Dog for sale. One owner. Free to good home. Reason for sale? He’s absolutely useless.

Well, it’s happened again. Mr Bloody fox visited us last week and took two of our girls, Tir and Nog. We couldn’t believe it. The weather was as it had been before when the fox came, very grey and p***ing with rain. However, big difference this time, Bertie was outside and we were in the house.

It happened in the afternoon. The girls had been out all morning and lunchtime. The heavens opened about midday. It had finally stopped raining. I went out about 3 to check if there were any eggs. I saw Na in the pen, scratching around, but couldn’t see the others. Then I came across what was left of Nog, our beautiful French Black  Copper Marans, and quite a few brown feathers from Tir, but nothing else.

La D and myself cursed ourselves for not remembering the conditions that Foxy likes to come hunting. Oh, dear, dear, dear.

Again we had become very attached to them all and they would usually come running if they heard us. They would never be any bother picking them up. Our lovely garden friends when we were out there in the garden.

The next day I was despatched down to the chicken farm and picked up a couple of replacements, Doris (another Marans) and Wilma (a red one). They have settled in pretty well. We have even had a couple of eggs from one. We think it is the red as the black last time took months before she was laying. Na is a bit fed up because we haven’t let her out of the pen yet because we need to get the others acclimatised to their immediate surroundings first. We also don’t want them laying eggs anywhere apart from the nesting box.

So what happened with Bertie? We don’t know. His breed’s whole raison d’etre is to guard anything that “belongs” in a recognised boundary, in this case, our house and garden-at least that bit that is fenced in. Well that’s proved to be a load of bunkum. Perhaps Bertie is the exception that proves the rule as far as a Maremma’s qualities are concerned.

If you want him, we’ll also throw in some dog food and possibly a couple of cats, free, gratis and for nothing. Now that’s a good deal. He’s also fully vaccinated for another year against rabies and the usual dog diseases.

La D has just informed me that Bertie is not for sale at any price. I did say I know that and that is why I am offering him for free. I am unable to print her response as most likely the paper will combust!

Looks like this is what we need, a bit of self defence:

Weather

Turned cold and wintry again over the last couple of days. Had quite a bit of snow yesterday morning but it didn’t hang around. More snow and cold winds forecast for the next few days. Brrrrr. Have to make sure we’ve got some firewood ready.

Other things

Shame about the Bahrain GP, but totally understandable.

Shame about the Ireland – France result. It just makes me think that 3 points for a penalty for minor infringements is too much. For a vicious foul/dirty play, fair enough. I think they should reduce the points to 2 or even 1 so that tries really do count for much more of a side’s points. I will be sending my three centissimi’s worth to the RFU and IRB. Come on England and Italy this Saturday and Ireland on Sunday.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Happy Valentine’s day!

Hope you all remembered. I did. I’m in need of a few brownie points. Always am. Better to have a few banked instead of always chasing for them I think.

So, what have we been up to.

Not a lot really.

We’ve booked to go to Venice as our birthday presents to us both. Got a couple of really cheap rail tickets and have booked a lovely little “pensione” not far from St Mark’s square. We’re going up just after Carnivale finishes. The prices at least double at Carnivale time. It’s a bit ridiculous if you ask me.

The tickets for the opera season at Sferisterio in Macerata came on sale about a week ago and we have booked there for our wedding anniversary.

We don’t seem to go out anywhere apart to celebrate our birthdays and anniversary. Still, it makes it all the more special. If we were going out every week, it would begin to pall a bit, we think. Anyway, it suits us.

Although having said that we are going out for meal this Thursday with some friends who are celebrating having lived in Italy for 5 years. That should be fun.

Oh yes and I nearly forgot, we are going out to Saturday lunch to some friends, they are the one’s who have Lola, a Bertie-type dog. She is lovely. We think Bertie is deeply in love with her as when our friends first bought her round with them, Bertie’s nose was virtually inserted where the sun doesn’t shine for whole time of their visit. V embarrassing! Never work with children and animals.

Orti and other things

All the vegetable patches are now ready to be planted. We have turned them, fertilised them and are now just waiting for the appropriate time to sow. It should start pretty soon.

We have our potatoes “chitting” in the potting shed. La D has ordered some new seeds that we are going to try this year. We’ve got some scallions (spring onions), beetroot, swede and asparagus, that we going to try. So, a bit more experimentation.

All the animals are fit. Bertie has had his annual Rabies jab and his other vaccination booster. He does not like going to the vet, at all. It takes both La D and myself to hold him whilst he has having his jabs. I’m sure they don’t hurt him, he just doesn’t like being there. Poor la D got nearly knocked out as he whipped his head up at one point as he was struggling.

We have some new neighbours moving in soon. Another Albanian family, who, if I understood someone properly, are going to try and make a go at growing tomatoes commercially. This of course may be a load of bollocks and I have completely mis-heard/mis-translated what I was told. Only time will tell. I’ll keep you informed.

The other thing is that there will be more people for Bertie to bark at. Doh! He is a bit noisy.

In her own words

We were watching something on television the other day about some people being stuck in an impossible position in a foreign jail.

La D tut-tutted and said, “Those poor people. They must have felt they were in perjury ”.

Do you know, I’m still smiling at one.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Fresh Lemons

La D’s mum and dad bought us a lemon tree about two years ago. We’d given up hope of ever having lemons from it. The flowers would come and the fruit would follow. The thing was the fruit was ever only small and green. It would never get large and yellow. Well, we now have some lemons. They aren’t very big but boy oh boy are they lemony! The wonderful aroma that comes from them when you cut into the fruit.

La D is terribly fond of a G&T and now that we can make one with our own lemons she is even more stirred up to become a professional G&T tippler! Mind you, it won’t be a big move. Ha, ha.

The odd thing is the timing of the fruit. Very strange, but very welcome.

Big Egg!

The girls are doing very well, even in this bitterly cold weather. They are still cranking out three a day. That is apart from the other day when only two eggs were in the nest.

Oh well, we thought, it is cold so it’s not surprising that one of them hasn’t laid an egg.

However the next day there were three eggs again, but one of them was a whopper as this picture shows.

And it turned out to be a double-yoker. It was as delicious as all the others the chicks are laying for us. We really can’t get through all the eggs they produce for us but our friends and neighbours are very grateful!

La D is still at it

These are two classic La D verbal faux pas (what is the plural of faux pas? I don’t know either, so just make up your own!)

You may remember that I was given a great little gadget that measured the temperatures inside and outside and also gives pressure readings. Of late we have been looking at the temp outside – I don’t really know why as we can see it’s cold and also if you were to put your nose just outside the door, it would probably be frozen in a few seconds

However, the pressure monitor displays an upwards arrow and a sun when the pressure is on the rise and a downward arrow along with clouds when the pressure is on the way down.

There is also a  humidity indicator. It displays a number corresponding to the percentage of humidity.

Well, the other day La D was looking at this little weather station and she looked at the humidity figure and announced, “Do you know L’uomochifa, the humidity today is 56 miles per hour.”

As often in these cases of La D’s misunderstanding, I was quite mystified for a few microseconds and then painfully trying not to show the humour that was bubbling up inside.

“Hmmm.” I managed in quite a high pitched way.

A side long glance by La D was enough for me to grab my inner desire with an iron fist and hold it, tight.

The other one was a beaut of a malapropism

Can you spot the difference?

We were walking with Bert and saw a couple of engineers on the roads taking measurements for something or other.

“I wonder what those men do with those troglodytes L’uomochifa?”

“Non lo so (I don’t know) my darling,” I said  “But I think you mean theodolites.”

“Do I? Alright, what are those theodolites doing with those troglodytes?” She grinned. She’s playing me, I thought.

Doh. I give up. Well, not altogether.

A posto.

 Ciao, mantenere la fede

  

Felice Nuovo Anno Tutti!

This means Happy New Year all, in Italian, as if you couldn’t guess.

Well, what have we been up to? Not a lot really.

We have had Bert’s sister with us again for a week whilst her owners, M&S, went to Austria with M’s parents. They went to look into some family history as it has only come to light quite recently that M’s father’s father was not his real father, but somebody else altogether who died in WW2.

They had a revelatory few days and have discovered a whole chunk of family they did know existed and of course vice versa. Fascinating.

Family

Some news on the family front. My eldest boy and his wife are going to have a baby. This will be their first (and last?). They have waited quite a while but both are getting on, in terms of having babies that is, and also his wife is almost 40 so I suppose they didn’t want to leave it any later if they were going to start a family. Also he has been so busy whizzing up and down motorways and things for his job and she has been running stables and been very involved with horse jumping things, that we are quite surprised.

Anyway, many congrats to them.

So, we will be grandparents again. The child is due at the end of June.

Also we have just been informed that my nephew is getting married in the Autumn. We have met his fiancé when they both came over and stayed with us in 2009. She was part of the crew of a boat in a Trans- Atlantic yacht race a couple of years ago.

So many congrats to them too!

My nephew’s dad, my brother, has just moved. He was living up a mountain about 250 miles from Seattle on the west coast of the USA and he now lives 3000 miles east in Maine on the Eastern Seaboard. Apparently, whilst loving the area,  he and his wife got fed up being so far from any services and suffering from the extreme winters and the extreme summers. Although they did know this when they moved there seven years ago.  It took them ten days to make the journey and the trip was not without interest. At one stage they had to drive through a proper blizzard!!.

My brother now knows a sure fire way of putting on weight. Drive across America! The only eateries he ever came across were those that sold burgers and fries. Very comforting but not too good for the waistline and scales.

Foraging

In an effort to eke out our wood supply for the fire in the kitchen, I have been doing some foraging in our woods at the bottom of the garden. It’s brilliant. There is quite a lot of dead wood, big branches, that have fallen from the trees whether in a bit of wind or just through age.

I go down there with my wheel barrow, bow saw – La D doesn’t like me to use my chopper too much -  and a length of old TV aerial cable and cut up loads of this wood. The reason for the cable is that the timber is very light and I can stack the barrow really full of it without making it too heavy to push up the hill. The problem is then one of stability. This is where the cable comes in. I just keep going under the barrow and over the load with the cable, tie it down tightly and I can then easily transport my spoils up to the wood shed by the house. Free fuel. Excellent.

It makes very good fire starting material as well as being useful to get the fire going again if I have forgotten to keep it fed. I have to admit I do do this occasionally and then I incur the wrath of “she who must be obeyed” and I’d rather not invite her displeasure.  

Ciao, mantenere la fede

BUON NATALE E SERENO ANNO NUOVO A TUTTI
     Merry Christmas and have a peaceful New Year to all

Do ensure you have an ample supply of wine to toast all your absent friends and family. Let's just hope there aren't too many absent or you might end up on the floor!!

Whoever you are, wherever you are are, have a cracking Christmas and New Year.

L'uomo chi fa and La D

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Chickens do not make good spies ... continuing the spy theme stated last week

Following the olive picking, the next job was to prune. Now in the past we have always waited till February or March to do the pruning, but this year we have seen many people pruning as they pick, so we thought we would do the same. The other thing that has had an impact on our decision was that we have had loads of what we call “sproutings”. These are new growths on the trunk and limbs of the tress. Often a few together. They grow rapidly and get in the way of picking as well of course as taken away goodness that would otherwise go to the berries. We have had this the last two years and have been wondering whether it has anything to do with our pruning effectively in Spring when the sap is rising. Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see.

So, there we were chatting away, snipping and sawing and getting our lovely olive trees into better and better “goblet” shapes. We let the chickens out as they are all laying now and love to poddle about the middle garden where most of the olive trees are. They followed us about from tree to tree, which made me think that they would be bloody useless as spies. They are so obvious. Why did that thought come into my mind? I have no idea.

I said to La D, “Darling. Do you think that chickens would make good spies?”

I can’t really describe the look she gave me. She stopped pruning, slowly lowered her pruning arm and had this look of utter disbelief in her face.

“What are you talking about Luomochifa? Of course they wouldn’t make good spies they’re chickens. How could they possibly use all those gadgets that Q comes up with? Let alone drive those super cars and boats and go scuba diving. Can you imagine a chicken with a diving mask on and a little oxygen bottle on their back? No of course you can’t you moron. Get on with the job Luomochifa. Now.”

Her witty response really threw me. She’s playing me at my own game,…. and winning!! She shouldn’t be having these wild, surrealistic thoughts. Damn.

Just then I looked around for our potential chicken spies only to see that they had disappeared. What did it mean? Could they understand what we were saying and decided to show us that there might be a future section in MI6 just for chickens?

Where were they? Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of brown amongst the bamboo. I looked harder and sure enough there were the three of them clucking and scratching about round the bottoms of the bamboo, looking very nonchalant, I thought. Just a quick glimpse over in our direction every now and then. I think they might be leading us on a bit, making themselves out to be more stupid than they really are. But then again ……..

See what I mean? What do you think?

Snow

We have had some snow and very cold weather like a lot of Northern Europe. It was quite funny the other morning I went down to let the chickens out and there was about 10cms of snow. I opened the coop hatch and tried to put the steps up so the chicks to get down and as usual they were onto the steps before I had attached them to the coop. The first one rushed down and stopped abruptly at the end as she just noticed that there was all this white stuff where the ground should be. The second one bowled down the steps and bashed into the first one. The third one did the same and crashed into the second. The upshot was they all fell off the steps and onto the snow. They were very taken aback. It was very amusing. It looked like a chicken pile up.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

The third chicken is laying. I repeat, the third chicken is laying

No it’s not some sort of code that spies might use when they meet their contact. It is a fact. Our last chicken has started to lay at long last. She is laying consistently since last Saturday. Brilliant. Of course we are now coming to the stage where we have too many eggs for ourselves and we can give some away to neighbours and friends. But that’s good.

Since they are all laying we have now let the chicks come out into the middle garden. They really love it. There is loads to explore and lots of green things, as well as insect, for them to feed on.

It has taken some while. About six months. But there we are.

Breezy

We went out to do some shopping yesterday and every time we got out of the car the wind would start to gust. Funny because it wasn’t the least bit windy when we left the house. As we drove back and turned into our lane the trees were swaying and the leaves were swirling all around the place. We got back to house to find the little greenhouse had disappeared! We found it eventually. There were broken pots and plants and soil spoils all over the place. The bottom of the stairs was covered in about 4 inches of leaves – at one point Bertie thought they would make a good bed, see picture.

Bertie on a bed of leaves. Doesn’t sound too appetising thank goodness!

Large pieces of corrugated iron had been blown across the garden. There were also a couple of corrugated iron sheets that we had used in the walls of the chicken pen that had become detached and were flapping about in the wind. It was terrible. It was aright mess.

Of course there was no point in trying to tidy up in those winds as you’d just be, literally, pissing into the wind. And you know what happens then!

Fortunately the gazebo frame was standing nice and rigid and erect. Good, I thought. Because we haven’t got the top on, the frame is so thin, the wind should just blow round it.

A little while later, La D popped her head round the door and said, “Luomochifa. What was that you telling me about the gazebo frame? About how resilient it is in the wind. Well that’s a load of b******s my old mucker (she does love to put on a bit of a mockney accent now and again) because it’s now lying all twisted and torn.”

I rushed to the window and gazed down on the unedifying spectacle.

“What a mess,” I said

“Are these things really meant to last more than a season?” La D asked in a bored fashion. “We do seem to get through them Luomochifa.”

“We do, my darling. We do.” I replied. However, there is a little bit of an upside in this and that is that the cover was very thin and didn’t provide much protection from the sunlight, whereas the previous one did. So next year we will have to get one with a little more protection. Besides I was bored with this one anyway. So there.

Weather

V strange. Yesterday in the massive breeze, our little outside temperature guage registered, wait for it. Are you ready? 25.5°C. 9th December.  25° plus? Can hardly believe it. It felt so warm. Tomorrow’s forecast is about 3°.

Weird

Christmas

Still nicely understated here compared to the UK. Just about to see the Christmas “thing” get really underway now. Very lovely.

Ciao, mantenere la fede