Digging For Victory? No, Moles

At the beginning of last year we put up a fence for two reasons.

The first was that as we had acquired the mutt aka Bertie, we wanted to give him a good large space to run about in but also needed to contain him.

The other reason was to keep out the pigs which have really gored up the land, especially under the olive trees.

This is where we ended the fence, after the olive trees, well apart from one little tiddly tree.

So far this seems to have worked. Bertie will often sit at the end of the fence and bark at the pigs he can hear chomping on something further down the garden. We have not had a pig invasion since (not yet, anyway).

Honestly the garden round the trees was devastated. The pigs are very destructive.

So, we have the dog in and the pigs out. The ground is saved. Not quite. Let us now bring in a third party to this, namely Maurizio the Mole or Talpa in Italian.

Maurizio himself is not too bad. Just a few mole heaves around the place. No, the real problem is Bertie.

I’ve lost count of the number of heaves he has stuck his nose into and started to dig, following the scent. Being a fairly large dog, the holes he digs are fairly large too. I suppose that’s how it is.

The top garden is looking more lunar-like than ever, with all these craters everywhere, and Bertie has a constant soil covered nose.

Doh!!

However the cold weather has helped a little as the ground is currently so hard that he hasn’t dug up much recently.

Utopia or Myopia?

One of the problems of becoming short or long sighted is having glasses. The main problem here is you can mislay them – this is the word La D uses when she can’t find them. When I can’t find mine, they are lost. Slightly different perspective.

However there are other problems with them. Let’s face it, a pair of glasses in the wrong hands can almost be a WMD. Well ,close.

Take the other day. La D has one of those strings that you attach to the arms of glasses that allow you to hang them round your neck when you are not wearing them, but allow them to be close to hand when they are needed. La D was not wearing her glasses at the time but suddenly needed them to read something very important. She grabbed them and the string bit got twisted. Trying to untwist the string she actually went the wrong way again and entangled it even more. Once again trying to correct the situation, she went the wrong way. By this time her neck was becoming constricted and her face and the air was turning blue.

‘Help me L’uomo chi fa. Don’t just sit there with that inane smile on your face!’ she croaked at me.

With a little patience I got them untangled.

‘Thank you,’ she said to me, grudgingly. She then proceeded to stick one of the arms up her nose when she tried to put them on. Having composed herself once more, she tried again to put the spectacles on . One of the arms went into her right eye.

At this I just had to leave the room. Some seconds later I heard La D say’, ‘It’s OK you can come back in now. My glasses are properly on and secured.

Phew!

It’s Quiz Time

What is the world’s largest mammal?

I expect your answer would be a …. Whale. Well done. Correct.

What do you think La D’s answer was?

A Mammoth.

Terramoti

Have had a few last couple of days. Slight but still a little unnerving

Before I go ……..

Just remember. Try not to find your self in a queue at the Post Office behind Satan. You will discover that the Devil takes many forms!

This is from a book of unpublished letters sent to the Daily Telegraph. My eldest son sent it to us for a Christmas present. There are some real classics in it that I will share with you over the coming weeks.

Ciao, mantenere la fede