The Fourth Day of Christmas – Onion Cats and Squinzano Dogs

Today is the Fourth Day of Christmas. In the song we meet the calling birds, or are they collie or even coaly birds? Several definitions abound. I have decided they are calling birds, calling out their tales, stories and other fine lines. I am in the process of writing up tales of the cats found at Casa Mare, Cipolla, Puglia. Cipolla means onion in Italian, hence 'The Onion Cats'. I have decided that the follow up tales are likely to be based on the dogs found in Squinzano a town in the same region of Italy. The name Squinzano sounds faintly threatening to my ears and I think the Squinzano Dogs may have a slightly 'edgy' set of personalities. Definitely gives me an excuse to keep going back for 'research' purposes. 


The long winter nights are a traditional period for the telling of tales, light hearted or ghostly so……

My challenge for you today is to tell a tale in one of the following formats or styles:

Twitter

Haiku

Nonsense verse

Children's Stories or Tales of the Unexpected


 
The Spotify play list for this post is here


By the way today 20 new legs arrived, which means 40 legs have been delivered already


Update 11.50 my Twitter story...
Squinzano Sam saw a fight.  Two dogs, paws drawn; a whirl of hair, fangs and dust.  A huge Mastiff, Panettone Pete, entered; saved the day.


Update 12.38 - Haiku
Calcanium deep
Hair dust murderous intent
Summer memory


Update 14.19 - Nonsense verse
Squinzano Sam a duplicitous mutt

With paws down

Fought tooth and claw

To ruin his town

Panettone Pete, massive mastiff

Called for Leone

With bag and net

To catch the phoney

Pete shouted ‘get ze bag Leone’

Update 19:10

Squinzano Dogs – A Children’s Story for Adults

If you look at a map of Italy, the country is shaped like a boot.  Way down in the heel of the boot, in a region called Puglia is the town of Squinzano.  Like most parts of Italy the local people like to think they are in charge, but in reality it is the animals that have the measure of the place.  In some parts of Puglia it is cats or geckos but in Squinzano it is the dogs that have the upper hand.  Our tale takes place one day last summer.

Squinzano Sam was a particularly moth eared mutt who seemed to leave a trail of dirt, dust and stray hairs wherever he went.  He had a nasty reputation for double crossing, dirty tricks and generally trying to control the town with acts of duplicity, daring and intimidation.  Squinzano Sam hung around the town square near to the town hall which doubled up as library and ‘Pronto Socorrso’ .  This was high summer; heat reflected off buildings and at mid-morning the streets were almost empty.  In common with most of their compatriots the Italian locals had left their winter houses and moved like some nomadic tribe to their castles in the sun; their beach villas.  During these times there was less food to be found by the Squinzano dogs; communal bins did not overflow, leaving poor pickings for the feral creatures.

A small right hand drive car pulled up outside the Pronto Socorrso and four Inglese climbed out.  They peered at the signs on the walls attempting to translate.

“Definitely an emergency department; but only part time.  It says someone should be in attendance from 11.00 onwards,” said a woman in shorts and a T-shirt.

As she spoke a pale girl in a flowery dress, stood looking miserable and dropped her bag to the ground.

“It’s OK I’m just hot and I hurt.  If I could marry a snowman right now I’d be happy” she said.

An old Italian cycled into view, ceremoniously parked his bike against the wall and started talking to the woman in shorts.  After much muttering about bleeding from the ears, temperatures and specialists he declared that the group should go immediately to the ‘Ospidale in Brindisi’.  The group climbed reluctantly back into the sweltering car and left.

Squinzano Sam shifted his head, flicked first one eye and then the other open, sniffed the air and started to raise his body from the shade of the tree in the square.  Then he saw movement; Mad Rex, a scrawny terrier whippet cross had seen and scented the same thing.  Then as if from nowhere, dropping down from a roof, the strangest of creatures, not a plain black and white cat; but a marmalade orange cat, known locally as the Tangerine Jellicle sprang onto the pavement.  All three had their eyes on the same trophy, the bag dropped by the girl with the flowery dress.  It smelt of foccacia. 

Tangerine Jellicle and Rex raced to the bag; attempted to rip it open and then started to scratch at each other.  Sam hung back, watching, secretly he was very tired following a night out with his bitches the night before; but eventually could resist no more.  Hair and dust flying in all directions, a gnashing of teeth and whimpers of pain drew more dogs and cats into the area to see what was going on. Panettone Pete a huge mastiff came around the corner and waded in to try and sort out the argument..  Then Leone a small cat, with petite features moved carefully round the edge of the group.

Tangerine Jellicle cried out, “grab ze bag Leone.”

Eventually the animals had fought for and collected bits of the prize; Panettone could be credited with having crushed the fight.  Indeed Panettone had saved the day but the toll on all of the animals had been high.  In the street was a mess of fur, hair and bits of flesh from each of the creatures.  As the street cleaner swept up there were bits of Panettone, Tangerine Jellicle and bits of ze bag Leone had rescued.

“You are fantastic for clearing that lot up,” said the man with the bike.

“It’s nothing,” said the street cleaner, “a mere Zuppa Inglese, a triffle.”

                                                                Finito

With sincere thanks to……

Richard P-S also known as @tettig, @isemann and @josordoni for joining in the challenge, you will see I have threaded your ideas into mine.

NorfolkKitchen, The View from Cullingford , @Goodshoeday, @essexgourmet , @MartinCampbell2, @LivinginPulia and @downatheel for the various culinary and other references which I hope you will recognise

I blame Shakespeare – or what I did on holiday in Puglia

Several people have asked how the holiday went; I am sorry for not sending more postcards, but I'll come to why later. I think four short blogs should cover it :

• Why Puglia?
  
• Why train and how did it go with the NEXEA strike?
  
• The value of an EHIC card and its relationship to Shakespeare
  
• Why did you come back with a case full of paper covered in scribbles and a bunch of photographs of cats?
  

Why Puglia?

The predominant sound in any paved area is the scraping of shoes along the ground. My mother would have said 'Pick your feet up when you walk' but that takes effort, here you never flip your flop. Slow walking is a Puglian art, never hurry, especially during the passeggiata, the stroll in the early evening. Here, older people take their chairs into the road outside the house, or into the square and sit to chat. Young couples walk or sit hand in hand; groups meet where they have met for years. Some cycle, grandparents with toddlers on handlebar seats; the grownups slowly peddle, knees akimbo. All to work up an appetite for a meal that if you are eating out, will not happen before 9.00pm.

Food is important; markets are burgeoning with truck loads of melons, peppers, tomatoes and lumache snails. We mostly cooked for ourselves; breakfast on the terrace of strong coffee, sharp pecorino cheese, bread, prosciutto crudo, boiled egg and fresh peaches; lunch of focaccia, tomatoes and melon and evening meals mostly of pasta and salads. The care taken by suppliers such as the local butcher, who asks how you are going to cook your sausages and when he learns you will barbecue them, carefully slices each one lengthways part through and spreads them so they will cook evenly, means eating-in is effortless.

The siesta, when everyone scurries home or to the beach for a few hours rest. A road packed at 11.30am will be empty at 1.00pm with shutters firmly down and no sign of life returning until 4.30 or 5.00 or 5.30, well whenever seems right for the temperature, time of year and the mood. You just have to adjust to a different timescale when you migrate from the UK.

On the beach, any shape, age, colour is acceptable but preferably really brown, the kind of brown you only acquire through 7 months sunshine a year. So if you are 78, overweight and grey haired; don't let that stop you wearing a paisley bikini and standing at the water's edge, up to your knees, chatting. If standing is too strenuous you may prefer a short legged deckchair to sit on, at the water's edge, chatting. Perhaps a swim; well stand-in-the water, chatting. The particular area we have become attached to is the coastal strand between Bindisi and Lecce, here there is beach after beach, with shallow waters and yellow sand. Typically there is a Torre, a ruined tower and a simple beach bar; which may also sell nets of mussels. Some beaches are even more basic or rocky and others may be packed with pay as you go deckchairs and umbrellas. The beach will fill with families and groups, or people attached to mobile phones, who will stand and talk. Out in the water you may also see the fluorescent green of snorkel tops like fireflies against the darker blue sea indicating rocks beneath, where shoals of fish swim, ready to nip bits of dead skin off your legs as you swim past. On windy days you may see wind and kite surfers, generally though you don't find many people playing in the waves, so on windy days the beaches can be deserted.

This is mostly an area for Italians on holiday. They pack up their houses and move to the coast for the summer, many of the areas reduce to about 10% of the summer population during the winter months, even though the move may only be a few kilometres. English is not spoken much, so it is worth grappling with Italian and being brave, you will be rewarded. As I was leaving the market one day, an old boy stopped me and asked me if I would like some figs. His ancient Ape truck appeared empty but he proudly swung back a cloth revealing one last tray of succulent figs, which he wanted to sell me for five euro. I did my best to explain that as I was on holiday I couldn't use them all but would take one euro's worth, which I did. Then ensued a conversation about where I was from, was I married etc…. What more could I want, a man with his own business, transport and teeth; I resisted the temptation but the figs were grand!

Eating Out

We ate out at Bahia Negra in Casalabate, good for pizzas and selection of antipasti and pasta main courses. Also Gio Stefs, in Corso Umberto, Torchiarolo for home cooking, a massive array of antipasti and great main course pasta dishes. In Otranto we ate at a restaurant on the old city wall – the picture above is from the inside of the menu. Here you can be introduced to your lobster before you eat it. You are paying extra for the view of the clear aquamarine sea of the stunning harbours, and you may have a roving musician play to you but it is very atmospheric. Otranto is one of the main tourist areas, my personal tradition there is to find a spot where you can climb over the city walls, near the harbour and walk around to an old fig tree growing out from the side of the city, the figs are ripe, luscious and slightly salty, worth the trip.

Where we stayed

Casa Mare, Contrada Cipolla, a lovely villa with three large bedrooms that can be arranged with large doubles or single beds, terrace, large kitchen and living rooms. This was our first stay at Casa Mare but our third with Debbie and Bob. We arrived with high expectations for the welcome basket and facilities and we knew that the descriptions would be accurate or if anything slightly understated; all of which was true. Casa Mare is a fantastic location, 24 seconds walk from the sea, great for sea swimmers and a huge pool and hot tub for those that like their water tamed. The kitchen is well equipped and with a seemingly endless supply of tomatoes and peppers from the garden we ate out much less this year than in previous years. This is a quiet area, during the day you only hear the gentle clunk of the wind chime or the pulsating sound of sprinklers, plus voices from the beach or the couple walking their dog down the lane. In the evening there can be a bit more noise from the nightclub on the main road, but it is far enough away not to disturb you.

The reading list this holiday:

• The Olive Harvest – Carol Drinkwater.
  
• The Villa in Italy – Elizabeth Edmunson.
  
• Come Thou Tortoise – Jessica Grant
  
• None of this ever really happened – Peter Ferry : In my view the best read of the lot
  
• The Bad Tuesdays Strange Energy – Benjamin J Meyers