I had been thinking of it overnight while during the waking points of my endlessly fitful sleeps I have now (must be the menopause?). What I was thinking is ‘He’s due one of those waxing lyrical posts about his beloved Italia about now – it’s been a week since they’ve been there.’ And right on queue this morning…like the creature of habit he now is, in it came.
I guess the wee boot has been on my mind as well because I have been listening to a podcast called ‘Real Dictators’ and I’m now in the middle of a six-part section on Napoleon. There’s a lot of it that involves Italy…well, Italy before it was actually Italy. That’s the interesting thing I have learned over the past few nights listening to this podcast is that Italy as the country we know it to be now didn’t exist at the turn of the 19th century.
Strangely, the other podcast I’ve been listening to is Mary Beard’s Being Roman. Other than those two things, my dive into all things Italia is minuscule to say the least.
I honestly don’t know why, but every time he brings it up, it just brings me down. I guess it just reminds me that the timing of everything was just not on my side. And of course it all sounds so Baby Reindeer when I think that one of the appeals of moving here to Glasgow was this skewed sense of feeling closer to him. It’s such a ridiculous thing, I know. But is it really any different to all the fans making the pilgrimage to Villa Angela – mostly in the hope that they’ll bump into him at the hotel? Any fan who says otherwise is kidding themselves. They ALL secretly wish to get to meet him when they’re there.
Yes, our move to Glasgow had several other factors involved, but there was that little hope at the end that being here might give me the chance to bump into him from time to time – although I’ve come to learn it’s quite easy to keep yourself incognito when bumming around Glasgow – for as small as the city is (in scale to other cities in the UK and around the world) – it’s filled with myriad nooks and crannies.
I couldn’t have foreseen Covid and that it happening would be the final drive for him to decide to move to Sicily permanently. Less than six months after I move here, he’s gone for good. And every time he brings up his love for the wee boot, it’s a reminder of that.
Anyway, that’s it – in a nutshell. I didn’t expect to be so succinct and quick about it and get this downer out of my system. I didn’t think I’d get to express it that quickly – but this is the crux of it, really.
I don’t regret moving to Glasgow for a second! Not even if we are probably having the worst summer I’ve experienced since moving here. It really has been a no show this year. Maybe they had a long-range forecast? And that is also why there has been a bias shown in numbers of gigs for the opposing countries too? Italy has had a good share of the spoils with shows. Getting a healthy six shows, while Scotland got just the two. That pretty much confirms where allegiances lay now, yes.
Do I love Glasgow now for being the home of Simple Minds? Not really – for it really doesn’t feel like it any more. I love Glasgow for all the other things it has going for it – and it has many. And so, while he’s never felt more at home in the ‘baw aw thi boot’, I’ve never felt more at home here in the Dear Green Place. My heart definitely belongs to Glasgow. My love is here.
Whits fur ye’ll no go by ye.
Image use link: “Writing on the Sunset Italy Rome – Creative Commons by gnuckx” by gnuckx is marked with CC0 1.0. To view the terms, visit Creative Commons
