Greetings from Mykanos.
July is almost over and I have been remiss in communications, but then we have been pretty busy.
First, we had the World Cup.
You might wonder if I am a football fiend. Well, I most certainly am not, but when you live in a country so fanatical about football it is hard not be affected. Added to that, I am half Australian, half British and half Colombian, which meant I suffered a multitude of, sometimes conflicting, allegiances that thankfully diminished as the tournament progressed.
I must admit that Colombia was my preferred choice, even if victories often have fatal results through overindulgent celebrations. However as much as I favoured our local team I did not succumb to wearing a Colombian team shirt. I was not the only one, but very close to it. At times I felt particularly obvious in not showing my support for ‘nosotros seleción’ (our team). This was not restricted to match days, but most obvious when Colombia was playing. Almost everyone was sporting the national colours, and what is noticeable here is that as many women wear team shirts and support ‘our boys’, as do the men, however, as Barbara in Paris observed, it might be for a different reason. James Rodriguez for example.
As it happened, Australia did not progress past the Group stage, and Colombia was defeated in the Quarter Finals by England, which prompted many Colombians to support Croatia against England in the Semi-Finals.
I witnessed the dramatic unfolding of the tournament in the company of my elder brother Chris, who with wife Penny, after having celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary in Alaska, as well as the 50th anniversary of me crashing the family car whilst delivering the bridal veil to Penny’s place, came to visit us in Bogotá and here at Mykanos.
They were last here in 2013, and quite by chance, were with us in the tiny town of Guatica when Colombia qualified for the 2014 World Cup. Even though he is much more a rugby man, Chris and I watched the unfolding drama together, which, this being the Third World, meant every match broadcast live in High Definition. Fortunately that is not all we did. We also had many great dinners and some excursions exploring our part of the Andes, and it was a great treat to have them with us for a couple of weeks.
In Bogotá, before their departure to Sydney via Santiago de Chile and Auckland, they took advantage of the sophisticated shopping opportunities to buy presents for their ever-increasing number of grandchildren. I am even less of a shopper than a football fan so it was with no small amount of gratitude that I waved them off as they confidently set out without me to pursue their purchases.
I was reflecting on our less than surprising lack of grandchildren when I remembered the amount of children we are responsible for in our roles as Patrons of five producing farms, although that has now increased to seven as we are managing Adriano’s father’s and mother’s farms as well, them both being incapable of doing it.
We have Nomina (payday) every Saturday, come rain or shine, boom or bust, in cash to everyone who helps us, as well as those who seem more of a hindrance. That’s the weekly cash that pays for rent, food and groceries, drinks, extra-curricular activity, and most important, the well being of the children.
I remember flying back from Jakarta one time in a 747-400 and they put me on the main deck, as upstairs was full. It was the start or end of school holidays, and there were British brats either returning home or returning to boarding school, running amok up and down the aisles wreaking havoc.
As we approached London Heathrow the man in the seat beside me, silent until then, asked if I had enjoyed the flight. “Yes,” I said, “except for the noisy kids.”
“Don’t you like children?” he asked. “Yes. I just don’t like other peoples’ children.” “Understandable,” he continued, “how many have you got?” “None.”
We didn’t talk again.
These days when people ask if we have any children, often I will say, “No, we just have other peoples’ children.”
And it’s true.
Last week we had the pleasure of a visit by two young medical students young enough to be our granddaughters.
Izzy and Hannah are studying to be doctors at Edinburgh University. Our connection to Izzy is a great friend of ours (whom I have labelled her unofficial Godmother) Carole; seamstress to the stars, costume creator extraordinaire, and collaborator with Adriano on his most impressive printed fabric pieces, particularly for his Millennium Exhibition in London in December 1999. We are hoping that Carole will come and visit us. It’s hard to get a Yorkshire girl to venture this far but we have her best friend Tim, multi-Olivier award winning theatrical designer, on side and we believe they will come together before any of us get too much older … or as soon as Tim takes a break from designing operas in the US and plays in the West End and Paris.
Izzy and Hannah enjoyed themselves I believe, and also provided a welcome distraction for us, as two days before they arrived Pispirispis was diagnosed with renal failure and came home to die.
Pispirispis, as those of you have been putting up with these Letters for a while will be aware, had been with us for 11 years. We have no idea of how old she was as she was a wild cat that would steal food, until we tempted, cajoled and convinced her to have a look around and she decided to stay … not unlike me.
To quote my book …
‘A wild cat used to come in under the front gate and steal food. It was very cautious, very sly and very fast. She, as we found out, was basically a tabby with a white chest and front legs, but with a long super soft coat, almond shaped eyes, and a luxurious tail that looked more like something a very wealthy New York socialite might wrap around her shoulders for a Gala night at the Met. She looked to have some Persian in her, but not enough to make her look like a fluffy cushion. In fact, she was quite thin and Adriano, who previously had never been fond of cats and had banned them as a potential threat to the birdlife, took pity on her and coaxed her closer by putting some food in a dish each time he saw her. She soon became a regular visitor and eventually, wisely evaluating what she had stumbled into, a permanent fixture.
Adriano called her Pispirispis. Most people, on meeting Pispirispis, assume she is a highly expensive pedigreed cat imported from Europe, little suspecting her feral existence prior to her insinuation into our lives. As Fabio says (using the local banding that denotes social standing, property prices and rateable value), she went from Strata One to Strata Six in a single leap.’
We could have opted for euthanasia but Alejandra the vet told us she was in no pain, just exhibiting a steady decline in energy and activity, and we preferred she die in familiar surroundings with people she knew and, we like to believe, she loved.
When she was taken ill we worried that it might be the same feline leukaemia that had taken Torsalino and Mafeluchis, and when the results of the blood tests showed her clear of both leukaemia and acquired immune deficiency syndrome we were overjoyed, only to have our hopes dashed by the failure of her kidneys. She wouldn’t eat or drink and became increasingly dehydrated and dishevelled.
It was terribly sad, and the girls were very supportive, at all the right times, which suggests to me that they will be superb doctors … or grief councillors.
Pispririspis succumbed the day after the girls left, and is buried under the same Rose Acacia tree as Torsalino and Mafeluchis.
So now we are cat-less (probably much to the relief of Jones and Mac who thought these Letters too cat-centric, and the bats Pispis used to hunt in the roof space) and intend to stay that way for a little while. It’s all a bit tough, this business of losing pets. Nobody comes to check on me when I am in the office writing, nor jumps onto my knee when I am on the upstairs balcony having a coffee as the sun comes up, nor brings us mice or rats as respectful offerings, nor sits beside my chair at the dinner table looking at me intently, but never hassling, in the hope of a titbit.
She is gone but certainly not forgotten, and not just because we were so used to life with her.
On the main road to Armenia and Calarca, which is the road that goes up over La Linea on the way to Bogotá, and the one we take to get to Salento and the Valle de Cocora, one of the coffee region’s biggest tourist draws, a farm or country house has appeared whose entrance is guarded by a formidable set of red doors emblazoned across which is the estate’s highly distinctive and unusual name … Pispirispis.
Was she more famous than even we thought? Had she branched out into brand extension without telling us? Did she have a secret life? None of those would be a surprise in the least. The one thing that was certain about Pispirispis was that she was anything but normal.
Hopefully neither are we.
Love from him and me,
Barry
