Now this is outrageous! What if ten million people buy this publication and use it as a spider swatter? Bad news! Mind you, if you put that against the fact that a hectare of suitable terrain could easily house millions of spiders, no great tragedy either.

I know why Ed was yo-yoing up and down from the trouser leg of my denim shorts yesterday. We were in the car, on my return from the ritual Saturday morning newspaper trip. The above-mentioned article had made him nervous.

I made this point to The Priest. The point about spider swatting.

Since the young Trotskyite environmentalists in the village have got their way and had the mayor remove the petrol pump in the middle of the Piazza, the village has had no focal point. Old men still hang around the place where it stood like frogs do over slabs of concrete once their pond. Cars still loop around it as if it were still there. The priest still parks his car challengingly in between the invisible it and the Tabaccaio. It’s from the car that he communicates with the people of the village. It’s his confessional and he leaves the engine running. Much warmer than the real thing. But he glazes over when I tell the tale about swatting spiders. Not juicy enough? Not scandalous enough for sure.

Since the great scandal he seems to live on the edge of a desire for more of the same, so close was he to the very fulcrum of life. But still destruction eludes him. He attempts to tell me again about the confessions the women of the village would make to him. A device he used to stop my questions about the great scandal. But I turn away and will have none of it. Not this time.

And there were times when he would try to fill my fridge with gifts of ham, cheese and wine from these same women. And sometimes I would relent. Particularly with cheese. Sometimes with the ham. And only rarely with the wine - but not that rarely.

Worst of all, in my eyes, he would ridicule those same poor women who washed and ironed his clothes, cleaned his apartment and even those who refused payment for shopping for him.

I know now that since those days he is nervous of me. That I have something on him.

Those days with Rosie gave him a confidence he has since lost.

Many a time since I have snuck into the back of the church at mass and watched him act his way through the service. Yes he would act and perform, just as they wanted him to perform, those women.

Nowadays in the Piazza (and I go there very seldom) he glances in panic if I turn to greet him or worse to actually speak to him. He quickly makes the excuse of a meeting with the Bishop or a member of his youth team. What Bishop? What youth team?

I think I am the reason he keeps his engine ticking over. For a quick escape.

But I really don’t care very much what he does.

But yet it’s a powerful thing this religion and it intrigues me.

My daughter tells me that the world of acting is vicious and cruel. That the whole business stinks from top to bottom. She also tells me she still loves the theatre. And it’s the same with the church here, I can imagine. That people are still drawn through their own personal spiritual needs to this Theatre of the Needy and they don’t fuss too much over the failings of these mere messengers, the priests.

You ask me about hypocrisy and I tell you I think it’s only an issue when power is used to corrupt innocence.

For the rest I don’t care.

It began to get bad when Rosie and the Priest lost their heads completely.

They were writing the script of their lives as they lived them day-by-day.

They wrote themselves as protagonists.

The village Women’s Society was writing its own version at the same time.

The story line was different.

Today I summon all my will and strength to help Rosie and Cesare bale and stack the hay.

It’s 35 degrees and humid and thundering over our hill and Cesare’s mobile doesn’t work this far out of town and I drive to the nearest hill but still can't get through to Valerio to ask him to unplug my computer and I fear another expensive zapping of the modem. My shirt sticks to my back and I open it to cool down a little, lift a bale up to the trailer for Cesare to reach down to and snag my stomach on a stick caught in the hay and it bleeds. Cesare says not to worry, could’ve been worse and tells me that when they checked the museum piece baler this morning they found the wire tension mechanism a millimetre away from snapping. It was my job to walk behind the baler and stack as the bales dropped off. Would’ve sliced your face open he says. The pain disappears from my stomach.

I’m dehydrated. And feel faint.

The churning of the baler and the diesel fumes from the tractor make me feel nauseous too.

To get focused I think of mowing a soft green lawn on an early summer’s day in Southern England.

(One of the things one simultaneously loves and misses) and yet I hate England for making me hate it.
I hate it for times like this when I miss the mind softening summer fascination with hidden, subtle values and the slow poisoning by delicate sandwiches and lemonade - and oh! the cricket!

Yes, always the passion for cricket.

If a passion it can be rightly called.

I’ve double-sided sellotaped up a little message next to the Travel Book on the windowsill in the bathroom. It says please do not move book or attempt to clean it. I’ve done this because I often forget to tell my many guests who come to see me at this time of year and there have been moments of peril where eager female fingers have attempted to do a bit of cleaning for me. But it’s intact. The mould has now metamorphosed into soil and little green shoots are starting to form. A miracle of nature is being enacted just next to the brown hinge.

Little scurry marks are visible running left to right across the title.

Little scurry marks indeed!

Ed and Frances are learning to read.