A tribute to the most wonderful woman in the world

She... is the flame that keeps me alive.

From her lips I receive the honey that gives me strength.

She... is the shield that protects me from getting hurt.

On her frail shoulders our paradise is built...
and I can finally find peace

I believe it is about time that I dedicate a blog post to a wonderful person. In the thirteen years that I know her, she's never ceased to amaze me with her incredible amount of abilities. Whether a tree needs to be cut down, a wall needs to be built or plastered, a Christmas market needs to be organised, electrical wiring needs to be laid, a birthday cake needs to be baked and decorated, snow chains need to be put on a car's wheels, stockings need to be knit or a derelict house needs to be revived... she'll do it. And what's more, she'll do all of these things as if she were born with those talents. Even though she may humbly say that there isn't anything she can do well... believe me, this is false modesty because anything she does, she does it with so much care and so much attention for detail that she excels well above the gray middle-mass. Never have I met anyone so gifted...

But then again, these are not the important aspects which make a person truly special. What's truly amazing is that on top of all of this she is kind. She is caring and loving. She constantly puts herself on the background in order to give priority to others. Even more so, she dedicates her life to helping other people. She's a problem solver. She's a fighter. More so for someone else's rights and worries than her own. She makes other people rest and feel comfortable while she takes care of everything. And she does this with so much vigour and strength that even mob bosses who've been oppressing whole towns for decades start trembling when they see her.

And yet, she is fragile. She's fought so hard and for so long that her wings have been cut and that the almost infinite amount of energy she was endowed with has started to fade. Tears roll off her cheeks every time she reflects on the things she still has to do in this life and the unjust disease which keeps her in its grasp, painfully binding her hands and feet. 

But not her mind. In her mind she is free and spreading her unstoppable love across the Earth. And especially over me. And for that, I'm eternally grateful.

Winter wonderland

The snow is melting, the cold days are over. Time to awake from our hibernation and return to normal life. But before we do, I'd like to treat you with some of the pictures Christine and I took from our garden over the past two weeks... a journey into winter's paradise...

The old pig stable, now wood storage...

Snow covered trees...

 The far view... misty, snowy mountains...

Also our cats didn't mind the snow at all! Here's Blu on the lookout, unaware that she's being stalked by cunning little Tobi... :-)

And two extraordinary pictures, taken by Christine this morning around 7:45... We could hardly believe our eyes! Four male deer, wandering about in our field!!!... What majestic animals, aren't they? Is there still anyone of you in doubt that our motto "Paradise exists" is slightly over the top?...

Flora is ours!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen... Those of you who've been following my blog over the past years will very well remember the story of Flora, the penultimate addition to our family. Otherwise I'd suggest you read "Flora's Poem" (July 2010, if I'm not mistaking).

Our trust in the Italian judicial system turned out to be justified because this week the judge rejected all of the vendor's claims. This means that Flora will definitely remain ours forever and that I was right in asking my money back through VISA. Our solicitors are now considering a claim for damages and veterinary expenses (which are nearing €2.000 in total!) and if they believe we'd have a fair chance we'll sue those disgusting animal traders very hard indeed. A couple of months ago, I still received a promotional mail from them (they were stupid enough to leave me in their distribution list... :-) ) in which they were offering a big sale: "this month: all puppies and kittens go for just €150!". As if they were selling plain clothes or pieces of furniture! How can they even look at themselves in the mirror? Here's their main website again - for the sake of "name and shame", but there are at least three or four others leading to the same business:

http://www.vendita-cuccioli-caniegatti.com/

These people are ruthless animal molesters who import so-called pedigree cats and dogs by the lorry from shady breeders in Eastern-Europe. Many of them die during transport or from continuous malnutrition and abuse. It's unbelievable that this can still happen in the twenty-first century! It certainly confirms my opinion that there is only one animal on this planet which can be totally vile and who doesn't want to live in harmony with nature at all: man! 

Fortunately, at least one furry creature could be saved from them: our little Flora, the "true lady" among our cats, with her gracious and almost "dancing" ways and her incredibly kind character... Flora, we love you... and she definitely loves us... :-)

Thomas' poem

Hello! I'm Thomas, a very easy-going Norwegian Forest kitten. I was born and raised at a very nice and dedicated breeder somewhere way up north in Holland. The lady who cared for me during my first weeks was extremely kind and she made sure that I'd grow up in perfect health and with the best of care. Then, one day in August 2009, two people came to visit my cat family. They were Christine and Peter and they had driven for more than three hours all the way up here to collect my half-sister Chloe. But in a sense also for me because they had already seen my cute little smoke-black muzzle on the internet and they were very much inclined to take me with them as well. It took some convincing because i was only eight weeks old at the time and for a pedigree cat this is a bit too young. But the lady clearly saw what a big heart Christine and Peter had for cats so eventually she gave in and I went into the box with Chloe for the long trip back to Belgium. I have to admit that i was very much afraid and all of the time I was making squeeky little noises. But Chloe wasn't afraid at all and her presence comforted me, together with the kind words Christine and Peter said in order to put me at ease. 

Once we had arrived at their Belgian house, I already started to feel a lot better. The house was really big and had those enormous windows all the way down to the ground so I could look very far into their garden. I also got to meet Canelle and Blu, their other two cats, and since I'm so relaxed I immediately became everybody's little buddy. I always patiently awaited my turn to eat and hungrily emptied all of the little saucers of food. I'm not picky at all and all the leftovers always disappeared in my little tummy. 

Then, six months later, disaster struck for the first time. Chloe, my dear big sister, was run over by a car and died. Oh, how much did I grieve... how much did I miss her... Certainly, there was still Blu with whom I got along so well and who omforted me, but things were never really the same after that.  

Another couple of months later I suffered another big trauma. Four big men came with a huge lorry and they barged around the house all day long and made a lot of noise. I was so scared that I hid in the back of the garden, under the hedge. Eventually they left late in the afternoon, but still I was stiffened of fear and didn't dare to leave my hiding place, even when Peter started calling me. After half an hour or so he found me and he stretched his hand out for me. I was a bit in doubt about what to do. He called me friendly names but I sensed that something was wrong. When I indicated that I'd rather hide a bit further away, he suddenly grabbed me. I panicked... Why did he grab me? Why did he drag me back to the house where all of these men had been making so much noise all of the time? No... I didn't want to go back there! I scratched Peter... hard... so hard that he's still bearing the signs... But he didn't release me and dropped me inside, making sure that I couldn't go out anymore. What I saw devastated me. The whole house was... empty. Gone were my big cat poles, my sofa, my little carpet... everything was just... gone. I ran upstairs and hid in the only place there was still left: in the shower. There I spent a dreadful and sleepless night, knowing that the nightmare wouldn't end right there.

And I was right. Very early the next morning I heard sqeals from Canelle and Blu. I ran out of the shower and tried to hide behind the bathtub. It took Peter quite some time before he found me and I heard in his voice that he was getting a bit desperate. But eventually he spotted me, dragged me out and shoved me in the biggest cat box, together with Blu. And then we were all carried away. We all cried but to no avail. We were put in a car and drove away... far away... Then we arrived at a very busy place. We couldn't see where we were because the boxes had been covered with a piece of cloth in order to keep us as calm as possible. But I could clearly hear that the place was very big and that there were a lot of people there. Hundreds, maybe thousands! Oh no... I was soooo scared... The worst still had to come! I heard that Peter abandoned us and that our boxes were suddenly grabbed by someone who didn't care as much about us as Peter. The man carried us a long way down, outside to a very noisy place and then inside a kind of trunk. We were in the belly of an airplane!!! The flight took an hour and a half and I've never been through anything so scary in my whole life! It was bumpy... we couldn't see what was going on... the air pressure went down and then up again... We were all so terrified that we didn't make a single sound anymore. And then everything went quiet. We were abandoned again. The place was empty. And then... I heard Peter's voice again!!! He had come to collect us!!! Hurray!!! He opened the cloth a bit and said hello to us! And a couple of minutes later, there was another big surprise: I saw Christine again! She had left us nine months earlier for a reaso which I didn't understand, but there she was! Again we were put in a car and drove for an hour and a half. But I already started to feel a little better because I sensed that the torment would soon be over. We arrived ad a small house. Just a couple of rooms, but reasonably cosy. There we were to stay for three months. I didn't like the idea at all and wanted to go back home. But Christine and Peter made sure that we wouldn't be able to get out for at least a couple of weeks. There I also met another lady cat: Flora. We all hid under the sofa's and didn't get out for days. We didn't make any noises either, apart from the occasional hiss at eachother. But in the end I started to appreciate Flora. After all, she's a very beautiful girl and we started to get along quite well. 

Would this be the end of it? No. After three months, we were all put in the car again and we drove off. Only ten minutes this time. And to a place far beyond any of my dreams. To a truly beautiful little house, in the middle of the woods and with a vast field in front of it. It was cat's paradise! It didn't take me long to adjust to this new place and slowly I became happy again. Yes... I was truly happy. 

And now... I don't know where I am anymore. My beautiful home, my little paradise has gone. It has been exactly two weeks. From time to time, I think I can hear Christine and Peter call my name in the far distance. But they can't hear me. I really want them to hear me, but they can't. In the meantime the mild spring weather has gone and half a metre of snow fell overnight. I feel lonely... hungry... scared... Where is my warm little home? Where are Christine and Peter? What happened to me? And why? Can anyone please help me? can anyone please bring me home again?    

Missing

It's been a week now. Exactly a week since I came down the stairs in the morning and went into our living room. There I was greeted by Canelle, who way lying in her armchair by the window. But hers were the only purrs I heard. The sofa was empty. This immediately alarmed me a bit because every morning Thomas used to sleep there and everytime I entered he would raise his cute little head and ask for a cuddle. But no Thomas that morning. Well, cats have a mind of their own and he's been out partying for over a day before. Yet, I had a feeling that this time it was different. I instinctively knew that something was wrong. The day went by. Every now and then Christine and I would call his name in the vicinity of his usual hang-outs. Thomas is the biggest talker of all cats I've already known and normally you'd immediately hear his reply in his unique suqeeks and purrs and little meows. That day, however, the replies never came. A night went by and Christine and I almost didn't sleep. The next morning I went down, desperately hoping to find him in his sofa as always. Alas, again he wasn't there. Christine and I searched day and night in all of the fields and woods in the area, going far beyond the limits where our cats would usually go. We looked by the road, looking for signs of an accident with a car. We looked into every little bush, hoping to find him hiding, frightened by something. But we found nothing. 

At that point, we started hypothesising about what could have happened. Could it have been a fox? Very unlikely. A fox must be pretty desperate trying to attack an adult cat, and even if it did manage to kill one, a cat would never be killed without putting up a hell of fight and making a lot of noise. In fact about a year ago Christine and I were sitting in front of the telly when we suddenly heard the most frightning sound you could imagine. And when I went out I saw Thomas fighting with a fox indeed, until I chased it away. Above all, cats are the most excellent climbers (remember my post "Thomas the mountaineer", October 2010) and will usually escape from any attack from a fox or wild dog unharmed. Then, we were thinking about cat's season. Around this time of the year male cats will go out on a trip, looking for the ladies. But Thomas has been spared so also this theory seems very unlikely, meaning that he would not likely disappear for a week and go that far that he wouldn't hear our cries anymore. Another frightning theory is the one of the hunters putting traps or venom. Also truffle seekers dear to spread venom in order to kill the dogs of hunters - the two can't stand the sight of eachother. But also this sounds pretty unlikely because in that case we should have found him, or at least traces of him. And who would put a trap late in the evening and return very early the next morning in order to see if it caught anything? Well... I don't know, it sounds very far fetched. Then there is the car accident. But again no trace and none of the vets have seen him. Or perhaps someone realised that Thomas has a pedigree, caught him and kept him or tried to sell him? Good luck! Thomas is extremely shy of strangers and only comes to Christine and I. Whenever we have guests he's the first to disappear and will only return after they have gone. And it must have happened during the night because the evening before we still saw him. I've checked on eBay and all of the Italian announcement websites, but no Thomas. In any case, he's been chipped and all of the vets have his number. 

And now... it's been a week. My little buddy has gone, god knows whereto. Because that's who he is... my little buddy. My very best friend. Always well-humoured, always greeting me or wanting to be with me, with his "windscreen-wiper" tail... Thomas... I miss you. Please, wherever you are, come home.    

News and Special Offers!

Hello Italy lovers!

I've just finished a couple of changes to our website: from now on you'll find an extra button with news, special events and special offers! Do you want to find out what we have in store for our Valentine guests? Click in order to find out! :-)

www.bb-lastella.it

Ciaooo!

Black Gold

What do you think of when you hear the expression "black gold"? Let me guess... oil? Hmmm... WRONG! :-) How long have people been drilling for oil? One hundred years? One hundred and fifty? Right here, in the area of Reggio Emilia and Modena and nowhere else in the world, a liquid has been made for THOUSANDS of years which is so exquisite and so beyond words that kings have been fighting over it. The earliest written mention of this particular liquid dates from the year 1047 when Holy Roman emperor Henry III ordered a silver case containing this liquid... clear evidence that even a thousand years before the invention of the internet and the iPad this liquid was already seriously famous far beyond the Emilian boundaries. 

Now, which liquid am I talking about, you might ask?... Haven't you got any clue yet?... It's black... dense, like a syrup and soooo sour-sweet... It's the true Balsamic vinegar! No, please, forget the wishy-washy black dishwashing water you can buy in your local supermarket! The biggest European factory of so-called "Balsamic" vinegar apparently lies in... Naples, more than 600km away from Reggio Emilia! And do you know where the biggest factory in the world is situated?... In China for heaven's sake! Imagine that! Balsamic vinegar made in China! No, no, no!!! Please, do not mistake this horrible product with the real stuff. In any case, once you've tasted the real Balsamic vinegar, you'll never settle for anything less again, I can assure you. 

Why am I telling you all of this? Christine is very active on Twitter, trying to make some publicity for our B&B. And after a while she became quite close with a whole bunch of other "Twitterers" from this region. So they decided to organise a big lunch in order to get to know eachother in person and obviously we wanted to be there as well. It was in fact held yesterday and for a venue they had chosen the vinegar factory of Andrea, one of the participants, in the Reggio Emilia valley. So apart from an excellent lunch and making a lot of new friends, we also got a very interesting visit of the vinegar factory. :-)

Balsamic vinegar can only be made with must from the Lambrusco or Trebbiano grapes, vines that only grow in this region. The grapes for the Balsamic vinegar come from dedicated vineyards, so no Lambrusco wine is made with them. The must is boiled for up to thirty hours, evaporating about thirty to seventy percent of the liquid, and is then left to ferment in these barrels, exclusively made from oak wood. 

After the fermentation process, the vinegar is moved upstairs, to smaller barrels and there it is laid to rest. These barrels are in fact open on top (covered by a piece of cloth to prevent dust or dirt getting in) because the liquid in the vinegar must be allowed to evaporate slowly over the years. 

After a year, the vinegar is then poured into a smaller barrel... and the year after into an even smaller barrel and so on. The liquid becomes ever more dense and concentrated. 

The whole process takes at least seven to eight years... for the lowest quality product! The better-quality vinegar is at least twelve to even twenty-five years old ("gold label")! The picture below is a 100ml flask of "gold-label", costing... €105! But I can assure you, we've had a small taste of this exceptional vinegar during desert (as a condiment to ice-cream!) and... it is well worth it! Really, it tastes like heaven!

Real Balsamic vinegar can not be sold in your local store in flasks bigger than 100ml and must have the inscription "tradizionale" ("traditional") on its label. And of course, only originates from this small area. If you ever get the chance to taste the real stuff, please don't hesitate. And for those of you who're considering a stay in our little B&B, we can arrange a factory visit! :-)  http://www.acetaiasangiacomo.com

 

Good intentions for 2012

We all do it, don't we? Making good intentions for the new year... Sadly most of these good intentions water down after already a few weeks and we give in too easily to our old, bad habits. But for this new year I've made a solemn vow which I intend to keep: to spend more time with Christine. It sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? We're living here together, almost completely isolated on our Italian hill and yet we don't seem to have enough time for eachother. But I must admit that I've been neglecting her a bit because I was so terribly busy doing other things, such as writing my second novel, moderating an autism forum and... dare I say it... Facebook. I, who'd never give in to the Facebook hype and always considered it to be a stupid way of spending your time. But eventually I fell for it because of my book and all the people who suddenly wanted to hear my advice. Up to the point that a lot of my time was in fact consumed by replying to all of these questions and participating in all of these autism groups. Fortunately, I discovered in time that a lot of what's going on in those groups is not very nice at all. Some people even tried to intrude into our private lives, there was a hacking attempt on our PC and have I mentioned all of the backstabbing yet? No, I firmly decided I would no longer have any part in that and now I seldomly appear on Facebook again. Perhaps it's a pity for all of these good people who appreciated me and to whom I could be of some help. But the price Christine and I had to pay was simply too high. From now on I've decided to concentrate on us being happy... go out a bit more... go hiking or any other fun activity we can do together. 

Christine, I love you more than anything else on this Earth and I'll keep doing my very best to make you happy. <3 <3 <3

End of the year wrap up

First of all, I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to all of my loyal readers for not having written any new posts for a while. Yes, I've been awfully busy, e.g. finishing my new book which I hope to be able to offer to my editor by New Year. Hmmm... it's going to be tight. Then there was the lecture I was invited to do about autism more then a week ago. Unfortunately the organiser, founder of a major Flemish autism organisation, got terribly ill and the whole event had to be cancelled. Well, I already had my flight tickets so I took the occasion to visit my family in stead. For what it's still worth, I prepared a little movie for my lecture, in order to let the audience feel what it's like to be autistic. I've uploaded it on Youtube and if you like you can see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V90Eh3g-umY&feature=g-upl&context=G265a57eAUAAAAAAAAAA

Well, what do you think? Horrible, isn't it? I hope that it will do away with the incessant remarks that we get in the sense that we "exaggerate" or the invariable "come on and get your chin up's". Believe me, this movie is very realistic as already testified by a great number of autistic people who got a preview. 

So, it's that time of the year again. The time to review what has been and to look forward to what is to come. 2011 has been a real rollercoaster for me with very high ups but also with a few very low downs. It was the year of my breakthrough as an author, which brought me in many of the national newspapers and even on television. But fame, even in the very limited form which I was to enjoy, has its inevitable downside. There are always people who'll try to abuse your trust and since I'm so terribly naive I often let people take advantage of me. That's one big lesson I had to learn for the umpteenth time and I'll definitely do my best next year to not let it happen again. Even though this will undoubtedly lead me to live an even more secluded life. It's a true pity because there are also a lot of people out there who genuinely appreciate me and the actions I take to promote more understanding for my autistic brothers and sisters. I'm so sorry for them, but I just have to be more careful.  

2011 has also seen the beginning of my career as an English teacher and it looks like I'll do a lot more of that next year. Yet another secondary school contacted me and there are even plans for an English summer camp in June. But I'll tell you more about that later when things are more definite.

But in general, 2011 was the year in which Christine and I truly became an integral part of the Italian social life here in the Emilian mountains and when we were embraced as fellow inhabitants of this gorgeous region. It's astonishing what a bit of good will can achieve... just trying to speak the language, even if we still make a lot of mistakes, just trying to blend in and respect the original culture of the local people, participating in the social events... it all takes you a long way and the local people return your efforts tenfold. The result is that we now have more friends over here than Christine and I probably had during our entire lifetime in Belgium and that we are very much appreciated for the new things that we've brought with us, such as Christine's delicious cakes and my English lessons. We celebrated Christmas eve with the local people, at a hostel of one of our closest Italian friends. Christine offered to do all of the cooking so that our friend, for the first time in her life, could truly enjoy Christmas without having to do all of the work. It was a bit of a culture shock for our friends because Christine wanted to offer them a taste of Flemish cuisine. Italians are generally not eager to try something from beyond their boundaries so she took a bit of a risk there. But everything she prepared, from the dried plums with bacon, the scallops with mashed peas and basil, the sellery-salmon-blue cheese soup, the Flemish "witloof" (chicory) with fried potatoe mash in an almond crust and chicken rolls stuffed with mince/onions/raisins, dressed with a port-fig sause up to the cheese pie desert... it was devoured like they haden't eaten in months.

Needless to say that Christine are now truly settled here and that we never ever want to go anywhere else anymore.

Merry Christmas everyone, and we wish you all of the best for 2012!!!

The master-decorator

Something I forgot to mention yesterday... When Christine was making her buiscuits, she got a little help from Flora, the master-decorator. Flora was so enthusiastic about it that she even did a bit of decorating on herself... :-)

The Christmas Fair

Yesterday Christine and a close friend organised the first Christmas Fair in the whole region. These types of fairs may be a major happening in some countries and especially in Germany, in Italy they haven't caught the Christmassy bug yet. Christine thought that she had to change all that and together with one of our very best Italian friends she went for it. The venue would be the small town of Casalino di Ligonchio, even higher up the mountains than where we live but a very cosy little place indeed. In the end there were seven stalls, but actually our stall counted for three because Christine sold her home-made buiscuits, I sold my special egg/honey brandy and we olso put a lot of Christmassy stuff on offer for a local shop, the owners of which couldn't be present unfortunately. 

For many days, Christine worked day and night making and decorating her special buiscuits: 

Here's our little stall:

In the afternoon quite a number of visitors showed up, not really by the hundreds but still a few dozen. Not bad for a first-time event in such a little town. Christine and her friend are determined to do better next year and make the Christmas Fair grow little by little. The comments were all very positive so that's what counts the most, isn't it?

Some more of her buiscuits... Christine was surprised at how much of them she eventually sold because she didn't want to sell them very cheaply after all the work she had put into them. But her work was obviously appreciated... :-)

And this is the special brandy I made, after an old, traditional, Flemish recipe. It's called "Advokaat" in Flemish and it's actually a kind of sweet and thick liquor which goes very well with fruit, cake, ice-cream, pancakes or other sweet dishes, or on its own of course. The local people loved it so much that at the end of the afternoon I was completely sold out! :-)

At the end of the day we were both exhausted, especially Christine because she had worked so hard for this. But we left with a deep sense of happiness because her efforts to bring some life into this region were appreciated a lot by everyone. It was fun, it was cosy and we did good trade, so what else should one wish for? Roll on next year!!!

Free as a bird

What is more beautiful than absolute freedom? The endless possibilities without restraints or shackles, the World at your feet and dreams coming true… Unfortunately absolute freedom is a utopia. It is said that someone’s freedom ends where someone else’s begins, and rightfully so because we are all entitled to our own little place, both physically and in our world of thought. Therefore we humans have created rules and laws in order to safeguard everybody’s freedom to the maximum extent and to set clear boundaries. As such it is guaranteed – at least in theory – that everyone enjoys exactly the same amount of freedom. But there’s the rub for people with autism, because we often demand more from our environment than we are entitled to by the written or unwritten rules. Let me illustrate this with a small example. When I was still in the Air Force, I shared the same room with about ten other blokes and this was a disaster to me. After these tiring days I absolutely needed rest in order to be able to process the events of the day. But I wasn’t allowed that and in the room the law of the strongest prevailed, meaning that those who had the least need for sleep decided when the lights went out and when everything would be quiet. Not seldom this was way past midnight and since we had to be up on our feet again by six, there was not a lot of sleep in it for me. Not only are six ours way too few for me, but the constant frustration because of the incessant noise in the room drove me som ad that I couldn’t sleep anyway anymore when things eventually settled down. When I asked for a bit of understanding (obviously in those days I couldn’t think of anything else than arguing that I just needed more sleep) I was scorned at and my motion for silence was outvoted all against one. “Democracy”, they used to call that and I was to respect it.

Now I realise that if we want to take the need for more “breathing space” into account in our society for people with autism, or people with a different condition, that this has its consequences for the others, who’ll hence have to give in on their freedom. Like in my example not being allowed to talk anymore or put on the lights after let’s say ten, even if they’re all still wide awake and still have so many things to say. This will undoubtedly lead to frictions, directed at the “privileged person”. Frankly, I don’t think that any autistic person would actually want to be “privileged”. We attach to much value to fairness for everyone so this would most certainly make us feel bad.

But what is the solution then? A solution which doesn’t take away any freedom from anyone and yet will satisfy everyone? Honestly, I don’t know. What I can say is that we, the autistic people, claim the freedom which we can’t get in this harsh world in another, more cunning way: we create our own world in our thoughts and dreams. It’s the perfect catalyst to undo all the frustrations which we are subject to on a daily basis, the impenetrable defence mechanism which protects us from an overdose of stimuli and at the same time becomes our image of a better world, a world which is tailored to our needs and which we desire so much to become reality one day. Alas, also that is a utopia. But this will not stop me from growing wings and fly off into the deep blue sky, far away to a place where nothing or nobody can still touch me. And there I find peace, while I see the mountains and forest slide past below me. I understand that I’ve been very lucky so far because I can get pretty close to my dream. Like I described in my previous post, whenever things get too hectic for me, I can run away to a high and nearby mountain top. A place where you truly don’t hear anything anymore and the infinite grandness of this World stares you in the face. Mountains and valleys… yes, even the Mediterranean you can see from up there and if the weather’s cooperating, you can even make out Corsica on the horizon. Deep below me I see the tiny little villages, and the little winding roads on which cars the size of ants crawl on. That part of the World that makes my senses go berserk. And I look down upon it, from my mountain top, so far away from it all, and I can feel all of my worries slide off my shoulders. I wish so hard that also all of the other people with autism could find such a place of their own. Is that too much to ask for? I don’t thinks so. What if we started right now with that project? Let’s vote, us, the autistic people, and let us claim this right. The right for one place for each and every autistic person, especially chosen by him or her, where we can finally find peace and where we – at least in our thoughts – can truly be free.

Some time on my own

What's the number one thing that autistic people really crave for? Yes! You guessed correctly! It's... REST! Peace and tranquility in order to absorb and process the horror of these thousands of information pulses that we are subjected to in the real world. Hence our decision to start a new life in the Italian mountains, a place where I can truly come to terms with who I am so that I can build up enough energy to face the unavoidable contact with busy society. 

Unfortunately, however, living isolated on a hill is sometimes not enough. From time to time there are still tensions and messages from the outside world which haunt me and sometimes even drive me completely balmy. When that happens, there is only one remedy: fleeing, as fast and as far as possible. Lucky enough for me, there are places here where I can flee to. Places where I'm not going to be disturbed, where there's no noise, no social clutter and chitchat, only peace. What about the summit of Mount Cavalbianco (1855m), for instance? It's the highest peak I've visited so far, at a time when I really needed it. 

I know that I have to consider myself very fortunate that I can do this. Many of my autistic brothers and sisters have no way out and can only scream at the walls that surround them. Yes, I truly am very lucky. Then again, I'm not feeling guilty at all about it. I've tried my utmost to blend in into society and to contribute to it, for twenty years until I eventually collapsed. So I see it that now society owes me. And I will keep up my struggle until society realises that it owes the same to my brothers and sisters too.

Some pictures I took during my yourney...

The spells of nature

Living in the middle of almost unspoilt nature gives one a completely different perspective about who we are and what life if all about. We people feel so secure about ourselves and go about with our little lives without the slightest care in the world. We watch TV chat shows and frantically twitter to our thousands of followers that X just kissed Y as if that petty fact would be of such terrible importance that we'd want the whole world to know about it. Well, I pity those people... I truly pity them. Because what do they know? It clearly demonstrates how much we're living in our insignificant cocoons, totally unaware about what truly matters. And then, we wake up in a nightmare, like the people in northeast Italian Liguria, and the fair city of Genova in particular. In a matter of minutes that city was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of mud, leaving many people dead and a chaos of debris and crushed cars. And this is only a small example of how fragile we are. Ask the people in Japan, in Pakstian, in the eastern Indian Ocean or everywhere else where nature recently demonstrated its true power. 

And yet, when destruction has come and gone, we take up our lives again and continue unabated, as if that what happened was only a bad dream and we feel good about ourselves because we're living so far away from the place where it happened. It is written in an old, stupid book that man has power over anything that lives on this planet and that we can use this Earth as we please. How wrong can anyone be! Because there's an unchangeable law of nature, which says that every action is countered by an equal and opposite reaction. Burn down the forests and soon we'll cause a greenhouse effect and the earth will slide away in massive, uncontrollable avalanches of mud, killing everything in their path. This is just one example. Another is the following. Some idiot who was keen on hunting thought it'd be a good idea to release rabbits in Australia. Of course, they had already shot all of Australia's natural predators such as the Australian wolf before that. With the consequence that the rabbit population soon went out of control and they turned most of the continent into a wasteland. "Oh", said man, "but then we'll introduce a predator of our own to control the pest!" And so they released wild dogs to kill all the rabbits. But soon these dogs turned on a better prey: the kangaroos and other animals who weren't prepared for this new threat. And so on. Everytime man has tried to intervene with nature, it ended in tears. And I'm afraid that we'll never learn. Never! Just look around you! Just listen to the people! If you ask anyone about the importance of saving nature, they'll all say "yes" immediately. But their actions are completely opposite! Some quotes I picked up over the past months:

- "Roes are a pest because they spread ticks."

- "Wild boars are a pest because they create havoc in the garden."

- "Cattle should be kept indoors because otherwise you're not certain what they eat and then the quality of the milk may not be consistent."

- "It's not necessary to sterilise cats because most of them die anyway in the winter."

- "What's that? Silicone? Paint? Acetone? Boh... don't bother, just throw it in the skip." (said to me by a tenant of the local special waste disposal facility!) 

Doesn't this make your blood boil? Well, it certainly does that with me. Anyway... While in Liguria they were assessing the damage, I managed to take these photos. Even in its fury, nature can still be stunningly beautiful, can't it?

And then I saw mummy roe deer, resting in our field only 20m away from our house. Well, she can spread ticks as much as she likes in our field and if any idiot ever lays a finger on her, or on her calf, he'd better start running... terribly fast!

A haven of tranquility

What does an autistic person like me crave most of all?... Yes! Right first time! I need rest... A place where I can be on my own, far away from all the stress, the hassle, the incomprehensible complexity of everyday life. Now, if you look at these pictures I took this morning, would you say that I found it?

And what if you asked them?... :-)

If they haven't learnt their lesson by now...

... they'll never learn it.

Yes, it's that time of the year again. Since three or four weeks the hunters are on the loose again in their relentless frenzy to kill innocent, beautiful wild animals just for the fun of it. They justify themselves by saying that they're the proud inheritors of a 'beautiful tradition'. Well, twothousand years ago they believed that the gladiators were also a 'beautiful tradition' but eventually the human race grew out of it, at least to some extent because we're still blood-thirsty animals. Just look at the success of the tabloids and these websites full of 'sensational news'. The more blood, the bigger their success. Will we ever become true civilised beings? When I look at these idiots who're roaming the countryside over here these days, I doubt it. Of course, in Italy it is a requirement for a hunter to have an IQ under 30 so that may explain some part of their behaviour. And we shouldn't take away the hobby of the poor, demented ignoramusses. They too are entitled to a bit of fun. But there are limits.

Just before the hunting season started we had a friendly chat with one of the local forest guards. The man took our case very seriously, moreover because we're now running a B&B and we wouldn't want our most honourable guests to get shot. The forest guard was going to have a word with the local hunters and, surprisingly, it did seem to work. They always maintained a safe distance from our property and we weren't even bothered anymore by their dogs. For the first couple of weeks though. Because this morning we hit the jackpot again. I already saw it coming... Dogs were running closer and closer to our house. First in our woods at the far end of our field, then in the woods below our field. These dogs usually run in circles because that's the pattern a hare makes when it's trying to escape. I didn't see the hare popping out from between the trees. But six big dogs were suddenly running towards us, barking like mad. Christine still tried to chase them off the gentle way, with little success since the dogs were just everywhere and didn't pay any attention to her shouts and gestures. So I took out... THE SECRET WEAPON! Following the advice of my closest Italian friend, I got me one of these: the humble football horn! :-)

The blaring noise scared the living wits out of those dogs and they ran off ten times faster than that they had first appeared. But... I had barely let go of the 'blast' button when we suddenly heard a furious hunter shouting at us from a small open space behind our field.

- "You imbeciles! You bastards! I'm going to sue you! I'll have you! You dirty sods! Stick that horn in your wife's *ù§!&£µ, you , !àèaji)!éù$^$iipu (not for senitive readers...) ... ù$'àço-à:;é'!ç ... µù*£$^[; ... "

And so on (for the next five minutes or so). Then the well-educated gentleman called his dogs back (which were still in a kind of shock I presume) and went away, still shouting very rude words. Obviously I should have been more understanding and forgive him the fact that he was breaching the law at least tree times: hunting within 100m of an inhabited house, hunting with more than 2 dogs per person (he was alone) and art. 649 of the Italian law code which prosecutes disturbance of one's rest at his/her home. 

But then we also heard him shouting at someone else, a bit further on. Eager to know who we were dealing with I jumped on my scooter and rode along the road which goes uphill behind our house and then runs parallel to our land. There I saw his mates, posing on the middle of the road with their guns as if they were the local generals. Or perhaps my new friend had left so many valuables in his two cars that he needed four armed men to protect them. This was in fact another breach of the law: hunters are not allowed to carry an assembled gun less than 100m from a house or 50m from a road. These men were carrying loaded guns ON the road. At first a bit of fear crept in me that they would perhaps try to stop me. But fortunately they stepped aside as I approached and I drove past, trying to have a glance at their licence plates. When I rode up the next hill, I could just see their mate arriving with his dogs, which he put in the dedicated trailer and off they went. Probably to harrass somebody else.  

That's the sort of people we have to put up with during the hunting season. And you know what's the most shocking thing of all? In Italy you are NOT allowed to stop a hunter from entering private land! A hiker, a biker or anybody else you can throw off as you like, but a man wearing a gun you can't! Unbelievable, isn't it? And you know whose fault this is? A guess anyone...??? 

Dear old BENITO MUSSOLINI!

In the twenties or thirties (somewhere) he passed a law that allowed men wearing weapons to roam freely across the country, private property or not. The goal of this law was to stimulate 'heroism' and to create a national sense of 'war'. Isn't it astonishing that even today Italian hunters are still using a law from Mussolini in order to defend their interests? People who'd swear they'd kill every fascist they'd come across, but at the same time try to prevent the laws of Mussolini to be changed or deleted. Now do you believe me about this IQ below 30?  

Well, we're confident that these prats will from now on think twice before they come too close to us again. They spend years training their dogs and they will not risk that this training is completely overturned in a matter of seconds by our horn. When you're dealing with idiots and you've tried talking and being nice to them for a year without result, this is the sort of thing to do. It's the only languge these savages understand.

In the meantime, we're getting ever more visits from the local wildlife, as if they sense that there's a safe haven for them at our place. Especially a mummy roe deer with her calf is visiting us every day now, early in the morning and in the evening. She's also getting ever less shy and I already managed to approach them to about 15m without scaring them off. A couple of days ago, they even came right next to our house! These two pictures were taken with my mobile and through the side window, so please forgive me the bad quality. And you can't see the calf on them either (though it was there!). But just to show you in what a stunning place we're living!

 

The Monte Cisa Challenge

It has been a dream since I first came to live in Italy: climbing the Monte Cisa. Not that it's a particularly high or spectacular mountain with its 1698m, far from it. But it's been staring me in the face right from the start. On the following picture, taken from our terrace, you can see it on the left, with its steep rocky westerly slope. If you look very carefully, you can see that right to the left of the summit there is a meadow. And in that meadow there is a tree. Well, I've always said that one day I'd be standing right next to that tree. So I went for it...

I rode with my Vespa along small, winding mountain roads to get as close to the mountain as possible. Here I'm already getting nearer... tension is rising... I'm filled with anticipation... I simply MUST get to the top!

The road is getting worse, only dirt and rocks. But I carry on unabated. The problem is that the road goes through the forests so I haven't got a clue anymore whether I'm close to the point I had selected to start my climb or not. Eventually I guess I must be close enough to have a go so I park my scooter and look up through the woods. I can hardly see any sky, let alone a recognisable point, but I just know the mountain must be there. Filled with courage I start to climb. The ground is very steep and slippery with all those leaves, but by jumping from tree to tree I have sufficient things to hold on to in order not to slide all the way down again. Apart from painful, this would have been quite embarrassing... :-)

Slowly I'm beginning to make out more and more blue in between the highest trees. Could it be that I'm already approaching the summit?... No... It's just a wide open space filled with what looks like an avalanche of rocks. Above these rocks there's another forest. But it appears to me that the summit couldn't be far beyond that so I just carry on, leaping from one rock to the next until I reach the outskirts of that second forest. The view is just spectacular and I can already see our house way below in the distance, so I must already be quite high indeed.

I climb through the woods again. Steep... tiring... slippery... The top can't be far now... it can't be far... Again there's more and more blue in between the leaves... it must be right over there...

Uh... not quite. Apart from having slightly miscalculated my point of departure (i.e. much too far to the west, right under that incredibly steep wall of rock in stead of the easier way through the woods on the left) I'm absolutely gutted to find out that the hardest part is yet to come! Oh bother...

Holding onto branches, leaves or even lumps of grass, I manoeuvre very carefully to the east, high, forested cliffs as well right above as below me. Very scary but still doable. Again there are more and more trees which give me grip and places to rest and I climb and climb... And then... the trees in front of me open up... behold... the meadow with the tree where I wanted to be so very much... I've made it!!! 

The panorama is just breathtaking from the summit! Here's a zoomed-in picture of our house, indicated with a red arrow. I called Christine with my mobile and told her to get the binoculars. "Yes!", she said, "I can see you, barely, but still...!"

As usual I've made a 360° panorama. You can download it here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24841015/Panorama.jpg

It's over 6MB but I can assure you that it's well worth it, at least I think so...

Then, after about half an hour of gazing and feeling good about myself, I decide that it's time to go down again. By chance I meet a local sheep herder who was looking for his flock (they're roaming about freely in the mountains) and he told me that there's a much easier way down, right along the westerly edge. It's steep, he assured me, but not too difficult. I'm holding my breath because I'm not really a big fan of "steep", "deep" and ladders but decide to give it a go. All in all, this mountain is steep everywhere. One last look at the summit...

And one other piece of rock, sticking out just a tad lower...

The way down...

When I've finally reached more solid ground about half an hour later, I meet the road again I was following earlier on to reach the mountain. Now I'm following it down, hoping to find my dear little Vespa again. It's almost an hour's walk, during which I actually spot a male deer, and eventually... there it is...

Riding home again, watching the sunset...