What Giulio taught me

and it broke a bar of my cage

My daughter and I went wine tasting in Chiantishire. She treated us to a day of being driven around the beautiful countryside of the Chianti Classico region. My memory of chianti was of the cheap red wine we drank as students, cheerfully residing in a straw basket; we saved those bottles to use a candle stick holders, and you gained points for the greater the thickness of the wax dripped down the bottle. The bottles resided on cafè tables, on student desks, in any home that was trying to be up-to-date but with limited funds.

So my memory of chianti and Chiantishire was of the 1970’s, of John Mortimer’s wonderfully evocative ‘Summer’s Lease’ and of my student days.

The wine and the vineyards it came from was a totally different experience this time. Chianti Classico is a D.O.P and limited to a very small area in the middle of Chiantishire, half way between Florence and Siena. We were treated to lunch on a tiny working farm/vineyard, where most of what we ate, from bread and olive oil, through salami and cheese, to pasta with leek sauce, and then peach polenta cake, was produced from their own fields. We ate gazing out at a fabulous view, in total peace and quiet, enjoying whatever Francesca put in front of us.

But the highlight of the day, for me, was the tiny vineyard we visited mid afternoon.

As we drew up, Giulio emerged from the little wine pressing room to greet us. He and his wife Anna have worked this land all their lives. Their youngest son now runs the business, with the full time help of his parents.

The elderly couple and their ancestors were sharecroppers on this land. Eventually Giulio and Anna were able to buy it, in the early 1980’s; they worked the land by day and waited tables at night for 15 years to make ends meet.

Even just writing that is exhausting to contemplate. The photo of them from the 1970’s reveal their underlying contentment with their lot, the joy of working the land where their ancestors too laboured, the fun of working together.

Giulio is 90 in February next year; when we arrived he was pressing grapes. His hands are permanently wine-stained. He still works long hours as does his 81 year old wife.

They spoke no English; my Italian is sparse. But they welcomed us warmly, smiled and shook hands, when we arrived; and later, after we’d had our tour and wine tasting, came to bid us farewell, and allowed me to take a photo of them, alongside our driver Niccolò and my daughter. And when I tried to tell Giulio I was amazed that he is still working full time, he smiled broadly and gave me his secret to a long and contented life.

Never sit down, never give up. Keep going or you will stop.

And he shook my hand and waved us off.

His words have stayed with me. How often have I been tempted to sit down, give up, even stop. And in different situations.

When the words seem not to spill as they should or might.

When life seems too difficult.

When God seems far away.

When relationships are broken.

When life is Just. Too. Hard.

I look at the old photos of this extraordinary family; of their whole life tucked away up on a hillside in this tiny vineyard and the hours and hours they have spent toiling the soil, picking and pressing the grapes, bottling and marketing and barely sleeping at times.

It’s all too easy to sit on the perch inside my cage and think that life is too hard outside the bars; it’s easier to sit still.

Never sit down, never give up. Keep going or you will stop.

Lord, make me a Duracell bunny! May I be full of your Spirit, giving me the energy and desire to keep going and never stopping in your service. To serve You all of my days, to keep praising You, loving You, faithful to You, right up until the day You call me home.

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Have you booked your Advent Retreat yet?

And the brochure and booking form for the May 2025 pilgrimage walking the last part of the Via Francigena into Rome will be out within the next few days. Come walk with us in the year of Jubilee. May 13-20, 2025. Organised by MacCabe Travel.

Looking further ahead, we will be leading a walking holiday in Austria also with McCabe, in the Pitzl Valley, in September 2024, and repeating the amazing pilgrimage to Turkey in May 2026, visiting the 7 churches of Asia Minor and the ancient cave churches of Cappadocia.

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with my love and prayers xx

ps - please could you hit the little heart below this post and turn it red? It would mean so much as it helps enormously with the algorithms! Hugely grateful to you if you do.