We’ve seen in New Year in Tuscany. It’s crisp, clear and cold here. At night it descends to -10 and and remnants of snow cling to the hillside by day. It’s refreshing. I love Christmas; I love to be with family, but it all becomes a little excessive, so we’re happy to escape. Maybe I prefer all the preparations.

I’ve sent in my edits for a rewrite of Tuscan Roots. I could see there was need, so fingers crossed my editor at Bookouture will approve of what I’ve done. And I’m now directing my energy to a brand new book set in Tuscany, during World War 2 and the present day.

In the few days we’ve been here, I’ve been so lucky to chat to Italian friends and glean more information. Pleasant research indeed.

[image error]Each day, Maurice and I have walked in the still, frost-cold mountains. Tomorrow we have planned an all-day trek. And as I’ve wandered past the many ruins, I’ve thought about the hardships that peasant farmers endured here in this harsh landscape over the years. Many left on their annual winter trek down to the coast and never returned to their hills, and I’ve written about that in my second novel,Now and Then in Tuscany

While the men (and boys and women sometimes) were away in Maremma for five long months with the cattle and sheep, the women stayed behind, eking out their days, eating what they had managed to store during the summer and autumn months: chestnuts, polenta, dried fruit, sometimes meat products cured into salame and sausage, cheeses made from their own cattle. On New Year’s Eve, our starter in Piero and Manuela’s restaurant, Il Castello consisted of tasty morsels based on these foods: mushrooms, wild plants, bottled tomatoes… [image error] But we ate this in a warm dining room, with electricity, dressed in our glad rags and being waited on. Back then, in the old, there was no central heating. Just warmth coming up through floorboards where a cow, sheep or goats in the stables below would radiate a little heat. And of course there was the hearth upstairs, where family clustered around the fire, burning precious firewood gathered in warmer months.

A favourite book of mine is “Il Paese sul Paradiso”, which talks of the life in a mountain village high above us (only inhabited now by holiday makers). Marta Bonaccini describes winter evenings up in Montebotolino. How poor they were materially, but rich in community spirit. There was always snow and they felt separated from the rest of the world. The snow, although an inconvenience, was also a blessing. Roughly translated, the author writes: only those who have lived in the heart of the Apennines can appreciate the tie that we mountain people have with snow: it’s freezing, everything becomes more difficult, but it is part of us and our surroundings; it turns winter squalor into something precious; provides us with magical moments. Snow and silence, candour and peace feed the soul. 

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As we walked on up to 1,000+ metres to a ridge that I love (Monte Faggiola), we came across a pile of stones in the middle of a meadow. Nearby were the stools of a wolf. [image error]

It’s wild up here. (Incidentally, if you have not managed to watch the recent, brilliant BBC documentary on the wolf, make a point of doing so. It was filmed mostly in the Apennines.) Wolf film review

The piles of stones reminded me of an excellent book written by Eric Newby: Love and War in the Apennines

Newby was an escaped POW and found shelter with Italian farmers on the Apennines. In recompense for food and shelter, he had the boring task of clearing the fields of stones.

“Come with me,” a voice said. It was Luigi. It was the first time he had spoken to me, apart from wishing me buongiorno. I followed him round to the back of the house where the fields swept uphill to the edge of the woods in all their stoniness. Many of them could scarcely be called stones. They were rocks and boulders which had come rolling down off the mountains. It was like looking out on a parable.

“I want all those fields cleared of stones,” he said, quite casually.

Maurice and I were pleased we didn’t have to complete this task!

If you’re interested in a classic, superbly funny, exciting (true) war account, do read Newby’s book.

I’m also reading a book “Fuochi sui Monti” by Antonio Curina, kindly given to me by our local tourist officer, about partisan activity in our Tuscan Apennines. The book contains unbelievable accounts of bravery and suffering in bitterly cold conditions by courageous men and women. I think we do take our freedom for granted nowadays.

As I write this by our stove, safe from war and hardship, I’d like to remind you that the sun isn’t always baking in Italy.

Happy New Year to you all. I’ve not made resolutions as such. They are so easily broken. But, I do have many plans.

FELICE ANNO NUOVO!