April | 2015 | Englishman in Italy

RUTHIE: I’m bored; I have spent the entire Easter chasing a walnut around the floor.

Mishmash: you’re bored! It’s your fault that we are grounded and not allowed out. If you had stuck to chasing walnuts and purring like a nice pussy cat we would be outside, but oh no you have to go, pruur pruur pruurring and try to shag the rug.

Ruthie: It’s not my fault, it’s my hormones. One minute I want to hump the rug and as the fog of love clears, I find Ginger is all over me like a bad rash.

Ginger: You can leave me out of this, I’m stuck in here and I’m not even a girlie and besides you have been playing the hussy, sauntering
around pruur pruur pruurring with your tail in the air for the past three days.

Ruthie: Have you checked all the doors and windows?

Ginger: Yes, I even tried to make a bolt for it when Pecora Nera was carrying some wood in, if I hadn’t been laughing at the way he yelped and nearly fell over, I would be free.

Mishmash: I have an idea.

Ginger: Not another!

Mishmash: Ruthie!!! Leave the rug alone and come over here!!

Ruthie: Pruur pruur pruur.

Ginger: So what’s the big idea?

Mishmash: One of us drops a squidgy one under the table and when they open the window we make a run for it.

Ginger: Im looking at a dead cat!

Ruthie: You will never get away with it. As soon as you start to squat, Mrs Sensible will have you by the scruff and fire you into the smelly tray. And Pecora Nera will probably spray you with his blasted water pistol just for the fun of it.

Mishmash: Hang on! I never said I would do the squidgy thing!!! I thought up the plan, one of you will have to do the squidgy.

Ginger: Count me out, I’ve just been.

Mishmash: Looks like it’s you then Ruthie.

Ruthie: Pruur pruur pruur

Mishmash: Oh for heaven’s sake! Ginger, go and distract Mrs S while I sneak into the kitchen and do the magic.

Ginger: And what about PN? You can’t trust Ruthie to help; she is humping the rug again. Ok on three. One two ….

Mishmash: Wait, I can’t just poop to order. Give me a minute.

Ginger: Now! Go! This is the big chance, Mrs S is on her phone and I can distract Pecora Nera.

Ruthie: Pruur pruur pruur.

A couple of minutes pass.

Ruthie: Phew, there’s a bit of a pong from the kitchen.

Mishmash: Oh you’re back in the land of the living. Had a fall out with the rug have we?

Pecora Nera: Your cat has just wandered into the kitchen.

Mrs Sensible: Ruuuutthhiiee vieniiii.

Mishmash: You are one daft cat.

A couple of minutes pass..
.

Mrs Sensible: Can you smell that?

Pecora Nera: Smell what?

Mrs Sensible: You can’t smell it? I can smell poo!!

Pecora Nera: One of the cats will have farted… Mishmash where are you?

Mrs Sensible: Go and check the kitchen.

Pecora Nera: Oh my Lord!

Mrs Sensible: It’s your cat that did that.

Pecora Nera: No way, it was Ruthie. YOU called her from the kitchen, remember!

Mrs Sensible: Just open the window, while I clean it up.

Mishmash: Ready, steady… go

Ginger: Wait for me; hey, where are you two going?

Mishmash: Shagfest, up the lane with the big hairy tomcat
I have heard he is a bit of an Italian Stallion.

Ruthie: Pruur pruur pruur.

Pecora Nera: It was definitely your cat.

Mra Sensible: it was Mishmash, only your cat drops squidgy ones. By the way, where are they?

The glorious twelfth is a term used usually to refer to the 12^th of April, the start of the hunting season in Italy for the common mosquito (Bitius Leggius) and to a lesser extent the tiger mosquito (aggressive-bitius).

Mosquito Latin name Bitius Leggius

Experienced mosquito hunters will have a preferred weapon of choice; from the low tech ‘attempting to hit them with the flat of the hand’ to the high tech use of modified squash rackets which release a thousand volt current when applied to a poor unsuspecting mosquito.

Here we have an advanced mosquito hunter using the racket, note the clever use of a netting to catch a mosquito Credit www.oshonews.com

Hunting is not restricted to woodlands and gardens. Many households incorporate a number of ingenious devices to trap mosquitoes inside the house so that the family can hunt the mosquitoes at their leisure. They may include netting over the windows and doors or netting over a bed.

Hunting mosquitoes can also take place at night. To an Italian the pure joy of waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of the whining noise of a mosquito trapped in a bedroom can only be equaled to Italy winning the Six Nations Rugby Championship, which to date they have failed to do.

Look lads, this time next year we will win.

To ensure that there are sufficient mosquitoes to last from the Glorious Twelfth through to the 3^rd of November; which is not only the end of the hunting season but also my birthday, farmers are encouraged to flood low lying fields to provide adequate water for the mosquitoes to breed. A by-product of flooding the fields during the summer is the production of rice for risotto, which the farmers sell to supplement their income. Vercelli in Piemonte is the centre of mosquito and rice production.

Mosquito farmer checking the mosquitos will be ready for the start of the season

Mosquito farmer checking the mosquitoes will be ready for the Glorious Twelfth : Credit Thestar.com.my

In America hunters wear high visibility clothing to identify themselves to other hunters. In Italy we are a little more fashion conscience, Italian hunters therefore identify themselves by spraying their bodies with liberal doses of noxious smelling sprays. The most common odour is citronella.