Pica Pica

It happened. It went on very late. More than 300 people, many of whom came from all over Italy because, for instance, their grandmother came from here.

I fluffed one line, but my little turn went down well enough – the cheer from the piazza demanded that I take a bow and flourish my hat in the air for a second time. No pictures, however – Sarah was preparing desserts at the time.

Fire kit

Fire kit 2

Tables

Tables from above

Stage

Tables one way

Tables lengthways

Tables really lengthways

Making connections

Heat and smoke

Welcome

William sets up

Drinks trolley

Self explanatory

Flute player

Nearly ready

People at last

It will be full..

I said it would fill up

Next morning

The village is a-buzz with excitement and activity! There is a connecting together of electric cables; a welding of steel trestles; a burning-off of the dirt on grilles; a setting up of lights; a preparation of beer dispensers… For tomorrow, our village has its annual festival!

I too am making a small contribution. I shall be fluting my way through a few Irish tunes, accompanied by William, native of this place (though he lived in various countries, including Finland), erstwhile cabaret performer. I was worried that he wanted to provide the accompaniment on his “Band in a Box” keyboard or similar. I think he was thinking of using Celtic Rhythm number 3.

However, I had a cunning plan. I could see that if I proposed hopping between one rhythm and another, he would have difficulties following that with the machine, and would have to listen to me and “vamp”. So at our “rehearsal” two days ago I remained entirely enthusiastic about what he was doing as we worked out what metronome speeds would be needed. Admittedly, I did ask if he could be a little less heavy on the Oom-Pah Um-Pah. It’s hard to put into mere words, but those boom-chikka rhythms with bass guitar, tuba and tambourine are not exactly the feel I am looking for. I did also innocently ask how easy it would be to segue from one tune to another. Lo and behold, he had the idea that maybe he shouldn’t use the rhythm machine at all! He decided it would be better just to accompany me on acoustic guitar because, as he said, the sound is more suitable and he can listen to me and follow the rhythm! The brilliant thing about this is that it’s his idea!

Wish me luck!

Nick and Sam got married in America, so had their post-wedding bash at the Grain Barge in Bristol at the end of July. I’m not a big Facebook user, but as they used Facebook in part to get the bash together, and quite a lot of people there are users, I uploaded my pictures there. They are nothing special – just a bunch of people chatting, eating, drinking etc. in fancy dress, but if you know any of them it can be interesting. You should be able to see them here.

This commentary might be worth a read.

You need hunger and thirst to go.

Filatiera as about 15 minutes in the car away. It would be quicker, but it’s on the other side of the Magra river. The town’s Festival of Hunger and Thirst went on for four evenings. Basically everybody eats and drinks in the town square and off a couple of streets to this side. Very relaxed.

I thought that as I have already written about some of the problems that go along with moving to a new place, it was only right to put a few pictures on to show something of just what a great place this is. Nothing complicated. Just a couple of the animals sitting around:

Nougat and Tashi sitting around – as you do

Now if you look through the “Juliet” window just past Tashi, you see the vines and vegetable allotments in the middle of the village.

The view to the north

Turning a little to the right, you see “our” pond, where rugs and the like are washed:

Village pond

You must go to the other side of the house look down to get a view from above of the lower terrace and the meadow:

Lower terrace and meadow

It really is as good as it looks!

I rather doubt if I will ever have time (and I doubt if you would be interested) to describe the whole process of getting here, so here are just a few pictures to give an impression.
First of all, here is the container being filled up in Sydney with the possessions, some of which are dear to our hearts, and some of which we will wonder why on earth we bothered bringing:

Where will it all go when it's here?

Along with the two terriers, Tashi the cat gave every sign of having taken the journey well. At any rate, she saw that it would be good to make the best of it:

Things could be worse – I suppose!

Surprisingly, the weather was wet and grey when we arrived, and had been for some time. Here is the village, looking wet and grey:

Village looking wet and grey

A slightly different view, showing the village washing trough. In terms of the map the trough is “ours”, but it would be a false move to restrict access:

The trough

Then, with the sun shining, I started to scythe the “meadow”. Vegetable growing is taken very seriously here, and I will be unable to rival many of the village plots, partly because of experience (which I lack), but above all because of time: some of these allotments are looked after by retired people whose hobby, and indeed life, revolves around the hoeing, weeding, seeding, supporting, twice-daily watering and everything else involved in looking after a top class plot. In any case, it is too late in the year to start much here, but it does need to be kept under control:

Working on the meadow

Oh, really finall, the skyline from the terrace:

Skyline

What to say? There are hunting dogs here.

The one really bad thing if that happened on the journey was that Nougat - the greyhound - became extremely ill.  Because he, as an ex-racer, was very used to being transported in crates, and because he has such a relaxed personality, he was the last one we expected any trouble from.  We actually now believe that the crate he was given was not big enough for him.  When he arrived in Milan, the vet thought that he was urinating blood, and was only willing to release him to come to Pontremoli on the condition that he went straight into an animal hospital (not an ordinary vet).  As it happened, the animal transport people in Milan found a clinic in Pontremoli on the Internet, and it turned out to be extremely good.  So a lot of tests were carried out, and the poor thing had to spend quite a few days and several nights with intravenous drips and on oxygen. When he was allowed home he had to have the cannula kept bandaged in his leg ready for the next treatment, but he was so exhausted, disoriented and stressed that I’m not sure that he noticed. First of all the vets found that there was no blood in his urine, or at least no blood cells, and it was thought that his kidneys were processing blood cells and passing out the haemoglobin. Further tests showed that the red colour wasn’t haemoglobin either, but myoglobin from his exhausted muscles; they came to the conclusion that he had stood and trembled for most or all of the journey.  Without expert treatment there is no doubt he would have died, so we are very happy that he is now well on the mend.

The crate he was in was indeed large:

…and the price we paid for his transport was not insignificant. I am sure that the pet transport people who shipped him off acted in good faith, but what is clear is that if you ever want to transport a greyhound a long way you really, really must make sure that his crate is large enough for him not only to stand up and lie down, but also to turn around easily. The greyhound has to be able to turn round, otherwise he cannot go through the awkward process a greyhound needs to get down on to the floor. This will make it even more expensive, of course, and if the price is too much then he or she should stay home. Anything else is cruel and dangerous, sadly.

So this is the first post from Tuscany.  The last month was hard work!  Getting the Internet connection to work at all took time, although now that it is working it seems to be very good.  Getting the computer here took even more time, largely because it was difficult to make contact here.  My Vodafone from Australia has, for mysterious reasons, failed to “top up”, and the shipping agent had given the people here in Italy the number of our fixed line back in Sydney.  So the Italian authorities (perhaps quite rightly) had reason to wonder whether we were real people, or just dummy identities being used to pick up contraband of some description.  Anyway, it arrived in the end, and – apart from a little screwdriver operation inside to put the CPU fan back on – it seems to be OK. 

If you thought the Germans were keen on bureaucracy, come to Italy.  Just as an example, take the number of our house.  It does not have one. The bank manager was shocked, and felt sure that the bank would not attempt to post a bank card without a house number.  The post office, however, was adamant that the houses here have no numbers, so we gave it a name (“Casa Leslie”), and then he was happy.  But we urgently need to buy a car.  In Italy, you can’t buy a car without, amongst other things, a residence permit, though it might be possible to get away with a copy of the application for a residence permit.  So at the council (“commune”) offices I presented the pile of papers that they requested to apply for a residence permit.  So far, so good, but the registrar cannot accept the application without a proper address, and a proper address includes the number of the house.  He tells us that in an office upstairs we can obtain it.  With a couple of visits over two or three days to the office upstairs it is explained that there are no house numbers, but the planning officer will visit on Monday and invent some.  He will then inform our surveyor, who will inform us, so that we can apply for the residence permit.  We are still waiting.  A copy of the application for the residence permit is also needed to clear the shipment through customs when it arrives, so hopefully something will be done before too long.

Update to this story: on Monday, we heard nothing. On Tuesday we tried to get hold of people but couldn’t. On Wednesday there was a public holiday. On Thursday our helpful estate agent, Lois, got on to the surveyor and the council to discover that nothing did happen on Monday, but the person concerned has now gone on holiday and will not be back till next Monday. I think that Lois spoke to them a little firmly, as we have now been told that someone will be out tomorrow to assign numbers. I have a suspicion (now why would that be?) that this will not happen early enough for the council worker to dream up numbers, for him to contact the surveyor, for the surveyor to contact us in time for us to get down to the council offices (again) and tell the man in the registry office downstairs what the man in the planning office upstairs gave us for a number, so that the man in the registry office downstairs will now accept our application for a residence permit, give us a receipt for our application, and allow us to buy a car and also make the applications we need to receive the goods and chattels that are coming by sea.

When I have a bit more time I will write more about what has happened so far – in particular, I want to comment on the risks of transporting a greyhound.  But for now, here is a picture to “set the scene” – the red arrow points to the house, as you might guess.