Health warning: This column may contain paragraphs upsetting to those whose idea of a happy summer is not grey skies, mildew and soggy socks . . .
It was about 7.30 on a hot July evening. I was standing on a rooftop looking at the rolling Lazio countryside stretching towards the one-time papal city of Viterbo. A strange, ill-defined shape emerged over the horizon of the nearest hill. As the shape came nearer, it sent up a huge cloud of dust. Just as I was beginning to think I might have stumbled on Lazio's first UFO, it dawned on me that the shape was, in fact, a flock of sheep, complete with shepherd and dog, moving back out to the parched hills in an optimistic search for something to eat.
Ah, yes, the Lazio summer. A time of dust and pine needles, of cicada choruses in the mid-afternoon heat and of night-time open-air cinema, of falling stars on the night of San Lorenzo and of lizards on the bookshelves, of burned up geraniums, of forest fires and of lake water so warm that swimming feels like an extensive massage.
The Lazio summer, too, is holiday time, the time when the child Rois in acquires a private chauffeur (your correspondent), who ferries her from sailing to riding to the beach to an open-air concert. Summer in Lazio is that healthy time when the television gathers dust, hidden in a cupboard, occasionally hauled out for the child's breakfast. The most important thing about the Lazio summer, though, is that it exists. What I mean is that, whereas in Ireland the good citizen is duped by a governmental conspiracy which insists on calling wet, windy 11 C days "summer", the thing really exists here. Whereas in Ireland, the same wardrobe is good for all year round and no citizen in their right mind considers putting away winter woollies for four or five months, in Lazio summer is an entirely different country - sartorially, gastronomically and socially.
Shorts and T-shirts represent maximum possible clothing as you move from shadow to shadow, attempting to avoid the heat that bounces back up off the dust track. Salads of mozarella and basilico, tomato and ruggetta, gallons of acqua minerale and gallons of sparkling white wine dominate the daily eating.
People sleep badly through the hot night, tiny tots are out on the lake front at one in the morning and people (and this could really annoy the Irish reader) complain a lot about the heat. Internet servers, tourist information offices and car insurance agents simply opt out and shut up shop. In Rome last week, one bus driver could take it no longer, stopping his bus four times on a relatively short city route to get out and purchase liquid sustenance. Given the heat, none of the passengers thought for a moment that they should complain.
Summertime is the season when the front door of the house is open all day long, inviting hungry dogs and curious lizards to walk in. Larry the Lizard ended up last week doing his own version of Michael Schumacher, scuttling up and down the third shelf of the bookcase, desperately trying to find a way between Joe Lee's Ireland and V.S. Naipal's Mystic Masseur.
Alas for Larry, Percules the Cat intervened with chilling efficiency. But it seems that Percules does not consider live lizard proper gastronomic fare for this time of year since a day later, while watering the garden, I came across a tailless lizard, somewhat ungainly in his movements but apparently alive and well.
Summertime is the season of open-air cinema where our "Arena" in Trevignano provides such a splendid, star-studded sky that, even if the film is bad, there is still plenty to look at. During a recent showing of Anastasia, disappointment at the questionable quality of the animated film was mitigated by the sightings of some spectacular falling stars, streaking across the skyline and appearing to go down and out of sight just behind the screen.
The heat, of course, takes its own toll. Old people get dizzy, lose their balance and fall, often breaking bones. On Sunday, we went to visit 78-year-old Lea in Bracciano hospital. Normally, this is the time of year when she comes to collect the pears off our trees for jam and tart-making purposes. The heat and an unfamiliar apartment floor-line tricked her this summer, prompting a fall, a broken femur and a hot, sticky and uncomfortable stay in a hospital without air conditioning.
Tempers get more easily frayed, too, especially on a national road system which saw 77 million motor cars in movement over the high-season holiday period from July 1st to August 14th. Forest fires are routine, as is the suspicion that pyromaniacs are alive and well and flourishing in parts of rural Italy. Last weekend alone, the National Forestry Offices reported more than 300 different fires.
Despite fires, fraying tempers and heat casualties, however, the Lazio summer remains a magical time, all the more enticing since it seems light years removed from the rising damp currently attacking the Celtic Tiger's den.