bulous Sicilian food and circumnavigate Mount Etna on Cinzia’s birthday before we flew back to the UK to pick up our car to drive home. After Sicily, the Marche at the time of the Spring equinox seemed very


‘northern’ when we got back. Winter seems to have taken a long time to go this year, and the blossom and first signs of Spring came later than we thought they should. Spring bulbs are not common here and it took us a while to learn to look out for the first flowers of ginestra as a sign of spring and, when the sun shone and we could get up the mountain, get immense pleasure from walking among the carpets of wild crocus, and gentian and violets that covered the higher meadows and the abundance of cyclamen, primrose and violets that we found in the hedgerows throughout April. Our horticultural year really began when Franco, our neighbour and good friend, announced in early April that he’d be coming subito to rota-


Issue 10 • May-June 2011 21


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