Goodreads Giveaway

Oct 28, 2024 | Living In Italy

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Tilly Fox’s Fabulous Midlife Crisis

by Rosie Meleady

Giveaway ends November 26, 2024.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

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His and Her Enormous Watermelons

Aug 16, 2024 | Living In Italy

Here in our small town in Italy, we often see an elderly couple at the local supermarket. We’ve named them Bill and Betty. I doubt their Italian names are anything close to that, but giving nicknames to Italians we see often helps us give a quick reference when chatting about who we saw when out around town. We only ever see Bill and Betty at the fruit and vegetable aisle in the supermarket doing the same ritual. The old gent, Bill, picks up a piece of veg, smells it, inspects it, and if it passes the test, he carefully places it in the basket which Betty stands holding, patiently waiting for each verdict.

“Don’t forget we need to stop at the supermarket and get a bottle of prosecco,” I say to Ronan on our way to our friend’s house for an afternoon swim, which is naturally followed by an early aperitivo.

“I’ll get a watermelon to take with us too,” Ronan says as we enter the shop and see Bill and Betty.

Watermelons are rampant here at the moment. They are enormous. Carrying them to the cash desk is like an Ironman challenge, but they are the most refreshing thing to munch, during the current 37C days we are having.

Bill and Betty must think the same, as Bill is standing at the large crate of huge watermelons tapping each one with his head bent close.

“What do you think he is listening for?” Ronan asks while I choose a bunch of grapes to take with us also.

“A little hello from inside perhaps?” I say. “Do you think a hollow sound is good or a dull sound is bad? Or would hollow be bad and dull would mean good?” Ronan says, watching Bill carry his chosen watermelon to the cash desk.

“I said hello not hallow. I don’t know if a hallow sound would be good or bad, but a hello would be just freaky.”

I head to the Prosecco aisle and leave Ronan to weigh the grapes behind the usual hoard of German and Dutch camping tourists doing their grocery shopping.

But Ronan decides not to queue, instead Ronan being Ronan goes along tapping each watermelon and holding his head close trying to figure out, or given some divine sign, which would be the best watermelon to buy.

I’m at the cash desk at this stage waiting to pay for the Prosecco and in earshot of the fruit aisle. A Dutch tourist approaches Ronan and starts speaking Italian, Ronan, who doesn’t speak any Italian, asks “Can you speak English?” “Oh yes, great, I am sorry for my poor Italian,” the tourist says to Ronan.

“Can you choose one for me?” he says, pointing at the watermelons. Instead of picking one at random and exiting stage left as quickly as possible, I watch as Ronan goes from watermelon to watermelon, tapping each with his ear close to the crate. A small attentive crowd gathers to watch The Watermelon Tapper before Ronan announces confidently in his best Italian speaking English accent. “This one. Choose-o-this-a-one-a.”

I can’t take the embarrassment any longer so I go wait in the car.

Through the supermarket’s large plate-glass window, I can see several tourists tapping watermelons and listening for the magical mystery sound.

Ronan sits into the car all smiles to himself.

“Ronan,” I say. “Where are the grapes?”

“Oh sorry, I left them down. I got distracted choosing a watermelon.”

“And where is the watermelon?”

“Oh crap… I forgot that too.”

The Smell of a Memory Explosion

Jun 10, 2024 | Living In Italy

A first draft of a scene for A Rosie Life In Italy 6. It might make it, it might not or it might be edited to read completely different: 

“Florence is nice, but I was expecting more. I’m disappointed with it,” says my friend Fatima who is visiting the city for the first time.

“Oh, I’ve heard about this. There’s a name on it, Strendhal Syndrome, it’s like Jerusalem syndrome.”

“Isn’t Jerusalem syndrome when visitors to the city have a psychotic religious break down and believe they are the next Messiah or some religious figure from the bible? That is definitely not what I am experiencing. And Strendhal syndrome is when travellers are so overcome by the beauty of all the architecture and artwork in Florence that they begin to hallucinate and get sick. I think I’m having the opposite,” says Fatima who is much better at facts than me.

“I know! It’s like Paris Syndrome – when Japanese tourists are so disappointed with the reality of Paris that they get sick. It’s an extreme form of culture shock. A day with me in Florence should cure your dis-Strendhal Syndrome or maybe we should call it Strendhalitis?”

We meet at the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella. “I’ll take you on one of my look up-look down tours.”

“Explain what I am getting into?” Does Fatima know me well enough already not to trust me?

“When walking around any Italian city street,” I say explaining, “you need to look up, as there is always an unexpected fresco or an architectural detail that makes you want to stop and stare. But then you need to look down, so you don’t break your ankle on an unexpected step or wobbles in the cobbles.”

“Okay, so where are you taking me to first to trigger a love of Florence?”

“The pharmacy,” I announce as I start to walk. Fatima looks perplexed, following me around the corner and down an unimpressive street.

The pharmacy I am taking her to is no ordinary pharmacy, it is the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. The waft of bergamot, rose and sandalwood strengthening with every step from the entrance, encourages her to keep moving forward into the wow-ness of the central room, with frescoed ceilings and walls brightly lit by a magnificent, massive glass chandelier. A mouthwatering, witchy display of old style glass bottles with glass stoppers, concoctions of herbal elixirs, soaps and perfumes with smelling card sticks are lined up in polished wooden display cabinets and ready for testing. It’s a delicious step back in time to an apothecary full of lotions and potions, with perfumes created to bring back memories or create new ones.

“Do you know the sense of smell is the most acute awakener of memories?” I state to my friend as I sniff one sample and the explosion of the scent in the back of my nose immediately transports me back to my grandmother’s dressing table and her 4711 perfume. In a two second memory dump I can vividly see the detailed grain in the wood of the heavy piece of furniture against the wall of my granny’s room, blackened by years of polish. It’s three-way mirror where my mother would check the back of her hair before going out with my dad on Monday and Friday nights and I would play with and marvel at how I could ricochet the back of my head to infinity by tweaking the mirrors towards each other. I can physically feel the resistance of the heavy, wide drawers refusing to budge back or forth if not heaved with the same force on each side.

It was this dressing table that gave me the lifelong desire for drawers with runners on the sides that glide effortlessly back into place without the need of sweat or painful nip of a finger.

I had forgotten her mirror. I wonder whatever happened to it.

This Is Your Life (Cue music)

Sep 16, 2022 | Living In Italy

When I was growing up, ‘This is Your Life’ presented by Eamonn Andrews, was a regular occurrence in our house. He always kept the most special guest until last. At 10 and 11 years old, I used to imagine myself on the show, when I would be a famous author, and at the end of the show, after introducing all the interesting people I had yet to meet and yet to share fabulous life experiences with, I knew exactly the person Eamonn would keep to last…. “You started writing to each other at nine years of age, she was your first writing buddy and here she is, 40 years later, your Greek penpal Nectaria!” 

I’d actually well-up thinking about the moment and have to leave the room. 

We wrote to each other religiously until we were about 18 or 19 . It started off about school and family and then over the years about dreams and love. She lived in an unpronounceable place that she wrote the name of in greek lettering and I could never find on a map.  We lost touch and years went by.

And then social media was invented. Twelve years ago she found me through Facebook, “Are you the same Rosie who had a Greek Penpal?”

We had a lot of catching up to do, she had married too and had a son. 

A month ago I got it into my head that Ronan and I should go on a beach holiday somewhere away from Italy to celebrate both our retirements from the wedding industry.  I asked my friend Shelly where would she recommend and she supposedly said Corfu. It was late and there was wine taken. The following morning I booked flights to Crete. I was confused, after all they both begin with ‘C’ and are large greek islands. 

I initially chose a hotel on the west coast but after a frustrating two hours of trying to choose the right place to stay I booked somewhere random. Near beaches and a town. 

With work ending, three books with deadlines,  and a house to prep for our dog sitter guests to arrive after more building work finishing the day before their arrival,  I had not been on Facebook much. But when I did click on it, a post from Nectaria popped up… “Going away for a few days” with a picture of her dog and a backpack. It prompted me to respond… “We’re going away next week too! To Crete.”

“You are going to CRETE?”

“Yes.”

“WHERE IN CRETE?”

“Chiana?”

“That is the town where I live! Tell me we are going to at last meet?!!”

So tomorrow I am going to have my ‘This Is Your Life’ moment with Eamonn Andrews voice in my ear… “You started to write to each other 40 years ago and now here today to meet you for the first time is your life long pen pal …”

I’ll post pics on Facebook and Instagram of us together for the first time and on my website. 

Who would be your This Is Your Life  final guest (still living)?

An extract from chapter 2 of  A Rosie Life In Italy 1 about how Nectaria and I were matched as Pen Pals….

As kids, when we drew our dream houses… My houses always had shutters even though shutters didn’t exist in Ireland. Shutters were the hallmark of the perfect house in my mind. I also needed a courtyard with a long table for family dinners. This idea was inspired by watching TV with my family when I was nine. There was a movie with a huge family dinner under the sun, with profusions of food being passed around and wine being poured. It was a celebration, everyone was laughing, kids were playing around grape vines or olive trees. I can’t remember who said it, but I remember the words ‘Mama mia’ being said. Staring at the TV it was my idea of Heaven. 

I went to Mass on Sunday and, as I knelt in my rain-soaked trousers, I prayed that someday I would live in Mama mia Land with my family; happy and in the sun. The following Monday my teacher handed us out pen-pal forms with all the countries in the world listed on them. We were to tick the box of the country that we wanted to have a pen-pal in. 

“Which country do they say Mama mia in?” I asked my teacher. 

After some thought my teacher answered “Greece”.

So I ticked Greece.

My Greek pen-pal Nectaria and I wrote to each other religiously every second week for 10 years without her ever mentioning her long candle-lit, olive-strewn family dinners, even though I often asked how was dinner with her family that week. One evening I happened to see the scene on TV again I had watched all those years ago and realised my teacher was wrong; Mama Mia Land was not in Greece but Italy.

My Car In Italy

Apr 28, 2022 | Living In Italy