August and Everything After...

Im sorry Father but it’s been nearly a year since my last confession...well 9 months or so...the time it takes to make a baby👶 , grow an avocado 🥑 , mature a wine🍷 , develop an ulcer🤷🏿‍♀️....errr, or none of the above. 

Yes, I returned to the sunshine state of Tuscany 🇮🇹in the deep south of the Mediterranean homesick blues and have been here that long, contemplating and capitulating life as we know it.

So now, as we head out of the summer sun and into the autumnal shade I thought that maybe it’s about the right time to put finger to keyboard again and spend a small amount of my loose time lolling about with my creative thoughts to blog critical comment and witty repartee as and when the mood takes me.

So I looked back at my last post for a reference point to start from and saw the world at the time of my last post was being slated for being in such a mess, so, a good nine months on I’m glad all that is now behind us and the future is now looking incredibly rosy with peace and harmony across the waters of the world as all the economic and humanitarian issues have been resolved, blazing fires and riots quelled by strong intelligent leaders with all the lessons of the past learned to provide us all with a stable, positive future for years to come....tick✅☯️🤯🤮

That’s a load off my mind then and I feel foolish about my past criticism!🙈🙉🙊

Anyway, I’m back on the blogs, for now at least.

So, to recap the story so far...the sun has gone down on the last of the summertime Sagra’s, great local events promoting all locally sourced foods, cooked and served by locals on local village fields washed down with copious amounts of unlabelled wine and spirits distilled behind closed doors in secret Cantina’s that will remain undiscovered....unless you are invited!

Sagra’s explained....

Sagra’s are for everyone and in abundance in this area serving an array of plates of food on a theme over many weekends throughout the summer evenings from pasta, fish, steak and pizzas to Cinghiale, frogs, snails and rabbits to name but a few. The procedure of these events have been unchanged for years. First you need to arrive and park in a nearby field, as close to the entrance gate as you can facing the exit in case of the onset of intoxication later and then, along with everyone else arriving at the same time, in an excitable throng , you clog up the entrance by standing in front of the makeshift ticket desk manned respectfully by two of the oldest, slowest and most inefficient owd fellas from the village who in turn ask you to choose what you want to eat, hand write the order with a pencil then take payment, often without having any apparent change...a simple process that defines Italian bureaucracy. 

Deafness dictates that when it gets to your turn you need to speak up, make the order in Italian while remembering the plates of food that you and all your party want while adopting a patience that is a virtue and necessity around these parts. Now, finally armed with your food ticket you need to squeeze on to one of the many long, busy trestle tables and dangle you legs over one of the large pews claiming your position and hand over the order to an attentive serving wench(or Hunter)....following this the table will rapidly start to fill up with wine bottles, paper mats and an astonishing array of single-use plastic ware. Foods of choice then follow very quickly so it’s best to take an initial swig of the unlabelled vino, pour some water then get munching on the bruschetta and prosciutto because you can be sure that the pasta courses and the meat plates won’t be far behind...........Buon Appetito.

Right that’s all for now ....I’m off to the Donkey race!

Today’s blog title comes from a Counting Crows album title, a good one too so check it out and give it a listen while you wait for the next instalment.