DAILY DOINGS - 18

A day that begins with a nice man bringing you these has got to be a good one:

Later I had a tea in my "new" bar . With it came this pretty plate of temptation, to which I immediately gave in [because chocolate biscuits are like chips - their calories absolutely cannot count when you are out!]

Later still, my new cookery experiment turned out well: this is maiale alle mele [pork with apples], again from the Cucchiaio d'Argento. The instructions tell you to strain the sauce [of red wine, brodo, mustard, cloves and seasonings] and to pass the diced apples through the sieve as well. I was half-way through doing the latter when I thought , "Why?" and stopped. What is wrong with serving a few pieces of caramelised apple with this? So I did.

Such a day requires only a song to make it perfect. Let's have a Welshwoman singing an Italian lyric. I think you'll all recognise the tune!

Katherine Jenkins - L'Amore sei tu

NOVELLA

In youth, she would have lingered, confided in the barman and probably allowed him to get her drunk. But the sophisticated older woman, looking every inch the confident European, calmly sipped her tea.

His mobile number was keyed in, yet pride and considerable experience in the art of being stood up prevented her from making the call. Incredible as it may seem to a younger generation, she had not given him her own mobile number. She had lived in this country long enough to know that its inhabitants were rarely punctual so after what she judged a reasonable 20 minutes she paid the bill and left.

“Fool, fool!” she chided herself on the way home: “It serves you right for agreeing to a blind date at your age.” Then the self-doubt kicked in: What if he had peeked through the café window [she had been the only customer at that time of day] and not liked what he had seen? “Stop it!” she told herself sternly. “You’re not that bad for your years, you know - unless, of course, he wants a young trophy, in which case it’s a different ball-game.” She quite forgot that she had been watching the street like a hawk whilst pretending to read her magazine.

And yet.. and yet… When they had had their one telephone conversation he had not seemed the kind of man who was looking for an airheaded bimbo. But then, he had not seemed the kind of man who would not turn up, either.

Originally, they had agreed to meet the day before. However, the afternoon had brought torrential rain and she had called him to postpone their “date”. As she had expected, he had offered to come and pick her up but she had declined, not because she felt that there was any danger – he was, after all, known to her friends – but because she had wanted to go to the hairdresser’s first and hadn’t liked to say so. She had thought she could hear the near-relief in his voice as they rearranged their encounter: it is a type of relief common among those whose lives are built around theatre, cinema, art gallery and café visits – all activities which can be satisfactorily enjoyed alone – a sort of self-protective mechanism that enables you to keep the familiar barrier around you, even when companionship is what you tell yourself you want.

Later, she deleted his landline message without listening to it. Thus are chances lost among the timid.

To be continued [maybe]....

A GIRL AND A WOMAN IN ITALY

My Cardiff hairdresser, who happened to be Sicilian, had a print of this photo displayed prominently in his salon. It is a very attractive photo and is an excellent evocation of the period [1951]. The young men certainly seem to be enjoying themselves but take a closer look at the girl: does she seem happy to you? I've always thought that she looks rather uncomfortable for, flattering though it can be, there comes a point where such attention can also feel threatening.

Some of the comments I received in response to yesterday's Manuel post set me thinking and remembering: when I first came to Italy, in 1969, I was followed everywhere by young and older men. I think it was just because I was pale-skinned and blonde at a time when British girls had a reputation for being very free and easy with their favours whilst Italian girls were hardly let out of the house! I used to find it all quite frightening because a man with good intentions does not, as a rule, approach a woman in the street in Britain. I used to run home to Lucia [to whose family I had been engaged to teach English] to tell her my woes and she would just laugh kindly at me. "How is a man going to get to know you if he doesn't speak to you?" she would ask. "What do you think the passeggiata is for?"

As I grew older and kept coming back, the attention lessened and one good thing about ageing is that it does "free" you in this way. But you do not become invisible to men as you do in Britain once you are over 50. An Italian man will still, sometimes approach you and there is still, from time to time, unwelcome attention. Men of your acquaintance, whether married or not, will always notice what you are wearing or what your perfume is and remark upon it and Italian men can certainly turn a phrase!

- Which brings me to the "spiel". Oh, I did enjoy this when I was younger! The men had the wooing phrases ready for the compliment-starved British girls off pat. It would begin with some remarks about your fair beauty, move along to how he would like to give a rose to this incomparable English one ["Welsh!" I would hiss at this point] meander down paths concerning the fact that there was no one like you in the whole of Italy and end with your eager swain threatening to throw himself off a balcony or bridge [whichever was nearer] if you did not satisfy his ardour. The "Welsh!" correction was my undoing, really, for if you interrupted, he couldn't just continue with the next part - oh, no! It all had to start again and before you knew it it would be 1 am and Mamma would be waiting up for him!

I have no idea what it is like to be young, pretty and foreign in Italy these days, of course, but I would imagine that the girls have become more assertive and the young men not noticeably less romantic!