GOTTA LOVE THE ITALIANS!

JP was in a retrospective mood the other day at lunchtime; not unusual, but these moods are becoming more frequent as the years roll by.   I blame his Grandmother Margot, who took him to have his fortune told when he was quite young. The woman - who had quite a reputation among the great and the good in Cannes, having read the crystal ball for many a star and starlet - told him that he would marry a blonde [not specifying bottle or natural] that they would have three children and that he would live to the [what seemed to him at the time]  ripe old age of 76. Now at 74 he seems to be convinced that - as she was right about the wife and the kids, she must be spot on with his departure date. Hence the looking back.

He began by talking about his mother - how she managed to bring him up alone - her strong right arm, her inflexible decision to keep him away from trouble by locking him in their flat, and his many ways of thwarting her. How he loved to escape and play with his friends, always managing to return home before she arrived back from her work.

And, as always when JP tells a story he digresses as other characters are introduced. His uncle Marcel, the fisherman who went barefooted summer and winter, with the exception of his wedding day,  from there he segued to his Tante Carmen, perhaps the most Italian of the brood. She was a hearty buxom woman, always laughing - totally different from her sister Antoinette, JP's mother. She adored JP and it was on one of the many occasions when they were together that they witnessed what I want to call The Italian Comic Opera Invasion. 

It is 1940 and JP is 4 years old, a charming black-eyed cherub with a naughty streak. He remembers being taken by Tante Carmen to the Croisette and that there were crowds of people. He could hear some chanting and booing in the distance that grew louder with every passing minute. At last there was movement in the road  some flag waving and then, as the procession arrived he could see they were soldiers, in full uniform and all wearing long plumes of feathers in their hats.

And riding eight abreast in wobbly formation, on bicycles.

The chanting was now loud as, all around him, young man were shouting:

Les Bersaghlieri sont venu avec les plumes aux chapeaux

Ils sont reparte  avec ses plumes au "cu".

Les Bersaghlieri have arrived with their plumes in their hats

They will  leave with the plumes up their arses.

JP was shouting loudly along with the chant until Carmen grabbed his ear and tugged on it. 'Be quiet idiot' she scolded him...'You have more Italian blood in you than French.'

What amazes me about this story is the fact that, after going on fifty three years together, he can tell me a story I had never heard before.

ENOUGH ALREADY!

I'm cold! Cold to my bones.   I'm wearing thick leggings, socks and my forever Uggs and above the waist three layers,consisting of thermal vest, Cashmere polo and a huge red, yellow and blue Penguin double/double thick knit that I dug out from the bottom drawer and which  made only the briefest of appearances last year.

     This has been the coldest winter in eighty years and I will not be surprised - when the people who spend their lives working out these things - tell us that it has also been the grey-est.  So low and grey have been the clouds, and so full of nasty freezing rain, that the fire doesn't draw, filling the room with smoke and fumes - obliging us to open a window - rather negating the point of a fire. En plus de ca my resident Frog always leaves a door open after he has exited into the kitchen [where the wall fire is only turned on when we are in it] or when, as he seems to do every five minutes, asks the dog if he wants to 'chase le chat? ' not a euphemism , Milou definitely does have a hate of next doors midnight black cat, the chief suspect killer of the dead birds we find occasionally. Or perhaps Milou might want to 'pipi?' or simply have a bark at anyone who dares to walk on the pavement on the other side of the hedge. For whatever reason, JP will open the door from the sitting room and hold it gaping wide  as he opens the door into the freezing garden to let the dog out [he probably was simply asking, in his canine way, for his supper, or a scratch, or perhaps was thinking 'Why are you here?']
      The point is that it is he, JP, guardian of the purse, who seldom feels the cold, who surreptitiously turns off the radiators the moment a ray of sunshine pierces the gloom, who curses every time he has to clear out the dead ash, cut the wood, replenish the log basket and bring in the coal -he it is who leaves bloody doors open - letting out the heat which is costing an arm and a leg to slightly [it is a big space] warm  up the room.
      Of course I complain, or else I shiver dramatically and sigh, moving him to drape a blanket over me, wrap another scarf around my neck, or, more likely, simply tell me to get up and move about...though not in those exact words.

      Now I am a 'have it today and damn tomorrow' kind of girl, er, woman.  This cold spell cannot last much longer, can it? So we will be over budget on heating this winter...so what? We will save on something else, his cheese, for instance or the French bread that costs an arm and a leg.  He counters with 'Your cigs?'
    
      Impasse! 


      I swear that if, when warmer weather finally does arrive,  I will not once complain about the heat, nor will I ever moan again about the wretched fly, the one that I cannot catch, that buzzes around the room the entire summer, mocking me.