Nadolig Llawen

is the only Welsh I know...

It means Merry Christmas. Actually I know a few more words now, but couldn’t string a sentence together if you paid me. Here is an idealised picture of me and my husband showing us sitting by the fire, reading our books and snoozing with cats. This never happens.

So, here we are at the nether end of the year, shortest day been and gone and herein it gets lighter every day, not that you will notice for a while probably. Anyway, I was in Florence in my last post, promising you more adventures from that long ago trip. I started it and will share it unedited because if I don’t I won’t be posting anything before Christmas and that seems a bit rude since so many new people have signed up to get my newsletter (thank you!!!). Just hang on a mo and apologies for lack of polish...

This evening I am travelling to London with the ald Kentuckian (listen to his latest podcast where some of his old buddies get together on zoom and talk about Christmas in Bardstown in the 70s - priceless, not least because of the fabulous southern drawls) this evening to stay at my sister’s lovely home in Battersea. We are switching it up this year by going out to eat on Christmas day! We booked a seriously fancy pants place in Mayfair for mega £££ as big old treat, but then discovered it was all fur coat and no knickers and remembered that we don’t really like this kind of thing (a sorbet ‘palette cleanser’ listed as a whole course ffs) so cancelled just in the nick of time to get the deposit refunded. Re-booked in to a somewhat less fancy pants Indian place somewhere in Battersea Power Station, which feels much more comfortable and I have no doubt will delicious.

My Mum remembers Battersea Power Station when it was actually that, spewing coal smoke out of its four chimneys instead of gold leaf confetti from Sting’s penthouse apartment. I’m not nostalgic about losing coal powered energy, especially from the centre of London, but I do wish it could have been made into a more municipal space and not just second, third and fourth homes for the planet’s billionaires. Still, that’s because I am a woke communist but I will still enjoy eating there on Sunday, or is it Monday?

There will be wider family stuff too, but mostly just me in a flouncy skirt, my two most favourite men and some fancy popadoms - can’t wait! What are you all up to? Traditional or maverick? Big and noisy or small and perfectly formed? Do tell.

Anyway, back to Firenze -

I have no linear memory of the week I spent in Florence, it is more a series of tableaus in my head, in a random order.  Miranda remembers me being sick on the ferry.  I don’t remember that in particular, possibly because I’ve been sick on nearly every ferry I have ever been on.

My abiding sense of that whole trip is one of awe.  Walking around with eyes on stalks, soaking up the newness of every experience.  Orange (orange?!) tic tacs from a vending machine in a laundrette; paper pants, because despite vast amounts of luggage apparently paper pants were required, made from j-cloth material purchased in La Rinascente department store;  finding an English bookshop because there is always time for reading - I bought ‘Gower Street’ by Claire Rayner and still remember the vivid picture she painted of 1800s London; ordering gelati in a restaurant as treat and being given dolcelatte - crestfallen faces, epic disappointment and confusion;  seeing fresh pasta and gnocchi in window displays and thinking what a great present that would be for my Mum (after a journey from Florence to Surrey to Scotland).

We went to the Medici Chapel and saw Michelangelo’s sculptures on the tombs of the Medici brothers.  They are magnificent, huge, bonkers.  The figures of women are Night and Dawn, and the men are Day and Dusk.  The women look just like men with some rather awkward bags attached where breasts should be.  Michelangelo was good but he really should have paid a little more attention to female anatomy.  His David is everything you think it’s going to be but bigger, except the penis which is smaller.

We went too to the Uffizi Gallery, an extraordinary treasure trove of art that I had somehow absorbed by osmosis from books and then saw in real life, rather like seeing a film star up close and personal.  Botticelli’s Venus holding herself with effortlessly perfect posture as she sailed in on her scallop shell. The Holy Family by Michelangelo (there is lot of Michelangelo in Florence), actually looking like a family if, as usual, a little mismatched in age, the colours of the period positively singing all these centuries later, the fabric flowing and moving (he may have struggled with anatomy but by golly he could do fabric).  I was truly star struck and slightly overwhelmed.

Miranda naturally collected a number of admirers over the week.  She was, and still is, very beautiful and Italian men are Italian men, and a lot of them were very beautiful too, so, chemistry ensued.  Miranda had an assignation with a handsome student of architecture after our wander round the gallery, and she and I made an arrangement to meet at the gate of the Boboli Gardens, in which the Uffizi Gallery sits, when the gardens closed.  They were incredible gardens although I recall them with little detail.  I may have gone back in to the gallery as well, but either way I passed a happy couple of hours on my own and then went to the gate to wait for Miranda.  And wait.  And wait.

Miranda did not come.  This was a moment when a little time travel to get a couple of mobile phones would have been useful but this was 1975 and such things were still a galaxy away.  I decided that something had happened and that I should get myself back to the Locanda.  I knew the name of the street and that I had to go over the Ponte Vecchio.  That was about it.

I asked people for directions, astonishing myself with my ability to do so in pigeon Italian.  I seemed to be creating reactions of two kinds, maternal and carnal.  The Mammas clucking as they pointed and shooed me on, obviously wanting me to find ‘la mia cugina’ quickly because, you know, Italian men.  These Italian men sensed an opportunity to be first saviour then, presumably, ravager.  I was an awkwardly blossoming thirteen year old with a lusty interest in boys but I knew the difference between teenage flirting and old man letching.  Despite my rising panic and my need to keep moving to avoid getting pinched by lecherous lotharios I couldn’t help but fall in love with the Ponte Vecchio - those ancient, tiny houses and shops perched precariously on either side of the bridge. I very badly wanted to live in one, preferably with a doughty Mamma who would hit the inappropriate lotharios with her broom.

You’ll be glad to know I got back to Via Nazionale unscathed by using the the good English girl’s training embedded in me that if in trouble find a policeman. That is is exactly what I did, a fatherly one (not all Italian men are on the prowl) who made sure I got back in one piece and into the arms of my frantic cousin.  It turns out there is more than gate to the Boboli Gardens.

It was Easter during our visit which is a very big deal in such a catholic country.  I grew up in a catholic household and while we were all lapsing all over the place I was still a fan of the high church stuff, all that theatre and incense, and no one does that quite like the Italians. It was standing room only in the Duomo for the Easter Sunday service, full proper pageantry on display, heady incense filled air, sing song sermon (it helps when you can’t understand the language - has more potency that way I think) topped off by the Cardinal firing off a rocket shaped dove from the high alter along a wire that is attached to a cart load of fireworks outside.  The dove wizzed over my head leaving a trail of sparks that fell delicately to earth, singeing the odd eyebrow on the way down. Way to celebrate our good lord being crucified I thought.

Well, I didn’t think that really. I can’t remember if I had any thought about it other than what an in credible spectacle I was witnessing.

I was going to end this post with a recipe for gnocchi because I want to make some in remembrance the tragic, powdery green mouldy nubs that made it to my mother in Scotland. But that will have to wait until next year because I am done for 2023.

I hope you all have wonderful festive break whatever you are doing - please tell me your Christmas stories. I wonder what Florence would be like at Christmas - maybe like this?

(Isn’t this a magical picture? I can’t find the name of the photographer to credit them - if you recognise this please let me know who it’s by.)