Lady codgers

I’ve already gone on about the very active elderly male population of Piacenza. They ride around on mopeds, they smoke, heckle argue and gamble in pretty much any bar in the village. But I thought I should probably mention the female equivalent.

In Italy while the older men act like children, the older women look after them – men, children and grandchildren alike, while making ever more complicated pasta dishes, the recipes of which die out with them. And of course they share gossip, too.

When I was growing up, R was the centre of village life. Her house was opposite the bar and also happened to be the local shop. If you wanted to catch the bus, the stop was just outside her front door, and if you wanted to post a letter, the postbox was screwed into the side of her house. To go anywhere in the village you had to go past her, so as a result she knew EVERYTHING.

At night, she would hold court. She and her cronies would gather round swap gossip, and sympathise with R about her zillions of health problems. She is of the “I’m must waiting to die” school of Italian grandmas, where they live life to the full and have a brilliant time but if you ask them how they are, they’ll always say “terrible – I suffer, oh my legs, oh my back, life is such a heavy burden.”

But then earlier this year, R’s husband O died. That’s his picture above. O was such a cool bloke, an active, tanned outdoorsman (the picture shows he was one of Mussolini’s top parachutists – god only knows what the skull and crossbones medal signifies) he’d cared for R right up until he got sick himself. And now when you ask R how she is, she doesn’t say ‘terrible,’ she just bursts into tears.

Her friends are gone and she stays at home alone, talking through her window to whoever happens to be waiting for the bus. But so, so sad. I’ve dropped in on her every time I’ve caught the bus and every time we have the same conversation, about how nice my dad is and what a lovely family we have and how 'brava' I am – she’s lost the will to gossip.

Sorry that this particular entry ended up sad, but I kind of wanted to pay tribute to R, how she was and how she is now. And to O too, who was really lovely (if you don’t think too much about the skull and crossbones.)