Looking sharp

After last Friday’s downpour, which very conveniently happened while all good people were sound asleep – or as asleep as they could be given sky-cracking thunder claps overhead – this week has seen continued blue skies and the temperature consistently tipping over the 30C barrier. It has also seen further encounters of the natural kind, but what would life be without a reptile or two.

As far as the lotto is concerned, more produce is starting to come on stream, with our first tomato on Monday followed by our first cucumber on Tuesday and sufficient courgettes to more than meet our needs. Throw in some green beans and the occasional pepper and at this rate by July we will be setting up a stall on the main road. Stephen also bought some more lettuces on Monday, for whilst the previous ones that he subjected to solar torture are still hanging on in there, he thought we might need a back up. Intent on avoiding making the same mistake again, he withheld on planting these till the next day, after he’d had time to buy netting from Giordano at the ferramenta to make a shady nook for the seedlings.

As far as wildlife is concerned, it has been another interesting week. At the start Stephen was a bit concerned about his green beans, which seemed to have become infested with aphids, but by Wednesday they were all clear again thanks to a host of ladybirds that had made a feast of them. Our friendly toad resurfaced, this time rather then amidst the basil it had taken residence in the pot where Stephen was growing garlic from some past-their-best-before-date cloves. He again removed it to a more suitable place, but it does make one wonder whether toads really do relish living on insects or if they have a secret passion for a spot of pesto. There was a further sighting of the black snake, this time by Harry when I let him and Bella down into the garden on Thursday morning prior to our walk. Bella, for once, seemed oblivious to what was happening, but Harry’s attention was caught when it coiled away across the grass. Fortunately, it had slipped though the fence before he got to it, but it didn’t stop him from bouncing excitedly, Tigger-like, up and down the garden in the hope of finding it.

Whilst our recent animal friends have been content to busy themselves round and about the outside of the house, Wednesday morning saw one of them aiming for a bit more intimacy. I was pottering in the house when Bella and Harry started barking excitedly. Now this is not an unknown phenomenon but it usually happens outside accompanied by frantic dashing up and down the terrazzo when they spot a cat in the field or Billy the Labrador wandering down the lane with Luigi. On this occasion, they were standing in the kitchen, heads cocked and front legs on the fireplace, baying at the chimney breast. Yes, a bird had somehow managed to get itself caught inside and was making intermittent attempts to find an escape route, the noise from which was agitating Bella and Harry.

As you will know from previous encounters (i.e. field mice and geckos), anything animal related falls to Stephen, being the man of the house. On this occasion, while I had Bella and Harry out in the garden after lunch, he emptied the fireplace of the logs providing summer dressing and opened the flue to the chimney. The bird, whose size was in complete disproportion to the noise it was managing to make, dropped down just as Harry decided to run up the steps and into the kitchen. Fortunately, he was too surprised to do anything other than stand in stunned silence as the sooty-feathered one winged its way straight out of the door and to freedom, without leaving any smudgy trace of its presence.

We had another visitor on Wednesday morning, a tad earlier than the bird, and one a little bit more welcome. Andrea, the geometra, made a return visit as promised, bringing with him a geologist to have a look at the breakaway corner of the house and to offer his opinion on the matter. It was much as we thought, that whilst the earthquakes had caused little ostensible damage to the structure of the house, the ongoing after effects mean the substrata is continuing to settle, hence our renegade pizza oven. He confirmed that we would need to have a seismic survey of the ground round the house and it was more than likely that concrete posts as well as the aforementioned metal keys would be needed to secure the property. There is some comfort in numbers, as we are by no means the only people needing to carry out this work; in fact, we will have to join a very long queue, though the geologist did say it should be completed by Christmas.

He also raised the question of whether there were any plans, though a conversation that Stephen had with Luigi at the end of the week more or less confirmed what we already thought. Luigi looked suitably baffled when Stephen brought this topic up, and his answers were at best evasive so our conclusion is that no, there aren’t any plans for the extension they built some thirty years ago. Still, if there were any, I’m not sure how useful they would be as Andrea said that he had been waiting three months for the Comune to produce the paperwork on a house that he is working on. Luigi was, however, able to recall what they had done regarding the foundations and promised to talk to geologist about it when he next came. Let’s just hope that he has remembered correctly, and it is not a case of false memory.

The week ended with MSP’s Mediaeval splurge, which spread over three days, but we chickened out and only enjoyed two of them. Friday night we went up to watch the initial procession, which in past years has started at the school and finished at the church. This year, however, to our surprise someone had decided to change this, though without making it clear in the event flyers. We were a tad nonplussed to find what we thought was the processional route completely empty when we arrived, but followed the sound of drumming to the main square. It was here that we were advised by a friendly local, more in the know than we were, that there was to be a men only mini-procession from the church to the square, where the flags of the three parochial districts of the town were blessed prior to the children’s palio today.

Before you start crying ‘sexist’ at the lack of distaff involvement, Friday was men’s night as Saturday was for the women. This was the parade of beauty when, if you recall last year, various local towns send their representative supported by varying sizes of entourages, all in Mediaeval garb, to see which comune has fitted out their lady in the finest 14th century costume. After dinner in the square, courtesy of Maria Teresa’s pasta shop, there followed ‘La Donzella della Marca’, judged by a motley assortment of the great and the good and the conveniently free of Monte San Pietrangeli. We can’t help thinking that the criteria for judging must have been somewhat esoteric, as the two outfits that we thought were by far the best, with intricate embroidery and much workmanship in piecing together material, were completely overlooked. Oddly enough it was MSP’s own effort that placed second (well, it would have looked like favouritism if it had won) while all that the winner had to mark it out as special was an incommodiously long train. It would seem that even in mediaeval times, size mattered.