If you search for “Tuscan Garden” on the net you will find more about how to make mock Tuscan gardens in Melbourne or in Oregon than about gardens in Tuscany. And if you add “how to” into your search criteria, you are more likely to find out about the bits you need to make your mock Tuscan garden in Surrey than about how to look after a garden that happens to be in Tuscany. What is more, there are plenty of blogs about renovating houses in Tuscany, but not much about trying to get a garden going. Perhaps we have found a niche? I doubt it, but this seems as good a place as any to record attempts, successes and failures. Look for the “gardening” tag!   

There is more than half an acre of land attached to the house, and it is very varied. At the top, next to the village pond, there is what with laughing optimism we call the “lawn”, which is on one level with a tiled “patio”. The tiles were an extremely bad choice on the part of the lads who renovated the house. You’ve heard the saying “slippery when wet”? I’ll say no more. This patio was graced with an instant “gazebo”. Not being fond of it, somehow we forgot to take the fabric down in the autumn, as a result of which the snow brought it down, rather more permanently, in the winter.   

Moving down a level there is a stone-paved area for which we have great hopes, although it can be extremely hot in the summer, and at the moment it’s necessary to walk all the way round the house to get to it, so we didn’t use it a lot last year. We have plans, but that’s for another day.   

Moving away from the house, but staying on this level, we have what with laughing optimism we called the “meadow”. On arrival last May it was overgrown with a spiky, not very pleasant weed that is common in this area and whose name I haven’t yet found out. Did you notice the past tense in the first sentence of this paragraph? That’s because it is now part meadow and part “orto”, as vegetable plots are known around here.   

Meadow 2009 - picture from estate agent

March 2010 - some clearing started

Beyond the meadow the ground drops away towards the local creek. Part of the drop is extremely steep – a small cliff, to put it bluntly, and part of the drop is more gentle. On our arrival it was overgrown with brambles, creepers and other fast-growers; it could be seen to undulate, and there was a suspicion of old terraces under the vegetation. At the bottom of the slope we reach the boundary of our land, and the ground continues for another 30 flat metres before reaching the creek.  The next picture really only shows how overgrown it was – the configuration of the land makes it hard to take a photograph that shows what’s what. At the right, which is the bottom of the slope, you can see the tomatoes in the neighbour’s orto, on the flat ground next to the river.   

July 2010 - undulating and overgrown

The greenery also makes the next picture hard to interpret: we are looking from near the river straight at the green bank which we now know to have terraces underneath. 

July 2010 - the undulating slope

Last summer I did a bit of work and started to bring order to some areas. It was soon obvious, though, that if there was to be any worthwhile success we would have to change over to my favourite kind of gardening. In a nutshell, this is the “get-a-bloke-to-come-and-tell-him-what-to-do” method. The first thing was to find a “bloke”, but we did, and what it good find he has been. 

The next picture is very much the same view as the one above, taken from just a little bit closer. The cast iron bath had been dumped over the edge off by previous owners. Some weeks after this photograph was taken it succumbed to the mightiest of blows that I could manage with a heavy hammer, and has been taken away piece by piece.  

November 2010 - the terraces appear

The brown patch in the middle of the picture below is where the bath was. You may see steps being created leading from the meadow down to the terraces.  

December 2010 - two terraces

With the help we needed, the clearing the meadow has gone on apace; a section of the meadow has been very thoroughly dug over to prepare it for vegetables; the undulating slope has been cleared to reveal terraces (though, hey, I got started on that myself!); rustic steps have been put in to help get from the meadow to the three terraces below; the “lawn”, “patio”, and “meadow” have been fenced, so that we can share them with the dogs without having to watch them all the time or have them tied up; the orto has been fenced, so that the dogs won’t dig holes in it. And more. It must be admitted that at this stage things are not exactly looking pretty. But they are looking hopeful!  

January 2011 - frost and more clearing

And then the big day: the first vegetable seeds were planted: early peas. Two rows of them. The 23rd of February 2011 was, admittedly, a little bit on the late side, but you can’t do everything all at once. They were also planted in what is held to be the wrong phase of the moon – according to local lore, peas should be planted when the moon is waxing. You can get leaflets from the seed and plant suppliers to help you coordinate your sowing with the moon’s phases. Saints’ days play a part too, so it’s a jolly good job there are experts to work out the calendar for us. There is obviously scope for somebody to publish a timetable that also takes into account the movements of planets through the astrological houses, but I haven’t seen this done yet. Anyway, by the middle of March little green curly things should start to come out of the soil, and by the end of April we might even be eating them.   

Feb 25 2011 - orto prepared

Feb 25 2011 - the work is under guard

Early peas

The very first seed goes in

 Frankly, it looks a bit of a mess at the moment – but wait until spring really gets going!  

Meadow and orto

Feb 25 2011 - the terraces now

(That isn’t Voldemort at the top is it, by any chance?)

It’s preceded by drinks and nibbles:

And by a touch of mediaevality: As well as by fireworks: We were looking down from the bridge at the team: Some of whom lit the torches: They move in, light the fire on a signal, and then run back fast! Note the life-size effigy (a relic of ancient sacrifices?) at the bottom of the fire.

Finally a view of the houses in the firelight:

But first I wanted to report on our visit to the Questura (Police Headquarters) in Massa in pursuit of the documents proving Sarah’s right to stay here. We had heard worrying stories about this place, but I have to say that in fact it all went reasonably smoothly.

Having read others’ accounts, we did at least realise that while it is necessary to go on the morning of your appointment, the time of your appointment is – what’s the word? – merely notional. Basically, you turn up early and you stand in the queue. It’s also true that there is nothing that resembles a (naively hoped-for) waiting room. You stand on the steps and wait your turn:

Hopeful queue

Again, having been warned that things could be difficult, we were given some extremely kind help by the bilingual Giorgio.

So while a visit like this is not my favourite way of passing a cold morning, it must also be said that once we got to the top of the stairs we were seen, papers were examined and stamped, no strange or unexpected further queries were raised, there were no unexpected problems and we were able to leave with a reasonable hope that the application will be processed.

So take heart – they are not monsters!

Where will it all go when it's here?

Along with the two terriers, Tashi the cat gave every sign of having taken the journey well. At any rate, she saw that it would be good to make the best of it:

Things could be worse – I suppose!

Surprisingly, the weather was wet and grey when we arrived, and had been for some time. Here is the village, looking wet and grey:

Village looking wet and grey

A slightly different view, showing the village washing trough. In terms of the map the trough is “ours”, but it would be a false move to restrict access:

The trough

Then, with the sun shining, I started to scythe the “meadow”. Vegetable growing is taken very seriously here, and I will be unable to rival many of the village plots, partly because of experience (which I lack), but above all because of time: some of these allotments are looked after by retired people whose hobby, and indeed life, revolves around the hoeing, weeding, seeding, supporting, twice-daily watering and everything else involved in looking after a top class plot. In any case, it is too late in the year to start much here, but it does need to be kept under control:

Working on the meadow

Oh, really finall, the skyline from the terrace:

Skyline

Well I didn’t get past the first round, but it was huge fun. The “facilitators” in the red, green and yellow hats (if you were there, you’d know what I mean) did a terrific job of making it go well.

Anyway, in order not to waste my speech, here is the text:

Democracy demands terrorist software

We know that the government’s proposed Internet filters are half-baked and unpopular – but worse than that, they are really the very opposite of what we should be doing.

We know that power looks after power– the law is framed that way. And we know that money looks after money – by and large, the rich stay rich. Those in power can lose huge amounts of other peoples’ money and still grow their own millions. Just think of Telstra or Goldman Sachs.

Those in power now want to get their hands on our information so that they can control us. Elsewhere at this festival David Mutton is putting forward the appalling idea that – I quote – “intrusive, coercive surveillance” is somehow a good thing, and that – again I quote – “issues of privacy, informed consent and free will are irrelevant“. Now that’s what I call a really dangerous idea!

Those in power, in this case represented by the Minister for Broadband, Stephen Conroy*, want to stop us from having free access to information. But at the same time, security organisations now want to intercept and store every electronic message that we send. They want to track the author of every bit of information that is out there.

Those in power want to do this because they think they can. The Gestapo and the KGB also wanted to record the thoughts of ordinary people. And for very much the same reason.

Are we serious about democracy? Then we need genuinely free exchange of information. That means we need privacy and security software that
·        protects the identity of people who publish,
·        that gives us free access to information, and
·        stops spies from snooping on our conversations.

We must do research into privacy software, not into filters! 

*I wanted to quip “… or should that be Minister for Narrowband, or even Minister for Narrowminds”, but I didn’t have spare seconds in the two minutes.

Anyway, last weekend I took teachings from Lama Pema Dorje in a form of Tibetan yoga – a relatively gentle form, fairly safe and not “strange and secret”. I wrote about it a little more over on DangZang. Here I will just mention that it was very enjoyable. Apparently Nougat, our large new dog, missed me when I went out on Saturday morning, but then he had some sardines and a bit of a lie down:

… so everything was all right then.

I did, however, notice how security is spreading everywhere. The first time I went to put on my loose-fitting “yoga pants”, I thought it would be discreet to pop out to change in the stairwell. I had just started when a door opened and a man looked out from what I then saw was the “Chinese Massage Parlour”. I had not noticed the dome of the security camera in the ceiling, so I guess he wondered what I was up to. But no harm done! Lesson: examine environment before taking trousers off. What is a Chinese massage parlour anyway?