Make mine a cachi

9th November 2025

There was a bit of a surprise on Monday when we woke to rain. After a prolonged stretch of warm (for the time of year) and fine weather, it seemed that things might be changing. They were, but not dramatically.

The short-lived showery interlude had more or less passed by when I went out with Peggy and Harry, giving way once more to blue skies but with a fresher feel in the air and a drop of several degrees in temperature. This was enough to convince us that it was time the fire was brought into action. Stephen lit it for the first time this autumn on Tuesday evening when he came home from work. I would have done it, but I was under strict instructions not to do so in case something untoward happened. It didn’t.

Also on Monday we booked for a couple of days away in Bologna at the end of the month, leaving on Saturday morning on the 8 o’clock train and returning Monday lunchtime for an early Christmas jaunt. We had originally thought to go the first weekend of December, but as that’s a long weekend, with Monday being the 8^th and a holiday for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we went for a week earlier to avoid the festive crowds. Harry and Peggy will, of course, be spending their weekend at their second home, and don’t worry, we have included the heater option in their booking.

That was about it till the end of the week when we took precautions against a cataclysmic event about to befall MSP. Rocco, the barber and my erstwhile star pupil, is going on holiday. I know that doesn’t sound particularly apocalyptic and he has had holidays before of a week or so, but this time he’s going long haul to Thailand and won’t be back for fifteen days, hence double appointments for the weekend, with me taking Friday morning’s and Stephen slotting in an extra one yesterday. How others in the village are going to manage, frankly I don’t know and I don’t care. Where things tonsorial are concerned it’s every man for himself, and at least we’ve managed to make sure we will look half-way decent till his return.

With the fire up and running, at least in the evenings, it was time, yesterday, to make with the baked potatoes again, and I put the recently acquired molasses (see last week) to use with a batch of Boston baked beans. As for today, Stephen made a start on moving the vast pile of twigs stored in front of the pizza oven, ready for whenever the work begins on the house. In the evening we had the answer to why Peggy and Harry have taken to twilight barking on the terrazzo, and it isn’t in answer to a desperate message from Pongo and Missis.

 When I came up from the office after doing some bits and pieces it was to find Stephen shining a torch around the persimmon tree and the dogs by his legs, peering through the railings. He’d gone out when they’d started barking and, in between yowls, had heard a snuffling and shuffling down below. He got the torch from inside and saw, in the beam, a fox eating up the fallen fruit. Peggy and Harry continued to voice their objections while the fox finished off its evening snack, untroubled by them, Stephen, and the spotlight. It did, I was told, after licking its chops, look up with vague interest to lock eyes with Stephen before sauntering off up the lane.

So now we know why Peggy has been vocal around the same time each evening, a signal for Harry to dash out and join in: it’s because that’s the time the fox comes out for its constitutional. It also answers why there’s been a shortage of spattered persimmons in the grass around the tree trunk. Stephen did observe that he hopes the fox doesn’t eat too many of them. Why, I wondered, thinking it was better than them hanging around. Because, he said, the splattered fruit would start to ferment. That’s all we need: the fox inviting its mates round for an all-nighter, scoffing alcoholic cachi and keeping us awake partying.