It was Mexico

Well, it seemed like it at the time.
I was walking up Bernie's garden to take a look at the sea and I heard shouting and laughter; looked up and saw UFO's whizzing across the sky. Then I walked into a bunch of Mexican cotton pickers, but they weren't.
Does that ever happen to you though? You suddenly think you're in another country?
Anyway, a voice shouted 'Michael!' and I was brought back to the here and now.
Guess who it was?
You're dead right, it was Mari, Jo, Vittorio, Quinto, Pepino and Lorenzo. Not pickin' cotton but sweetcorn (UFO shaped)It's 25C in the sunshine and they're complaining of the heat...

Here they are, look, it's them it is.















Next day temperature drops by 20C and we are plunged into winter and the Sibillinis have their first dash of snow. John pops in, carves a huge hole in our laundry room wall and walks off shaking his head. It's like that when the seasons suddenly change.
No wonder the British went mad in India (A thought that briefly sails though my mind)


a mountain view from the garden, the first snows

Our summer of trekking

I know what you're thinking! You think I'm going to write about my fantastic tomato crop, or our splendid figs or the to die for potatoes.
But I'm not.... and who would die for a potato anyway? (don't answer that one, please!)

Instead this little story is about last weekend's trek/mountain climb up to the source of the river Ambro which is a hike and a half above the Sanctuary of La Madonna dal Ambro (who is really the Sybil as well we all know)
Our trusted guide and leader, Giorgio Tassi, had persuaded us that this one was a doddle; tough first ten minutes, then flat all the way. We know him well enough to translate this as (a confidence booster which really means) 'life threatening experience, stay in bed, it's safer'


















The river had to crossed at least a dozen times; our Mexican friend, Sofia took the first dive and one by one we succumbed, each of us wet from the knees down, but it was OK.

























The scariest part was climbing up (and then down) a sheer precipice, our only way of circumventing a blocked part of the river bed.
























Here you got to wonder at the way water had eroded the gorge over millions of years and here it took some time to get the twenty of us to the top of the rope where our wondrous leaders were perched (we had four guides)
When we reached the 'Throne' itself, after more or less another hour of climbing, I know we were all in complete awe of this majestic place. My God! We've lived here for seven years and didn't have an inkling of such splendour.
























So we celebrated this feeling (a sort of benevolent dreamy state) by eating a gorgeous lunch consisting of bacon and tomato rolls, Sheep cheese and a bottle of coke. Then chocolate to double up on the caffeine intake.


The journey back down was easier, except for having to re-negotiate the precipice and by this stage most of the group had given up on trying to navigate the stepping stones to cross the river, and just waded in. I think. for me at least, one of the most beautiful parts of the trek was walking besides the sound of rushing water through the sunny glades which stretched the length of the river. It's a lovely experience because eventually the mind empties itself of everything except to sounds and sights around.


















So we've got the bug and we are going to join the trekking group. And this coming weekend? a trek up the Fiastrone. What a wonder that will be.

Finally a photo of some of the group taken in front of the Sanctuary

Yesterday

Now I'm not a great lover of shopping. In fact I lose a year of my life when I'm trapped into the horrors of it. Yesterday was a prime example (or so I thought at the outset). The objective was simply to buy a pair of trekking shoes for my kindred soul. You know the story.... 5 hours later with bags full of bargains (but you have to buy this because it's half price and will last you forever!), we by chance, looking for the beach at Porto Sant Elpidio, drive into yet another Shopping Mall. By this time I've lost two and a half years and seven days--- but this Commercial Centre is new and I swear it's the first one ever that has been designed with the mind of man in mind (oh, I like that!).
It's got whole areas for tools and tents and camping beds. And what'smore shops for hikers with 50% reductions. Computer and telephone sections with huge screen TVs and and thoroughly modern Sainsbury type Trustbuy scheme where you just use your credit card as you you zoom through and avoid checkout. On top of this there's a pub in the corner with a vast selection of beers and pizzas and there, as you walk out, is a multi screen (12) new Cinema.
I'm not making it up, honest.

La Sibilla

Last Saturday I joined a brave set of souls on a hike up to the cave of La Sibilla, who, as you know, is the local goddess, and ex-prophetess to the Roman Emperors. It was great and something I've always been meaning to do. The day was organised by Giorgio Tassi, a local photographer and nearly new Mayor of Amandola (he missed out by just a handful of votes)...
















Jo is an experienced mountaineer and a great direction giver for those in need of advice.
























It was a day of swiftly changing weather conditions, hot sun, then sudden drifting fog with chilled us but which had its own beauty as sheep, climbers, mountain shepherd dogs drifted in and out of focus.





We reached the Sibilla cave after two hours and ate our sandwiches and drank our energy drinks. I missed Bessie and sort of wished I'd brought her along but she would have casued mayhem; bashed up Holly, attacked the sheep dogs and pestered me for a slice of sausage. Then guess what? We were given a lecture on the history of the Sibilla by a historian, the upshot of which was that it was generally agreed that the Sibilla was still present as witnessed by many a sober soul during nights spent alone up there. This spot is, according to those who know this stuff, a portal to the Cosmos.
Told Lili about this and she wants to go up there too (she was in Naples that weekend). Not sure whether she means to Cosmos or Mount Sibilla...I'll ask before I make any plans

I've had better days.
I've had worse also.
I want firstly to say sorry to this snake

















I'm sorry snake, I didn't want to kill you, please forgive me!

It happened like this..
It's been unusually hot this last week, temps hitting 34C, and if you know anything about snakes, you know they love it hot. Baby snakes hatch in these conditions: baby vipers are born live, up to a hundred at a time.
leela has already marched into the garden with a snake in her mouth and this morning it was the turn of Socksie who (as a present to Lili) dragged in the chap above into the house and placed it, still alive, under our bed.
It was a metre long.
Shrieks in the house!
I managed to clunk a glass cake cover over it and slide a piece of cardboard under its body (all this under the gaze of the feline sharks); to then slip it into a large glass jar which I sealed with a fitting glass top.
You're so brave!
Yes I know, but to continue...
I take the jar down to our neighbours thinking that they might at least tell me if it was a viper or not and they say yes kill it. I get this feeling that they call every snake a viper and kill it whether it is or not so I walk back home with snake in the jar looking at me with quite a sweet expression on its face and back home leave it on the garden table with the plan of taking it to a chap we know in town who really does know a snake from a cake.
Then...shrieks, even louder than before.
'It's escaping' Lili cries.
I rush downstairs and find she has taken the lid off to give it some fresh air!!
By then it is zooming in every direction and decides to bury itself in the dead leaves under the wisteria bush.
We are already getting late for appointments and the domestic sharks are waiting to go in for the kill. And I can't risk that it might indeed be a viper and the death of one our pets.
So I had to kill you poor creature.
I'm sorry and Lili is sorry too
Particularly because when we took you poor remains in to show snake expert he tells us that you were just an harmless grass snake.
We have decided to take a course on snake recognition

Fireflies

They're back!
How do they know it's the 4th of June? They're amazing, that's what they are. It was the first time Tikka had experienced them. and what with them and a couple of Dinos (Bambi-like deer) at the bottom of the garden making their cooing noises, she was astounded, in awe, hopping around from shrub to shrub. And all this after two days of torrential rain. Just look!
























Twenty centimetres of rain! Mudslides everywhere!

Update

OK, I know, you're right....I'm lazy!
I could, and I should, write a blog everyday and....well, what I usually do is wait until something completely absurd strikes me, (usually about the trials and tribulations of living in Italy), and then I pounce! (for all that the world cares)
But recently there's been so much, so much, that my critical mind has been swamped and overwhelmed.

Oh! You're wondering what the photo is all about? No connection really but..
It's me eight years old. I was so sweet! My sister was down in Le Marche and she brought me a DVD of old family photos. I remember this one quite clearly. It was taken in Kent, in the hop fields. My mum and dad were Battersea Cockneys and hop-picking was what you did if you were poor by way of a holiday. So where was I last weekend? In Kent, in the same area where this photo was taken. Oh, this time with friends Tony and Sheila in a posh pub with a refined menu and a polite Polish waiter and a rude English waiter too. I remember also a family of foxes playing in the garden of the cottage where we stayed and the owner bawling me our for hobbling around in his wellington boots. But I was a happy little chap and told this story to a group in London that same weekend; I'd gone on a workshop weekend and we were asked to remember a happy time in our lives.

So, here I go again with a simple tale of yesterday. And you can take this as a metaphor for all the thousand and one tales I'd like to relate to you but haven't the time. (for example the one about the traffic cop with dark shades).. or last weekends riotous Pizza party at Bernie's...Wow!!












Now you're going to wonder what all this has got to do with the following tale of yesterday. Not quite sure myself but I think it's as J.P.Sartre said, hell is other people. Of course he was referring to the French so he was spot on there but sometimes, sometimes, Italians are a pretty close match.
So back to yesterday, we reach the end of our little road and there, wonder of wonders is a team of workmen laying tarmac. First of all, let me explain that a year back all of us in our little community of Sant'Ippolito signed a petition appealing to the Mayor for a tarmac road because our sand road is a perpetual disaster. And yesterday there they were! Sealing the road. And as we gleefully drove on to the fresh tar, the workmen started to yell at us and the boss came hurtling over to the car shouting 'Get off, get off!!'


The conversation

I said what do you mean get off? where to?
He says 'Didn't you see the sign?'
What sign? where? I ask.
The one at the other end of the road, he says.
The end of which road?
The one two K along this road
Why did you put it there, nobody uses that road? All of us (some 50 people) use this one. So how would we know?
Well the sign is there he says and you should have seen it and now you're ruining this fresh tar.
You're not listening to me and why are you doing this part of the road? It's been fine, it's the rest that needs attention.
He shrugs his shoulders..
We've only been told to do this bit.
But it's a waste of time and money.
What do you expect, this is Italy?!

Now if there is one phrase which guarantees a complete meltdown in my brain it's this one.
But Lili touches my arm and says 'Go!'
So I take a deep breath and drive off.
I spend the next half hour repeating 'This is Italy, this is Italy, this is Italy!'
Calm down, she says, let's go for a swim in the lake. So we do, and it's gorgeous. Deep clear blue water and not a breath of wind.
This is Italy too, she says.




















Like our new road?
It ends 100 metres along from here. just look.




















Oh, and guess what? The local elections are next week.
Got the connection? As voters drive past they will think 'Hey, that Mayor is good, he's fixed that road at last'