Mid-winter blues

I hate January. Our house is a thousand feet above sea level, so even though we are in the South of Italy it is cold and often damp at this time of the year. Right now it is hard to believe that in July and August the land will be dry and baked and the temperature on our terrace will often climb above forty five centigrade.

Many local people have a house in the country and an apartment in the town, to which they retreat in the winter. When Sue and I first came here we thought this an eccentric and old-fashioned lifestyle, but the more winters we have spent here the more I can understand why people do it. Apartments are easy to keep warm, there is very little to do on the land at this time of year and if you get bad frost or snow the roads are hazardous as practically no gritting or snow clearance is done.

Being of peasant stock Erminia has no apartment in town and she goes into virtual hibernation. The only source of heat she has in her old stone house is the hearth on which she slowly burns a small log or two at a time and mostly she stays within a few feet of it, including moving from her bedroom to a small sleeping alcove opposite the fire. The first winter after we came here I remember visiting Erminia and seeing her sat on a plastic chair next to the hearth. As I came in and sat opposite her I was taken aback to be greeted by her late husband Paolo who was still in bed in the little alcove. He was a small man and looked like a little gnome with his head poking out of the blankets swathed in a woollen night cap.

I think I may take a leaf out of old Paolo's book and stay in bed until Spring arrives.

Madrid

After Milly was put down I felt a really strong need to see Sue, so I booked a flight to Madrid and agreed to meet her here this weekend. She got the train up from Cordoba and we spent a really good couple of days together before I saw her off from Atocha station a few hours ago. I am now back in our hotel room getting ready to return to Italy tomorrow. We’ve seen a lot of art and done a lot of shopping. We’ve also wandered around the flea market and had paella under a strong winter sun in the Plaza Mayor. It’s been fun, despite feeling sad about the death of our little dog. We both understand that if the death of a pet is the worst thing you have to face and you can afford to have a weekend holiday in a beautiful city to talk about it, then actually you can count yourself very, very lucky.

Sue has never been here before, but for me this is the third time. I first came in 1987 with my ex-wife Rosemary when the memory of Franco’s dictatorship was still strong and fast jets flew low over the city every lunchtime, as a reminder that the armed forces were still here. I came again with my friend Rob in 1992 or 1993 for a competitively drunken weekend terminating in a karaoke bar, where I was so smashed I selected a song only to stare blankly at the Spanish lyrics that flashed at me from the teleprompt. That friendship ended amid the wreckage of a car crash on the A68 near Hexham a few months later. This time the memories will be happier and less nuanced.

One thing that has not changed with the years or the seasons is the light in this high up southern city, where on a clear day you can see so far that everything feels unreal and the shade is like how I imagine the light in hell to be.

Buon Viaggio Milly

Well I didn't expect my first post of 2011 to be about the death of our little dog Milly. She'd had a troublesome tooth for ages, but on Saturday she started having fits and when our vet investigated on Monday he found a large tumour in her mouth and under her eye and so that was that. She was put to sleep peacefully with me stroking her pelt and now she is buried on our land not far from Chiaro the cat.

She turned up on our doorstep in 2005 covered in ticks and decided that we would be her new owners and we didn't argue. She was about two or three then. I'd never owned a dog before and for the first couple of years she was much more Sue's dog than mine. But as I worked to shake off depression, lose weight and get fit, Milly became my walking and then running companion, braving distances of up to 15 kilometres without complaint and always staying the course.

She taught me a lot about loyalty and affection. She would have laid down her life without question to defend me or Sue and all she ever asked was a tickle on the tummy (and a sack load of dog biscuits). She was cranky with guests and other dogs, but with us she was always gentle and always completely trusting. To be trusted that deeply by another animal is an enormous privelege and a great responsibility, which I did my best to discharge in the difficult last three days of her short life.

Buon viaggio Milly and thank you so much for all the unadulterated pleasure you gave us and will continue to give in my mind's eye.