Go with the flow

24th July 2025

With Stephen on his second week of holida, we broke with tradition and spent a happy hour at Risparmio Casa on Monday morning instead of our usual Sunday, stocking up on enough cleaning and toiletries to last us through a siege – not that we plan to eat any of it. We also broke with tradition with lunch at home, eschewing the allure of DiverXo. We did, though, have breakfast on the way at the very nice pasticceria in Corridonia where we saw the man in the top hat – but to our disappointment, headwear this time was so restrained as to be non-existent.

As life would have it, we’d only just started our circuit of the aisles when my phone rang. Like last week, I’d received a message the previous day to say DHL would deliver a second envelope from the passport people on Monday, “before the end of the working day”. As this one just contained the supporting documents and nothing as vital as the passport itself, we decided to live dangerously (and avoid a fifty-minute round trip) by not changing the instructions this time, thinking there was no way it would arrive in the morning. How wrong one can be.

After a longish chat, Stephen and the courier finally arrived at a solution – he would leave the envelope at the top with Mario and Luigi (or the place that sells the honey, as he styled it) and we would pick it up on our way past. It’s just as well the package didn’t contain anything of great value or importance because when we detoured into their yard there was no sign of either of the brothers, but they had leaned the envelope up on the bench so we could spot it easily.

Brief but heavy rain at midday, which set a pattern for the rest of the week, cleared to leave a very pleasant rest of the day - fortunately. We were meeting Manuel and Monia for dinner at Azienda Agricola Bagalini, a small shop that sells their own produce, including the beef from their zero kilometres farm, cooked over open flames in the adjoining restaurant. It was an enchanting spot, a little way up the hill to the south of Porto San Giogio with a view across the sloping lawn and fields to the bay below. The weather was perfect, a little fresh but warm enough to go without a second layer even for Italians and even sitting at a table by the edge of the restaurant with the sliding glass doors fully open.

And the food? Wonderful. Homemade crisps to die for, a tagliere of meats and cheese as good as any I’ve had and beef that can only taste that good if it’s lived a happy life. We’ll definitely go back – a place to hold in reserve for when we want somewhere special.

Stephen’s special place on Tuesday was the beach near Pedaso, his preferred spot for such things. While it might take a little longer to get there compared with PSG or Civitanova, it benefits from always being quiet. He joined me for breakfast and shopping but then headed to the coast, not returning till around seven in the evening –almost a full day by the sea, showing in colour of his shoulders. “Didn’t you put plenty of cream on?” I asked. He had, of course, but he said he thought the sun had come through the new umbrella we’d bought the day before at Risparmio Casa – and to think we opted for the more expensive one on offer, with Stephen seduced by it coming in a matching tube with handle to sling over his shoulder.

With rain forecast from Thursday Stephen had intended to have a second beach day on Wednesday, but an iffy forecast dissuaded him, and while the rain held off till overnight there was a distinct lack of sun that confirmed his decision. Thursday was another mostly dull – and mostly dry – day, and after taking Harry for his annual injections in the morning (a little early but we had to allow the lead-in time before he and Peggy go to the kennels for our weekend away in September) Stephen had the afternoon to get on with some work in the garden.

His project was to finish clearing away all the undergrowth and bits of branches that had accumulated in the left-hand corner between the well and the fence by the barn which had become, over the past couple of weeks, a magnet for Peggy and, especially, Harry - too many smells wafting around of various animals that had passed by or through. I had to go in and hoik Harry out the other day when he got right into the corner then couldn’t get out because a nub on a branch was wedged under his collar. That was relatively painless, not like a couple of weeks ago when I had to haul Peggy out, emerging with scratched arms and legs. The space is now totally clear, leaving a much safer environment for all concerned.

I think it best if we draw a veil over the remaining three days which turned out to be all about the weather. There was rain again overnight on Thursday, though not as heavy as it sounded when it woke us up. It more than made up for that with heavy rain on Friday afternoon - though the forecast kept saying that it should be sunny even whilst the heavens were opening.

There was a fair amount of sunny, or at least bright, weather over the weekend, it’s just that the forecast didn’t bother with the rainy interludes, another of which hit us yesterday teatime. We had hoped that would be it, and this morning it did start to clear up – except for the ten-minute downpour that hit halfway through our morning walk, just to give us a good soaking for old times’ sake.

After these recent batterings the road is looking in an even more parlous state, and the channels opened up the other week have been added to and augmented, with a couple of them being a good 10cm to 15cm to the bottom of the V. We can still get up and down in the Panda and the Jeep with judicious steering (thank goodness for four-wheeled drive), always remembering, as Bette Davis warned, to fasten our seatbelts because it’s going to be a bumpy ride… OK, she actually said night, but hey, where our road is concerned the time of day is immaterial.