by Dario Castagno

Tuscany is a land that for centuries has inspired countless artists. The beauty of its environment enchanting rolling hills, thick forests, charming hilltop villages and breathtaking views is the obvious reason for so much attraction. Leaf through a local phone book and youll find a bounty of Northern European names that have decided to make Tuscany their home.
One of the latest arrivals is a young Englishman, Jonathan Radford. His story is different from those of his fellow countrymen who were attracted by Tuscanys magical atmosphere. In fact Jonathans story is unique. One gets the impression that it wasnt so much his choice to live here, but that Tuscany chose him in some way invited or induced him to come and devote his natural skills to maintaining and extolling our rapturous landscape.
In fact, after working in numerous gardens throughout Europe, Jonathan landed almost by chance in some remote and forgotten area of our region. For this reason I was rather intrigued by his story. And after publishing my own story (in my book Too Much Tuscan Sun) I decided to follow it with A Green Existence. Based on my own experience, I am convinced that there is an avid and eager audience for this opera prima. If just years ago someone had told me that not only would I write a book, but that in no time it would propel me to a kind of celebrity, I would have considered my interlocutor insane, drunk or maybe just a disillusioned optimist. But that is indeed what happened; why not then try again with this one?
One day I received a call from an enthusiastic American couple who had read Too Much Tuscan Sun, and wanted to spend a day touring with me. And so on a beautiful November morning I picked them up at their hotel and we spent a memorable day driving through the Chianti hills, stopping frequently to visit castles, Etruscan tombs, medieval hamlets and obviously wineries. After a mammoth lunch, I brought them to the bus terminal in Siena. It was getting dark, and after we said goodbye I crossed the road, intending to go for a quick stroll through the main street in Siena. I passed in front of an Irish pub, and as I did so I heard a mysterious voice in my head: Dario, Dario, how about a Guinness? Its time you had a Guinness! ...
I always find it difficult to ignore such psychic commands, so I pivoted on my heels, pushed open the hardwood door, walked straight te counter and ordered. After a few minutes I found myself comfortably sipping a pint. After the black stout settled contentedly in my stomach I felt the necessity for a smoke. I put my hand in my pocket, searched for a while in vain, and then found an old dry fag drifting miserably, but miraculously intact, in my inner pocket. I placed it in between my lips and asked the person sitting next to me if he had a light. This time it was his turn to delve into his pocket, and in no time he produced a cheap light blue plastic lighter which he said I could keep.
We exchanged a few words. Good Italian, I pointed out.
He shrugged. Ive been living in Italy for a while. He looked very English his movements, his gestures, the way he was dressed, his rather elegant tweed jacket and matching trousers, with a cap neatly folded in his pocket echoing the image of a rather dignified English squire. I told him that I had spent part of my childhood in England, which explained my slight British accent. At that point he interrupted me: Are you Dario by any chance? His eyes brightened in surprise and disbelief, and he reached under his stool to produce my book from his leather briefcase. He had apparently just finished reading it, right there in the pub, and was thinking at that very moment that he would like to meet me some day . . . a desire now satisfied within seconds.
I found this to be an incredible coincidence and obviously called for another beer. We started talking about our lives, then about memorable sbornie, and inevitably our chat degenerated into a range of overlapping topics, from politics and music to the substance of our private lives. The feeling between us was more than positive and so we decided to meet again the following day for a pizza.
This time Jonathan brought along with him his manuscript and without any particular pretensions asked if I was willing to read it. And I did so, some weeks later while comfortably taking in the sun on a beach in the south of Spain. I was immediately impressed by Jonathans passionate rendering of his lifes work, tending gardens first in England and then following his heart moved to Spain then France and finally Italy, where he started in the Alps and gradually worked his way down to southern Tuscany. A Green Existence is not just a simple autobiography, and its certainly not the usual report of some rich expat who moved to Tuscany to enjoy his retirement in luxury. It is, rather, a testament to an ineradicable attachment to mother nature. It is the story of a young man whose wanderings brought him to Tuscany, and who then wandered no more.
Between the lines we can infer hardship and suffering, and the melancholy solitude of an entire generation. Yet Jonathan also represents a type of person that is probably coming close to extinction. The enthusiasm he has for planting, pruning, cutting and tending; all the backbreaking labour and tedium required to bring gardens into being; these are his daily bread, and can be seen as a mission to make our dull, antiseptic computer world more colourful, more cheerful, more alive.
At the end of this book youll get to know Jonathan very well. You may also realize that, according to his philosophy, our encounter in the pub and subsequent solid friendship were by no means a simple coincidence. Quite the contrary