01 May 2007 - 15 May 2007
We went to a Celtic festival at Montefortino, a small village around fifteen kilometres from us. No, we've no idea what a central Italian village is doing having a Celtic festival either - as far as we know, the Celts never made it any further south than the north of France. A friend's daughter was one of a group of harpists playing Celtic music - they were very good, particularly as they had to contend with the bagpipes and drums from the rest of the festival, several tractors, church bells and a nearby thunderstorm.
We spent a pleasant twenty minutes or so sat on our balcony watching a metre long snake hunting in the grass below us. It seemed to be after the lizards but they were far too quick for it and also they can run up walls. We think that the snake was probably a grass snake although its colouring differed from that we saw at the bar a few days before. We'll have to search the net for it as its not the first time we've seen it in the garden. The only poisonous snake in this part of Italy is the viper; we're pretty sure this wasn't one of those but we should check to make certain.
The four weeks without rain came to an end with four days of thundery showers. We're now back to warm and sunny days but a little cooler than April.
The modem and filter have arrived together with a video voip phone (which we didn't ask for but will keep) and we are now, at last, set up on the internet. We do have ADSL at 2 megabits - we're amazed but very pleased. Despite recent problems with our email provider, it appears that our email is now up and running ok also. We hope to get voip set up over the next week or so and we'll let you know when done.
The fireflies have started to hatch (or whatever it is that fireflies do) and so the evenings all around us are increasingly filled with flashing points of light.
10th of May and for the first time this year the temperature has peaked in the thirties with a high of 31 degrees in the shade.
We searched the internet (yeah!!!) for details of the snake which we saw in our garden. It would appear to be a western whip snake. Non-poisonous and eats rats and mice so, as far as we're concerned, is very welcome around here. Although, to be fair, we've not seen any rats and we've only seen two mice and next-door's ginger tom pounced on one of those!!!
By the way, if anybody who hasn't already got it would like our phone number, just send us a message.
Rumour has it that we could be in for severe water shortages here this summer. With so little snow falling on the mountains over winter (melt-water fills the reservoirs) and so little rain so far this year it really wouldn't be at all surprising. Its supposed to rain tomorrow though......
16 May 2007 - 31 May 2007
Our walnut trees are now covered in small walnuts and our cherry trees are covered in cherries which should be ripe in a week or two.
Proof of UK no-claims has finally arrived from our UK insurers so were off to Generali in Pergola next week to, hopefully, get insurance for the van.
Oh, and it didn't rain.......
The van insurance saga continues..... We went to the Italian insurance company through which a Dutch friend managed to insure his Dutch registered car. No, they won't insure us and, in fact, they made a mistake when they insured our Dutch friend. It appears that his insurance may be invalid. So back to the drawing board or, at least, the internet and we found details of a UK based company who might insure us. So we filled out the form and sent it off and a couple of hours later we got a reply saying that they would insure us at what we considered to be a very reasonable price. So we've accepted their quote and we now await, with all things crossed, their response and hopefully and finally insurance for the van.
And it still hasn't rained and we hit 33 degrees in the shade today (22nd).
We now have insurance for the van via a UK based company. Hooray!!!
So it finally rained. Just a couple of thundery showers during the afternoon though, nothing major.
For anyone who's interested, a Carte Di Soggiorno or Permesso Di Soggiorno are now definitely no longer necessary for EU citizens. To buy or register a car you now need a Carte Di Identica from your local Comune which you can easily get once you have gained residency.
We have now bought our new kitchen from Ikea. It sits in god-knows how many boxes in our back room waiting to be assembled. We need to get a couple of other bits and pieces before we can start though so we'll be searching for these over the next couple of days. Also, Ikea had a few bits out of stock so we'll have to go back next week.
Top temperature here in May was 35 degrees in the shade.
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