Busy doing nothing

23rd November 2025

If you thought the last couple of weeks offered slim pickings, you ain’t, as they say, seen nothing yet – or at least for the next couple of minutes.

Stephen was otherwise occupied on Monday and missed coming home for lunch, but he didn’t go hungry, eating instead downstairs in Pina as the fashion professor from Florence was back for a visit to check up on how things were going and to ask lots of questions. It was a drained Stephen who arrived home in time for evening merenda, having intimated to the prof that really there was no need for a further visit the next morning before he headed back.

It was left to the weather to provide a bit of interest during the rest of the week. After a run of fine days things changed pretty dramatically on Friday when (after we had returned from our walk, fortunately) the darkening afternoon skies brought first wind and then thunder and lightning before exploding into a fierce hailstorm. I manfully closed all the shutters on the west wing, which bears the brunt of any such event, and though I was able to do so by stretching out of the windows rather than going outside, I still had to change my shirt as the sleeves were soaking, and towel dry my hair as that was, too.

Stephen professed no knowledge of there having been any hail in Montegranaro half an hour later when he arrived home, where it was now just raining hard. Not hard enough to deter our friendly fox which was caught in the car headlights as Stephen parked up, again eating fallen cachi. This didn’t bother our little Reynard, as after a quick glance it got back to the business of hoovering up the fruit, ignoring both the car and the human that came out of it.

The rain continued all yesterday, meaning our walks were taken in waterproof trousers and rain jacket (me, not them of course). Peggy showed she was made of strong stuff, not being at all fazed by having to go out in it, unlike Harry who grudgingly accepted it had to be done and definitely unlike Bella who would have tried to run back inside. There was an iffy moment, though, in the afternoon when they both stopped as we got part way down the lane and started barking. They were a bit unsure of the mud ball that had somehow rolled off the field and come to rest in the copse. A good sniff as we passed assured them it was nothing to be worried about and they treated it with suitable disdain on our way back up. 

And that’s about it, except for today when we woke to no clouds and no rain but a temperature of 4°, prompting Stephen to light the fire at lunchtime after we had come back from our morning expedition. It was time for one of our periodic trips to Conad in Cuore Adriatico to stock up on basics, which we did with so much gusto that we earned twelve stamps for the chain’s latest promotion: La Collezione dal Sottosopra in conjunction with Netflix and Stranger Things. That’s more than enough for a pair of one-size socks (plus €2.50) but two short of a cinema cup, with steel straw and dishwasher safe (plus €4.50). It will, though, take a good few more visits to have enough for the star prize of a Bluetooth speaker (sixty plus €36.50.) Now that’s an awful lot of bottles of gin, jars of Nescafe and packets of wholewheat couscous.