Basil and pesto

"So what are you doing this weekend?" I ask. It's entry test time.
The potential student pauses, "make pesto with the old 'basilico'.
"Basil," I correct. It's the end of the summer and before the basil leaves wither away to uselessness they have to be harvested.

On my district market, large bunches of basil, some already sporting little white flowers or the buds of flowers, are sold at reduced price. In a few weeks all of the summer basil will have dwindled to nothing but a few dying drying sticks on the plant.

There is nothing nicer than the smell of fresh basil, no leaf which is more reminiscent of Italy even if it is an Asian native. It is the protagonist of so many iconic Italian dishes: the Pizza Margarita with its depiction in colours of the Italian flag: green basil, red tomatoes and white mozarella; or the Insalata Caprese another combination of tomatoes, basil and mozarella, to name but two. It can be added to salads and dressings for added fragrance, sprinkled over pasta even added to desserts (basil panna cotta).

But maybe the dish most associated with basil is pesto. The name pesto comes from the verb 'pestare' - to crush, to grind which is what happens to the basil leaves in the mortar. Pesto is a type of paste, a combination of ingredients crushed and ground to divine effect. There are many types of pesto.

The one that springs to mind most often is the pesto alla genovese. Basil, parmesan, pine nuts, garlic and olive oil are the key ingredients. Purists will claim that only a certain type of garlic (di Vessalico, because it's more digestible and less invasive in flavour than other garlics), only basil bearing the DOP certification (of protected origin) and only Ligurian olive oil may be used. The ingredients must be crushed in a marble mortar but with a wooden pestle and fast so as not to overheat the basil and thus run the risk of bitter juices spoiling the final result. Every autumn in Genoa, Liguria a pesto making competition is held.

Nowadays an easy short cut is to put all the ingredients in the food processor and pulse them to a paste. Pulsing is required, again to avoid overheating the ingredients. Purists will claim that the final product is not pesto!

A tale of two pestos. The layer of oil on top is added to preserve the pesto.

Other common pestos are the Sicilian and Trapanese versions. For the Sicilian version the pine nuts are replaced by almonds. ricotta replaces the parmesan and tomatoes (the oval perini) are added which give the pesto its distinctive red color. In the version from Trapani, a Sicilian town, the ricotta is substituted by pecorino which gives this pesto alla Trapanese a saltier grittier flavour.

Once made the pesto can be kept up to ten days in a jar, always add some olive oil on top to keep the pesto fresh. It can also be frozen, hence it's possible to make it in large quantities and save for a month when fresh basil is hard to find.

Trapanese pesto frozen

Pestos don't stop there. Any combination of leafy vegetable, nut and cheese combined with olive oil to form a paste can be coined a pesto. Thus my favourite poor-mans pesto, so-called because all the more expensive ingredients are substituted by their cheaper cousin: rocket for basil, walnuts for pine nuts and pecorino Romano for parmesan, the result will surprise you.

Traditionally pesto goes on pasta, a little of the boiling cooking water is often used to loosen the paste but it can be used in other ways. A dab on some fried zucchini, as a spread on a sandwich, in a risotto, with chicken breasts , in a baked potato etc....anywhere it's used it's a winner.

Villa Pamphilj in summer

Another hot summer day, Rome is still in the hands of Lucifer, an apt name for a heatwave. I weigh my options: the sea with its sand, murky water and thousands of hot sweaty suntan lotion smelling bodies, the couch in my shutter-darkened living room or.... 

It isn't too hot yet. I grab the dog and head out. I'll go to the park of Villa Pamphilj, Rome's biggest public park, in Monteverde.

I know the park well. I used to live near it and walk my dog there. I would go in through a cemented tunnel from Piazza San Pancrazio. My dog at the time, a cocker spaniel, would dash into the nearest fountain as soon as she could. That was more than ten years ago.

Today, I consult the internet to find out which is the fastest way there - the park is about seven kilometres from where I currently live. The route suggested isn't what I had in mind but I go with it.

On the 791 bus, an elderly man compliments me. I laugh, "for my dog?"
"Yes. You're the only person who puts a muzzle on your dog on public transport." I shrug. I'm just following the rules of the public transport company, but I know what he means. 

I decide to get off at the large outdoor market on Piazza San Giovanni di Dio. Even though it's August, the official holiday month, it's bustling and much as I remember it. I head down Via Ozanam, a steeply sloping road. It's a walk down memory lane.

There's the Thai restaurant I once went to. There's the Pasolini centre, with old men hanging out in front of it. Photos and posters are plastered to the wall to remind people that this is where, the writer, poet and film director,PierPaolo Pasolini set part of his most well-known novel, Ragazzi di Vita. He also lived in the area on Via Fonteiana and later in his life, on the more gentrified Via Carini in Monteverde Vecchio, up the hill from the council run housing estates and the boys who had inspired the main characters in his novel

At the end of Via Ozanam in front of the entrance to one of the large 'case popolari' building complexes made famous by Pasolini,I realise my memory is faulty. I thought that just off Piazza Donna Olimpia there was an entrance to the park. There isn't. It's another 300 metres down Via Donna Olimpia. But there is a welcome street fountain. 

The high brick and cement walls that encircle most of the park are up ahead and on Via Vitulonia I spy an arched entrance. We have made it. We take a path alongside a small stream. A dog is cavorting in and out of the stream. I'm heading for the 'laghetto' (little lake) , an ambitious name for a patch of water which is little more than a large pond. There are turtles, swans, ducks and geese. So, passing through a narrow aperture between some bushes I'm a little disconcerted to come across hundreds of pigeons on the banks of the pond and perched on the surrounding railings. Not what I remembered. 

On one of the benches that face the pond there is a mother with her two children. The boy is climbing over the back of the bench. His mother is trying to convince him that it's time to go home.


A small group of dog owners are huddled together. An elderly black dog suddenly let's off a series of barks and charges the pigeons. They noisily fly up and back down as the dog retreats only to repeat the same behaviour again and again. Two swans glide by. in the hope of a crust of bread. The heads of thousands of turtles poke above the rippleless surface of the pond. 

I walk around the pond and away from the people. The sun is hot now. I hope the fountains in the park are running. I pass two geese who object to my dog and advance menacingly. I back away from the pond and up a small alley.

I stop. I see a fire engine and a police car and a field of black burnt earth. It looks as if the fires which have plagued Rome have wrecked damage in the park.




I return to the pond and follow an ornate water course up towards a large fountain. The grass alongside the water channel is Yellow and sparse.  Each step  I take is accompanied by a cloud of dusty gravel and sand. I pause to watch some dogs jump in the water for a swim. This is strictly forbidden but their owners are well-organised. One man is lookout while the dogs play in the water. Should a park warden be sighted, the dogs and their owners would long have split before the warden got close. I enter a small damp grotto, below where the dogs are playing, it's deliciously cool.

I climb out again, refreshed and we go past the swimming dogs onto a parched esplanade in the centre of which is a fountain and not much else. I take the path that goes around the esplanade, past another small fountain, a closed off area and to the entrance that leads to the walled Via Aurelia Antica.

The park is silent here save for an arguing couple. She has taken offence at something he said. He hadn't intended to say it....


Joggers shuffle past, rivulets of sweat coursing down their bodies. An elderly couple walk by. Faraway a dog barks.


At the Monument to the Fallen French  (in 1849), a sadly vandalised monument even the fencing around it has caved in, I pass onto a wooded path which runs alongside a large flat field often used for football matches or even cricket. Today, it is yellow and deserted. 

To my left, over the walls of the park and the Aurelia Antica, I can make out, slightly hazy in the heat, the dome of St Peter's.


I'm at the Villa,  or to give it its proper name the 'casino del bel respiro' so called as set on a hill it was above the foul pestilential air of the city. It was once property of the Pamphilj family but now belongs to the Italian State.

 When Gheddafi came to Rome, a few years ago, he set up his tent in the park much to the annoyance of all the local dog owners. The park was closed to the public for 48 hours. This did not stop those in the know from entering via a chink in the fence and walking their dogs. Weren't they afraid of the colonel's bodyguards? Nah. They were all girls, (I thought they looked scary).

The 'casino del bel respiro' is impressive: a white shining square with niches in which are set ancient Roman artefacts most of them escavated from the park. At its foot is a carefully tended parterre known as the 'giardino segreto' (secret garden), it is closed to the public.

The areas open to the public look neglected. A lot of the fountains have been switched off, no doubt a water saving measure. But there is nothing sadder than a waterless, lifeless fountain.  Down in this part of the garden the heat burns. I sit on a bench under a tree beside the Pamphilj family chapel, closed and gated off. It looks so neglected: dead plants, brown beheaded palm trees, sparse yellow grass and weeds. This is not the park I remember.

the gated off secret garden

The silence is broken only by the muted sound of music from the MP3 player of a young man in joggers' gear resting at the next bench down. Some birds are singing but even they seem to be lacking energy. A swarm of large grey green parrots swish overhead and squawk loudly. 


Years ago, I would come here daily. Sit on the grass, luxuriant and green or under the rose covered trellis. Now there are more weeds than grass the only thing that seems to resist the drought. The roses look dead, long untended and forgotten.


The mock theatre hemicycle is dusty and as I peer in to its gloomy interior a pigeon coos in disapproval. I have disturbed its slumber.

I walk down the tree covered path to a drinking fountain (nasoni), it's flowing. Both the dog and I have a welcome drink. I pass 'Capi's' pool, where my previous dog would joyfully frolic whatever the weather. In all her years of doing so I never got caught  by the park wardens and never got a fine. 

I'm heading up towards the area of the park I know the best, next to the street I lived in for five years. It's a large green field, gracefully sloping down, at the top end of which stands a grove of umbrella pines.


Most of the year it is busy with people walking their dogs and children playing ball games and running about. At the beginning of the summer, in front of a house, the villino Corsini, (a library) a stage is set where various dance and musical performances are staged.


I walk up the slight incline next to the umbrella pine grove towards a curious structure, the arco dei quattro venti (arch of the four winds) so called because its four statues represent four winds.

 
I pass beside the arch, it's impossible to actually go under as it has been closed off. Again the area under the arch shows neglect ,weeds are growing through the cracks and waste blown in off the surrounding park has accumulated in corners. Pigeons have set up house.  


I head down a gentle slope onto the streets of Monteverde Vecchio. The streets around
the park usually hold a steady stream of cars. Today all is silent. It's also lunchtime. For my dog and me, it's time to head home and off the boiling tarmac.


My memory of the area is good and I find the bus stop off Via Carini, just next to the city walls in no time, Just as I thought the way I had planned to come to the park was faster than that suggested by the internet.

Lucifer by the way has gone. Poliphemus hovers in his stead. It's hot and humid.

Ghost town

It's the week of Ferragosto. I say week but Ferragosto is just a day: the 15th of August. A holiday which is significant in the Catholic calendar: the feast of the assumption of the virgin Mary (ie she gets to go to heaven). It is the height of the Mediterranean summer.


It feels like Sunday, it felt like Sunday yesterday too. It'll feel like Sunday tomorrow. The relentless chainsaws, jackhammers and breaking glass of the past few days has gone. From the street, hardly a car goes by. A turtle dove coos somewhere on the roof. Some birds sing. Later a murder of crows will gather, quiet, on the roof of the adjacent hotel only to vanish into the night. The large grey green parrots that are taking over the trees will swiftly swoosh past in the evening, chattering as they do so.

This summer saw Italy in the hands of Lucifer, a devastating heatwave. Those who could closed shop, walked out of their offices and headed beachwards. Others sweated in their apartments and sales of air conditioning units received a boost.


Lucifer brought a spate of fires in its wake. It seemed the whole country was burning. Fires in Sicily, in Sardegna, in the Marche, on the banks of the Tiber, in the pine groves around Ostia, up to the North of the capital past Morlupo, in the woods around Tivoli, hardly a day went by without a dark cloud appearing somewhere over the city dwellings.


And then came the news that some fires had been started deliberately. For the price of the cleared land, in some cases, and for the overtime in other cases, as a voluntary firefighter was caught in the act of setting fire to land. In Sicily, firefighters had got family to call in fires. All for a bonus.


Then at the peak of the sweat ACEA, the company that supplies water to Rome, announced that water was drying up. Spring rain had been sparse and aquifers were thirsty. Lake Bracciano, one of Rome's water 'tanks' was emptying and no one could say when the next big rainfall was coming.


There was talk of rationing - 8 hour water cuts a day were mentioned. There was growing irritation as it became clear that one of the causes of the water shortage was the poor condition of the water supply network with its old pipes and thousands of litres of leaks.

The mayor of Rome closed down some of the permanently running drinking water fountains. Small vendors upped the price on water.


A small grocery store near where I work decided to hike it's water price.
"That's 80 cents."
"But it was 60 yesterday."
"Well, it's 80 today."
There was no discussion possible. He was just responding to demand but failing to understand that with a shop on the outskirts by so doing he risked alienating some of his customers.

The water rationing hasn't happened yet.


Instead, the city has emptied. More and more people have loaded their cars and departed. All of a sudden the streets are full of parking spaces. Parking shortages have now reached small seaside towns.

All the newsagents have closed despite the fact that in any given area one must remain open (there's a law regulating this). On the local market there are no food stalls. In fact, there's not much of anything.  Public transport is in its second (or is it third) holiday phase to accomodate the fact that the drivers are away. Just to make commuters even happier, this summer a tract of the A-line has been closed to allow for work on the developing C-line at its junction with the stop of San Giovanni (A-line). I have decided to avoid Roman public transport for a month. 


This is not the week for a medical emergency or an accident as junior staff take care of the hospitals while the senior members of staff enjoy their holidays. Most vets have closed so animals cannot fall ill. Plumbers and electricians have vanished. A repair will have to wait. This after all is Ferragosto.

Holiday preparations

It had to happen. For weeks the state of denial persisted. Adamant: "No. We are not closing down."


First, the pet food disappeared, then the wine, followed by the toilet paper and kitchen roll, then the eggs went away, returned and departed for good. The shelves emptied. Nothing was replaced. The cold compartment dwindled from three fridges to one as cheeses, butter, yoghurts, fresh pasta was sold.


Still the denial continued. "It's just a small problem with the suppliers." But there were concerned looks on the faces of the shop assistants. One dramatic morning the meat fridge was emptied and its contents ferried out to a waiting truck.


 "No more meat," observed one of the assistants.


"They said our jobs were guaranteed," said another.


 A supermarket that specialised in a limited supply of vegetables and fruit as well as water wasn't going to last. I had no choice but to swich allegiance.


The tolls of doom appeared with the notices: "this concern will be closed on Sundays throughout the month of August." Then the following week: "we are closing tomorrow. "The shutters came down. It had been inevitable.


I returned to my old supermarket to note that for a discount it wasn't half bad. There was a new pizza counter, the bread counter was bigger and the deli counter improved. The vegetables, they claimed, all came directly from the farm. Malicious tongues wondered where the farm was, and had it had any fallout from the highly toxic factory fire in Pomezia a couple of months ago.


The supermarket still had its plethora of rules, now played out at regular intervals over the tannoy: "It is severely forbidden to use personal shopping bags or trolleys," "Gloves must be worn to pick fresh produce in the fruit and veg department, " All fresh produce will be weighed again at the check out till." "Taking photos is strictly prohibited."....


There to enforce the rules and trail the gypsies as they do their shopping is the security guard Mahmoud. I had a run in with Mahmoud a couple of years back when I'd entered the supermarket with a plastic bag containing cat food of a brand not even sold on the premises. He ordered me to put the offending item in one of the lockers. I retorted I was only getting a bottle of wine, I'd take less than a minute and I wasn't going to comply. Just as well Mahmoud's a gentle giant, he didn't stop me. or maybe he thought I was crazy.


August is the month when a lot of Italians head off to the sea or the mountains. In preparation for their travels they usually go shopping and stock up on their favourite produce from their local shops. It would seem that not only are they suspicious of foreign food (it's well-known here that French food is inedible and as for English food...you don't even want to start on that) but also of the food of other regions.


Hence, I wait in the check-out queue, for the umpteenth time, behind a family piling on 10 kilos of potatoes, bag after bag of pasta and tin after tin of tomato sauce alongside three family packs of factory-farmed chicken,, a bottle of olive oil, followed by jumbo  packs of bottled water.

Food for the holidays?

None of the produce they are buying is hard to find in any other region of Italy or original or particularly interesting. Yet, when they head off on holiday a sizeable part of their boot will be full of food from the local supermarket. Of course, there may also be a financial concern. Maybe the food from home is cheaper than what they'll find elsewhere?


A colleague, Rachel found herself going on holiday with an Italian family: her son was friends with their son and somehow they'd got invited to her families summer house in the South of France. They turned up ready for the trip with a bootful of Italian food:pasta, tomatoes etc.... They were worried that they wouldn't be able to find pasta in France.


Upon arrival, the wife of the family busied herself in the kitchen. Water was boiled and pasta thrown in. Rachel's husband had stopped off at a French supermarket to stock up.


"I haven't come to France to eat pasta," said Rachel's husband, as he snapped off a piece of baguette, opened a pack of foie gras and dolloped a large blob of it on his bread. Rachel, in the meantime, opened the various cheese confections and whipped up a simple salad.


The husband of the Italian family looked from his plate of 'pasta in bianco', to the feast that was being laid down, while his son hungrily made a grab for some baguette and foie gras only to be rebuked by his mother. Did he want a stomache ache? Did he? No, he didn't.


"Would you like some wine," a bottle of rosé Cotes de Provence was placed on the table.


"We've got our wine here. We brought some Frascati with us," said the Italian wife.


"This is chilled."


But such was their suspicion of the strange French food and wine, they refused.

In Trastevere

Trastevere.....wonderful Trastevere! From my earliest days in Rome I've always been fond of Trastevere.

Firstly, it was home to one of Rome's few original language cinemas, the Pasquino. It was on Piazza di Sant'Egidio, opposite the Museo di Roma in Trastevere and next to a bar called Ombre Rosse (named after the John Wayne film 'Stagecoach').We would sit on the narrow terrace at Ombre Rosse with a glass of white wine and a slice of New York cheese cake, either after a film or as we waited to go in. Back at the end of the nineties it was one of the few places in Rome which sold cheesecake, there and the Austrian bakery in the Ghetto. All good things come to an end and the Pasquino closed its doors. Now an art gallery stands on the premises.

Secondly Trastevere had one of the best bookshops in Rome, then known as the 'Corner Bookshop', a small cube set on the corner of two narrow alleys. It moved a few doors down to become the 'Almost Corner Bookshop', where you can still find it today on Via del Moro.

The second hand bookshop, on Via della Lungaretta, close to the tiny school I used to work in and where I found many cheap treasures is still there, as dusty and musty as ever. It recently celebrated 40 years in business.

Other than films and books, more than anything, it provides an endless stream of excellent, moderately priced restaurants, pizzerie, trattorie and wine bars. On Via San Francesco a Ripa there is Ivo's for pizzas, a little further down the street Cave Canem where one evening our limoncellos were served with our bill making it clear that we were to drink up and move as soon as we could to make way for an incoming wave of tourists. It marred what would have been a perfectly nice evening. Near Piazza della Scala there is the Trattoria della Scala where I first tried straccetti di manzo con rucola (thin strips of beef with rocket sprinkled on top).

Walking out of 'Cave Canem' and onto Piazza San Calisto, next to 'Paris' one of the best places to try Fiori di Zucca, is the infamous Bar San Callisto. Infamous because this was the bar which supplied all the low-lifes that clutter the streets with it was said more than just beer. It is still known as the bar with the cheapest beer in Trastevere. It's terrace is always packed.

From here, it's just a hop and a skip to the heart of the district on Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere with its magnificent basilica, the central fountain and terraces packed with tourists. Due to renovations the beautiful mosaic frontispiece is hidden behind scaffolding and a veil of fabric.

 There are two important basilicas in Trastevere: Santa Maria and Santa Cecilia. The former is a pre-Medieval Church, one of the oldest in Rome, with impressive mosaics whereas the latter is a Baroque Church dedicated to the martyrdom of Santa Cecilia. It was built over an earlier Roman Church.

Santa Cecilia

From Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, if you take a right down the little road beside the newsstand, you will find  yourself on Via della Lugaretta. It goes down towards Viale Trastevere, the large thouroughfare that bissects the area, and continues all the way over the other side to the Tiber past terrace after terrace of tables and bars.

The number 8 tram rattles up and down Viale Trastevere from Piazza Venezia to the top of the Circonvalazione Gianicolense at Casaletto.

Further on past the Island on the Tiber you will reach the city walls and Porta Portese. Every Sunday, Rome's largest flea market takes place at Porta Portese where among the usual rubbish it's possible to find some genuine antiques and vintage items. Beware the pickpockets! But this is the unfashionable side of Trastevere away from the bars and restaurants. and tourist masses.

If instead, back on Piazza Santa Maria you take a left, this will take you to Piazza Sant'Egidio, go through the square onto Via della Scala, stop at Caffe della Scala for a beer or a chilled white wine then continue through the Porta Settimiana onto Via della Lungara turn down Via Corsini at the end of which are the Botanical Gardens. The botanical gardens are well worth a visit and also a quiet respite from the crowds. Nearby are the museums of Palazzo Corsini and Palazzo Farnesina (which I haven't visited yet).

However, retracing our steps rather than taking Via della Scala on leaving Piazza St. Egidio you take Vicolo de' Cinque this will take you to Enoteca Ferrara and Via del Moro. As you're here might as well pop into the 'Almost Corner Bookshop'. Once that visit is over head towards Piazza Trilussa and the Tiber.

But today I'm in Rome's 13th district for the Festa dei Noantri.....

Land of the red haired women

When the temperature goes up outside, people do all they can to keep cool. Romans shed their clothes with alacrity. For the women the hem lines go up and neck lines plunge. The fabrics get lighter and lighter almost to the point of being transparent. Indeed, knicker lines become visible and bras adopt a new not-quite-outer wear status.

Men opt for shorts, logoed T-shirts and flip-flops. And, unless they are civil servants with their obligatory dress code of suit and tie, unfair for the men as women can wear what they want, the casual tie-less look is in.  

Sandals of amazing complexity in a variety of materials some adorned with sparkly stones and beads appear on well-manicured and well-cared for feet. Legs are waxed to the max though strangely armpits may remain hairy.

Women start teasing their long flowing locks onto their heads so as to feel a breeze, when there is one, on their necks.They have a vast array of clips and grips and elastics, some go for headbands and combs, anything that can get their hair off their skin short of actually cutting it.

I go to my hairdresser. My first visit to a hairdresser in Italy was a disaster. I didn't speak enough Italian to convey what it was I wanted. In the event I got a short cut but with an alarmingly pouffy blow dry which left me with a dandelion-like puff atop. Even worse I was on the way to work so I couldn't go home and shower it to more reasonable proportions. I spent the lesson watching a student stuff his mouth with a hanky every time mirth almost over-powered him. The other students were wreathed in large smiles.

Though thinking about it, maybe it had nothing to do with a failure to communicate. A few years later, one of the sales staff at a school I worked at, returned from his lunch break with the most startling of blow dries. His hair had been puffed up and swept back into wings along the side of his head and then sprayed into place. Had he been a model just about to saunter down the catwalk no one would have blinked. He was a middle-aged sales rep. He got a lot of smiles that day.

Nowadays I stick to the same hairdresser for as long as I can. The better to get to know the staff. For many years I went to a small place in a road that led off Campo dei Fiori to Piazza Farnese. It was a French franchise operation, appropriately enough as Piazza Farnese is home to the French embassy. Then the owners ditched the franchise and went rogue with a subsequent hike in prices which saw me abandon them with regret. 

I transfered to a similar franchise operation on the Via Tuscolana just two metro stops up from where I work. 

With some trepidation as I walk in today, I note that the woman who usually cuts my hair isn't there, instead a young man with heavily tatooed arms takes over. I point to the photo of the way-prettier-model than me who sports the cut I want. But as I'm waiting, I flick through the brochure of cuts. I point at another photo.

"That's very short," the young man cautions, "especially at the back."

I nod, "Go for it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It'll grow back anyway." And in a re-enactment of Edward Scissorhands he cuts and cuts and cuts. Snippets float around the air and down my gown, whiter and greyer than I would like but I dislike dyes. More accurately, I dislike the smell of most products used in commercial dyes.

This of course has prompted comments along the lines of:

"You're so courageous."

"I could never let myself go grey like you."

"It's a good thing you have short hair. Long grey hair is so sad" 

"It suits you but it's not for me." etc.....

When it comes to personal comments, even inappropriate ones, Italian women are no wall flowers. Though in many ways their comments reflect their own insecurities.

In turn I observe their red-dyed shag piles, sleek bobs, layered locks and tumbling ringlets, varying in colour from the scariest gingers to coppers, burgundies, auburns and cherries, rubies, intense reds, violets, titians and magentas. Why red? Is it because it is a 'passionate' colour, the colour of love but also the colour of war? 

Last year every morning when I went to the dog park to see if Mia, a black Labrador had arrived I would look through the foliage for the intense red glow of her owner Grazia's hair. The mother-in-law of the custodian to my building with her ever thining locks goes about in bright orange while the custodian herself dances from auburn to magenta as the seasons pass.,And if they haven't dyed it a shade of red then there'll be a red highlight or red tips. 

It has nothing to with age as I've seen this colour on women from 18 to 80. In fact 60% of women in Italy tint their hair. 

A colleague of mine expressed some alarm when she came to Rome for the first time in 1998. "All the women had red hair. What was that about? I felt like I'd landed on another planet, in the land of red-haired women. Everywhere I turned I saw red!"

The years have passed but the affection of Italian, or is it just Roman ?, women for red goes on. Personally, I'll stick to my shade of grey. For now.

Santa Pazienza

The waiting room is over-flowing. A large dog is whining in a corner, my cat is miaowing and 2 other cats are cowering in their transporters. The door opens, a man with a large dog tries to get in but realises he and his dog won't fit. He resigns himself to waiting outside. Though before closing the door asks "who's last?" A woman points at me.

"No, I've got an appointment." I glance at my watch, it is already ten minutes past the time of the appointment. This draws a couple of strange looks, the vets here don't do appointments. My cat needs to see one of the myriad consultants of the practice.

The door opens again, and a man pulling a suitcase enters the room and knocks on one of the two doors which lead to the practice. He is ushered in. Time ticks by. More people arrive. Some are ushered in. A woman arrives, her cat has an operation scheduled. A man with shoulder length curly hair and wearing Bermuda shorts strides in as if he owns the place, and maybe he does, he enters the inner sanctum. Finally, the doctor with whom I had an appointment half an hour earlier arrives, muttering something about traffic along the way.

"Santa Pazienza," I think. How much longer? I fix my gaze on the posters warning pet owners of the hazards of not testing their four-legged ones for a variety of nasty and not-so-nasty ailments. Beware mosquitoes! Beware ticks! More people pop their heads in the door. The appointment after mine has arrived with a large dog straining at the leash. "What is this? Just cats today," he mutters resigned to a wait outside where the weather is changing as dark clouds scuttle in with the promise of showers.

Ten minutes later, I get access though not without an elderly woman lap dog on lap trying to cut in front of me. The consulting vet glares at me, "are you sure it's your turn."
 "I have an appointment," I mumble, "for quarter to ten," I add more forcefully. The woman is one of the many who have turned up without an appointment. She complains loudly. She has been there since the surgery opened. I arrived after her. She protests at the unfairness of it. This is just an everyday scene from my local vets' practice.

'Santa Pazienza' I think again, not yet knowing that this is the beginning of a very long morning which would try my patience to the limit. Let's say angry vets and skitty scared cats don't make for a good combination.

Patience is needed in all big cities. throughout the world.  But maybe more so, in Italian cities and towns: bureaucracy with its attendant queues in various government offices and institutions throughout the city, long lines in banks and post offices, queues backed up aisles in supermarkets where of the ten very efficient looking tills only two are open, and hours spent waiting for buses that are stuck in traffic are among the most obvious culprits. The bigger the city the more patience you will need. 

I remember the confusion the first time I tried to cash a cheque, getting paid directly on my account wasn't an option yet. I entered the bank after having been twice rejected by the security doors. I divested myself of all metal possible, put it in the locker provided and was allowed in. In those days employees could smoke at work. They were smoking. A cloud hung over the work stations. There seemed to be no obvious line. Just people waiting, chatting, filling in forms and complaining. As soon as a till freed up someone strode forwards to claim their turn. How did they know it was their turn? Elderly people seemed to claim priority: "I'm old. It's my turn." And they would nimbly rush up to do a half hour long transaction. I waited a long time and when I managed to get to the cashier it was to discover that I needed another document. I couldn't cash my cheque without it. I would have to return the next day.

Things have improved: banks and post offices have discoverd single file queues and ticketing systems. The advent of the internet and its increased use, while slower than in northern Europe, has also helped to reduce queues by allowing more and more basic transactions to be done online even though often on less-than-user-friendly websites as if making a process simple to accomplish were inconceivable.

Queues have been described as one of the twin plagues of modern day Italy (the second being mass unemployment). However, should anyone wish to avoid queues at government offices where one can wait hours to do the most basic of bureaucratic taskes they can always pay for the services of a professional queuer. For 10 euros an hour a professional queuer will stand in line.

Alas, professional queuers cannot be used everywhere. Buses and their lack of any semblance of an efficient timetable, especially in Rome with its bankrupt public transport and ineffective mayor (the joke goes that when she took office she googled: how to run Rome?) are sore points.

For the umpteenth time I stare down at the bus company app., called muoversiaroma (moving in Rome), a misnomer if ever there was one. The screen indicates 'no bus', there is nowhere to sit and the sun is beating down hard. There is no shade. I shake my head at the elderly woman with the walking stick who has asked me if I can give her an idea of when the bus will appear. I shrug.

"Santa Pazienza!" she mutters. Give me patience!