It never rains...

After several days of toting that barge and lifting that bale, on Monday Stephen completed the relocation of the tiles leaving us with our very own miniature nature reserve. I say nature reserve, but seeing as the daffodils are waning fast and he’s disturbed a host of scorpions during his exertions we are left a bit bereft of interest in that area.

Stephen has, to counteract this, scattered wild flower seeds and placed, at an inviting angle, a couple of tiles offering shelter to the toad that had been squatting in the dankness at the bottom of the old piles – though now we are on the threshold of spring he may have already decamped back to the river at the bottom of the fields (the toad, that is). There’s also hope of ornithological interest in the shape of what Stephen believes is a parrot flying around the area. Not having seen the bird in question, I can’t offer an opinion on its taxonomy but if it does belong to the psittaciforme family then maybe some grieving owner is searching for it, as, even with my limited knowledge of zoology, I really don’t think parrots are native to this part of Italy. Whatever the reason for its presence, at least it has more brainpower than the little bird that, despite our best efforts, insists on battering its head against the downstairs windows. This one, Stephen says, looks like a cross between a robin and blue tit, which must make it a robit, or a blubin, presumably.

A cause for great excitement occurred on Tuesday when my latest box sets arrived. Since we joined Netflix we’ve been able to enjoy some relatively current programmes in our madrelingua – if that’s what you can call American English. Notable amongst these are ‘Modern Family’, to which we are, admittedly, latecomers but also absolutely devoted, and Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda making ‘Grace and Frankie’ look effortless. The latest additions to our limited library of DVDs, though, see us revisiting our childhoods with a bit of a Gerry Anderson fest, as they are the complete episodes of Thunderbirds and UFO, the choice of which being entirely the responsibility of Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo.

In addition to our belated discovery of ‘ Modern Family’, I have also lately become a podcast junkie. This, I’ve found, is a much more convenient way to listen to all my favourite Radio Four programmes. I can fit them into my dislocated GMT+1 routine while also filtering out anything featuring Ian McMillan, Punt and Dennis, Clive Anderson, Lenny Henry, Arthur Smith and, worst of all, Stephen Fry. In addition, to my great delight, I have come across a few other gems including the wonderful Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review from Radio 5 Live. This is well worth seeking out either live or via podcast, even if it does result in you splashing out on DVDs.

It was during a recent programme that Kermode and Mayo went off on one of their protracted tangents questioning why, as youngsters, the colours of various Anderson merchandise were the wrong colour (blue Thunderbird 2s and green Interceptors instead of green and white respectively). Help was at hand, as Jamie Anderson, son of Gerry, must have been listening and popped in at the end of the programme to explain the reason. The account was fascinating, but not at second hand so you will have to seek out the episode if you want to know the answer. However, the lovingly nostalgic way in which all three men talked about the programmes fired our interest, hence the impulsive purchase on Amazon.

And speaking of International Rescue, Le Marche, or at least our corner of it, could have done with their help on Wednesday when we woke up to find that rain had been falling steadily all night and half of our drive had been washed away. This was partly due to the amount of rainfall (which flooded the local bridge to San Rustico as well as various roads in and around Civitanova and sections of the autostrada). We suffered more than we maybe should have as our farmer neighbours, Mario and Luigi, had thought it a good idea to cut two drainage channels into the large field directly in front of our house. These two channels funnelled the rain down the field to the small drain at the corner of our drive, which, unsurprisingly, was unable to cope with that amount of water, especially when it became blocked with the collected flotsam. Instead, it streamed down our drive, taking most of the surface with it.

Never one to back down from a challenge, Stephen manfully unblocked the drain and made sure that the water from the drive skirted the house and flooded onto the garden at the side by, appropriately enough, the well. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do much about the state of the road up and out of La Casa dei Due Baffi, which after several months of vans, trucks and wagons compacting the stony surface has returned to a scree slope with the added interest of a couple of fissures running down the side. Looks like it could be a job for the Comune – except, of course, as far as they’re concerned neither the house nor we exist. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to go and hunt out the number for Tracey Island instead.