This Little Pig Went to Market But the Cow is Stationary

This little pig went to market.

And this little pig stayed home.

These little pigs look like content.

But this little pig is virtually unrecognisable:

I admit to a penchant for proscuitto, however, seeing the raw material puts me off just a teensy bit.

Yes, that is mould…

but, cin cin, a bit of red wine and Roberto’s your uncle. One surely cancels the other somehow.

We stood around the table under a tree, the horses on which we had just trekked through the nearby hills munching in their stables, a friendly white pony tethered to a tree next to us. Vino all round.

Home-made red wine in industrial quantities.

Laughter. A sharp knife slicing samples of the wares. Bargaining. Language translations. Deal sealed – a nice chunk to be collected down the valley. (It was mouldy yet proved delicious. The pick-up was accompanied by a celebratory wine, hard cheese and homemade pastries.)

The little white pony was ridden out to bring the cows in.

Home-made hobbles meant this one was not jumping over anything, let alone the moon.

Those graceful, defined veins make her a sculpture…or a body-builder.

This is not how Celia at The Kitchen’s Garden does it.

Sloosh, sloosh of milk into a plastic bucket.

It would almost be worth shaving one’s head for the sensation. Try it now. Place your head against a cow’s flank. Feel the warmth seep into your crown. If you’re bald or shaven, I expect you’ll love the rub of short hair against your pate. Perhaps you’ll feel the blood pumping through her body. I wonder what you’ll hear.

Yet here her head appears to be made of felt stretched over plasticine.

As if she were just a puppet character in a nursery rhyme show. Or a blog post.

Living a Movie

Films do it; books do it: the physical journey as metaphor for an emotional journey that illustrates character. As movie-goers, we expect it. We don’t necessarily anticipate it will play out in front of us in reality as it did in Canyon Gorropu, Sardinia.

We had been told we must leave early and on time in order to get back for the start of the conference. Very few of us were there. Camera pans across front of white hotel. Two or three people stand talking. Another rounds the corner stowing a water bottle, a hat and a camera in a small backpack. In the background, away and below the tiled orange roofs of the hotel apartments, the sea lies like a blanket.

Well, That’s Putting It Bluntly

This little fellow certainly seems to be feeling some effects.

Bread and Wine Like Clouds

We were hot on a restaurant recommendation from our relatives. They heard about it from the owners of their holiday rental accommodation, Pietro and Maria. There’s no way one would stumble across it, tucked as it is in the hills of Sardinia behind Cala Gonone. So we trundled along behind them. But we were going first to Pietro and Maria’s holding on the ridge of one of the hills.

When Food is More Than a Feast

There was something afoot. We didn’t know more than that we were summonsed to The BB’s family’s accommodation in Sardinia for the evening of his birthday.

We were met at the gate by his family; the owners of the holiday accommodation, Maria and Pietro and tumblers of the latter’s homemade red wine. After one mouthful of the potent brew I suggested we return the car to our hotel and walk home at the end of the evening. But things were getting underway so we decided I would skipper. It proved a tricky commitment to uphold as our hosts could not bear the sight of a half-full glass or plate.

We were ushered downstairs to the host’s living area. There was something we had to see.

It’s All Colour and Rhythm

Some arrive in Sardinia by ferry on the fifty minute route from Corsica.  ‘Diverse and pretty’ was the verdict on Corsica from one couple we talked to; diverse enough, at least, to breed Napoleon, Henri Padovani (original guitarist for Police) and Cap Corse Mattei, the ‘legendary’ aperitif.

The Great Sheepyards of Life

Sometimes you end up in places you didn’t expect.

You’re in the great sheepyards of life, ambling or trotting down the race (the chute) with your eye on the pen at the end – your destination. Suddenly the drafting gate swings across and you’re siphoned off into a side pen you didn’t even know was there or that you thought did not apply to you.