I Am Missing That City, Its People ...

Coffee at Douce in Piazza Matteotti, Genova.

Or perhaps I am generally missing good coffee.  Even the highway autogrills do good coffee in Italy.

I am missing green beans, lightly cooked.  Tomatoes from Il Bio di Soziglia.  And adding the best riccotta from Le Gramole Olioteca to that mix.  Missing Francesca and Norma too.

Then I miss the possibility of eating Ravioli fatti in casa al “tuccu” di carne at Roberto's place, Il Genovese because Tuccu is the most divine sauce ever invented ... any place here on this earth.

I miss Stefano's restaurant because there are always stunning surprises in store when you eat and drink there. 

I miss the possibility of hearing Donatella singing and Luciano play there.  I am learning to miss Donatella's fried squash flowers too.  They were divine that night she took Helen and I home and cooked for us.  

I miss Barbara and Alessandra.  I most definitely miss Stefano.  I miss Lorenzo. 

I miss the 'ciao's' that I hear in the street.  I miss Pino & Silvana, and their divine pizzas.

I miss Boccadasse and my seat up on the hill, I miss Outi, Paula and Paola.  There is Davide, Federico, and Leah, and so many others. 

I'm thinking now  ... perhaps it all adds up to the fact that I'm simply missing Genova. And forgive me if your name isn't here because I'm sure to be missing you too  :-)

Yes.

Below, a photograph of Luciano playing bass guitar (really, he is), taken at a performance he and Donatella gave recently.

In These Days ...

These days find me consumed by a writing course that I'm doing ...

Consumed.  In a way that I haven't been since those rare occasions when school or uni were teaching me things that I was passionate about. 

Writing was my first love, closely followed by photography, way back in my childhood.  But it was writing that took most of my attention when I lived in New Zealand.  Then I flew, I was teacher for while, I wandered some, and I mostly misplaced my writing ... in one sense. 

In another way, blog-writing arrived and I started out on a different kind of writing.  One that I probably didn't really consider as 'writing' ... it occurs to me now, as I realise I have never stopped writing.  I only stopped writing that novel.  I only packed away my manuscript of interviews with climbers.  I only stopped the book-orientated writing.

But anyway, I am writing again.  I have book I want to finish soon.  It's complicated.  I almost made it simple but that would be silly.  I like complications ... why would I write a simple book. 

All that to say, if you're thinking you have a book in you, if you want to explore the whole process ... from the idea to the publishing (including all the tiny details along the way), then I highly recommend you take Christine Mason Miller's course, The Conscious Booksmith.

It's consuming, and fun, and satisfying, and exciting ... it contains all the elements of a damn fine adventure actually.

Oh!  And adventures.  I'm off road-tripping to France next week.  My Belgian bloke has surprised me with a small pilgrimage, in honour of one of my favourite New Zealand authors.  Really surprised and delighted me.

In July, I'm road-tripping, with Helen, to Italy.  Oh the adventures we have planned.  I shall be blogging that road-trip.

August is Norway and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to spending time with Ren.

For now ... it's all about waiting for this special couple's little girl to arrive in the world. And there a ballet performance and a poetry reading planned for tomorrow.  Dank u wel, to the lovely Ruth, who organises some of my best adventures here.

Stories and People ...

Maybe we refuse to acknowledge our common origins because racism causes amnesia, or because we find it unbelievable that in those days long past the entire world was our kingdom, an immense map without borders, and our legs were the only passport required.

Eduardo Galeano, Mirrors - Stories of Almost Everyone.

Re-entry is always difficult.  My life in Genova is so different to the life I live here in Antwerp.  And being house-keeper in this quirky little Belgian house means settling back into that domestic life of cleaning and cooking and taking care of people.

It's also about me creating a space that I like to spend time in and so there are peonies in the big vase downstairs ... my laundry is done, the floors have been cleaned, bread was baked, meals cooked.  The transition  is complete, I am a housewife and all kinds of other things too, again.

I've done a couple of school-runs with Miss 9 (almost Miss 10), we're on a countdown to her fourth of July birthday.  And one of those school-runs involved a much-needed detour to my place of worship and peace ... De Slegte.  I found treasure, of course.

Eduardo Galeano's book, Mirrors - Stories of Almost Everyone, was my tram-companion today.  I love that  man's humour.  His intelligence more than anything but the way that he writes is rather exquisite.  I heard him interviewed a while back and thought, 'Hmmmm'. 

I have a copy of his Children of the Days too. 

In other news, in news from Genova ... Giovanni is a friend I met long-ago via the internet.  Raised in Milan, he moved to New Zealand some years ago with his wife, and it is from there that he too writes the most marvelous things.

You can imagine, it's rare that we find ourselves in the same country at the same time.  Until this last visit he was always in Italy when I wasn't however we did catch up back in 2010, when I was at home in New Zealand.  And this time the gods of travel allowed us a small meeting.

He arrived in Genova last Sunday and we met in Piazza De Ferrari.  The antiques market was still on and it was fun to wander with him, hearing his stories of this thing and that. 

I was obviously beyond temptation having purchased the beautiful shawl.  (Actually I reached home with about 2euro in change in my pocket.  This is my traveling life, the common story of Di wandering... New Zealand to Istanbul being the most disturbingly close-call of all).

Giovanni and I lunched, we caught up on stories and then, that evening we were able to join Barbara, Donatella, Luciano, and friends of theirs, for aperitivo out in the city.  It was so much fun.  But that's Genova to me ... aka La Superba.

My airline had contacted me that afternoon and so there was the scramble as I worked to get ready to leave a day earlier than I had planned.  Gert has since expressed bemused surprise that he made that mistake while booking for me.  We never make these mistakes and, while it was a situation that made me laugh, there was so much I was leaving until that last day in the city. 

Mmmm, children, don't leave everything until the last moment.

Anyway, I left Giovanni in the city on the Monday, as he wandered there before he headed off along the exquisite Ligurian coastline.  And I gifted my wine and Monday-food to Barbara, then left.  It was over again.

And below ... a photograph I took of Giovanni as we said our goodbyes until next time we find ourselves in the same country again. 

After the Fire ...

After the fire in the previous post had burned long and hard, they hooked those red hot tiles out and dropped them into the preheated cooking pit.

As I watched, it occured to me that they almost appeared to be fishing - carefully but quickly completing the transfer.

Alison Lurie, on great subversive works of childrens literature.

'The great subversive works of children's literature suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of shopping malls and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form. They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.' -

Alison Lurie, from Don't Tell the Grown-ups, 1990.

Found over on Terri Windling's blog.

Meetings ...

One of the things I love about arriving in Genova, is catching up with the people I know.  Last Tuesday I had plans meet up with Outi, an ex-photography workshop client who lives here in the city. Like me, she fell for with this place but unlike me, she managed to move here.

We met where everyone meets, on the steps of Palazzo Ducale, and immediately headed inside for coffee and much-conversation. We had months to catch up on before deciding we would set off for the port area as Outi had international provisions to buy - spices from Thailand and Africa and,being a port city, there are two supermarkets jam-packed with foods from all over the  world.

Lunchtime rolled round and my idea was that lunch at Trattoria Ugo, where she hadn't yet eaten, might be a good idea.  Oh ... it was a very good idea.  They do things with anchovies that really need to be tasted rather than explained.

I worked through the afternoon, fighting a huge desire to nap, then met with Barbara for an aperitivo at the end of her working day.  She took me into one of the old cafes here, down in the ancient part of the city, and we caught up  on much over hot chocolate.

It was a talking/working kind of day.  A good day spent with good people.

The photograph below ... a glimpse of one of my favourite carruggi here.