Retirement, but not as we know it!

This week we have been working hard, far harder than we might have chosen to had we thought about it for too long. This week we have been laying large, square, floor tiles.

This came about because, well, we like to think we are kind people and when friends have a problem, like a job that needs to be done, we try to help if we can. Our French friend, Guy, is waiting for operations on both knees and one hip whilst his wife, Noëlle, is waiting for him to lay floor tiles in their 'salle de séjour' or living room. So, realising that laying floor tiles is the last thing we would want to do with stiff and painful knees and a defective hip joint, us Trotts have come to the rescue.

There is a payback for us, of course, in that whilst we are staying with them in their comfortable, centrally-heated house in the countryside just north of Lyon we are fully fed with whatever Noëlle can conjure up in her plentiful kitchen. This is worth more, in my humble opinion, than forty-five square metres of 'carrelage' (tiling), an aching back and bruised knees. Fortunately Kate and I both like garlic, which is generously added to most things we eat, and also wine, which is generously supplied by Guy from his vast cellar beneath the house. Eggs are kindly donated by a dozen hens who run free in the garden and there are fresh vegetables as well, safely protected from the hens of course, and every day we are eating winter salad freshly picked but a few minutes before.

One of the differences we observe in houses we have either stayed in or visited in both France and Italy is the absence of fitted carpets. In both countries they seem to regard the concept of a wall to wall woven wool floor covering with some distaste; in their view it is a source of infection and a completely unnecessary complication when it comes to cleaning. On the contrary I, as an Englishman have grown up with the idea that a fitted carpet is something desirable, indeed something to be aspired to, so the unforgiving ceramic floors seemed rather strange to me at first. Whilst I can see the sense of this in a warmer climate, as in parts of Italy, where a cool surface seems a generally good idea, here in Lyon where the winters can be every bit as fierce as those in the UK this explanation seems to make little sense. The fact that we have not unduly noticed cold from these hard floors penetrating the soles of our feet is because every house we visit has had a handy stock of slippers (the French word is pantoufle) close to the front door, a variety of colours and sizes to cater for every visitor. As likely as not these are soft, backless 'flip-flops' and a common sound, therefore, is the whispery 'shflipp, shflipp' noise made as one progresses across the tiled surface.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, 'les pantoufles' are big business over here. Your average shoe shop will have a large and prominent display of the things, often outside on racks where they hope to catch passing trade. One such shop, situated in Italy but close to the French border so as to catch the carloads of French tourists who pile across the border each day for the slightly lower prices on food and many other items, we named 'Pantoufle-R-Us' for its stunning external display. And to think that all this is due to tiled floors.

Noëlle, keen to show off the new tiles as soon as possible to her distant family and also being a regular internet user, carries her small notebook computer and its integral webcam with her as she tours the house. The computer uses a wireless internet connection and she chats with the screen as she walks about, a bizarre sight, but for efficiency one cannot fault her technique. She tilts the screen so that her sister, who lives in Switzerland, can admire the tiling from afar - far better than any photograph.

The warmth returns

We like to remind ourselves, regularly, of where we might have been living and what we would have been doing had we not decided to spend the winter months here in Italy, the big 'What if.....' question.

On the TV set in our apartment we receive a limited selection of news broadcasts and despite being in Italy our satellite dish captures UK news, that is news targeted at people living on the British mainland. So we have been subjected to the bad weather, the snow, the frost and the ice all in a vicarious sort of way through the medium of the TV set. As a result we know something of what we would have been going through weather-wise if we had chosen to stay in the UK. We can see clearly that we would have had to suffer extremes of cold but we also recognise that we would have had the advantage so far as coping with the snow because we could have chosen when to go out, when to travel and when to stay in hibernation. Retirement does, after all, have its compensations.

The UK news media (or those we have access to) are finally, after weeks of single-track weather reporting, looking outside the UK for headlines. As it happens these are not difficult to find - when a large city in an impoverished country gets demolished by an earthquake the headlines tend to make themselves - but even without this tragic event, I doubt that news of the substantial thaw would have generated enough weather-related interest to get into the headlines.

In the village of Torri the focus seems different. Since just before Christmas the temperature has hovered just above or slightly below freezing point and the humidity rising from the river has imparted a bone-deep chill to anything exposed to it. The villagers who normally gather in the piazza had scuttled away into their homes, hiding away from the weather as much as they could - there is no pleasure in talking about cold weather.

Now, just as in the UK, there is a sudden change and as the sun peeps over the mountains earlier each day we arereminded of where our warmth comes from. There is a sense of excitement in the air as the days lengthen. Leaning on the wall to gaze at the river once again becomes popular and even working up on mountain terraces among the olives now becomes pleasurable. Walking about we observe how the well-watered grass has covered any bare ground with a long green carpet. Soon, other signs of spring will be with us and just as we watched nature prepare for autumn and then winter we now look forward to the experience of a blooming re-birth. Winter is a short season here.

Some hardy specimens here never gave up at all, their battered flower heads evidence of their battle with the worst that nature could throw at them. Quite why they choose to expend so much precious energy in a winter-long display I cannot say but more than one species has stayed boldly in bloom all through December and now into January. Rosemary, the commonest of the wild-growing shrubs here, retains a battered flower array but there are others too, like a bright pink one, which Kate calls the 'rubber glove plant' as the petals resemble tiny surgical gloves.

There are berries too, which come in a variety of colours. The black ones here are produced by one of the least endearing plants we have found here. An invasive creeper, it is tough and well armed, both the stem and the leaf edges being lined with tiny sharp hooks which grab and tear at clothing and which will seize passing legs in an instant.

Then there are 'fluff' plants which have bunches of seeds each equipped with a strand of a white whispery material just waiting for a passing animal or a gust of wind to carry it away.

Very soon now we will be treated to a fantastic visual spectacle when the Mimosa flowers open. Today we caught the first glimpse of what is to come on a roadside tree in Torri. These trees are grown commercially here and the flowers sold for use in decorating festival floats and floral displays. There are orchards full of them, whole valleys covered with their fine green leaves and yellow flower sprays just about to burst into vibrant bloom for January is their month. They can wait no longer than this.

One final natural oddity is shown in this picture.

Our mountain vegetation is usually thorny or spiky and there is one shrub, a sort of broom, that grows long, sharp, spears with needle-like points.

This one grows beneath an olive tree and a ripe olive has fallen and skewered itself on one of the spikes.

Of course I could have set up this shot myself just for fun.... but I didn't.

Spotting the unusual

I am intrigued by the strange and the bizarre and I'm sure I am not alone in deriving pleasure from spotting something completely 'off the wall' that others pass by or take for granted.

So it was with some satisfaction that I managed to spot and photograph the contents of this Ventimiglia shop which proudly displays a tap, a padlock, nuts, bolts and spanners all made entirely from chocolate. Inside I could have bought a chocolate paintbrush (used) or chosen from a range of other chocolate items - a drill, a hammer, a coffee mill, an ash tray complete with cigarettes (symbolic, this one - eat away your habit), even a sewing machine, all of which sit happily side by side with more conventional confectionery items. I didn't spot the chocolate teapot but I'm sure it must have been in there somewhere.

Our young friend Maartje, who is currently holidaying with us, was attracted to the shop and being a lover of sweet things she made a beeline for a rather tasty spanner which the shop's owner kindly gift-wrapped for her. Maartje's appetite, however, proved stronger than the wrapping and the spanner was consumed with gusto before we arrived back in Torri.

The chocolate has provided her with enough energy to tackle some of our higher mountain paths accompanied by our son Ben who is also on a visit, and more recently to go walking with our village's only two donkeys. These are working animals who wander at will on tracks and roads around Torri but their owner felt that, it being Winter, they might have been missing their usual human company so he was happy for Maartje and Ben to take them on the track up the valley to Collabassa. One of the donkeys, quite by coincidence, is also named Benjamin.

And whilst on the subject of walking, and for those interested, Kate's knee seems to be healing well and she is walking a little further (and higher) every day. She is still not quite up to the rougher paths so caution is still needed but our 61 steep steps up the apartment door are causing her less problems every day.

We came across another piece of bizarre-dom in San Remo, just along the coast from us and a substantial modern city within which lies the medieval 'città vecchia' or old quarter. Once fortified against marauding Saracens from the African continent, the place is a maze of alleys and steps dating back to the 11th century with a nearby tower that was also once part of the city's defences.

Growing beside the tower is a substantial palm tree which has become the home of the city's entire pigeon population, their small bodies lined up side by side and weighing down the branches until they droop. Why these birds should have chosen this tree, amongst all the others, is a mystery and just why the sight of this struck me as strange I cannot say - maybe it has something to do with the juxtaposition of the exotic and the banal placed centre stage in a city so proud of its heritage.

I do need to conclude by saying that the bright sunshine evident in these photos should not lead to the conclusion that we are experiencing Mediterranean-like warmth here in northern Italy. The cold spell that is drowning Britain seems to be Europe-wide and the population of Torri is also experiencing an unnatural chill; the cold air just seems to drop to the valley bottom as soon as the sun disappears behind our surrounding mountain tops.