Flappery and Bikinis

On the cusp of summer in the Tuscan hills

Here it’s a black armband day. It’s that Sunday evening feeling when you have to go back to work, ready or not, like it or not. We are almost ready now, the villa shiny and clean and we all packed. We are in mourning, we have to leave beloved Italy for a couple of months.

The washing is flapping on the line and given that we are stark naked there is a certain amount of flappery of body parts too. The two are linked. We are on the final preparations for our temporary exodus to England so that the villa can welcome holiday guests. Rather than come back to mouldy towels etc I rammed them all for an hour wash and with any luck all will be sun dried and toasted by the time we leave for the airport.

Hugo’s swimming shorts and budgie smugglers and my bikoni star on the washing line. Yes, I have invented a new word- The Bikoni.

In the distant past, when the Pisan Mountains echoed to the sound of a dawn chorus sung by dinosaurs (who’s to say dinosaurs didn’t sing, birds are directly descended from dinosaurs?) I too was young and nubile.

I recall summer days cavorting in a La Perla bright pink feather bikini that cost a month’s salary. To be fair, feather bikinis aren’t practical. Mine looked like a drowned parrot when I made the mistake of going swimming in it (once) and I had to regularly retrieve it from my Siamese cats who couldn’t resist stalking and pouncing on it before chewing and spitting out the feathers. The bikini honour now passes to my lovely nubile daughter who dances around in a dainty bikini flaunting the body of Venus and swims the length of the pool like a living David Hockney painting.

Meanwhile I’m in my Decathlon black and white gingham bikoni which was clearly inspired by a mattress. It is part sail to cover my expanding backside and, as Hugo so delicately puts it, part hoist. As for swimming underwater my ear/jaw seem to have got water in them and spend a lot of time with my head on one side, batting my ear to chase out the demons like a cat with ear mites.

I meant to get my toenails done in the last six weeks but somehow never got around to it. A few years ago Hugo and I stayed in Santa Margherita which is small town very close to Portofino. (The staff were just lovely- I forgot to empty a drawer and they sent an entire package of underwear to me.) Anyway, I had left Hugo for about six hours while my locks were cut, tamed and coloured and my hands and toe nails attended to.

By way of background I perhaps don’t spend the time on my feet that I should. Partly, because they have become as inaccessible as the jungles of Borneo since my belly grew squidgy and my legs less bendy and partly because once when I went to a pedologist (I think it was a case of mistaken identity) this whiskery old man in a doctor’s coat (without even the courtesy of a massage chair), scrutinised my feet, told me I had to do foot exercises balancing off the stairs and then said the immortal words

‘You don’t have feet, you have hooves’

Any back in Santa Margherita my feet were tackled by a trained farrier (or perhaps stone mason). I assume that my feet in their natural state are either so rough that they are like Velcro or have some sort of suckers on them (if my toes accidentally brush Hugo’s leg in the night he shrieks) But resistance was futile -chunks of my feet were flying past this woman’s head and a mountain of skin shards piling up underneath as if my feet had an active case of woodworm. The end product was filed, moisturised feet with toe nails glistening with va-va-voom shiny red polish.

Hugo didn’t recognise me but his eye brows uncoiled and pinged with appreciation of the new me (which as compliments go is a bit of a wolf in sheep’s’ clothing. In fact I must go back to that hairdresser. These days I have to fight them not to give me a blue rinse and even then they coif and spray me into looking like Queen Camila)

Anyway we went back our room which had a terrace looking out to sunset over the sea. Time for a romantic aperitivo. I seductively kicked off my shoes and attempted to sashay like a 1950’s movie star towards Hugo. It turned out that that combination of having feet as slippery as eels and polished stone had turned our floor into an ice rink. As Hugo poured a glass of pop with a seductive look I tried to save myself with a couple of striking poses reminiscent of a baby giraffe trying to stand and then splatted flat on my back like an upside-down beetle. Sadly my attempts at being sexy usually end in tears with a health warning. More about that later.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we have spent the last six weeks hosting fabulous friends and family, dining in and out and going on outings under the guise of faffing around to get the villa ready.

We have emptied Ikea of glasses, cutlery and ovenware as otherwise we were going to need shares in Emma Bridgwater and Sophia Allport. It turns out that Hugo’s jealousy of others touching his socks or pants is matched only by my ferocity of sniffiness if anyone uses my mug.

We have bought three new toilet lids to replace those broken by last year’s guests presumably playing toilet seat frisbee in the garden. We have also bought new toilet brushes and scores of new pillows in different plumpness.

We have, reluctantly, killed all the ants because whilst strictly speaking they live in the garden and in my view that’s where ants should live, some of the little buggers had snuck into the kitchen and eaten all the bread whilst their big cousins have eaten most of the hot tub.

We avoided the annual cause celebre, as the olive grove about the house was left to the wild flowers and grasses which has made the fire flies and me very happy. Otherwise I would have to lie down in front of the strimmer in protest.

The topiary in the formal gardens has however had been trimmed into balls and knots, one horrible dead palm has been removed despite being covered with vicious thorns. We went to the dump with clippings so many times that we had a resident lizard in the car eating the escapees. It’s very strange- in Italy if you go to the dump your car is weighed on the way in and out and then they send you an email with your statistics. ‘At least they don’t send you an email when you use the loo’ says Hugo.

Anyway, we are never ready to leave and we never want to. But we know that dear friends and the glory of an English summer awaits.

So for anyone coming to a villa in Tuscany this summer; who knows it may be ours, and we are so happy to have you and so hope that you love this corner of Tuscany as much as we do, it’s wonderful- the people, history, architecture, cuisine, wildlife, jewelled lizards, wind whispering trees, Garden of Eden dawns…

Relish, be inspired, enjoy.

But if your child does a poo in the swimming pool please don’t call us.