The yellow has almost gone, and the spring has become blue-violet. All shades of blue-violet. Everywhere, the rosemary is flowering in an unheard of way this year. The blue is so deep it’s shocking. And the lilac is out everywhere, in great dripping swathes.
    The lilac took me utterly by surprise. I didn’t even notice a bud, then suddenly, wham! It was all out. As I emerged from the car last Sunday, I couldn’t work out what the glorious smell in the carpark was. But that was it: lilac. I have a great unruly bunch of it sitting here in Rome, perfuming the living room.
    And to think I used not to like it. After the blooms have withered, you are left with leaves that aren’t that exciting a green. I think, though, that my lilac passion is part and parcel of my growing hunger for seasons and seasonal change. Anything that can produce blossoms so beautiful for even two or three weeks deserves unconditional adoration year round. And if it’s spindly when bare, then a dullish green lump through the summer, who cares? Everything about it is sheer potential. And my, how it’s realising that potential now. I can’t wait to get back up and thrust my nose into the thick of it once again.
    (I should, in all fairness, note that this enthusiasm of mine doesn’t extend to Cercis siliquastrum: Judas Tree. Much as I love it while it’s out – and I’ve already made my annual pilgrimage to marvel at the immense old specimen that straggles up the via di San Gregorio side of the Palatine hill – it remains unredeemably ugly the rest of the year, with its ungainly dangly black pods and knobbly twiggy branches. But maybe, eventually, I’ll learn to love this too.)
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    Vittorio has been off ill. You can see his absence in the weedy drive way and encroaching grass. But he must have returned once at least before my most recent visit because there was suddenly no unwanted greenery between the bricks of the path by the front door. And the remaining bit of grass on the bank leading up from the vegetable garden towards the gate had been strimmed – a pity, though, that I hadn’t warned him that I have planted asparagus in the trench at the bottom, because the couple of skinny little sprouts that were thrusting have, I see, been crushed under foot.
    But Vittorio’s not the only one who has dedicated little time to my garden recently. I too have been remiss, dashing up there for work, staying overnight, squeezing in a couple of hours of digging (the wonderfulness of daylight saving evenings!) then whizzing off to my hilltop village early the next morning.
    The village is thrilling and frustrating and challenging. It’s not yet rewarding, but that should, I hope, change sometime very soon as I begin to plant. It’s frustrating because we have a too-many-cooks situation in the place, with strong – though not always decisive – characters clashing rather than collaborating. The thrill is the place itself: working in such a jaw-droppingly beautiful location makes my heart soar. The challenge has unfolded itself gradually.
It took me a while to grasp quite how much of a challenge it is. I’m determined to do everything I can to keep the spirit of the place intact: it has to be unruly and spontaneous and a natural continuation of the natural surroundings. But it also has to be consonant with a “Residence Club” (for which read “time share” ) where the very humblest stake will cost half a million dollars. How do you make a rough-and-tumble-half-million garden? It is, as I said, a challenging contradiction.