Hardy Cyclamen and a Venetian Memory, Fuelled by Grappa.

On rituals we perform to keep memories alive...

As autumn fades and thoughts turn to winter, there’s a ritual I perform every year: I find some hardy cyclamen to pot-up in our hanging baskets in memory of a special time over twenty years ago.

I stood at the back of a water taxi, swathed in a new black boucle coat with matching wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses and red lipstick as our driver zoomed James Bond Style over the lagoon and into Venice. We ducked under bridges, the pavements above us thrumming with Venetians as they went about their early evening passagiata, dressed to the nines, many already in costume for the Carnevale which happened to be taking place the same weekend as my fortieth birthday. Thank you, Venice, great timing.

The emotion caught in my throat, and I lost any semblance of cool as I let out a gasp. Tears streamed down my face at the beauty of the Grande Canale: lights shining from palazzi and reflecting in the water, red and white mooring poles standing proud along the banks, water taxis, floating buses, and gondolas, with actual black and white striped t-shirted gondoliers, although I knew a ride in a gondola was not on the cards.

‘Had I seen the price?’ my husband asked as we planned the trip and then suggested, ‘I could row you in the blow-up dingy!’ I wouldn’t put that past him, and still smile at the thought of us heading up the Grande Canale in an orange and blue kiddies’ blow-up boat.

We pulled up in front of a pretty pink hotel on the Grande Canale opposite the Ca’D’Oro with its delicate latticed windows. The driver held out his arm with a ‘signora’ and I looked him in the eye and said ‘gracie mille’, beaming at his ‘prego’ as I stepped onto a wooden platform, hearing the water lapping beneath us and noticing the window boxes box of red, pink and white cyclamen which were clipped to the railings

I took the gondola traghetto that crosses the Grande Canale, standing like a local, legs slightly apart for balance (with Tim’s threat of the rubber dinghy this was the nearest I got to a gondola ride) and took the black and white striped arm offered, as I stepped onto the shore, making sure to get eye contact and smile as I said, ‘Ci vediamo dopo!’ (I’ll see you later - thank you, BBC Teach Yourself Italian).

‘Did you feel the girth of his arm?’ I asked Tim.

‘He had a pot on, was the reply’.

(I think pot might be northeast vernacular for a plaster from a broken limb?)

St Mark’s Square that evening was rammed with people, many in full Carnevale costumes as if they had just stepped from a film set. As with our arrival the evening before, the tears rolled again at the beauty and spectacle of it all, and I sobbed out loud as opera played from loudspeakers, despite comments coming from my side about the cheesiness of it all. As we wandered the city, it seemed every turn, every passageway held something to delight, and it wasn’t long before I was being berated for ‘making those daft noises’ as I couldn’t help express the magic that I found around every corner: terracotta buildings, with green shutters and pots of cyclamen, the green lapping waters at the edges of canals, archways, art and sculpture, gelato, little bridges, the music of hearing Italian spoken and the sheer flamboyance of it all.

I donned a Venetian mask that had a black plume rising from my forehead and using my newly learnt Italian, ordered prosecco and polpette (delicious little meatballs). Later in the night, fuelled by a grappa bar crawl, calling ‘due grappa per favore!’ in countless bars, necking the shots like true Brits abroad, we raced hand-in-hand around the streets dancing at the parties that were to be found on every street corner. Venice was so liberating, although I may have been dragged away from the mic after joining a punk rock band that had set up in the deserted Rialto marketplace, insisting on singing, ‘Susie is a punk rocker, Susie is, a punk rocker, Susie is, a punk rocker, Nnoooooow! ‘ on repeat.

Oh, the hangover! Grappa is brutal. A hair of the dog with a coffee corretto and then sanctuary was taken and forgiveness asked for at the feet of a Madonna with fairy lights around her neck in the marbled cool of a church over the other side of Venice in my favourite district, Cannareggio.

But where are the photos you may be thinking - we lost them all! These were the days pre-Facebook, pre-backups, pre- Dropbox and pre-mobile phones. We had a digital camera and uploaded photos to a computer, but when the hard drive broke, we lost all the photos. Gutted!

What I do have, however, are my memories, and by writing and recording the sounds, colours, smells and tastes of Venice I am transported back. I learnt then, after losing all the photos, to keep a journal whenever we travel. It only needs to be a small book, but one that can be whisked out on a cafe table, or used to record the people, sights and sounds when waiting for a plane or train. Record sensory details as they are what will transport you back, add detail and textures and help the reader feel there with you.

Record snippets of conversations too, as so often it’s not only about where you go, but who you meet, as with our travels in Morocco that were full of kindness and generosity.

I’d love to write more about our travels as travel that sparked the very first conversations between my future husband Tim and me as we sat at a party full of trouser-dropping and willy-waving rugby players over forty years ago - see below.

We don’t fly these days due to the climate crisis, but prefer slow travel by train or campervan. I hope to write more about this in a series I’m calling, Wrinklies on the Road…so many places to go, much to write. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

Thanks for reading - I’m off to water my hardy cyclamen and cast my mind back to the colour and sounds of Venice at Carnevale time and to when I felt like a film star, for a few days.

I’d love to know more about the rituals you perform that help to keep happy memories alive. Feel free to share them in the comments below. They can be on anything, not just travel.