When I was a kid, I would sometimes catch myself in a moment where I would think “I am completely and utterly happy right now”. Strangely, I can’t remember a single one of these moments though I have wispy memories of our dog being involved one time, of an enchanted evening playing in a friend’s maze-like attic, and of a dressed up outing to the city with my mother to see the ballet. What I do remember is the feeling, a truly profound feeling, of everything being right in the world in a way that could simply not be improved upon. By my teens these moments had ceased. I hankered after them for a while, because this happiness, each a little bliss bomb, was like a drug. Gradually I almost forgot they ever existed.

I woke in the middle of the night a few nights ago and realised that I had one of these moments last summer. Last summer was special. Everything was infused with sepia as it happened. It was the last year where Chicago would be our home. We knew at Christmas we would be heading back to Australia after 6 and a half years. Everything was bittersweet.

In fact the whole year was a series of freeze frames. Walking home from the train station in the whisper white quiet world of a fresh snowfall. The first firefly of summer. The madness of our Halloween with friends. Every moment was inspected more closely, the awareness of enjoyment more heightened. This time with our friends and our adopted home so woefully finite.  In retrospect, the year was a gift.

The moment happened when we were in Michigan at our friends’ farm. A whole week of fun was drawing to a close. It was a hot day, there had been swimming and go carts, wood-fired pizza and song, but now only three of us were awake. My friend Emily, my daughter Petunia (as she has forever been known on these pages), and I. It would have been close to midnight and we were sitting outside. Emily and I drinking red wine. There was not a cloud in the sky, and being hundreds of miles from the nearest city, the stars were brilliant. The three of us sat at a table, leaning back in our chairs trying to spot a satellite or shooting star, and when our necks complained we decided to change position.

We got down on the ground and laid on the pavers beside the table. It had been such a hot day that the pavers were still very warm, a hot stone treatment under our bodies. After a few moments Emily got up and turned off every single source of light and walked carefully back to her spot.

We lay close, arms by our sides, like three french fries in the inky dark. Our chatter became softer as the dark saturated us. We watched the stars and became tiny. There were satellites, there were shooting stars, and just the three of us, alone in the universe.

It was perfect.

It is in the countryside, close to a one horse town called San Carlo with its one bar, one tiny supermarket, and the Macelleria, butcher, with its white plastic strip curtains in the open doorway. It’s hot, and on still days the town has a rich soupy smell from volcanic earth and the foul river at the bottom of the hill. San Carlo sits on the side of a mountain, one of Vesuvius’ cohort, a view to the sea and Gaeta’s dramatic coastline in one direction, and endless olive farms, vineyards, hills, even a nuclear power plant, in every other direction. It is beautiful.

The house is 3 kilometres from town, marked only by a KM 8 sign, no street numbers necessary in rural Italy. Grand gates and a barking scrum of former strays guard the entrance. The house is old and big and solid. It could do with a spit and polish. Maria, who lives in the gatehouse, greets us and shows us around our ‘villa for a week’. Her English is broken. She strides into the house, up stone steps to a doorway and points “room”, then continues up the steps to more bedrooms – “room”, “room”, “room”. “Si” we say, “Grazie”, our more broken Italian in reply.

It’s huge and did I say old? Oil portraits of long lost brigadiers and ladies on every wall along with framed family crests and official documents. Antique tables are strewn with silver trinket dishes, candelabra, and photos. The photos seem all of a similar time frame, perhaps 1980’s? 90’s? A smiling family, older husband and younger wife, and their regulation son and daughter. No recent photos it seems. The clock is stuck.

The eyes in the portraits follow me around the room. One is of a serious man in a black cape, with a high black collar and glossy black hair. Are there Italian vampires? The spaghetti was laden with garlic that night.

On the first night one bedroom is summarily dismissed by the girls. There are two beds in the room and they are hard and small, with dusty pea green covers. They decide to share a bed in another, grander, bedroom (they are all grand). The lamps have been turned on in this room and now that is no longer needed it is time to turn them off.

It is important to note that the age of the house and its many past inhabitants has my imagination running. It is flapping around like tape escaped from an old film reel – incessant, uncontrollable, and pointless.  Because of this, I turn the lights off in a particular order, from furthest to the door to nearest, to enable a hasty exit. First the ensuite light. Then the lamp by the window. Next the lamp closest to the door, and then a quick step out of the room into the well lit hall. Well done, me!

The girls are ensconced in their bedrooms, clothes already strewn across royal red and blue carpet, iPhones and iPads adorning the beds. I do not infect them with my imagination. They are getting ready for a swim in the spectacular pool in the garden and are happy.

I pass the unwanted bedroom on my way back downstairs. As I near I see light reflected from the doorway onto the terracotta tiles of the wide hall. I slow down and move closer to the other side of the hall. A lamp is on between the two small beds. It was dark when I left, I am sure. But maybe not. It has been two big travel days to get to this remote part of Campania. I am probably weary.

The living room is opulent but tired. Candy-striped satin couches, pink and cream, overstuffed and piled with cushions, but ripped, stuffing coming out one arm. And holes from mustachioed pipe smokers of the past.

There is a guest book with over a decade of reviews from Germans, Russians, the Danes, and the English. A heavy book with thick pages, it sits on a pulpit-high wooden pedestal against the wall.  I read a few reviews to settle my poltergeist qualms. Other people have stayed here. They had a good time! But then I notice that the most recent page has been torn out. Roughly.  It was just the hard beds, nothing more sinister. Right?

 

This December just gone my family spent a week in London. We had a blast. London was in full Christmas mode and we enjoyed the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, travelled out to the Harry Potter Studios, and visited the Tower of London.

In the midst of this, we had a magical evening. Now to be clear, this was planned to be a great night out but in my experience such planning can be hit or miss. And there were additional unexpected events which added to the magic.

The planned portion was an indulgent evening. We had booked front row tickets to the musical Matilda (based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name) with dinner prior at a restaurant nearby. We had been looking forward to this evening for quite some time.

That afternoon in London it started to rain. It was an uninspiring start. Because of this we hailed a black cab outside Hamleys to take us to the theatre area.

As the driver went to turn into the street we needed he realised it was closed. “You’ll have to walk from here” he said, and we all tumbled out into the drizzle.

We quickly gathered that the reason for the the road closure was a Christmas shopping night around the Seven Dials area. The Seven Dials is where seven little cobblestone streets meet and there is a large pillar with sun dials in the middle of the road junction.

The rain stopped and the magical evening started.

The road closures created the atmosphere they always do for me: the glee of strolling calmly along roads across which you would usually dart.

We headed down the street for an early dinner at the restaurant and then headed back to the shopping night.

The first magical thing happened to my husband. At this point in December 2013 he had mostly been away from Australia since February. There were many things he missed from home and one of them was Coopers beer which is almost impossible to find when you’re off Australian shores.

So, as we strolled along the roads that night we walked past a newly opened Industrie store. And on a bench just inside the door he caught sight of an icy cold bottle of Coopers. It had a halo of light around it. Well not really, all I knew is that my husband disappeared off the street in front of us and when we entered the shop he was happily nursing a bottle of Coopers Sparkling Ale.

It was his golden ticket.

After this beer was polished off we returned to the street, ducked into another shop where the girls each received a cup of rich, warm hot chocolate delivered straight from a saucepan and then found ourselves standing in the middle of the Seven Dials junction.

There were a lot of people milling around and we had only been standing there for 60 seconds or so, considering our next move, when from nowhere a sound system started. “I don’t want a lot for Christmas” came the first bar and out of the crowds there appeared 3 then 10 and then finally 30 dancers. It was of course “All I Want For Christmas”. And we were right in the middle of this flash mob.

It was absolutely fabulous.

The whole crowd stopped and stared and probably stood there with stupid grins on their faces just like the one I was sporting. It was ridiculously festive.

As the flash mob ended a time check resulted in a swift entry into the theatre for Matilda, and the last magic of the night.

We were front row. The show was perfect despite being in range of the fearsome Miss Trunchbull’s flying spittle. Our three girls were spellbound. I also loved it, being a fan of both Roald Dahl and Tim Minchin (who wrote the music and lyrics) it was pretty much a sure thing.

For the rest of the holiday our youngest daughter, Petunia, would often whisper in my ear “Some people say I’m a little bit naughty”.

Which is, of course, true.