The Solstice

Just six days and the light returns.
This is the time of Year when my energy flows slowly and I have to push myself and don't feel pulled by life. Doesn't help that it's snowing like crazy outside and far too cold so suddenly. Our woodstove is eating up our winter's supply and it's a battle to keep the house suitably warm.
But there are good things too.
The sun being at its furthest south, we are getting sunsets lighting up the sky at Mt Vettore.
























Then there is the fact that we have joined C.A.I. (Club Alpini Italian) which makes me laugh no end, firstly because most of the other members here are amazingly fit and sportive and secondly because their membership card and badge are left-overs from the Fascist era (Mice's guess!)























and then, and then,...on a 20K walk on Sunday (don't ask) we walked past this house on the way to Monte San Martino.
And look what it says splashed right across the front of the building 'Duce a noi' which more or less 'We're with you all the way, Duce' (you need to screw your eyes up to see it mind)



















It's all bubbling still, under the surface here in Italy. Communism, Fascism; like old ghosts lost in time forever, And all this couples in my mind with the attack on Berlusconi on the weekend where he was coshed with a model of the Milan Duomo. It's the circus of Italian politics which have never matured out of the ruins of the second World War.