Introduction

How it all began

1978 Weston-Super-Mare

The reader turned the tarot cards over one at a time; holding her breath each time she drew a new card. I could hear my heart beating in my ears. Ridiculous to be anxious about this sort of thing.

At the time I was in my late 20s, living in Weston-Super-Mare, a single parent with two children. What she said to me was the last thing I expected.

‘One day, you will live abroad.’ She spoke without emotion and without much volume. I had to ask her to repeat what she said as I wanted it clarified.

‘You will spend some time in your life living abroad.’

‘Well, thanks,’ I said and waited for more, but nothing came. ‘Is that it? No more?’

‘You will have light and shade in your life.’

She gathered up the cards and I assumed my time with her was over, so I thanked her and left. It was something and nothing, I thought.

Outside, my lovely neighbour Vee was waiting for me. She had persuaded me to go with her to the tarot reader in the first place. ‘What did she say to you?’ I asked.

‘Not a lot. She thought I might write a book and then she saw something and refused to say what, which is a bit worrying. C’mon, let’s go and have a coffee.’

Vee never managed to write a book because she passed away a few years later. That must have been what the tarot reader saw in her cards. I’m a bit sceptical about these things but sometimes you have to give the benefit of the doubt.

Vee was probably the closest friend I ever had and losing her was devastating. Life can be whisked away at any moment and while we have it in our grasp we should make the most of every day.

I often thought about that day and the words of the tarot reader. She was wrong about Vee writing a book; that person would be me. I wrote Dear Tosh about the loss of my lovely son Thomas when he was twenty-seven.

It would be many years and three more children later, that I eventually ‘spent some time living abroad’ and the tarot reader was certainly correct about the ‘light and shade’ in my life. I have had a basin full of both. My Italian experience was, for the most part, light.

***

2005 Venice Italy

I had forgotten all about the ‘living abroad’ thing until I sat with Geoff in a restaurant in Venice many years later. It was October, we had been together less than a year. We rubbed along nicely. I was widowed and he was divorced. He had two daughters and I had four sons and a daughter. . . (poor man didn’t know what he was taking on).

There is something about Venice that makes people dream. The place is heaving with so much history, art and culture. We visited all the usual sights, St Mark’s Square and Basilica, Rialto Bridge, the Accademia, the fish markets and the theatres, and some not so common sights, searching the tiny back streets and small canals — getting lost, as you do in a foreign city. On the last evening of our holiday we sat eating dinner in a Lebanese restaurant. It seemed odd to be eating kofta and tabbouleh washed down with a Lebanese Sauvignon Blanc in the back streets of this most romantic Italian city, but we hadn’t enjoyed the pizzeria much on the previous evening and decided that the Lebanese place, recommended by a fellow traveller staying at our hotel, might suit us better.

I was just enjoying my desert when Geoff said, ‘I’ve always fancied the idea of living in Italy. It’s wasn’t possible in my other life, before you, but would you consider it?’

I’ve never been one to shirk away from adventure or to take a long time weighing up the pros and cons before making decisions and so I was prepared to throw myself into this new Italian adventure without hesitation. My mother had died at the beginning of 2005. My children had all left home, living or travelling abroad or leading their own lives in the UK.

It was then I thought about the tarot reader’s prediction. I didn’t mention it to Geoff because I imagined he would think I was making it up, but I allowed myself an indulgent smile. It was an omen, a good one, it was my destiny. I knew that my lovely friend Vee, from the 1970s would have agreed, and I could hear her saying, ‘go for it Nin’.

‘Yes, I’ll give it a go,’ I said, ‘But not Venice. Beautiful as it is, I don’t think it would be a good place in which to live and the food is rubbish.’

‘Hell no. Let’s have a look around Italy first,’ he said.

As soon as we returned from our Venice trip, we arranged to take a holiday the following year and see as much of Italy as we could manage in a couple of weeks. We planned to visit Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria, Campania and Lazio. We stayed only a couple of nights in each major city. La Spezia, Florence, Siena, Rome and we visited Parma and Lake Bolsona on our way down.

‘Are you going to spend two whole weeks in a car, driving around with my dad?’ asked Geoff’s daughter Jackie.

‘Yes, I am, is that okay?’

‘You’ll be so bored. I can’t imagine anything worse. Ten minutes on the school run was enough for me. He’ll get lost and never ask the way, he’ll ramble on forever about war, history or politics and you will be B-O-R-E-D.’

‘Thanks for the warning. I’ll pack my ear plugs,’ I said.

I did most of the driving because I’m more patient than he is and he’s a better navigator. I figured there would be less reason for any disagreement if I let him find the way and I just followed his directions. He would occasionally take over, usually if I’d had a drink. Geoff doesn’t drink and hasn’t for over 30 years. I don’t drink alcohol now, haven’t had a drop for three years but that is another story — as they say.

‘When I did drink I drank enough for three lifetimes, I don’t need to do it now,’ he says. He doesn’t go on about it but he will mention that he’s a recovering alcoholic if people push him to have an alcoholic drink, which of course they do.

‘Go on, have just one it won’t hurt you…’ and so on. It’s amazing how some people will keep on. Others do the opposite, ‘Oh, I’ve made a sherry trifle for pudding, I’m so sorry I forgot you didn’t drink, what shall we do?’

‘Nothing,’ says Geoff, ‘Eating alcohol was never my problem, so you can give me a generous helping please.’

I liked to have a drink then, and Geoff never suggested I shouldn’t have one. In fact, he showed an interest in the wines I chose and would happily pour me a gin and tonic on a warm summer evening. I think it showed a remarkable strength of character. I’m not sure what he would be like if he did imbibe, he’s completely over the top as it is and he’s loud, opinionated, funny, annoying and with a big laugh, especially at his own bad jokes. Geoff is a generous natured man and I think people either love him or hate him —he has a Marmite cycling shirt for that very reason —there’s one thing for certain, you can’t ignore him. I, of course love him.

He did talk a great deal on the trip. He stores a whole load of information in his head, some of it useless but plenty of interesting, worldwide historical facts. I was treated to lessons on the Second World War and Italy’s involvement from Milan, through the Po Valley down to Rome. Then, as we passed lake Trasimeno in Tuscany, he threw in several little-known facts about Hannibal’s invasion of Italy.

‘The thing is Nin, I do know a lot of stuff but then again if you sound confident enough when you speak you can get away with quite a lot of bullshit!’ He laughed.

The trip confirmed my desire to join Geoff in fulfilling his lifetime dream of living in Italy. I loved the climate, the people, the scenery and above all the history. Everywhere we visited was steeped in history. To see first-hand the places that you’ve only read about, or watched on the television was a tremendous experience. I have always enjoyed the sensation of standing in a centuries old building and bringing to life — in my mind — the people who have stood there before me – on that actual spot. A pauper, a monk, an aristocrat – where were they going, what where they doing, what did they eat for breakfast that morning? In Italy I could sense this everywhere we travelled.

We told our respective children our plans and expected some opposition but were surprised at their support.

‘Mum’s new man is taking her off to Italy, I knew he’d got the mafia look about him and he’s obsessed with the Sopranos, said Tosh.

‘Great mum, that’ll be fab for holidays,’ said Joe.

‘Imagine it — I’ll be able to say ‘my dad lives in Italy’ how cool is that?’ said Lottie, Geoff’s younger daughter.

‘I told you that you’d meet a boho chick and soul mate. So happy for you,’ this was Jackie to her dad.

‘That’s neat mum,’ Matt, my eldest said on the phone from where he lived in Singapore at the time. ‘Where in Italy?’ came from my practical daughter Emily, at the time she was working as a prop stylist for photographic shoots and living in Australia.

My youngest, Wills, asked, ‘When did you learn to speak Italian mum?’ Hmm, not yet I thought.

Between us we had seven children and all of them loved the idea of us moving to Italy.

It was a very exciting time in my life.

To be continued . . .