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Published: October 7th 2008
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Back in Italy again: golden light, perfect coffee, gelati, tumble-down charm. My first day there - in Romeo and Juliet's hometown Verona - turned out to be the last proper day of summer - a humid, sultry and sunny 31 degrees until a massive storm hit Verona in the early afternoon. At the time I just happened to be standing alone in the highest bell tower in the town - clinging to the wall in an alcove as a gale and the horizontal rain did their best to yank me into oblivion.
Wwoofing in Veneto (Willing Workers on Organic Farms, for the uninitiated) turned out to be a rather different experience than last year in Tuscany. There we were living in a castle, making high-brow comedy short films, chatting about the different herbs you can make pesto with... and this time it was eating stale bread, tripe and cow's nerves, being physically assaulted by the 26 year old farmer, and I don't know what the chat was about because no-one spoke any English. Still, it had helped me learn some Italian- I can construct sentences like "Am I breaking more hazlenuts this morning?" and "Don't hit me on the head
again or I will get you sacked."
I think the wee incident with the physical assault warrants some explanation. I was working with Luca, the said 26 year old farmer. Already he had shown me quite clearly how to connect a trailer to a tractor: "Saverio! Mezzo! Mezzo!" ("Xavier! In between! In between!") So I was being a bit dumb. I was crouched below faffing about getting it wrong when he closed his fist and hit me on the head! Not with much force, but still, I wasn't happy about it. The next day while moving winemaking equipment, I accidentally jammed his finger. As he bristled with pain I said to him, gesturing to the tractor "Per Ieri" ("For yesterday.") After that I tried my best to improve our working relationship. Particularly as when we were felling trees in isolated parts of the farm he had a chainsaw and I didn't.
The farm I stayed at was the farmyest farm one could imagine - it was Old McDonald goes to Italy: with pigs, cows, sheep, a pony, donkeys, goats, geese, ducks, chickens - growing apples, watermelons, pumpkins, grapes, peaches, medical herbs, various vegetables, hazelnuts, walnuts and maize, making
Maiale (Pigs)
I spent many an hour in pig pens. After a while they seem to smell like bacon. wine, jam and honey. Angelo, the other farmer was an extremely nice 70 year old. I could always tell when he was near as one of the three dogs who adored him and followed him everywhere was a very silly half chihuahua half rat who had a little ringing bell around his neck. He also had favourites in the pig-pen. He would shout out "Martino!" and one of the pigs would separate himself from the rest and come over to say ciao. Angelo had hand-reared him as a piglet. I asked him "Quando anni lavorete in qesto fattoria?" ("How many years have you worked on this farm?") He answered "Nato qua" ("I was born here.")
I had some great jobs: I had to catch pigs, pick up hazelnuts, break hazelnuts (I am now the master), clean peaches for jam-making, put labels on jars of honey, and best of all, I got to help make wine. I tried a bit of the finished article from the previous vintage. It was not good.
I had plenty of time to escape my unusual living circumstances - many afternoons I would ride a decrepit pushbike 5kms along country roads through 12 feet
Harvest time
Ripening pumpkins high cornfields ready to be harvested to a medieval walled village, Montagnana. Two weeks was long enough to become a known figure in places such as the tourist office, the gelateria, and the bar on the piazza, where they had an extensive list of wines by the glass, none of which cost more than 2 Euros. How civilised.
I managed daytrips like seeing soul piercingly good Giotto frescos in Padua, and mountain biking through the nearby hills: tiny farms with vineyards, equally tiny old villages. It is interesting to discover where one feels pain after riding a bicycle for 11 hours. It was mainly just the arse, actually.
On my last couple of days before Britain, I got to use my new Italian suit visiting the elegant parts of Venice. I am glad I went in the off-season - I think it is the insane amounts of tourists that are making Venice sink.
So eventually I ended up growing quite attached to the almost perfectly flat, industrious valleys of Northern Italy. Returning home fit, with a tan and speaking passable travellers Italian, I can hardly complain!
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