Your numbers up

The first full week of August, the sun is shining, the weather is hot and everyone’s thoughts are looking ahead to the coming holidays. Well, maybe not everyone’s.

After leaving the fields around LCDDB to their own devices for a couple of weeks, it was time for Mario and Luigi to give them their annual summer churning. This is fair enough, and we understand that living in the countryside you have to accept that there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven, we are just not sure why that time has to be 4.45 in the morning. Actually, that is a bit unfair, as that was only on Tuesday; on Wednesday they had a bit of a lie in and didn’t start until half past five. On both days they took a break from late morning till mid-afternoon during the hottest part of the day, before continuing well into the dark. It was getting on for 11pm before Luigi called time on Wednesday, but he obviously went at it doggedly to finish it all off as Thursday we slept undisturbed till the alarmrang at 6.30. Ah, the healthy life.

The Super Mogliani brothers were not the only ones looking past the easy days of August as this week also saw advance preparations when we took delivery, on Tuesday afternoon, somewhat earlier than usual, of this year’s firewood – and lots of it. In the past, it has been well into autumn before all this has been sorted but for some reason the man we bought for the last two years contacted Stephen a couple of months ago to ask how much we wanted and could he deliver it in August. We said about 30 quintali, that quaint weight measurement that seems now to be reserved for firewood, and yes that was ok. In the event, he delivered a little more but kept his promise of coming in August, which meant that whilst Mario and Luigi were chugging around the fields Stephen was moving the logs from in front of the garage to inside it. He managed to do it well before Luigi finished the field, though maybe I’m not comparing like with like.

Those of you with a detailed knowledge of saints and their feast days will no doubt already be aware that yesterday was the turn of Saint Lawrence, which is why we found ourselves on Thursday at Borgo San Lorenzo, the home village of Computer Luca, amounting to some 30 houses. Borgo San Lorenzo is a hamlet a few kilometres out of Loro Piceno, whose jurisdiction it falls under. Given its very modest size, it may seem rather surprising that it holds a four-day festival to celebrate its patron saint, but its importance is due to San Lorenzo being a key figure in Italy and the for Catholic faith so the village church in the borgo is of significant consequence in the area.

For such a small place, and for the first night of the festival, the evening was well attended and the food was of the usual high standard. What was a new departure for us was the tombola, which is an area that could be a little confusing. In Italy, tombola is what we would call bingo, whereas what we call tombola, i.e. drawing numbers to try to match to a prize, is called pesci (fish). Wanting to support the local community, and as Luca had kindly stood us our dinners as his guests, I bought €10 worth of tickets, which meant we had 13 to share between us.

What I had failed to factor into the calculations was that in Borgo San Lorenzo every ticket is a winning number, which is why we left the stall many minutes after arriving (it having taken the three ladies running it some time to first check the number against the prize list and then rummage in the back room amongst the paraphernalia amassed there) having accumulated between us: two packs of pasta, four hats, a pair of gardening gloves, a sentimentally cutesy photograph frame, a plaster cast ornament of a bejewelled tree, a mismatched coffee cup and saucer, a scarf, an (unopened) jigsaw, and a costume jewellery black bangle with diamantes, or at least what passes for them, which Luca gave to his mum who promptly donned it and wore it for the rest of the evening. All in all, not a bad haul and some of it could even prove useful.

After all that excitement we needed a quiet few days to recover, which the end of the week supplied. There was, though, just one more new experience for us this morning when we rolled up outside Funari, a bar on the main road into Campiglione. This is where we stop for breakfast on the days we go walking or if we need to be in Fermo early doors, as it has fine cappuccino, very fine brioche and a wonderful mother and daughter team serving them up. What we had forgotten, and not for the first time, was that the first week of August was when it closed for the annual holiday. We were left wondering where to go when inspiration struck Stephen.

We pulled off as we entered Campiglione and parked up outside Kokonuts, a gelateria that also sells cakes and coffees, and which is obviously a molto moda place to be on a Sunday morning. Not only were the young ladies serving dressed in matching uniforms, but after ordering there was none of this standing at the bar, but sitting down at a table instead, and when the brioche came it was even on a plate. If this wasn’t enough to tell you that we had stepped up a notch in breakfast venues, the clientele would give that away, there being an abundance of smartly dressed ladies meeting to catch up with each other. You may well think that Stephen and I, attired as we were for the beach in flip-flops, t-shirts and swim shorts, looked a little out of place, but it wasn’t this so much as the fact that, unlike all those ladies who breakfast, neither of us had remembered to bring our best designer handbag.