I don’t know how I could have missed it, living as long as I have, but yesterday, my friend Caroline showed me a flower that grows wild along the road to her house above Mercatale, that I have never seen before. It is called Love in the Midst. The most beautiful sky blue petals with tiny deep purple grapes around the center, and a web of tiny green threads that are something between a brides veil and morning fog. She showed me how to eat witch’s broom blooms when they are still closed, and where the cammomile grows for making tea, and under a great tangle of Spring, a treasure of wild strawberries. Ferdinand said, “I do like these”, in his best British accent, and climbed the tree at the top of the hill with Caroline’s cat Mulberry.