Life's a beach

It has been a hot and relatively quiet weekend – even it MSP has been celebrating its Festa delle erbe spontanee (which I am told means wild herbs, and maybe a few quietly disgruntled ones).

I used to be envious of Stephen when he said there was this festa or that one to go to and wondered why he never sounded very excited about it. Now I understand why, because every village and town holds at least one festa over the summer, which mainly consists of people eating at trestle tables, a few stalls and then a bit of dancing (and I don’t mean to Calvin Harris). On Saturday alone, according to the regional guide for June, there was a choice of twenty-six assorted events to pick from. Alessandro, my student, told me that there are really only three worth going to over the summer, and that he himself would probably miss out on the MSP herbs as his girlfriend’s village was eating tagliatelle with wild boar at their festa.

We did have a stroll with the dogs round the town square (closed to traffic for the occasion) on both evenings to have a look. We were obviously too early for any herbs both times (things never get going in Italy until 9.30), and the only thing happening on yesterday was a remarkably sedate t’ai chi demonstration. Today was more exciting, as there were some pieces of pavement art, made from petals, and a few stalls – the sort you get at craft fairs in Britain - but we only bought an ice cream each. I did find out later that Elsa had suggested we call in on our walk (she lives just off the town square) but for some reason known to Stephen we didn’t – which meant I missed out on the muffins and jam tart she’d made (and I think there was also mention of a limoncello cocktail, but that may just be my imaginative – if not wishful - translation of Italian).

Elsewhere, I had my first trip to the beach to sunbathe, as opposed to dog walk, this morning. As the day promised to be very hot, and we did not want to leave the dogs in the house all day, we went for the morning with Marco and Maddalena. We were on the beach at just after 8am and I had a fabulous time reading and dozing, well protected from the sun by umbrella, t-shirt and sun cream, before we set off home just before 12. I have decided that this is the way to sunbathe – get there early, have a paddle, don’t actually sit in the sun and leave before that enervating stickiness sets in after lunch. I’m not sure that I will get very brown following this regime, but an even suntan has always seemed too much like hard work to me. Besides, who wants to be bronzed when you can sit inside eating muffins?