Mediterranean Living [antikvár]

McdiloiTaneaii Living (i It cannot be entirely by ehanee that, after twelve years of vagabondage in northern Europe, I have come home, and am writing this book among the umbrella pines and honeysuckle of my native shores. I have a Celtic brew of sorts flowing in my veins but, as my mother used to delightedly embarrass me by informing all and sundry, I was 'made in Italy, born in Spain' -making me thoroughly Mediterranean, or so I like to think. While still in her belly I made my first journey, westwards across the Mediterranean following the same tracks as Ulysses when the goddess Circe bade him sail to the ends of the Homeric world, beyond the pillars of Hercnles in the straits of Gibraltar. My blonde mother and I, not yet formed, left the Italian fisliernieii's ))ort of Lerici beliinci us.VirginiaWoolf described it prettily in her diary of igSS: 'A windy httle town, othigli pink and yellow sotithern liouses, not much changed 1 suplióse; veiy full of tlie lireakingof die waves, very much open lo Lhe sea.' My niolher has rolurnecl since for visits, eves dense willi ineniories, lo lhe irallorie on ihc port. Accompanying her, and uneiicimihcrod wilh such personal