Preparing for an adventure
In a surprising turn of events, I’m off to Italy today! Let me tell you all about this unexpected adventure…
It all began in the cold days of March, not long after my Grandma died. Though her death was as gentle and ‘good’ as these things can be - she was 99, had been ill for less than a week, and two of her six children were with her at the end - the passing of a matriarch is always a time for taking stock. In the Covid lockdown years, I spent many hours on the phone to Grandma as she narrated her life story, beginning with her childhood as the daughter of a London cabbie in the 1920s and ending with reflections on what she considered the most valuable things in her long life. A century of existence had shown her the vital importance of creativity, travel, and good food.
Grandma loved to draw and studied at Guildford School of Art in the 1940s, going on to teach afterwards. Working on her own creative projects was important: she always tried to balance this with family life and took courses in pattern design, illustrated a cookery book, and wrote poetry. But it was tough. My mother, her eldest daughter, rememebered the frustration she felt at being unable to produce art to her own satisfaction: an unfinished canvas, slashed with a blade, sat in the attic as a reminder of how hard those child-rearing years had been. In her nineties she was still making her own hand-drawn Christmas and birthday cards, and knitting her own clothes. Some of her final wishes were for her gravestone to read ‘Joan Higgins - Artist’, and to have her life celebrated with a small exhibition of her work.
My Grandmother Joan as a teenager in the 1940s. She wears a woollen herringbone tweed coat over a knitted jumper and her dark curly hair rests on her shoulders.
Grandma’s second passion was travel. Through my Grandad’s work as a civil engineer, they lived all over the UK - Wales, the Isle of Wight, Gosport, Guildford, Chesterfield, Sutton Coldfield, Aberdeenshire, Suffolk - and learned how to make homes and friends quickly in each new place. In the 1980s, my they moved to Hong Kong and explored South-East Asia and New Zealand. This was a time of great happiness and creativity for Joan. The years of raising six children in an itinerant household (which also included her elderly father) were behind her, and she could dedicate time and energy to her own interests.
Third was food. Cooking was hugely important to Grandma: it started with meeting the need to feed her rapidly growing household, but by the time she was pregnant for the fifth time, going through the weekly routine of roasts, rissoles and scratch meals had started to pall. But the family still needed breakfast, lunch and dinner. So Joan decided to make preparing food more interesting by becoming a (mail-order) Cordon Bleu cook. Every week for years she diligently followed recipes and learned techniques taught in the course magazines - French, Italian, Chinese - and ordered then-exotic ingredients to add flavour and variety. She rediscovered traditional British recipes, and was particularly delighted to rediscover huffkins, soft bread rolls featuring a dimple filled with with jam, that she remembered from her childhood. Grandma was a great host and family gatherings always centred around a large table groaning under the weight of homecooked food - salads, quiches, dhals, curries, cakes and sundry other dishes that never lasted long.
I loved my Grandma and shared her love of people, places and food - and similarly her creative frustrations. In the last seven years I have spent only a handful of days away from my children; my work has had to be squeezed in around their needs. But I always yearn for new places, new perspectives, and time to write. And so, as we prepared to celebrate my Grandmas’s life and got ready for a clan gathering in her honour, I saw a message on Instagram that made my heart skip. Applications were being welcomed from people who wished to join the transumanza: the traditional seasonal movement of cattle from lowland pasture to mountain grazing in northern Italy’s Biellese Alps.
Though the full price of taking part was beyond me, I saw that the organiser, Max Jones, offered opportunities for lower income participants - particularly those who might develop a creative response to the transhumance. My mind was buzzing with ideas: the creation of good nourishment through milk was at the heart of the transhumance, just as it was a central part of my mothering. I wrote to him and explained my situation: might I be able to join this year?
Max responded positively, but uncertainty around my own financial position meant I was not able to commit at first. However, two months later, Max got in touch again. Was there any way now that I could join? My heart soared again - this was my chance. After checking my savings, I applied to the Society of Authors for a travel grant, and asked my mother if she could take care of the children whilst I was away. For the first time in six years, I found myself buying plane tickets - and within two days, I was committed to going to Italy.
Today is the day: wish me luck!
