There was a whole summer to live trough, before moving from our small high school universe, the mediaeval small town of Lichfield, framed by rivers, woods and the fertile lush green fields England is known for, where Ben and I had lost our virginity, and would have married, and lived happily ever after, had we stayed.
But despite , Ben’s intuitive fear of Italian men, I along with - I dare to think, many generations of girls reared in the Anglo Saxon cultures, was literally - reared with,
The Italian dream,
as an automatic
programme setting.
I know, it is a total cliché-
But somehow before you are aware that you are one of thousands in grey rainy Brittan incubating this same dream,
you start thinking that Italian food is the best food,
the healthiest food,
that pasta does not make you fat, and wind up convinced that heaven looks like a
Tuscan hill with cypress trees growing along the road to the terracotta
coloured villa at the top...
Oh –wait was that a
Barilla pasta sauce illustration, I have somehow memorised?
Or an actual place I saw in Italy?
–Probably both.
To add, the Anglo Saxon girls also come with a little fetish of being driven around on a "motorino", by a gorgeous Italian man, with the sun shining above and their hair flying in the wind.
Of course this last part, I
did not admit wanting, even to myself, but none was going to prevent me from
going to see Italy, and that’s exactly what I did that summer
- alone.
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