My apparent on-off love affair with Coriander was very much on last week. It's a fickle relationship, when it's not there, it's largely forgotten. But when it's on your plate or to be more precise, the instant it hits your tongue, then 'whoa', hello! A punchy reminder that food can taste good, yet often doesn't. But when it does, it reminds me to explore the tastes in my mouth, rolling my tongue around, feeling the textures, taking in the smells and letting it fizz and tantalise your senses...much like a good woman, food needs to be savoured, not taken for granted...or just picked up in Waitrose! I found myself in Italy last week, Rome to be exact. A small group of us, it was a visual spectacle and a taste sensation. I've never really had a desire to go to Rome specifically, but I rolled up as instructed.
From the moment we all arrived, I was stunned, overwhelmed and largely speechless. To be fair, some of that was due to the taxi ride into town, I was reminded of Italian drivers and the rules of the road. Street scarred Ducati's, dirty, covered in dings and scrapes. At home they'd be buffed and polished, here they were merely tools of the road, something to engage myriad scooters, piloted by one, two, sometimes three riders. So much chaos, but never a parped horn in anger. Crossing the road by foot requires a determined show of intent, often daring to get half way across a pedestrian crossing before a driver will admit defeat and have to slow, not stop, and give you a chance of getting across. Not for the first time I'd cross my fingers while traversing the faded zebra.
And so it made for interesting running. Pete and I, the only runners, chose early morning and initially down on the banks of the Tiber for our fix. But the draw of the mayhem above was too hard to resist. Here the distractions were huge. Traffic, better to run in it and claim your place than stand on the side hoping someone will let you in. The beauty of city demanding photo's at every corner, the Colosseum, Vatican, Circo Massimo, Borghese Gardens, we ran past them all, North, South, East and West. Visual overload.
But in one area, we failed. On one morning we decided to come up from the Tiber and have a quick blast through Basilic di San Pietro...and we were met with something that looked and felt vaguely familiar. Runners, but lingering around, running club flags, railings and TV cameras in the square, marshals. Hmmm. We asked. Rome 10k...today, in a couple of hours. Pete and I looked at each other, needing to say nothing, but somehow imagining that that the 6 miles we had just run, would indeed make a perfect warm up for a guided city tour. 'Where do we enter?' Pete barked, and off we went giggling 'when in Rome...'. It ended badly; a long walk, an hour later, and with the type of crushing defeat and disappointment that 'it's fine, not a problem' somehow fails to convey. Entry denied.
Cold, hungry and rejected, we trudged back and stopped at the local coffee bar. A curious place where there is no seating, just a bar top counter to take a caffeine 'hit' and then on with your day. Not a place to socialise, chat, or muse over a tasty pastry, it was in, espresso, slam, out! It was the best coffee of the trip. Over it, we went back, started our day afresh and walked out straight into the home leg of the race. Bugger...that could have been us. So we saw the leaders and stopped to clap every runner through...we even got on local TV for our enthusiastic support, to the cries of 'Grazzi' from many of the runners. Yup, we know what it's like...a little support goes a long way. We turned and went on our way, Pete muttering 'unfinished business Rich'. Almost perfect!
