Monthly Archives: February 2011

Everyone should do something crazy once in a while, don’t you think?

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You don’t really ‘live’ without experiences. I mean to say, that’s what life is all about. For those of you who have read my blog for long enough, you will know that it was one of the reasons for coming here. To put myself in a strange situation and to ‘see how it went’.

As I’ve mentioned before, all those people who, when we told them we were giving everything up and going to Milan because we quite liked it said things like ‘You are brave’ whilst privately thinking ‘You are crazy’. Some time after we had been here, I came to that conclusion too, in that it really was quite a crazy thing to do but I don’t regret it and I wouldn’t change anything (well, almost).

So, yesterday, when I read that some guy that I don’t know was going to be in Milan for a night and was probably going to have to sleep rough, I suggested that he could sleep on the sofa. It was a simple comment made without any real thought. After all, I’d probably never hear from him.

Until, of course, I did. I read the email. Last night he slept outside. He said that he was still trying to get the chill out of his bones. I can only imagine.

I read the email again. Of course, I could pretend that I hadn’t read the email. I could say that, after all, it wasn’t ‘convenient’ (he had given that option in his email). He offered me a pizza and a beer.

I hesitated. This won’t be ‘convenient’ – I mean, An maybe celebrating as she hopes to sign up for a flat, round the corner from me (she is returning to Milan to work – leaving her husband in London); A has already suggested that we might meet for a beer; and then there is F who, if there is someone else in the flat, probably won’t want to sleep there (because he can be quite strange, sometimes) – and then there would be how to explain this person. It’s not easy. It’s easy for me, of course, but for others, there is the fact that they probably wouldn’t do it and so I would be ‘crazy’.

I mean I don’t actually know him. I’ve read his stuff. He’s quite famous (been on TV and stuff) but only with a bag on his head. I’ve read about his latest ‘escapade’ and, to be honest, like me coming to Milan, he’s quite brave (or crazy). I think he’s dropped using the bag now :-)

But I’ve never met him, haven’t spoken to him and, but for his blog, wouldn’t even know anything about him – and, anyway, his first blog was, in reality, one great big lie to be precise – so who’s to say this latest one isn’t?

But I only hesitate for a few moments. After all, if you don’t actually do things then you can only regret not doing them in the future and you would never know if doing it would have been good or not. Whereas, if you do things then, at least, you have a 50/50 chance it will be good ……. or interesting ……….or exciting …… or amazing, perhaps?

And so I said ‘yes’. Why not? Perhaps he will kill me in my sleep? Perhaps he will be as boring as they come? Or stink? Or, perhaps, he will just be an interesting, nice guy with whom I hit it off?

Who knows but it seems it is set. I await his call.

Now, how do I explain this to F ………….?

The power of the [foreign] people …. it’s a good thing.

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They’ve been on the streets, protesting. The police have been using tactics that are, at the least, undesirable. People have been in hospital as a result. They are protesting about the increase in tuition fees, the cuts in grant money, the large organisations that are avoiding paying too much tax. The government doesn’t like it; the police don’t like it.

Oh, hang on, our Deputy Prime Minister has something to say:

“It is incredibly exciting what is going on, it reminds me so much of the time when the Berlin Wall fell, the power of the people out on the streets, in a regime which ……… everybody thought was one of the most stable regimes in the region,” he told ITV Daybreak.

Ah but no. He isn’t talking about the protests in Britain, of course, but those in Egypt.

You see it’s perfectly OK for ‘the people’ protesting against the government ………. as long as it’s those foreigners doing it in their own foreign country, of course.

Hmmmmmm

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“I just wanted to say hello”

I bet you did.

I’m too tired to respond properly – although I give it a go.

Too tired.  I had an accident this morning.  I was late into work.  I’ve just about had enough.

OK, so today is not a good day, then.

More differences in the after-death

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In my last post, I forgot something else that I have just found out!

It seems that, after a certain period of time, the cemeteries dig up the remains of a person and re-bury the bones (or whatever is left) with other members of the family! This saves space, obviously.

I’m almost certain that this does not happen in the UK although I’m hoping someone will tell me if it does.

I am aware that, sometimes, some very old graves, no longer tended and, maybe over 100 years old are, sometimes, ‘recycled’ and the ground used for new graves but not digging up remains of close relatives of people still living!

It is a strange place, Italy :-)

But it led me to think about my Nan. She was very involved in the local life. She was, for quite a while, a councillor on the local council, she was in the WI, she was one of the people, on a rota, for doing the flowers at the church.

The church, a medieval structure, sits on a hill top overlooking the beautiful Herefordshire countryside. To get to it, you used to have to drive through a farmyard (although now there is a ‘ring road’ of sorts to get to it). In the past, the farm was the only building near it although now, possibly because of the ‘ring road’, there are some cottages nearby.

If we were staying with her, we would go to the church on the Saturday with her. She would do the flowers. Whilst she was there, she would also tend three or four graves. The graves were special. Two were for her parents. Her parents died in their early sixties. She was about twenty-one. They both died not long before her marriage – to my grandfather. She didn’t get married in white as a result but, rather, in a red flapper dress with sequins. It wasn’t the ‘done thing’ to marry in white if you were still in mourning for your parents.

One of the other graves was a small grave nearby. It was for a sister that she never knew. From what I understand, this sister was born before her and was either a stillbirth or died within a short time. In any event, her mother was very old (even now it is considered old – in 1908 it must have been very unusual to have a child in your forties) at the time of both births.

My grandparents are both buried in the churchyard although, as is customary these days, they were cremated so are in a small ‘garden’ dedicated to this purpose. When F and I went over last year, I dragged him to the church and showed him the graves of them all – finding the ones of my Nan’s sister and parents was not difficult, having been to them so often in the past.

Of course, they are all overgrown and uncared for now (those old graves), difficult to read. No flowers at them like there used to be when my Nan put fresh flowers every couple of weeks.

Eventually, I suppose, the land will be ‘reclaimed’ for new graves and the stones will be gone. And, anyway, maybe I am the last person to know where they are and any story that is behind them?

I attach a picture of the church (the photograph having been taken, more or less, in the position of the graves I mentioned):

And one that looks similar to (but is not) the area where the graves are located:

In celebration of life

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Now that I have checked (as I needed to know the answer for this post), I have been here for five and a half years, not six as I often tell people.

You’d have thought that, after all these years, there wouldn’t be that anything that would be so unusual or different. But you’d be wrong. There are still things I stumble across that I find interestingly, frustratingly or horrifyingly different.

I’ve always had some sort of fascination with death. It’s the same sort of fascination that I have with overly-large breasts. I don’t want to physically experience it and, yet, there it is, in full view, so to speak.

I thought I would be dead by the time I was 42. This was something I thought of as a kid or teenager. 42 happened to coincide with the year 2000. It was a totally irrational thought, of course, but, nevertheless, I was convinced. It didn’t worry me. It was too far away and, by then, I figured, I would have had quite enough of living.

As you get older, with death no longer creeping but approaching at something closer to the speed of light, one wishes for ‘just a bit more’. I suppose it’s like money really – the more you have the more you want it. However, I am aware that my time on this earth is more limited now than it was 30 years ago when, even if my imminent death (42, remember) was coming, it still seemed ‘a lifetime’ away.

I see Rufus and wonder at how he has lived so long. I see his frail body and picture me in that state. Well, sort of. I am pragmatic in that I have smoked for so long and so heavily that I doubt, very much, if I would get to that state. We shall see. Stranger things happen. Everyone seems to have a story of someone who smoked all their life and still lived to be 95 or something. If we are honest though, these are exceptions. If I am also honest, I always think I shall be one of those exceptions as I’m sure most people do.

So, when F told me that his cousin (or uncle – it’s quite difficult to work out the correct relationship) had dropped dead with a heart attack at the age of 58, I couldn’t help but blurt out that he was just a little older than me. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t make me worried. In some way it amazes me that I am still here.

I’m sure I would be exactly the same as Anthony Hopkins in Meet Joe Black. I would be asking Father Time or God or whoever if I couldn’t just have another few years …….. or a year …… or, if I really DO have to go soon, couldn’t it just wait another 6 months? OK then – another month will be fine.

But this wasn’t really what I wanted to talk about. The guy had died. He was close family and, so, F went to the funeral, of course. And, although I was aware of how different things are here, I still find it all quite amazing.

The British have this propensity to party, it seems. Wetting the babies head; the christening; birthday parties; engagement parties; weddings; special anniversaries and, finally, wakes. In each case it gives the opportunity for families to reunite, have some alcohol and, quite possible, do some of that ‘only at weddings’-style dancing – to some of the worst music in the world.

But, mainly, it is a sanctioned ‘getting drunk’ time.

The parties are almost more important than the event itself. Certainly, in the case of a funeral, the party afterwards, to me, is the ‘best bit’. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. Let me explain.

One assumes you go to a funeral because you knew the person. Probably (almost certainly now that they are ‘gone’) you quite liked the person. And the funeral makes you take stock of the way that the person had touched your life: the funny bits, the sad bits and the many other ‘bits in between’. The funeral is your chance to say ‘goodbye’ even if the idea of that is quite preposterous, since ‘they’ can’t hear you. The funeral is really for your sake, not theirs. We all know that and accept that this is true. The funeral is sad and everyone whispers to each other as if, by speaking at a normal level you would wake someone – even the dead.

It’s stressful, particularly if you loved the person; if it was a close relative – an uncle, cousin, parent or, worst of all, your child, however old they may be. There might be some things said at the funeral – some speech by the vicar (who, in all probability never knew the deceased but has taken instruction from the surviving relatives) and or by a relative which may make everything excruciatingly painful – one can’t help but remember the truly dreadful speech given by Lord Althorp at Diana’s funeral – it is, after all, not really the best time for name calling.

Then it’s all over and the coffin has been put in the ground or been silently slid away behind some curtain to be burnt to cinders later. Either way, it’s all over. I always think: ‘Is that it?’.

And then there’s the party. The party, I think is the most important part. There is a release now that it’s all over and done with. It’s final. It’s done. Now you can get back to the business of living – and, in the case of the party, remembering the person – remembering the good times, the funny times, learning about things you didn’t even know about.

They were loved. They were good. You will miss them but they are still there, brought to life again by the stories and the laughter and the general ‘thinking about them’. And, maybe, that’s one of the reasons that my maternal grandfather has never really left me – I didn’t have that experience, that opportunity. To be honest, for the funeral wakes that I’ve been to, you didn’t really want them to end – you didn’t want to forget the person, to let go.

Not so here, it seems. The funeral is, I guess, more or less the same but afterwards, from what I understand, everyone just leaves! For me that would be an awful thing. It’s almost as if you would miss out on understanding them better, on reliving their past through others.

No, it doesn’t matter how much I try and understand, I just don’t get it. The party is the celebration of a life. Without which it is almost disrespectful – as if that person meant nothing.

Of course, having been brought up in the UK and our way being ‘the norm’ perhaps I am being unkind. I don’t mean to be but I hate the idea that if I were to die, there wouldn’t be some sort of knees-up afterwards. I would want people who bothered to come, the chance to enjoy themselves and celebrate my life. For that’s what it is really all about. The celebration of the life of someone who did touch you.

Perhaps your experience is different? But I find that our ways of saying goodbye are fascinating in their differences. Tell me I’m wrong, tell me how it is with you, tell me what you want – even try to help me to understand. I am, really, fascinated by the differences.