an ecological sin.

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Since the second church precept states that “You will confess all your sins at least once a year” this will clearly persuade believers (and non-believers too, hopefully) to be aware of the gravity of their ecological sins whether it be failing to differentiate one’s household waste to devastating, via slash-and-burn, our immeasurably precious rain forests.

I doubt whether many of these thoughts enter the minds of those of us who queue up to wait for battered fish, soggy chips and mushy peas at their favourite outlet. However, they are clearly present in the deepest recesses of our psyche as they are in supermarkets’ publicity campaigns; a Waitrose card, for example, will give a 20% discount on fish on Fridays.

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Recently, Fornoli’s Bar Serra has created an enviable reputation for serving excellent Friday fish meals with customers booking from well outside the comune to enjoy their Piscean delicacy.

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Last Friday I was invited by a friend to savour Bar Serra’s offering. That week it was ‘spaghetti allo scoglio’ which translates as pasta with seafood,’ scoglio’ meaning rock. (It’s really better to translate the dish as ‘seafood pasta’ since that word ‘rock’ might remind one of a stiff drink!)

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Indeed, much of what was offered with the spaghetti could have been prised from marine rock pools as they are shell-fish. Here is an Italian-English glossary of what was served to us:

  • Calamari = squid
  • Cozze/mitilo = mussels
  • Gamberetto = shrimp
  • Scampi = scampi
  • Tellina = Cockle
  • Vongole = clams

We thoroughly enjoyed our pasta allo scoglio. The ambience was clean, light and airy, the place was not too crowded, service was prompt and with a smile and the price of euros ten which included a dessert of either tiramisu or pasta cotta, a quarter litre of wine, bread and cover represented excellent value.

Every week the seafood platter is different. Next Friday it’ll be ‘fritto misto’ (mixed fried), something we generally enjoy at Viareggio’s port but which will be particularly welcome here in rain-sodden Fornoli.

Incidentally, if one hasn’t an appetite for seafood Bar Serra serves an equally excellent two-course ‘pranzo lavorativo’ (worker’s lunch). Whatever you decide to feast on get there early on Fridays to secure a table…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeeps, Jags and Joy at Fornoli

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The late summer vintage car gathering in Fornoli, combined with a crafts market, is one event that I truly look forward to. It’s now in its second year.

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There is nostalgia for a time when traffic jams were occasional, when children could sit between their parents on one continuous front seat, when seat belts were unknown, when the AA man on his motorcycle and sidecar saluted you as you drove past him, when gears were changed in the steering column, when dickey seats opened up out the rear boot….ah I could go on.

One car at the event which sums up quite a few of these images was the Triumph Roadster 1800 dating from 1946 and appearing  in the TV series ‘Bergerac’. Designed for the US market, (hence its name – a roadster is what Americans call a two-seater sports car) the car, a remodelling of the firm’s pre-war Dolomite, has a largely aluminium body because of post-war steel shortages and is the last to feature dickey seats. Performance isn’t exactly its best feature (it can barely touch 80 mph) but its appearance remains quite impressive. Only around two thousand came off the assembly lines and Italy has three of them.

Here is a selection of other vintage vehicles at Fornoli last Sunday for lovers of older cars to spot. Note the Citroen DS (pronounced Deese i.e. Goddess in French) with its pioneering hydropneumatic suspension, disc brakes and futuristic looks, the Alfas, the Fiat 1100s, 600s and 500s (we still miss ours, crunched up in 2017), the MGs, the Jaguar, Jeep and other delightful and elegant specimens when cars were still being designed and assembled by humans rather than computers.

At the end of the morning the stirring rumble of vintage engines filled the air as the procession of cars set off for their proud owners’ lunch. What devotion has gone into making these cars look still wonderfully young while we….

Bingo!

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As shopping malls have threatened local high street shops but are themselves currently threatened by on-line shopping with door-to-door deliveries (soon, apparently, to be carried out by drones), so bingo halls took over cinemas only to be themselves endangered by, of all things, gospel churches. For example, the Woolwich (London) Granada, a splendid art deco building with an interior designed by Russian set designer Theodore Komisarjevsk, was turned into a Bingo hall only to be changed into a gospel church. The former Cinema is now known as the Ebenezer Building or Cathedral of Christ Faith Tabernacle.

Woolwich has another fine art deco cinema, the Odeon, which now too has been transformed into a Gospel ‘New Wine’ church. The transition from cinema to spiritual centre was direct, without any Bingo hall intervention. At least the building still stands as a supreme example of modernist architecture – Sandra and I were part of the committee to safeguard its future and, indeed, saw the last film to be projected there:  James Cameron’s 1997 ‘Titanic’.

No such transformations have affected Fornoli’s parish hall: it has unswervingly served the local community for many a year as a community centre. It was, therefore, with pleasure that we participated in a Bingo afternoon with my wife Sandra’s mum, who is now just two years short of her hundredth birthday.

The hall has a built-in Bingo display which still operates (although a couple of the lights weren’t working). We spent a storm-ridden afternoon playing the game which in Italy is known as ‘Tombola’.

 

Tombola/Bingo, incidentally, was born in the city of Naples in the 18th century. According to tradition it was created in 1734 as a result of a discussion between King Charles of Bourbon and Father Gregorio Maria Rocco for a game which could lead to friendly family-style gambling and would not interfere with ecclesiastical edicts.

Although we didn’t ‘tombola’ on any game and win one of the various prizes which ranged from pasta to pesto, we had great fun. Even more we were able to partake of a veritable feast in the shape of the ‘rinfresco’ at the end of a slightly mentally-challenging afternoon in which I almost ‘gave numbers’. This phrase, in Italian is ‘dare i numeri’, means that one is seriously in danger of losing one’s trolley!

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The truth, however,  is that, when Italians  say ‘giving the numbers’, they are referring to those who interpret the cabal to try to guess the future through numbers, letters, dreams or through the intercession of supernatural beings. Unhappily, wizards, astrologers and aspiring prophets try to define human and universal facts with predictions that often turn out to be unsuccessful. It is, therefore, very common for sorcerers to advise those (willing to pay the) on how to get a little luck, and play the lottery. Unfortunately, the numbers sold are far from being the winning ones!

However, we did win in the end! The great and magnanimous Marco Nicoli, chair of the Mammalucco association who organises such events, gave Sandra’s mum the opportunity of extraction the winning lottery number and, moreover, presented her with a lovely marigold!

 

Enter the Spirit of ‘Il Carnevale’ at Bagni di Lucca!

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The word “Carnevale” means “farewell to meat” and, in the Christian calendar, is the last time to have a real binge before the forty days of Lent austerity which, this year, starts on Wednesday, March 6th and ends on Thursday, April 18th, Easter being on Sunday April 21st. It’s going to be truly a late Easter – the latest date Easter can fall upon is April 25th and one will have to wait until 2038 for that to happen again.  Incidentally, the earliest date Easter can fall upon is March 22nd. We got pretty close to that date in 2016 when Easter fell on March 27th.

Easter is a moveable feast set according to the Christian liturgical calendar’s lunar cycles rather than its fixed feasts, like Christmas, which are set by the solar calendar. I don’t quite know why some liturgical feasts are fixed and others are moveable but I feel they may be a reflection of primeval pagan beliefs in which the Moon is regarded as the female principle as the Sun is the male source.

Parenthetically, the day on which Easter falls in any particular year is computed (as has been ever since the Council of Nicaea in 325) as the first Sunday after the first full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox of March 21st.

All over Italy Carnevale is celebrated with colourful processions, events and costumes. Those who have been to the carnivals of Viareggio and Venice will know what it’s like. It’s a great pity we don’t have a similar carnival season in the UK. It would certainly liven up things between the end of Christmas and the start of Easter. (Of course, there is one of Europe’s biggest carnivals at Notting hill but it should really be called a festival as it occurs outside the traditional carnival season).

Bagni di Lucca is no exception to the celebrations of ‘Carnevale’. Indeed, readers of my blog will have come across my descriptions of the various Carnevali we have had in the following posts, which are full of photos of happy participants in festive costume:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/from-carnevale-to-pasqua/

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/il-carnevale-di-fornoli/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/its-carnival-time-again/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/two-carnivals-at-bagni-di-lucca-and-more/

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/villas-carnival/

https://longoio3.com/2018/01/29/its-carnival-time-in-viareggio/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/02/bagni-di-luccas-three-carnival-venues/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/14/fabulous-fun-at-fornolis-carnival/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/16/bread-and-confetti-at-bagni-di-luccas-casino/

https://longoio3.com/2018/02/22/loads-of-bread-and-confetti-at-bdls-casino/

What about Carnevale at Bagni di Lucca this year? In our area there will be two main events.

One is at the casino of Ponte di Serraglio with the inimitable presentation of Roberto Lucchesi:

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The other is at Fornoli under the direction of Marco Nicoli who has asked me to be part of the jury in selecting the best costumes and acts. (Note the reference to the first lunar landing fifty years ago….)

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A postscript: since there is still no Carnevale at the correct pre-Lenten time in Britain I experienced as a small child one of those times when one bursts into tears. It was in Italy when, as a child born and bred in the UK, but with an English-naturalised Italian-born mum, I was, in Milan, invited by my grandparents to a children’s Carnevale party. I turned up in my everyday clothes to discover that all the other children were dressed up for the occasion; the boys, for example, as Arlecchino or Donald Duck, the girls as the azure fairy or Colombina. When I overheard an adult saying to another, referring to my plain clothes: ‘why isn’t he in a costume?’ I began to sob ‘I want a costume too’. The occasion was saved by a cousin lending me his Arlecchino hat.

In retrospect, I excuse my grandparents but the situation for a child of not being properly ‘fancy-dressed’ for a special occasion can never be forgotten. Perhaps that’s why Sandra and I as adults, still love dressing up for special occasions like Rochester’s Dickens festival, or Lucca’s comics and games.

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(At Rochester’s Dickens Festival somewhere in the past….)

 

 

 

Living One’s Christmas

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One December day has followed another with ever more gloriously blue skies. However, we are now due for a change with night temperatures down to minus 4 and the real possibility of snow during the day.  So let’s stock up our larder with all the Christmas goodies that are coming our way including panforte, panettone, and loads of chocolate. Let us also remember to buy something more to donate to those in need (both of the two-legged and four-legged variety.)

Fornoli square  has the right idea:

 

And Tuodi has too.

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There will, no doubt, be other collection points:

Also at Tuodi (which is on the way from Fornoli to Fornaci di Barga) there are ecologically minded discounts on food which are near their sell-by date. It’s crazy to think that in many instances over half the food on sale in supermarkets eventually finds its way to land-fill sites!

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Don’t forget these two unmissable events.

The first is the traditional Bagni di Lucca Christmas Concert at the library (former Anglican Church) which is this 13th December. There are still a few places left (booking is essential) and there will be an entrance donation of euros five which will go to the restoration of the Bagni di Lucca protestant cemetery.

 

 

The second is yet another living crib. This time it’s at Ghivizzano. I can vouch for the excellence of this Christmas nativity!

 

 

Hope you’ve got your Christmas together. Ours is getting there thanks to Carlotta…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Thanksgivings!

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This Sunday 11th November at Fornoli there’s the traditional Thanksgiving Day.

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Among the events there will be

  • A parade of tractors.
  • Chestnuts and other chestnut-derived goodies together with mulled wine on Saturday and Sunday afternoon prepared by the Alpini.
  • A folk song group
  • Craft and food stalls
  • Work produced by local school children
  • Chainsaw sculptures
  • At 12.30 at the Lanternina restaurant a production of ‘The Devil’s bridge’ by the Teatrino Del Serchio company.
  • At 4 pm the tractors procession will be repeated. At 5 pm the works exhibited in primary school will be awarded and there will be dances accompanied by popular music.

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Incidentally Thanksgiving Day has been recognized as a national event since 1951 and takes place between the 11th November (St Martin’s day) and 17 January (St Anthony Abbot’s day, patron of shepherds and farmers.)

PS Don’t forget, especially if you come from the other side of the pond American Thanksgiving at Alla Cantina di Carignano with Chef Paolo Monti on Thursday 22 November starting with an aperitif at 12.30  (Full menu in your November copy of ‘Grapevine’ magazine.

To reserve: 333 8617962 or editor@luccagrapevine.com

 

For more pictures of previous thanksgiving events in Fornoli plus videos of traditional folk groups and dances do see my posts at:

Thanksgiving for Tractors

Harvest Festival Fornoli Style