A Pair of Great Tits!

Yes it’s true. I have spent part of the morning with a pair of Great Tits. La D is looking coyishly at me and a little giggly.

Now before you reach for your paper and pen and fire off a “Yours disgustedly from Tonbridge Wells” missive admonishing me for my base language and coarseness, let me advise you that I am talking about feathered Tits – does that sound even worse?

We have some GTs that have just fledged. One of them was sitting on a stone under a hibiscus bush (see photo below) and eventually managed to fly up to the roof where it was fed by its dad (judging by the plumage). The other little fellow was hopping about the grass under one of the olive trees. Bert thought it was manna from heaven! Someone or something had sent him a live playmate. Of course there was a problem. Bertie is a giant dog and the little GT was not much bigger than a tennis ball, and of course weighed as much as a clump of Bertie’s fur. The poor little mite was frantically about trying to get away from the huge white monster towering above him.

La D to the rescue. “Viene qui!” she barked at Bertie in Italian. Nil response. Although strangely I felt my legs quiver and started to move to La D almost automatically. “Not you, you idiot. The dog. You get the bird and put it somewhere safe while I look after Bertrum (La D likes to use a posh version of Bert sometimes)”.

I shuffled back ready to pounce on the little GT and save it from being licked and prodded to death by the playfulness of the dog, once Bertie was under control..

“Come here, now!” Still no response. We have a dog that’s disobedient in two languages. Top that.

Eventually Bert came to La D and I went and rescued the bird. I put him in the hedge at the side of the road. I don’t know whether he was safer there than with Bert really. But we tried.

A while ago I reported on having a Redstart’s nest up in the eaves. But I have only just discovered that in fact the nest is in a hole where the flue from the boiler comes out of the house. So we could actually see the nest and the little fledglings.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a picture because the pipe work got in the way. But the birds are pretty big and I would expect them to be gone in a few days. Good stuff to have them here. The Redstart is a pretty bird.

L’Orto

The vegetable patches are going well. Everything seems to growing madly.

No more Colorado beetles, but I gave the spuds a quick blast again just for good measure. We have a few Whitefly on some of the young brassicas and again we have tried to warn them off. I did think of putting up little signs. You know Skull and Crossbones, Keep Off, Poisonous, Have You Come Here To Die? (no I came here yesterdie. Sorry, old joke. V unfunny)

However La D did point out, quite rightly too, that Whitefly, as far as she knew, couldn’t read. Bugger.

So, just nuked them.

Moles

For some reason, we have seen a lot of mole activity in the estate and I have been doing a little research on how to get rid of them. Not as easy as you might think. There are sonar gadgets that emit signals which moles are supposed to hate and move off somewhere else. I did read that in fact these are virtually useless and in one case, the mole population actually increased. Poisoning them with CO works but that involves getting an old car or motorbike, a pre-catalytic converter one, and attaching a hose from the exhaust and running the other end up the mole run. A bit of a clumsy solution I thought.

Then there are the Swedish plant bulbs. These are supposed to be anathema to moles and you sow them on a regular basis gradually filling your garden and the moles just keep moving away until they are no longer in your garden, and what is more, won’t come back because of the horrible plants. Incredibly expensive for us because of the size of area.

However, there is another weapon, that, for us, is free. Fresh dog poo or FDP (I love acronyms)

Apparently, if you break into a run and apply judiciously a little FDP from the end of a stick, and then cover up the run, the moles go away. I have read affidavits saying it works, so we may well have to try it. I’ll report back later.

It would be good to think that Bert would actually have some use in our household apart from being a drain on our measly resources.

Hot and Sunny

Yes it is. Nudging 40ºc in the middle of the afternoon under the gazebo. Man, that is warm.

We try and do any physical stuff, digging, planting, strimming, as soon as we get up, walk Bert and have a cup of tea. By about 11:00, we turn our attention to our sedentary work. Inside the house and particularly the office, is a lot cooler than outside.

We hardly see Bertie as he is lying in the coolest place he can find and most of the time, just sleeps. He seems totally attuned to the climate here. We are making progress, but we are not there yet.

Visitor Season

Next week my youngest son arrives for a couple of weeks. He finishes his A level exams this week. I expect he’ll be knackered, so a bit of peace and quiet, Italian style will do him good. Although we did check on the forecast and it appears that we are in for some rain when he arrives. Doh!! Still, can’t plan that.

Then the next week, my third son arrives for a week’s break, and then they travel back together.

We’re really looking forward to seeing them, getting out and about a bit and also introducing the Bert to them.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

The DIL

The poor old DIL has been into hospital for a “man’s” problem to be fixed. The operation went well, if you don’t count the loss of one of the scalpels and a bag of cotton wool after he’d been stitched up. He’s absolutely fine now and well on the mend. He’s had the Marchesa and the Contessa up to help him rehabilitate himself back into the groove, so to speak. So that will either cure him or knock him out completely. Only time will tell.

La speranza è ben presto

Self Immolation

The other morning, at some God forsaken hour, I was up making La D and myself an early, very early, morning cup of Red Bush tea, and I put the kettle on the gas to heat the water. I should say here that the cooker is half under the kitchen window.
I had just put on an old polo shirt as I usually feed the Berts and the community cats at the same time and have to nip outside with food.
I let Bertie out for a whiz and put his food down. He normally rushes back and gulps his breakfast as though it was his first meal for a month. This morning he didn’t.
I just stuck my head out of the kitchen window to have a look, but couldn’t see him. As I was doing this I caught a small whiff of burning and thought a loose thread had fallen onto the burner.
Then I looked down and saw a patch at the bottom of my polo shirt the size of my hand all yellow with flames.
“Oh dear” I thought “my shirt has caught fire. What a very silly boy I am” – actually it was a bit stronger than that but I am aware this is a family friendly blog.
I grabbed the hem of the shirt and rolled it quickly upwards and smothered the flames. Fortunately I didn’t burn myself , but I am now one shirt less than I was before the incident, which is not a good thing.
When I spoke to my brother about a year ago, he recounted the tale of him having set his jumper on fire when he was having a bonfire over in his house in Washington State, USA. I did think then, “What a tit” What is he going to think of his little brother when he reads/hears this?
Perhaps it’s in the genes. In fact I’m pretty convinced it is.

Weather

Definitely yes and no.
A week ago we were basking in sub tropical heat. Today is quite cool and rain, lots of it. Just like yesterday and just like tomorrow too if you believe the forecasters. Very odd. Still great for the garden and our water bill.

The Beetles from Colorado

Our potatoes have been invaded by the bloody Colorado Beetle. They are a real pest. Although we try to be as biological, eco and ever –so friendly in our veggie growing, but there comes a time when the only option is the nuclear one. Blast the bast**ds.
So I gave them a good dose of a permethrin based insecticide and they have gone down like ninepins. I stood over them in my shorts with my legs apart, large green plastic backpack sprayer on and spray lance in one hand and raised the other hand, clenched it tightly above my head and roared “Oh yes. Death to the invaders” to no one in particular, but I found it quite intimidating.
We are hoping that there will not be a recurrence but if they do I’ll have to do an Arnie “I’ll be back!”

Dogs – yes, that’s right, plural

Bert’s previous owners contacted us at the end of last week and asked if we could look after Jess (Bertie’s sister) and Rusty (a very small, three legged mongrel) as they were nipping down to Roma to see an old friend.
We met half way between our homes and brought the two dogs back here.
Although Jess is his sister, she doesn’t look anything like Bertie. She is about two thirds his size and black and has a very short coat. Extraordinary really. Bertie and Jess didn’t stop chasing each other all the rest of the day whilst Rusty just took things nice and easy, he’s an old fellah.
The trouble with Maremmas is that it is quite normal for them to be out with the sheep all day and night for however long the shepherd wants them.
So yesterday it was tipping down when we woke up. Let the dogs out and immediately Bertie and Jess were at each other. Roaring round the estate, biting, nipping growling at each other and generally having a great old time.
We have never seen Bertie as dirty as he got, and stayed, yesterday. He was absolutely filthy. Jess was too, but being black coated it didn’t show as much.
Of course the house became wet and dirty too. At least it is all tiled floors so it is easy to clean.
We are just hoping the weather will change to a bit of the dry stuff, which it is due to in the next couple of days.




























Update on passed away neighbour

I know it’s an odd title about a person who has died.
Her eldest son came to see us a couple of days ago with an envelope. In it was a small card, with a picture of his mother and a few words attributed to Saint Catherine of Siena. It is a very simple but extremely moving memento to have been given. It takes pride of place on one the new shelves we have put up in our dining/sitting/reading/TV/everything room.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

A Sad Week

Last Saturday evening our wonderful, octogenarian neighbour passed away. We understand that she had been suffering from cancer for a few years and although she had gone down a few times over the last four years that we have known her, she had always bounced back, until last week.

About a couple of months ago she was on the roof of her house dealing with a chimney fire (along with her sons). She told us later that the fire engines had to come from Macerata which is about 40 minutes away, so what else could she have done? Only last month she was at the top of her albero di fichi (fig tree), sawing off limbs deemed to be pruned. I remember last November when we were harvesting our Olives – at the correct time of course as directed by our neighbour – she was up one of her trees and I was up one of ours and we were having our usual stilted exchange of Italian from the canopy of the Olive trees. Brilliant.

She really was a fabulous person – it’s quite hard writing about her in the past tense. She was so welcoming to her new Inglese vicini (English neighbours). We shall so miss her deep brown harsh voice bellowing at the cats to get off her vegetables, or shouting at her sons to do something or other or just engaged in normal, i.e. shouting, Italian conversation with visitors or neighbours.

La D and myself were often tutored by her in the art of the orto (vegetable patch). Pretty much everything from spacing of plants, when to plant and cut, varieties, harvesting, what to eat with what. She even gave us some bamboo poles after she looked at our first, looking back on it, pathetic attempt to stake out our tomato plants. I kept forgetting that we were not growing toms out of Gro-bags in England. Over here the tomatoes need almost Stalinist structures to support their growth, development and ultimate produce.

She would be out tending her garden pretty much every day unless it was bitterly cold or raining. She grew so many vegetables. Frequently she would bellow at us to see if we would like some lettuce or brassica or anything really.

Last summer, a couple of the children who live in our lane would help her in the garden and she would be chatting away to them and showing them how things were done. We don’t believe that she has any grandchildren, but she would have made a great granny.

Often in the warmer weather she would wander down the lane and stop to chat and give us a bit more advice such as “If I was starting again I wouldn’t have planted those there” or “Those canes need to be a bit more straight”. It was all said in very good humour..
Sometimes when she visited, she would have a twinkle in her eyes and produce a few eggs from the pocket of her old wraparound that she wore constantly. She had a great sense of humour and we had been looking forward to knowing more and more of our Italian neighbour.

And then of course there was Bertie. We think it was love at first sight for both of them.. She adored the Bert. Loved rubbing his great soft neck and head while he put his paws on her shoulders and proceeded to wash her face again and again. Bertie was bigger than she was when he stood on his hind legs, by quite a bit.

So, not much more to say really. She lived with her two sons, one of whom, the elder, also has cancer. In fact mother and son were in hospital at the same time recently. We understand that he is very poorly too.

Arrivederci, cara amica.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Everything in the garden is …………green

Well almost. The veggies are going gangbusters - this is an expression my brother who lives in the USA uses. I find it very expressive.

I swear the potatoes wait until your back is turned and then suddenly put on a growth spurt and next time you look round they are a couple of centimetres taller. Quite extraordinary.

We have already had some fave – broad beans. They are so sweet and fresh, absolutely lovely. In fact tonight I am doing a fave risotto at La D’s request. Yummy.

Last week I did a asparighi – asparagus – risotto with our own asparighi and it doesn’t get much better than that. One minuet they were in the ground, about 30 minutes later they were being served up in a wonderful, creamy risotto.

Ooh, ahh, Cantona. It was that good.

This morning we were planting the first of our citrioli – cucumber – and zucchini in rather a special way. In fact news of our innovative and groundbreaking method must have been leaked, I am not sure who by but Bertie has suddenly found it very difficult to hold eye contact when you are talking to him. Kew Gardens have sent not one, but three of their vegetable experts to talk to us about our methods.

Actusally it’s quite simple really. We don’t use the vegetable patch as both these plants spread like wildfire and take up an enormous amount of space. No, in the ground that surrounds one of the vegetable patches, we cut out a turf about a spade width size and a spit deep. We fill it with a mixture of soil, bought compost and our own kitchen compost. Sow the seeds and cover with a couple of centimetres of soil and then, this is where the innovation comes in, cover with half a plastic milk bottle which acts as a mini cloche. Brilliant.

Of course it’s in its developmental stage and we won’t know how well the system works for a few weeks. So far – after two hours – everything seems ok, except for one small, or rather large thing. Can you guess? Yes, that’s right, Bertrum.

La D and I covered the area with some old fencing to deter the beast, just until the seeds started to really get going. Did that deter him? Did it hell.

When we had finished I went to have a bonfire of some vine trimmings that needed burning (that’s my excuse for the bonfire and I am sticking to it) and la D went to do some seeding. After about 15 minutes the air was suddenly filled with some excellent, good old fashioned Anglo-Saxon words. It’s good that the sky was so blue.

I rushed over to where the noise was coming from, I think I guessed it when I heard the shouting.

Bertie the Bastard (one of several alternative names he has) had only gone and dug up half of the seeds we had just planted. He had pushed away the old wire fencing and got stuck in.

To give him a little credit, I think he knew he had done wrong after the verbal pasting he got. He slunk off and sat under the outside table looking morosely at us. After we re-planted our 45 minute old seeds again and put a further protective layer over them, La D called him over. He came to La D almost crawling on his belly. Soon La D had a lovely smile for him. I looked on and smiled too..

“What are you smiling at L’uomo chi fa? Is something burning? Don’t you think you had better go and tend to the bonfire before this part of Le Marche is put to the torch?” La D said. Clearly, I was being dismissed.

Birds in the Wall

Over the past few days. we have been watching the adult blue tits flying into the wall where their nest is. There is so much noise coming from the nest, which of course we are unable to see at all. The poor adults have been flying in with flies and caterpillars and presumably other bugs to try and satiate their offspring’s’ appetite. Then yesterday we were sitting outside having a cup of coffee when I said to La D. “La D, listen”

“What? I don’t hear anything” she said.

“Exactly. The tits have gone. They have flown the nest. So that’s good, but we do miss their daily activity. Perhaps they will be back next year.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Home

This week we have been down to a town called Comunanza to finalise the importation of our car. It is a very long, protracted and expensive undertaking, but necessary.

On the way home we were just coming round a bend and there in the middle of the road was a very large bird beside a stick. At first I thought it was one of the large grey backed crows of which there are loads here. But then it flapped its wings and rose into the air with the stick in its talons. But it wasn’t a stick, it was a black snake. It was quite something to see. The bird was a Sparrow hawk and the snake was, I think, just a black grass snake. But the snake was writhing in the birds talon as it lifted right over the trees at the side of the road right above us. La D was mesmerised.

“It was a good thing we didn’t have the sunroof open” she said “Imagine if the bird had dropped it and it had fallen into the car. I would have died”

I think it would have given rise to some fairly erratic driving for a few seconds, that’s for sure.

This is just what it looked like, except the snake was black.

Lingua, Lingua, Lingua

La D got an opportunity to do some research for a novel she is writing on set in WWII. Near us in Severigilano there is fairly well known old Prisoner of War (POW) camp. One of our friends over here is a very keen historian and knows quite a bit about the camp. There was a talk being given last Friday at the town hall and he said for us to come along. From what he said we thought it would be about the camp.

Well, there was a little about the camp but it was actually about the “Resistance” movement in Germany itself and in particular about a group of very young Germans called the White Rose of Monaco who helped several Jewish people to escape the persecution.

Now, the problem for us was, that the main speaker spoke in German and then had a translator translating after every sentence. As you know we are not proficient in Italian, and we know no German at all so we were pretty flummoxed. When the speakers spoke in Italian we could certainly follow the gist if not the detail, but with the stop start in German and then Italian with the translator clarifying things all the time with the speaker, it was pretty difficult.

But there you go, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

If you want to find out some details about the camp have a look at:

http://camp59survivors.wordpress.com/

Ciao. Mantenere la fede

Cats

Some very sad mews. Mum’s kittens were getting on for two weeks old. We let her get on with it in the old laundry room under the external staircase.
We popped our heads round the door every now and then and made sure she had fresh water and sometimes a bit of food just for her, not to be shared by the other cats.
We looked in last Sunday evening and they were in the little basket. La D even picked one up. It seemed very comfortable.
The next morning La D heard Mum mewing in the laundry room. When she opened the door, only Mum was there, all the kittens had gone. It was obvious that Mum was “looking” for them. Poor Mum was frantic, we even let her come into the house so she could have a good nose round, but of course they weren’t with us.
All this brought back last year and Sisi and the “wolf” that had got her kittens, funnily enough at almost exactly the same age, just under two weeks. Clearly there was no wolf involved this time.
We did some research on t’internet and found that tom cats can often take kittens away. We were unable to find out why nor what happens to them. This to us is the only explanation. We have seen one of the old toms coming out of the access hole, an old black thing, called Lucifero – you can probably guess the English equivalent! As I said there certainly wasn’t a wolf involved, nor, we feel sure, a fox. A fox couldn’t get through the small access hole high up in the wall. Also Bertie would have heard it and smelt it, in the night and would have gone berserk with barking.
All we do know is that the toms are again on the prowl, harassing the poor female cats, just like last year. So there will be some more kittens soon no doubt.
We were wondering whether the taking of the kittens makes the females more receptive to the overtures of the toms. We have seen one poor female cat surrounded by four of them. It’s looks like a form of feline gang rape.
We already had a home for one of them. Two of the others had creamy fur very like Clarence’s, and we were going to have one of those. Anyway. C’est la vie.

Weather

Unlike last week, the weather is now Yes. Lots of sun and warmth. Fabulous. Lots to do in the garden now it is drying out a bit and we can get out without galoshes and umbrellas.
However, at the week end we suddenly heard a lot of noise, a bit like pebbles landing having been thrown in the air.
It was a hailstone shower. The noise was incredible. The hail was pinging off the metal guttering and smacking onto the ground. They were about the size of broad beans. Bert went out to have a look and soon came back with his broom-head-size tail between his legs as he obviously felt pretty uncomfortable being hit by bits of ice.

A Bird In The Wall

You know the old saying “A bird in the hand, blah, blah, blah”? Well this is nothing to do with that adage.
At the back of the casa are three large stone/brick buttresses, which are part of the back wall. Like the rest of the house they have been sort of pebble-dashed. We will be taking this off in the next 20 years or so to expose the lovely stone and brick work beneath and then have it re-jointed. Anyway, we have started the taking-off process, well, mainly one of the sons continued the work started by La D. So there is already an area that has been exposed. Being pretty old, there are many gaps between the stones and this time of year some of then are used by the “Lidards”. Now Lidard may not be a word you have come across before However, our favourite three year old granddaughter calls Lizards, “Lidards” and therefore Lidards they will remain.
However, we have noticed little blue tits going in and out of one of the gaps, taking in food. Sure enough once they go in, if we are close enough, we can hear the little chirrups of the babies. So that’s rather lovely, isn’t it? Helps make up for the kittens, in a small way.

Bertie Is Famous!

Bertie’s story appears in the May issue of Dogs Monthly. Go round to your local newsagent and get a copy and you can read all about him and also get a glimpse of La Duchessa - -a good photo actually. Or if you are too tight or in desperate financial straits, nip round to your local vets and pretend to have sick animal. If you don’t have an animal, borrow one. Sit in the waiting room and rifle through their waiting room reading matter. Once you have found the magazine and read the piece, just say to the receptionist that your animal has made a miraculous recovery, and leg it.
It’s an extremely well written piece even if I say so myself. In fact the editor said he had to make no changes at all to the text before sending it for print.

Bertie Celebrity Status Brings Bizarre Behaviour

I think we have gone wrong somewhere in our training. All the books etc say never your dog into your bedroom and don’t feed him titbits. What do we do? We let him into the bedroom and give him a bit of our biscuits in the morning.
But, and this is really taking the biscuit – pardon the pun. Since his celebrity status has been confirmed, it seems to have gone to his head.
He now looks at La D’s tea , only La D’s not mine, and starts to bark and shake his head up and down, until La D gets up and takes what left of tea, normally almost all of it, and puts it into his dinner bowl for him to drink. He absolutely loves it.
During the warmer weather there is also a spin off benefit for me when La D has to get up out of the bed, but I am too much of a gentleman - stop laughing – to go into any more details. Suffice to say it brings a smile to my face. Enough said.

Bertie Confirmed As A Water Baby

Bert, as you know from previous entries loves the water. Well on Monday he had his first proper swim. He so enjoyed it, we had difficulty getting him out of the river. We were throwing sticks a little further every time and he suddenly launched himself into the deep stuff and doggie-paddled round and round. When he came out he seemed to enjoy the act of shaking himself from head to tail so much that he did it over and over again. But when he first came out and his coat was stuck to his body, you could see the real size of him, without his fluffy coat. He is a magnificent, big dog.
Here’s a of pictures of him standing guard.










This is a bit of a Bertie Blog!







Ciao. Mantenere la fede

Lingerie Lifter, Knicker Nicker, Underwear Usurper

Shock horror, La Duchessa has no underclothes.
Bertie has suddenly become extremely interested in ladies underthings. To such an extent that when we put out the washing for drying – we usually put the “smalls” on a waist-high drier - within a few minutes there are bras and panties littering the area around the back of the house. He takes them all, but nothing else. No shirts or jeans. We pick them up, brush them down if they are not too dirty and put them back to dry and blow me, in five minutes they’ve gone. So they have to be washed again and the same thing happens.
Alarmingly, this is an aspect of his personality that has only just come to light.
Now, I’m a broad minded liberal sort of a person, but what gets me is that Bert completely ignores my underwear. Why? I call it blatant sexism.
Also, it’s not that he wears any of the things he takes, or even tries them on. Nnow that would be a story. Although I consider myself to have a good imagination, Bertie in a black bra and panties is a stretch of the imagination too far.
So, he just “nicks” them and then leaves them on the ground. Some days the ground at the back of the house looks like a Turner Prize exhibit. Mmmm. Food for thought. Any income generation scheme should be looked at. No matter how bizarre.
Anyway, spare a thought for la Duchessa. Poor La D. She’s having to go commando for much of the day until she can dry her undies in a secret place that we have found and Bertie is unaware that it exists, for the moment. I have offered her the loan of my boxer shorts, some of them are quite dashing actually, but although she hasn’t answered in the negative, the face she pulls when I mentioned her wearing my boxers makes me think that she would only wear them should hell freeze over.
What a dog (not La D, but Bert!)
Any solutions would be gratefully be received.

Four Candles or Fork Handles?

I’m pretty sure most of you will remember the scene from the Two Ronnies that this title refers to.
What brought it to mind was a recent Italian lesson we had with our neighbour.
We were talking in Italian about places we have been to in Italy. One year we stopped off for a couple of nights in Lucca which is where Puccini was born. It is about an hours drive from Florence.
Anyway we said we had been to Lucca. Our neighbour shook her head saying “dove?” meaning, where? So we repeated the name, Lucca. Phonetically it’s a bit like saying “lookah” Still no recognition on our neighbour’s face. We spelt it out for her. Then her expression changed to one who has just understood what was said. “Ahhh, Lucca” she said, pronouncing it exactly like we said it, Lookah.
So, we moved on to words less open to misinterpretation such as sbocconcellare (to nibble) and schiacciante (nut cracker). Much easier, because they are at the moment totally unpronounceable to us.

The Orioles are back (and other Uccelli (birds))

No not Margot and Jerry, I mean the real things.
Those of you who follow this blog – thanks fan – may remember that about a year ago I got very excited about a bright yellow bird that had started to frequent the estate. Well they are back.
Both La D and myself thought we heard them at the week-end, but yesterday I actually caught sight of one and was able o have a really good look at him through the binoculars. Fantastic colouring. From the sounds we can hear we reckon there are probably three pairs.

I know I mentioned the Hoopoe a couple of weeks ago. We have loads of them in the garden. Again there must be three or four pairs around. It’s quite lovely to have so many brightly coloured birds. Not to take anything away from the old Sparrows, but they are a bit drab, colour-wise aren’t they? I mean there is no getting away from it, is there? But I expect they don’t think so. I can’t imagine a Sparrow looking into a mirror and saying, ”God, my plumage is so drab. Why can’t I look like a Bird of Paradise?” I mean where would they find a mirror? Also, how would they know what a Bird of Paradise looked like anyway. No, I reckon the Sparrows are OK with their feathers.

Gattini

Well I can report that Mum is doing sterling work with her week-old brood – see picture. I (this is L’uomo chi fa speaking) don’t know whether that’s good or bad really. I am in two minds over our assumed responsibilities for these kittens. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so English in my views of smallish, pettish type animals. But there you go.
These community cats have the lowest morals of anything I have come across. The males are already on the prowl again. Ganging up on other females who, like Mum, have probably just given birth. Fortunately they have not been round Mum because of The Bert.
Let’s hear it for Bertie. Protector of fallen cats.
But our worry is that as soon as she “leaves” the kittens, she’ll be got at again and the process starts all over.
We will just have to make sure that we don’t leave any birthing places or receptacles available for feline use in the future, and hope for the best.

Weather

No.

Ciao. Mantenere la fede

It’s raining cats, not dogs
It was La D’s turn to exercise Bert this morning. I turned over waiting for the bounding hound to leap onto the bed – very wrong, I know – whilst La D went to feed him. All of a sudden she came rushing back to the bedroom. “L’uomo chi fa, L’uomo chi fa” (she doesn’t really say that of course “ there are five very small kittens in a basket outside the back door. Mum has given birth!”
Now we had known Mum was with kittens, as is her daughter Starlight, but we didn’t think she was going to have them right outside our door.
So, just as I was about to have a nice glass of OJ and a hot mug of Red Bush tea in bed reading my book, all change.
What are we going to do with them? We asked each other. The interim solution is to put mum and kittens in the old laundry room under the stairs. Fortunately I had only cleaned it out a few weeks ago and it was relatively dust, cobweb and dead leaf free.
So that’s were they are at the moment and I suppose they can stay there for a few weeks – there is hole in the wall to the outside and we think that Mum can get in and out through it.
Of course the big problem is the Bert. Now Bertie is a big softie and if he saw some kittens all he would want to do is to play with them. But 25+kilos of a frantic 7 month old puppy leaping about might be a little intimidating, not to say fatal to the poor things. But we will have to see. Mum may decide to move them anyway when they are a little bit older.
No doubt we will return to this subject. Pictures may be published.

Speaking Italian
Now I know you probably don’t realise but I speak perfect Italian. The only problem is that the person I speak perfectly Italian to is myself. It’s brilliant. I never misunderstand what I am trying to say. However it does have its drawbacks. It’s quite solitary, and I need to get out more.
When I am waiting to order something, I go over and over in my mind what it is I want to ask for, to such an extent that I ooze confidence.
It is as though I am soldier and in my mind I see myself in all the camouflage stuff, bristling with weapons, swaggeringly self-assured. If you were to stand behind me you would see this authoritative figure, legs apart, arms akimbo, 6’ 6” feet tall. You get the picture.
So there I was waiting to ask for some minced beef – macinato. It was my turn. “Buongiorno” I said to the butcher in a deep manly tone. “Eh, cinque cento grammi macchiato, per favore” I said with a knowing smile on my face.
“Che?” he said. My weapons were beginning to bristle less, my camouflage was beginning to fade. “Eh, cinque cento grammi macchiato, per favore” I said again. The butcher looked blankly at me.
Oh no. It suddenly dawned on me what I had asked for. For all those coffee devotees out there you will probably noticed I had asked for 500gms of espresso coffee with a touch of frothy milk. Doh!
“Scusi, scusi” I squeaked for by now I was only 3’ 2” tall, devoid of any camouflage, weapons in fact any clothing, my legs were turned in and touching at the knees. Well at least that is how I felt I must look like.
“Macinato per favore”
The butcher fulfilled my order without another word and handed me the package. I went and paid for it at the casse and left. I felt a right wassock.
It’s great this “speaking another language thing”. But it’s not that easy for me, nor for La D, but we continue to learn and are positive enough to know that it can only get better despite having a few hiccups on the way.
Oh the joys of learning a foreign language.

Green Shoots of Recovery – The Gooseberry Pie maybe back on
Last week I wrote about how a newly acquired Gooseberry bush had failed at the first hurdle due to you-know-who having savaged the thing before we were able to get into the ground. Well, we have had a lot of rain recently and as I was walking by the bush, I looked over and noticed some new green shoots. So naturally we are hoping to have some of those lovely hairy green balls later in the year.

Have Passport, Will Travel
La D and myself are proud to announce that Bertie has joined the fairly exclusive club of international canine travellers. The world is his dinner pail. We are not sure if he plans to go back-packing, but it is a possibility, just as soon as he masters international dialling codes.

La D Surprises Again!
We were sitting reading some Sunday newspaper supplements that the DIL and MIL sent us – keep them coming DIL, we need them – when La D uttered a cry of surprise. She was reading an article about some top man in a financial institution and the difficulties being faced by him compared with the difficulties being faced by the company’s lesser mortals, i.e. job losses.
She announced to me in her very haughty and beautifully sensuous way that only she can, (it is a difficult thing to combine haughtiness with sensuousness, but La D does it fabulously) “These Big Ponchos think they can get away with anything and leave the poor ones to fend for themselves. It’s just not fair.”
“I agree La D” I said, “But I think you mean “Head Honchos”, not Big Ponchos”
I smiled, she laughed, and then she threw a glass of water over me.

Ciao. Mantenere la fede