I spent  a while last year enjoying printing lessons with a local artist, Alberto, learning the finer points of intalghilo printing, no pun intended.  It got to the stage where I was thinking of buying my own press, – well perhaps not at €1000 a pop.  However I did think I could manage something abit like it – something a bit like an old fashioned mangle.  So, of course I typed ‘mangano’ into Italian ebay – only to come up with endless movie prints of an italian diva by that name and not a single hand operated mangle.  Rolling my eyes I went for the english ebay, found one in Nottingham, where an italian friend happened to be visiting with his van.  After a couple of months and much negotiation the mangle was delivered – only to discover it had siezed up, not an irreparable situation but one which I have not quite resolved.

My point is that on my last visit to the ‘second hand shop’ in Tolentino (run, amusingly,  by the man with one hand) I found a machine which looked surprisingly similar.  It was, of course, a grape press.  Being English my thoughts were instantly drawn toward the mangle but in Italy the removal of water from clothes is not such a problem, what with the sunshine and all – on the other hand the removal of juice from grapes is.  I am often surprised firstly at the extent to which the climate has an effect on the way things are run – school term times, working hours etc but also at my own inability to get right into the head of my adopted country.  Such is the ex-pats lot – always sending off to the old country for mangles where there is a grape press just around the corner.