Dreaming of a white Christmas

Wednesday 16th December
Linda's Bit...
It’s been a quiet couple of days. Washing clothes and sleeping mostly. Oh and eating…any excuse!!! The snow hasn’t arrived at Introdacqua yet although its much lower down our mountain now. The weather on the internet predicts snow by Sunday but we’ll see. The locals are a bit doubtful we will have a white Christmas. Fingers crossed!
Today we caught our little local bus, went into Sulmona, caught another little rural bus and wound our way through the mountains up into the snow fields to a dear little village called Scanno. Brad and Trish had visited there already and told us it was a must see so off we went.
One of those curvy windy inching around cliff edge roads that popped us out into one of the local ski resorts. (see pictures) Scanno is famous also for jewelry making, beautiful fine filigree work but when we were there all the shops were shut except one dear little old man in the midst of closing his shop to go home for siesta. He pottered and tottered around showing us bits and bobs and in the end I found a dear little ring I loved. The little old man wrote down the price for Russ who nearly had a heart attack thinking it was $2000, when in fact only $20,00….he’d forgotten the decimal point! We all had a giggle at Russell’s shocked face…and then we bought it (yay) silver with gold plate but I love it! Felt we had to as the man had worked so hard to show us his wares…and it’s a sweet little memento. The only shop for lunch was a café with only cakes to eat, so we did and munched our way through a couple of sweeties and two café macchiato’s. Delicious!
We wound our way back down the hill, bought a few things at the supermarketto and then called Alfonse, our private taxi driver to chauffeur us back up the hill to home. It’s always Alfonse that comes to collect us. We have a good old cackle with him on the journey despite the language problems. Each time he asks Russ “Skiing?” and Russ explains “no, eating and drinking, I’m too old and Grande ( big)!!!” So is Alfonse, truth be told! But he enjoys the banter.
Tomorrow we catch the bus back to Rome and I’m looking forward to finally seeing all the sights of the city. We only had one whole day there when we arrived and still have plenty to see. I keep waiting to feel God in the Churches we visit and so far they seem to celebrate Rome rather than God. Am I just cynical? Will see if I can tell in Vatican City. Maybe it’s because most of the really old churches were temples to Roman Gods first, until Christianity arrived then they just changed the façade and called it Roman Catholic. I’ve seen paintings depicting Christ’s life that I don’t recognize from the story…artistic license perhaps?
Last night the dogs were howling and they’re at it again tonight and we’re reminded that we’re in little red riding hood country. It’s very cold outside and I love how safe and secure we are in our little villa with the fire going and the door bolted! As well as wolves there are bears too and our drive into the mountains was a reminder of how far from civilization we are here in the country. The people are much nicer here and of course it’s much cheaper to live!
Will blog again tomorrow from Rome. The internet is very unpredictable here so have to time it for the best connection.
Ta ta for now
Lin X

From the desk of signor Gook.

Hard to imagine that all those at home are sitting in the air-conditioning when its so bloody cold here. I have had to get into the thermal underwear, and even with that I get cold. The locals were worried we were under-prepared , especially when we kept getting the words for hot and cold mixed up, we kept saying in poor Italian how cold we were but we were in fact saying hot. It wasn’t till a caring local pointed out this fact, that we realized what idiots we must seem.
There are still some problems doing some basic tasks as our Italian is so poor. face to face we can make ourselves understood eventually, but when it comes to ordering a new gas bottle over the phone, especially to be delivered well, that’s near impossible. I eventually found a local who rang and organized it for me, but I had to meet them down on the street and change it over myself. So near the allotted time I picked up the extremely heavy empty and carried it down three steep sets of stairs and waited in the cold rain for an hour. When a nice lady finally showed with the new cylinder wedged into the back seat of her Mercedes I was frozen stiff. By the look of the delivery car I don’t think they normally deliver, but it was nice of them to do so even if I had to pay a kings ransom for it. To top it off I then pulled something in my back getting the new bottle home and installed, at least we can cook now.
Very quiet night tonight, stay at home cook a nice dinner then of to Rome in morning. There is no radio, no TV, and when the dogs stop barking at whatever they see in the dark all you hear is a clock ticking, it just goes to show what noisy, busy lives we normally lead.
Russell.