End of the Summer? Brrrrrrrr.
Sounds just like a British tabloid headline. We have gone from a clear blue sky and 30+°C to lashings of rain and less than 20°C in 24 hours. Extraordinary.
As usual, I put on my shorts that morning and I had to nip to the post office to send some mail. Everyone else was dressed like it was Winter. Local people looked at me as though I had just stepped out of a spaceship.
It is less warm, no doubt, but not cold and anyway Autunno is only a week away.
Of course you could almost hear the vegetables singing in the rain out of sheer enjoyment. They have perked up no end. Within two days they were looking much stronger, healthier and greener. It also means we do not have to muddle about with hoses for our unique water distribution system that we have been having to do for quite a while now.
Summer relly season climaxes
The last of the summer visitors left at the end of last week. Lots of sadness ensued for a couple of days as we got used to no noise, shouting, crying, more shouting, ants carrying bits of food dropped by the grandchildren, more noise, screams, card playing insistence, more ants, poster paint pots being tipped over, fewer bottles (ahem, plastic pop bottle of course), well, you get the picture. We had an excellent time and we hope they all did too. The trips to the beaches were great fun The sea was so warm and the beaches were not packed as went just when the main Italian holiday season ended. So all the facilities were open but you could see a bit of beach to unload your towels, arm-bands (not mine, I have now progressed to a rubber ring, lurid orange actually, since you ask), toys, books, bats and balls, picnic, and other beach paraphernalia. Although the weather was extremely hot, enough precautions were taken so that no-one got sun-burn. Then we had some fantastic gelati (ice cream) to finish off before setting off for home.
The Italians really know how to make fantastic ice cream.
In a couple of weeks, the Autunno invasion begins with another grandchild. This one is a real baby being only 6 months old. In fact, what is quite extraordinary is that she was born on the same day as another of the grandchildren, only three years later. Amazing coincidence.
Gatti update
Sisi has gone seriously missing. We have not seen hide nor hair(fur?) of her for weeks now. We miss her quite a bit actually.
Tiggy and Winkle are around but we do not see much of them at the moment as we have been adopted again, but this time by Clarence, Mum and Starlight.
We have called the male Clarence after Clarence, the cross-eyed Lion in Daktari (come on, you remember Daktari) because he’s got, yes you guessed it, cross-eyes. Mum, because we think they are a family and she just looks like, well, a mum somehow. Starlight is so called, because she has a little burst of white on her chest. Clarence has quite a bit of Siamese in him and the others are black apart from Starlight’s bit of white. They are great to have around and La Duchessa has put an old cloth in a basket we used to harvest the potatoes in and they sleep in it outside the door.
They are cheeky though. If the door is left open they like to come in and explore.
In fact one of Clarence’s internal excursions brings me on to the next topic quite nicely.
Snakes
Clarence came into the kitchen the other day looking for food. He was sniffing round the cooker where the electric wire that fires up the gas lighters on the cooker is. I have had taped the wire to the wall to stop it getting in the way of people’s feet. After sniffing for a bit, he started to claw at the tape covering the wire. I shooed him off and thought nothing more of it.
My attention was drawn to this area again this morning. I had dropped some paper as I was going to put it in the bin, and it fell near the wire. As I bent down to pick it up, I noticed a bit of a niff. I also noticed that the tape had come away at one end. I thought again about Clarence and that he must have had another clawing session. But, what was that smell?
I decided I had better take up the tape and have a look. I didn’t fancy La Duchessa getting a whiff before I knew what was what. Heaven knows what she would want me to do and when and what with. Gulp.
I ripped up the tape and found a very dead snake stuck to it. There were also a few small grubs crawling around on the floor under the wire. The smell was a bit stronger now. Yuck.
I cleared away the remains and the grub things and disinfected the whole area, three times.
More animals
There has been a lot of wild pig activity around us in the last few days. We had to get up very early to see some visitors off, about 04:30 and I opened the door and there were a lot of grunting noises not too far away. I shone a torch down the garden and caught a couple of eyes in the beam. The pig could not have been more than 10 or 15 metres away. I think they had been in the neighbour’s garden. Fine by me. If they find her garden more to their liking that’s great. I threw a couple of stones where I thought they were and they grunted a bit and seemed to move off. I am sure they are just as wary of humans as we humans are of them, but as I have never actually bothered to ask them, I do not really know. I think I will keep a reasonable distance from them.
Caio, mantenere la fede
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