I had made a commitment to the late Mrs F and I guess, more so to myself that I would go back a year later to make sure everything was still as it should be. And, thats kinda how it happened, except…. that it wasnt quite how it happened.
In late 2012/early 2013, I had built up some Air Miles (remember them?), following my trips to the states to be reconciled with my biological father (another very very long story) and had looked to book a flight from London to Verona and then I would hire a car to drive up to Limone again and spend a couple of days in the same place; soaking in the same atmosphere and to make sure that the lemon tree that we had scattered her ashes in was still there and that all was well. Or so the plan was to go…
I did book the flights.
Except that it soon dawned on me, about 3 weeks after I’d done it, that I’d booked the bloody flights a month early. Yes, I was originally meant to be going to Limone in late March for it to be the one year anniversary and it ended up being in late February instead.
And… by the point that the penny dropped, it was too late to change it and I couldn’t rebook it. I just had to get on with it.
So, at that point, I reserved a car at Verona Airport through Avis or one of the other big-box car international car rental firms and booked into the same guesthouse in Limone that I had stayed in previously.
I mean, the guesthouse was a choice of one as it was even more off season than the year before. They were pretty much the Only Game In Town. But, they gladly took my reservation and I made the bookings and I took some time off from working at my current job at the time which was working for a certain Bedroom Furniture Manufacturer as a self employed Field Sales Agent and I made my way down to Heathrow in “The Other Car” as opposed to the XJS – at that point I had acquired a Citroen C5 estate which contained a lot of the sales kit for that job, more so than its predecessor did (1998 T-plate Jaguar XJ8.. utterly beautiful, quick as greased weasel s*** but thirsty).
So, on Tuesday 19th February 2013, off to Gatwick I went from Aylesbury and caught a mid-morning flight to Verona, with BA on a 737, on my own. Just over two hours in the air and that journey was uneventfully completed. I cleared through arrivals and made my way with my overnight case to the car hire office, which if I remember rightly, was in the bottom floor of a multi-storey car park.
All was fairly straightforward, left hand drive car, this time a cheap and cheerful 2011/12 FIAT 500.
Now, for a chap of my generous dimensions, I was expecting it to be seriously uncomfortable.
A notion I was soon disavowed of. I put my overnight bag in the back, climbed into the left hand drivers seat and got myself familiar with the LHD layout, which I’d not used since I’d worked in Belgium. I’d brought the same TomTom Sat Nav with me which I’d used on the previous trip and that had served me so well.
I was doing ok until I figured I had to stop, somewhere within the airport complex (I dont remember when, but I do remember going down a road that was like an entrance to an office car park or similar, just to get something out of my case).
What didn’t dawn on me, on trying to leave that particular complex was “what the hell is that mad bastard doing in my lane flashing at me, coming directly towards me?…….. Shit, I’m driving on the wrong side! FFS Fubar, get a grip!!!”
Finding my way back onto the correct side of the road, looking highly embarrassed and mouthing my best “scusi, mi scusi. Inghlese, scusi…!!” at the furrowed browed Italian man driving towards me… Suitably chastened, I proceeded on my way out of the airport as unobtrusively as I possibly could, onto the Autostrada out of Verona towards the southern turn off to go up the side of the lake to the same turn off that I had done from the Brenner pass direction the year before.
Joining the Autostrada de Brennero, it was a case of heading north west, where the A22 then becomes the A45 and then the A22 again… I’m afraid Im still none the wiser around the nomenclature of Italian motorways as to why their numbering changes and then changes back again, for no obvious reasons…
Anyway. It took about an hour and a half to two hours in the Fiat to get as far as Limone, following the same route as I had taken before – once I’d got to the A22/Brenner turn off of Mori, where we had left the mountain pass road 12 months before.
This time no clangers were dropped at Torbole and I managed to stay on the right road, through Riva Del Garda and then on to Limone.
The only thing that was different really was that the XJS had some serious road presence, which the little Fiat somewhat lacked. Probably because it was about a quarter of the size…
There were times that it worked in its favour though, as you could get the thing in and out of pretty much anywhere instead of having to worry about the big long bonnet of the XJS.
And, despite having fully comp on the XJS, and despite having the full Collision/Damage Waiver on the Fiat, I was still less inclined to stick the XJS’s nose into places where it may have been a little more risky.
Nonetheless, I arrived at the same Casa Alberga Sorriesa in Limone at about 5pm as it was getting dark (bearing in mind it was February, so the days were definitely shorter than they were in March, LOLZ).
The room was a single one, basic and functional; I was only there for two full days after the arrival day. I dont recall going anywhere to eat that evening. Just having some drinks in the bar and getting a relatively early night.
The following day, the morning of Wednesday the 20th February, I awoke, had a simple continental breakfast and walked into the dead of the village towards the Chiesa San Rocco. It was before 10AM and as it was off season, the village was pretty much deserted. I hardly saw another soul out on the streets of this sleepy, beautiful little lakeside village.
And before 10AM, there I was, at the place where we had laid her ashes to rest; the terracotta flower pot that her ashes had been carefully placed into was still there; the plant itself didnt exactly look particularly healthy (the gardener in me 15 years later understands perfectly well now, but at the time, I was ignorant). There was a raised step to the wooden door to the closed garden that was adjacent to the Chiesa.
I found myself sitting on that raised step, with my left hand in the flowerpot, where her mortal remains were left, as if I was going to ever encounter her in any way shape or form every again in this realm and it dawned on me very rapidly after I’d said to myself “well… you came back like you said you would…. so what now?”
Indeed, what now?
What next?
You’ve flown a thousand miles to sit next to a flowerpot with your hands in the soil where she no longer is, she has returned to the stardust that she came from… what are you going to do now?
You’re here in an off-season tourist village which is all but deserted; no hotels open, only one guest house, hardly any bars or cafes… and this is not even noon on the first day.
What now? What are you going to do next? How are you going to pass the next 2 days til you fly home?
Well… at that point, I had no answers. I had nothing. The village was as beautiful and as peaceful and as tranquil as it had been 11 months beforehand… So, I did what I always do when I have nothing else to do…. I write. I was, at the time, writing primarily because it was therapeutic. Either screenplays (I had submitted a short film treatment for a project called 50 Kisses, which didnt make the final 50) and had been writing music and lyrics for some years beforehand.
So, I went back to the Casa and wrote lyrics. Lots of lyrics. One of which made it into a completed track, which I finally published online a number of years later under the title of “Stay”.
More of that some other time perhaps. I didnt explore the area further as the car hire was limited mileage and I didnt really have the maturity or the imagination then to go further afield or to make more of the time that I had there. It was more a case of time for reflection. I hadnt heard of meditation at the time, but it would probably have been a wiser use of time during my stay this time around.
I had my iPad with me so, at least had access to the social networks, but the reception throughout the building was somewhat patchy. Only really visible and usable from the bar, as opposed to any of the rooms.
I returned to Verona Airport two days later, again the little Fiat proving to be surprisingly flexible and suitable to the purpose. Miraculously, I managed to get an upgrade to Club Europe (does that still exist?) from the BA check in desk which I was most grateful for…. until I actually boarded the 737 and some bastard with a 70s porn tache,wearing a suit came on to the aircraft and sat opposite me coughing his guts up.
I knew what was going to happen… by the time I got back to Gatwick, patient fucking zero opposite me will have infected the entire fucking plane.
True enough, within 48 hours I had a stinking cold which took the edge of the week that I had just had. But, thats been a given for many years when I have flown within Europe.
Part of me has been tempted to go back to the Italian Lakes since, but it hasnt happened. Its a closed chapter of my life, I guess. I shouldn’t be looking backwards, only forwards. I do try to live in the Now moment and the past can be a nice place to visit, but I dont want to live there any more.
My best friend and his (now sadly ex) wife, also who were close to the Late Mrs F, visited Limone in 2014/15 and my mother and stepfather made many attempts under their own steam when visiting friends in Verona to go to the Chiesa, finally making it in 2024, when they were in their 80s; a friend of theirs said to them, I know this is important to you and that you have tried to visit Limone on a number of occasions; today we’re going to make it happen, and that is indeed what that friend did; she made it happen for them.
Would I ever go back there with the current Mrs F? I very much doubt it, unless she really wanted to.
Will I ever drive there again? Not bloody likely, LOLZ.
The XJS on the other hand… I kept it for most of the rest of 2013 until I had to move to Wiltshire and the house that I had rented only had on-street parking and there was no way I was risking the XJS on that.
In reality, I should have just rented somewhere with a drive instead, but I couldn’t find anywhere I liked.
So, I sold it privately and took a hit on on it, considering that we were in a bit of a downturn at the time.
Three people turned up to test drive it, two young-ish fellas in thier 30s, one a time-wasting tyre kicker and an older guy and his son; he was in his late 60’s by that point. She had developed a fault in that both her rear suspension bushes needed attention, but that wasnt exactly a major job.
His son brought him along in a Ferrari 355 (guess I should have smelled a rat then, LOLZ) and after a test drive with me, he said “so…. whats your best price?”
“Blah” I said… a few thousand less than what I paid Dave Clarke for it two years previous….
“Done” he said. He reached into an inside jacket pocket and pulled out envelopes of cash.
Dammit. Fubar, you f**ked that up good and proper.
Note to future self: If you ever do that again, start high FFS!!!
One of my American/Puerto Rican half brothers said that when he sold his 911 (different circumstances) after he moved out of the hills above San Francisco where he’d been an active member of the local Porsche Owners Club, that watching a complete stranger drive away what used to be his car was one of the most painful things he had ever had to do.
Well, Daniel (my brother’s name)…. that day was the day I found that out to be a truism. Even though I knew she had to go to a new home and I had no doubt that the old fella would look after her as much as I tried to (and he did, I subsequently found out, he spent a lot of money on her), watching that car being driven away by a complete stranger still tore a big hole in half of my heart that I’m really not sure has ever mended since.
I can be a sentimental man at times and I do sometimes – well, quite often – get attached to the cars that I drive. Some of you may disagree, they’re just inanimate objects, but thats not how I see it. Maybe its a Latino thing, I dont know.
That was the last time I ever saw the XJS and I’ve seen decreasingly few ever since… and even though I would probably have another one in a heartbeat, the circumstances in which I would are decreasingly likely these days, both in terms of their increased value and also in that they’re becoming increasingly impractical and not the right thing for me and Mrs F going forward in the next stages of our lives.
It was a chapter in my life, one with great emotional meaning where I tried to and – and I think succeeded – in doing the right thing by the one I loved and I wouldnt change a single thing about the whole experience.
Thank you for reading and to SB for publishing the story.
© text & images Fubar2 2025
