Skinny Little Bitch....

In the town the other day I spotted that this poster had gone up....

....and I know what your thinking....I thought the same....

....Jesus, what a bloody awful emaciated specimen to put on a poster to promote a food festival!

....No?, well I did...

It's a 'Sagra', which translates to a festival, they seem to be popular in these parts as there seems to be one every week around here.

Anyhow, it's another event that's on my doorstep, in Pergo on Saturday night so I thought I'd nip up on the pushrod to investigate. But I'm thinking, if we have to eat THAT bloody runt of a Cinghiale then there shouldn't be much to go round! 

It looks like the bugger needs worming!

Ooh, I'm starvin'...I could eat a scabby pig!

As it turned out, there was enough for everyone, all sat on long tables being cooked and served by all the local Cinghiale hunters washed down with copious amount of vino rosso in unlabelled bottles....no wonder the handlebars were playing up on the way home!

Skinny Little Bitch is a great song, so here is a live version, described in the NME as 'a balls out, low-down dirty rock song', Yep, sounds about right and with Courtney Love's lovely gravelly voice it sits in my library quite comfortably. Enjoy 'Hole'.

https://youtu.be/_b8JD2ja1WI

Sent wi' th'ipad

Burn Baby Burn...🔥

Over the past few weeks Iv had my head in the oven a couple of times....well, actually it got so bad I spent quite a few hours completely inside the oven. Yes, it was hot, yes it was a dark lonely place that I found myself in but at the end of the day I knew it was my own choice. I just knew I had to do it!

The oven I sought sanctuary in was a very, very old bread oven. It hadn't been lit probably since the fifties and definitely not in my lifetime. It is built into the side of the house, stylishly round and measuring in at 2 metres in diameter. It is a huge space!

I absolutely love the history to it.

As it had laid redundant for so long, some of the bricks had 'spalled' and needed re-pointing and all of the fire-brick base had crumbled into fragments and needed removing.

We bought a pallet load of new, cut, fire-brick, some heat resistant cement and a fresh load of sand for a base and then it needed someone to get in and do it....

...I looked around and there was no-one here!

...wearing nowt but a pair of shorts and an FFP3 face mask I set to work, during which time I overcame arachnophobia and became totally resistant to malaria from all the winged and hairy-legged creatures that had made this their home over the past few years and obviously hadn't received the eviction notices....and some were bloody angry and enormous!...and incredibly fast!

But I had nerves of steel....I was made of stronger stuff....I convinced myself this during the darker hours, when the sweat and toil was fatiguing my withering body....

But finally, as I emerged, triumphant and looking rather like a Vietnamese POW, the new 'forno' was complete. All the bricks had been individually laid and re-laid until everything was perfectly level and now all that was needed was to see if it all still worked as it should....anyone got a match?

A few trial fires 🔥 and everything seems to be perfect. The fire soon gets the oven hot and the smoke thankfully goes out and up the chimney. The floor of the oven gained a great cooking temperature too.

Time to make a purchase.

Now there are times in your life when you realise that you are only going to do something once and today I had this realisation as I strolled into town to the 'Ferramenta' and quite boldly, in my best Italian, asked for and purchased, a 6' foot long, wooden handled pizza shovel....

I doubt if I will ever do this again!

So...it may historically have been an old bread oven that locals would meet at to bake batches of loaves but for the immediate future and in the summer of 2017 I am going to attempt to make pizza!🍕🇮🇹

Wish me 'Buon Appetito'

A double whammy here, the great track 'Burn Baby Burn' by an old favourite band of mine 'Ash' from their early, 2001 album, 'Free All Angels'...see what I did there?, it's not just thrown together, this blog!...could have had a Biffy Clyro track too if anyone noticed?

https://youtu.be/fNdDKhA_gkk

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High and Dry....

Oh, Come on!

Stop sending over all that typical Northern weather!

Today has been incredibly cloudy and it even rained for nearly a full nine minutes!

Thunderstorms are rumbling around the valleys though!

Cloudy Cortona up on the hill.

No, but seriously a bit of rain wouldn't go amiss as we haven't had any for over 3 months now and there are signs that things are starting to suffer. The trees in the forest above us are turning brown and cracks are appearing in the parched earth.

The local wildlife must be suffering too as the other night I caught two badgers on the lawn eating dropped mulberries and this morning two foxes 🦊, as bold as brass, were trotting down the track towards me. Maybe they were looking for a drink?

All the rivers have dried up and many of the local 'Diga's (Dam's) are empty.

The locals tend to be deer 🦌 , porcupines🐾, Cinghiale 🐗foxes 🦊, badgers🐩?, snakes 🐍, tortoises 🐢, frogs 🐸 and lots of lizards 🦎. The lovely Hoopoes that we're here every day seem to have disappeared but the other birds, like the pied wagtails and the house martins still come for drink from the pool every day.

We don't mind the birds and the dragonflies calling in for a sip but you have to draw the line if and when the wild pigs start dropping in....

So at the edge of the woods, on the high ground, in the remains of an old 'pig hole' I built this...

I can fill it with a long hose and it should keep them going for a while!

High and Dry is today's track, not only is it appropriate but it will also annoy the hell out of a certain individual that absolutely hates Radiohead, even more than I hate Phil Collins AND Kanye East ....so will prepare for the backlash!

This is off the fantastic 'The Bends' album, of which I have, for all my life, been addicted to.....sorry BP!

https://youtu.be/7qFfFVSerQo

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Looking after Number 1...

Heading back up the hill in the warm evening sunshine to beautiful Cortona in a bright red open jeep wearing only shorts, shades and a Neil Young T shirt to my first live gig on Italian soil....does life get any better?

Cortona is holding a 'Mix Festival' this week so a stage has been erected in the Piazza Signorelli and a mixture of musicians from classical, folk, pop and rock, young and old will play on the stage in the main Piazza all through the week in the evenings.

I came up to the town on Tuesday to get me a hot ticket for tonight's band.......wait for it, 70's/80's rock/pop legends The Boomtown Rats with Live Aid officiano and miserable moaning Irish 🍀 frontman 'Sir Bob Geldof'!

The 'Bobster' was given the 'Chuiso Di La Citta' yesterday, or the key 🔑 of the city to all you non 🇮🇹 Italians, I suppose that means he can wander round being grumpy about humanitarian issues while stuffing his face with pasta while others around the world starve and then not paying a penny or a Euro for it....sounds like a recipe for a fight if u ask me?

Anyway, just time for a proper pre-gig pizza and a Birra Moretti at the 'Groce del Travoglio' trattoria on Via Dardano to get in the mood and then the medieval stage was set for 09.30.

As about 400 folk and a dog (no joke) waited patiently....Enter stage left, a lanky leopard skin suited old fella with long scruffy white hair that strutted and prowled Jagger-esque for 2 hours giving us an energetic rendition of the whole back 

catalogue of hits including Modern Girl, Someone's always looking at you, Like Clockwork, Banana Republic, I don't like Mondays, Mary of the fourth form into a John Lee Hooker medley and ending with 'Looking after Number 1 and finally of course 'Rat Trap' before coming back for an encore with a psychedelic rave fest of a track,  'Boomtown' to end the whole performance......quite amazing!

 It surprised me how many hits they had actually had!

I have to say the energy and the performance of the band great and still good guitarists too. The old fella still has it to put that much into a set.

I'm glad now that I gave you a quid back in 1984.....you're ok, Sir Bob!

At the end of the gig at about midnight I wandered back down the tiny streets while people sat quietly drinking coffee and 🍷, past open jewellery shops and designer footwear, art galleries and chocolate shops watching folk eating cake and gelato with a wry smile of realisation as I wondered to myself why I moved to this place?......Tonight, it's pretty obvious!

I can't bring myself to use the obvious 80's thought provoking child slaughter song as I am still sick to death of hearing it first time round, and I hated it then so Iv gone for a more Clash influenced alternative and first ever Boomtown Rats single from 1977 'Looking after Number One'.....described as 'breakneck sneering selfishness'.

https://youtu.be/qbi3VFR0sU4

Death 💀 on the Stairs...

So it's been a while since the last blog but honestly Iv been far too busy keeping an eye on the guests and keeping up with the daily jobs plus the fact Iv lacked a bit of inspiration for writing but today is different. 

This morning Iv got a good start and headed up to Cortona, my local medieval town for a walk round before it gets too hot and crowded.

I parked the jeep in the lower car park near to where the mysterious Mediterranean Etruscans had very cleverly built a futuristic escalator that takes you up into the town and headed along Via Nazionale into the beating 💗 heart of the town.

Cortona is high on a hill and built by the ancient Etruscan brickies back about 400 years before Jesus started banging on about his book. ....so, historically quite old!

It's a higgledy-piggledy labyrinth that is a great place for a walk round, lots of interesting shops, quite arty and chic with loads of cultural exhibitions, a theatre and bohemian stuff going on all year round in and around the old town. Last time I visited they were shooting crossbows during a medieval jousting weekend!

 Now, a week long music festival is about to begin....more about this later!' 

Im always a sucker for a hill, so with the sun 🌞creeping up the yard-arm(?), i started the lung busting climb up the tiny winding streets, past the church of San Francesco and the quiet, eerie convents, up past numerous defibrillators and to my final destination at the top of the town.

The towering 11th century, Neo-gothic Basilica of SanMargherita, home of the famous Franciscan nun that was also undisputed founder of the cheese and tomato topping!  Unfortunately, the pizza bit must have closed down but the church was still quite a spectacle with the views from the belvedere across the whole of the Valdichiana to Lake Trasimeno.

 

Heading back down from the death zone to a lower altitude I was actually still breathing and it was quite definitely brewtime, so a stop off for a relaxing morning cappuccino at Caffe Vittoria in the main Piazza Signorelli was in order and a great place for people-watchin' and a bit of bloggin' before heading off, as the merry throng of tourists start to arrive and begin to clog up all the pretty streets.

The Libertines bring you today's blog track. When Pete Doherty wasn't high on crack he made some cracking noisy tunes, this off the 2002 'Up the Bracket' album.

https://youtu.be/RyjJ-OrUl44

Beware of the Flowers....

Well, Iv been here for over a month now and Iv enjoyed every second of it. It took a while to settle down with the hot weather and to learn what the limitations are because of the heat but a month of strimming, cutting, mowing, weeding, repairing, renewing, watering, swishing and insect collecting and the place is looking in good shape with the guests now enjoying their Tuscan holidays.

It's been a lot of work and now the management of the house, apartments, gardens, olive groves and pool is going to occupy me for a good while
.

Meanwhile, in the fields the sunflowers are looking amazing and seem to be almost in every field...they are very strange in the fact that they all look the same way at you and for someone who grew up with 'The Day of the Triffids' haunting my childhood I find them a little sinister if I'm honest too....are they watching us??

So today's tune has the best guitar riff 'ever' in the middle of this track played by Wild Willy Barrett a great musician and if, like me, you have seen madcap John Otway manically prancing about onstage while playing a crazy twin necked guitar then you will understand(worth a YouTube look)otherwise, here is the single from 1977....turn it up to eleven and give it a blast!

https://youtu.be/afkEqz6538o

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A Little Uncanny...

Iv spent the last few mornings filling in holes that had been presumably dug by the Cinghiale (wild boar) during the winter. 

The Cinghiale live in the dark, wild, wooded area directly behind La Cesa http://www.lacesa-tuscany.co.uk/ that extends all the way over into Umbria and they are a real problem when they come down during the night as the pesky creatures root about and make holes everywhere they shouldn't.

But a strange thing is happening here....

As I fill in the holes I start to notice more holes appearing, smaller but definitely new holes. More mischievous porky pigs??

Now, I have enjoyed many a 'Dick Attenborough' documentary, and quirky nature intrigues me so this morning I started to investigate further. I found some tracks coming from the woods, some new footprints but they were smaller and weren't trotter shaped? I found a latrine that didn't have pig pooh in it, then I walked further into the olive groves and came across a single apricot tree that had been recently attacked by something trying to get to the fruit...

and then I found this....

....no, not the Euro

A quill....

...so I deduced from my thorough enquiries that the nocturnal culprit must have been a local Porcupine. I looked it up and yes, the Old World Porcupine does knock about in these parts...just need to keep an eye out for one tonight!

Weather Update : Rain at last during the last few nights and again today, only 22 today and cloudy...should brighten up by the weekend!☀️🇮🇹😎

Iv become a little obsessed with Conor Oberst, Ex Bright Eyes Singer Songwriter, and especially this track...hope you enjoy the great harmonica along with the quirky lyrics!

The Album is called Salutations from earlier this year. https://youtu.be/3eJCyJ8vhJM

Sent wi' th'ipad