Doing the right thing...

As the last of the dried up turkey is shoved under a crust and the merry throng of swearing, inebriated louts bring in the New Year by letting off fireworks in our wheelie-bin, snapping off the top of the towns Christmas tree and pissing and fighting in the alleyways on their way home from the taverns and cells, 

the cold, empty streets are cold and empty once more....thank God!

It’s over...

It’s a New Year so it requires a new positive approach, from me at least...who else can you rely on to lead the way into a new decade?

My old-age ailments prevented me at the back end of last year from the early qualifying rounds of the Worlds Strongest Man. So as I sit on the sofa and enjoy the final I am reminded during the adverts that I should also think about an over 50’s plan as my untimely death now approaches fast anyway. I should now focus on whether I can afford the box of matches to light the flames or alternatively do I consider ordering an artisan willow weaved box to allow the worms to feast on my rotting corpse to help aid my path to the afterlife. Either way, I apparently need to ring the advertised free-phone number to check my Experian credit score so they can promptly relieve me directly, with a cheerful smile, of any equity I have in order to pay for my forthcoming ⚰️ funeral and spiralling spiritual costs that I would automatically and unfortunately incur.

Crikey...It’s getting close, that bloke on the ad looks younger than me and has grey hair too...I could be near the end....it’s time this owd lad went for a check up at the quacks...I need to do the right thing before I get the tap on the shoulder by the tall fella with the hedgecutter...

A few days later, with my troublesome tennis elbow now re-classified as non-life threatening and my posted pooh sample results back as ‘gluten-free’, the response level is reset to ‘amber’ as I await only the blood samples to be clear of the Chlorophyll and chlamydia and a new bionic eye then I will once again have a clean bill of health in which to start the decade....in earnest or wherever!

With my New Years positive energy and a new lease of life in my old bones I follow the crowds and head down to the exciting pastime that is the New Years sales. Having never been that bothered before, I’m inspired in the crush to panic buy stuff at will and spend, spend, spend knowing that I now have my whole sorry life ahead of me to pay for it at a variable interest free rate of 17.9% above inflation subject to contract and all the time in the world to enjoy my spoils.

Life is too short I think to myself and before you can say money supermarket dot com I’m coming back with great deals I had never really attributed to Christmas before like super fast fibre broadband, a Bensons double bed, a fantastic new hoover that sucks at 300psi and a red Nissan Juke...

...the more I spent the more I realised I needed, so my next purchase for the baby Jesus was a subscription to online bingo, a new boiler, 160 gigabytes of data and a half price cruise holiday to the Caribbean in September with an unbelievable 200 euros of onboard credit.

Penniless, tired and weary I collapse back on the sofa to stuff the last of the mince pies down my throat and mistakenly look down at my over-extended torso at the flabby rolls hanging down like pigs testicles in wet blankets. A sad result of all the festive over indulging on fried lobster, caviar, vintage port, raw clams and chocolate blancmange.

If I’m going to look my best In 2020 I need to make amends....

First, I need a plan...no wrong...first I need a book about a plan, preferably endorsed by a TV celebrity Iv never heard of, that can guide my new lifestyle change and inform me how I can lose 3 stone in a week by only sucking on a blanched carrot and making meat and potato pies using only a 3D printer. 

I pride myself with having no food wasted after Christmas so as I fill my ‘Nutri-bullet’ gift with the remaining boiled sprouts, 6 after eights and the dregs of the brandy I sit down with my nutritious New Years smoothie but realise that I need to do more...maybe exercise a bit more? Jog round the park or take up badminton?

Yes, I can do that too...but I need to act fast.

I pick up the phone and book myself on a healthy option all-you-can eat spa weekend and sign up for the new weekly ‘Blubbercise’ class run by Barbara next to the chippy. It’s only a pound a week and the winner gets a voucher for a free battered sausage!

More telly...

Another advert tells me to Join the RSPB so I can wander about in the pissing rain jotting down how many sparrows and influenza-riddled pigeons have survived the frozen winter or sit gawping out the window and recording how many tits I can see...(Oi...grow up!)

Climate change? What should I do about that then for the baby Jesus? 

If only there was a young child or a meerkat to lead the way on what to do?

Well I did watch the new Worzel Gummidge, so that’s a start.

Well personally, I’m going to stop listening to young, annoying fat-faced/ginger-haired singer songwriters with mind numbingly boring ballads in the hope that they go away and maybe other stuff too...I know, il stop eating soft cheese, buy only frozen vegetables from now on and refrain from shouting at ‘Alexa’ in a morning ..that should help...

...should I listen more to Radio 4, get a pet plan or lend support to struggling high street cafes?...the dilemma!...if everyone does their bit then we could maybe get on top of it and stop it raining all the time in Scotland...#indyrefmyarse...that would be a great result.

Ho, Hum

As all the decorations and unwanted festive crap gets packed up, photographed and stuck on Gumtree for some other unsuspecting turkey to enjoy, we can look forward to Easter eggs and beyond with the hope that mankind will survive the fire and brimstone that presently ravages the earth🌍 🍳

Good will to all souls and see you all soon.

Auguri

Doing the right thing....a song by the indie band ‘Daughter’ and a track off their 2nd album in 2016. Enjoy the track here.

https://youtu.be/bU5F-DvGLkA

I want the world to stop...

First it started with....

I am using a friends car and today I notice on the dashboard a yellow light warning me about something...oh, sounds serious, you may say, what is it?....well, il be buggered if I know. So the question I have is “why isn’t it obvious?”...why can’t it just say what the problem is?....instead some stupid symbol that looks to me like its warning ⚠️ me that Iv run over a bloody hedgehog 🦔...

Now I know that some patronising clever prick will retort “ you just need to look in the vehicle user manual...”....NO!...I Don’t...why should I have to do this?...just make it clear to the user/driver what the problem is instead of putting the emphasis on me to read your stupid boring book you muppet manufacturers.

While I’m on the subject, I’m sick to death of the worlds over-complicated technology and I think it needs to come to an end...not the world, God forbid, just the stupidness and pointless stuff in it....

Such as...

the hours and hours wasted on computers with stupid Logins, security settings and more incremental hurdles than you need. Just to order a new toilet roll from EBay, you must login using only use 3 consonants, 2 capitals, a pound sign and a space bar, no rude words and then remember it for the next 25years....then when, 2 seconds later, when texted to your mobile phone that you had 5years ago, enter the 10 digit code within 5 seconds of receipt or you get sent, by default, a used bog roll in the post and your banking app is frozen to death until you resolve the issue by contacting a call centre in downtown Mumbai....giving the same code that you didn’t receive....Jeez, what is it with trying to get simple things to operate, updating Apps, Maps, WhatsApps, WhatsUpps, passwords for this, passwords for that, the maiden name of your dead granny, her bra size and why haven’t you updated your/her profile since last week...Not to mention the updates, the problems, the incompatibility, the excuses, the faster, stronger, better, longer...and when it doesn’t work, the ‘use a different browser’, the options, the settings, the swiping, backing up, syncing, casting, phishing, cache-ing, saving, sharing, the accounts, the Apples, the Google’s, signing in, signing out, refreshing, translating, notifications and emojis....take a deep breath...

....I was only born in 1966 and now I have my own memory restrictions and mine is completely FULL of this shit, I don’t need assistants, virtual or physical....yet.

Why can’t read anything without first agreeing to chocolate chip ‘cookies’ hoovering my data?

So what I can’t see how my data is managed...? Like I (a)care, (b)know or (c)believe you....

When you say ‘managed’ do you mean stolen?

Help developers know what you think, you quip🤔....I’l bloody well tell you what I think, I think I need a rest from all this 💩 I didn’t even do algorithms at school as I thought they were a useless pile of shite then so I’m not getting involved in it now at my age (of the understatement).

I’m also getting sick of...

Are you ‘enjoying’ Google photos?...make your opinion count....Again, No..these are just my photos that I took of random things, admittedly I daren't ever press the button that says HDR as I haven’t a scooby what this means so most are crap and out of focus but they are mine, not yours and I don’t need them styalized, cropped or made into a funky montage to send to all my friends just because you have lured your way into my contacts list behind my back and think it’s a good idea to send them all Christmas cards with Tuscan wine labels, my toes and random dead animals on...

How ‘enjoyable’ might they be to a elderly relative over the festive period?

Fetch new data....push??...push what?...fetch from where?...what are you talking about, you idiot?

You just need to update your settings....Do I?

Why?...

At what point was life supposed to be this torturous?

You get told to change your ‘settings’,  ‘to allow’ things to happen because you want to read an interesting news article so you cautiously and reluctantly start to click about as you enter, what I can only presume is, the dark end of the web, where you know not of what they speak or the language they use and then when you get to screens showing things like ‘AssistiveTouch’ and ‘ReduceMotion’ you absolutely don’t understand what it all means and the article on ‘lameness in elderly camels’ you wanted to research now doesn’t seem worth the read, or that ambitious order you wanted to place for free next-day delivery now seems pointless ...shit...you panic and try to backtrack, thinking Ok, I don’t NEED a new leaf-blower from that site, so, finally you give in and press the ‘Home’ button to get to you back to the familiar territory of your own apps but wait...you lingered on it too long and when you accidentally press the home button for longer than a millipedes dick you get the stupid upbeat SIRI woman saying abruptly “What can I help you with?”...my usual two word response usually prompts her to sulkily follow with “I won’t respond to that”....like I care??...your not my friend so stop pretending you are!...if I wanted a random mate I’d go down the local ‘Titty Twisters’ but I don’t, so leave me alone!

And another thing...

These days you can’t actually GO anywhere without a follow up message on the way back home saying, “Hey, I noticed you where in the ‘Happy to Help’ Dogging car park tonite on the A59, would you like to leave a review to help others?”....or “Hey, looks like you just took a piss round the back of McDonalds in Jedburgh, you were away for 2 minutes and forty seconds, can you verify your new favourite location and rate your experience....NO, leave me alone, stop stalking me by default. If I want a record of where I go il stick a massive GO-Pro on my head, ride a bike and press record...Stop!

If I promise never to order an UBER, use a JUST-EAT app or subscribe to NETFLIX can I please just be left alone to read the odd news snippet, check the local weather or just catch up on a friendly email....is that too much to ask?

So, What is really bothering me?

While I’m on the subject of tech-bloody-knolodgy, why can’t I watch the damn rugby 🏉 on a big telly?...Its sooo over complicated...it appears that it’s beyond the capability of man to actually be allowed to watch a simple game of rugger when abroad without a hitch so....

I hav’t’ th’Ipad with all location settings and time set to U.K. on which I have a VPN which I use to connect to a UK server after which I open my currently downloaded ITV app which allows me to watch programmes and also live tv but now this does not allow the image, via a cable to be mirrored on to a telly, thus no big screen rugby...FFS!....funny how the BBC and all the other channels work so come on ITV, you shower of awkward tossers....LET ME WATCH ENGLAND BEAT THE ALL-BLACKS(again) in glorious HD technicolour...or maybe il just buy an old black and white from Rumbelows and have a load of fifty pence pieces handy...

Nostalgia link here...

https://youtu.be/RdxaljlEh28

Today’s track comes from the lovely Scottish band, Belle & Sebastian, one of the most under appreciated bands in the world...

Enjoy this track here https://youtu.be/wjW3tZhdnyw

Reasons Not to be an Idiot...

So far, I have refrained to even go here but as Lewis Capaldi once said back in 1871

The time has come,' the Walrus said,

      To talk of many things:

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

      Of cabbages — and kings —

And why the sea is boiling hot —

      And whether pigs have wings.'

As the autumnal clocks tick by and the signs of another summer diminish you can be sure that next week summertime officially ends and a few days after the clocks change the chosen path of ostracising ourselves from the EU also takes effect....Personally it’s a very sad day. I think we have been shafted fantastically by the politics and the career politicians with a massive social wedge driven through the hearts and minds of a confused lonely and totally split down the middle country. 

Ok, so we weren’t happy with the unelected European Parliament...Thats why we had members and veto’s, eh...I get it, but now, going solo....

QUESTION - we all have confidence in our elected government to make it better than it was before?

to deliver ANYTHING that they promised would make things better being outside the EU?, to save money, to cut taxes to benefit the people...I doubt this very, very much! 

The moon was shining sulkily,

      Because she thought the sun

Had got no business to be there

      After the day was done —

"It's very rude of him," she said,

      "To come and spoil the fun."

The whole process has just alienated, embarrassed and screwed up a whole heap of shit that didn’t need touchingly far as I can see....I’m glad that we found out what unites us which, sadly is hatred and a willingness to reveal our prejudices.

But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried,

      Before we have our chat;

For some of us are out of breath,

      And all of us are fat!'

Democracy it may be, but by deception and lies....nope, not for me it ain’t!

Growing up, I lived in that insular white suburban bubble where I wasn’t aware of people outside the UK, people of different colour, cultures, foods, creativity, lifestyles and music. It wasn’t until I got the chance to travel and to meet people, eat with them and speak that I realised that they were different a bit but it mattered not to me as I saw different qualities and attitudes and I accepted this...I did not presume that I was constantly right, my language or my way was the best...

This education and tolerance combined with an understanding and ability to adapt is not shared by all so we wait on the consequences now...

Sure, you will still be able to travel, eat stinky Brie and drink pink Prosecco but now we sink much deeper into the ‘them and us’ mentality that we tried so hard to avoid.

So when you look in your fridge, around your house at your electronic devices and the car parked on the drive I hope that the people who didn’t want to be a part of all this realise that you got most of that stuff by talking, trading, agreeing, working, supporting and belonging to....oh yes, the EU...now, I suppose you will just ‘Buy British’ from now on like the good patriotic national you are but you may be sadly disappointed to find that we don’t make much of that stuff anymore....not to worry, we can always get it from countries with even less control of health, safety and security....or we can still get it from Europe but at an increased cost...see the irony?

 It seems a shame,' the Walrus said,

      To play them such a trick,

After we've brought them out so far,

      And made them trot so quick!'

Ok so I hear ‘Nothing much will change’...well it bloody well should because that was what was promised through the media by the Tories when they hatched this idea...£350million for the NHS, stop all Muslims coming to the UK, end free movement, catch our own cod, buy French Brie at the same price, blah blah blah...remember?...all these promises=Vote Leave or was that just bullshit to appeal to the Xenophobic morons?

Do you actually believe that any or all this will happen under the BoJo White Supremacy rules of Grande Brittania?

I have spoken with people in bars that don’t know how to boil a potato let alone know the difference between charcuterie or a chateaubriand so, putting their culinary deficiencies aside, I wonder how baffled Joe public was when they had to make an informed decision involving the economics and viability and consequences of leaving something they had been an integral part of for many, many years.

I really don’t see how falling out with Europe and Europeans will make a whimsical United Kingdom, united...Really??...I wonder what comes next, we fall out with Scotland, Wales and Ireland too?...build walls?...start a fight?...again?..Really?...

...well, if it’s for the good of the people let’s get on with it...

...anyone know where I can get about eight foot of strong British rope from?

...and not that cheap, flimsy stuff from China that breaks easily....

O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,

      You've had a pleasant run!

Shall we be trotting home again?'

      But answer came there none —

Today’s blog track from Frank Turner song from 2008

Listen to the track here https://youtu.be/5xfdGXA62ZM and maybe sing along...

So why are you sat at home? 
You're not designed to be alone 
You just got used to saying "no" 
So get up and get down and get outside 
Cos it's a lovely sunny day 
But you hide yourself away 
You've only got yourself to blame 
Get up and get down and get outside......

Fools Gold...

The other day a car pulled up in the car park, a big sweaty hunting guy dressed in combat gear opened the boot and a crowd gathered to marvel at what he had in his boot...I couldn’t resist...was it a dead body, an animal or maybe a kidnap victim??...I went over to look and sure enough it was quite a spectacle...not quite what I was expecting but nevertheless we were all impressed with his massive haul of freshly picked porcini mushrooms!

Yes, it’s definitely that autumnal time of the year when the flavoursome porcini grow wild and abundantly in the woods. I mentioned this incident to a friend who then told me that his elderly mother had even found some in the woods so that was that...my mind was made up and the next morning I would set off to find my own treasures. Hey, if an overweight sweaty bloke and a doddery old woman can find them then this would be a piece of piss for an old mountain goat like me.!

I’d heard that they grew high in the hills so the following morning I set off with a large bag and a trusty wooden staff to (a) look the part and (b)fend off any cinghiale, hunters or ruffians that might want to steal my ‘soon to be had’ expensive fungi haul. 

I checked I wasn’t being followed and started to climb using small paths, animal tracks and canyons, gaining height and isolation, well away from civilisation and into beautiful leafy woodland, a perfect medium for the large porcini to prosper and grow.

I soon started to see loads of mushrooms...wow...yellow ones, red ones, white ones and even spotty ones but the elusive brown one was nowhere to be seen...I carried on, they must be here somewhere...

...3 hours later and hot and sweaty I had covered a fair bit of ground so I sat down wearily by a large oak tree in order to think my strategy. The problem seemed to be that the colour of these woods were predominantly brown, the trees were brown, the leaves have turned brown, the soil was brown and the bloody mushrooms that I was looking for were also bloody brown so this made the damn things harder to find...so hard that after all this time I hadn’t seen a single one!....I also realised that I didn’t know my Clitopilus from my Stinkhorns so all the mushrooms I had come across I didn’t know if they were edible or poisonous...Shitake!..this was harder than I thought!

I wasn’t going to let this get in the way...I set off again, more determined and with a mental image of me grating Parmesan over a large dish of fresh pasta tagliatelle abundant with fresh porcini later that evening.......Mmmm...can’t wait.

...another 2 hours went by and the porcini count was still at nil...I started to wonder if this was a joke...how could I have come all this way and not found even one?..did they really exist or is it like looking for a three-legged haggis or a tiny little green leprechaun?...by now I was so high I could see the lake below on the other side of the hill so I decided enough was enough...

I took the next hunter’s track and headed back down....what a bloody disaster, I had nothing to show for all my efforts, I was tired, sweaty and getting hungry...my only hope now was that I came across a fat, sweaty smug bloke with a full basket or even better, a defenceless old woman so I could club them to death with my trusty staff and steal their prized porcini....that was the only way I was going to find the bloody things around here!

Today’s track needs no introduction, an indie classic and a timeless groove to enjoy from the Madchester era of 1989. Listen here https://youtu.be/NSD11dnphg0

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

So today, Friday 13th, has been the second and final day of the 2019 Vendemmia for the organic Syrah wine of the Doveri Cantina, near to Cortona. An early six o clock start saw us sipping coffee and munching creme- pastries, a usual pastime before a busy morning in the vineyard....and was it busy, wow....In the cool of the morning I watched many big strong, rough looking girls and boys scurrying up and down the rows, snipping away at the bunches of ripe grapes as the morning sun came up and before long the crates were overflowing and were being loaded on the awaiting truck.

I thought it best, as a non paid-up union member, not to get too involved so I took on a self-appointed overseeing management role otherwise I’m sure I could have lost a finger or two or worse, at the bottom of one of the longer rows where no-one would have heard my pathetic whimpering screams.
So, after an hour or so watching (managing) this impressive spectacle of organised labour the boss and I returned to the cantina to prepare the machinery for the subsequent arrival of the 🍇 truck.

The machine, the ‘Di-Raspatrice’, so named as it removes the grapes from the stalks or ‘Raspi’ and ‘trice’ pronounced ‘treechee’...well that’s the machine bit, ok?

 Anyway it takes two to tango or operate, one to stand looking cool and tip in the grapes and another to operate the stick below. The ‘tipping’ job is ok and the boss took this so I got the ‘Nobs job’, sat on a crate, rooting about underneath with the stick to prevent the blockages with the grapes and sticky stalks role.....well let’s just say that the novelty wears off quite quickly!....

This work, although deemed as ‘Molto Importante’ by the smiling gaffer was in fact a pretty crap job and even got demoted during our discussions to the title of ‘Lavoro di cazzo’....so as I sat there waiting and wishing I had a proper job it was with great relief when I saw his lovely elderly father, Benito,  rock up wanting to help out. He was very swiftly interviewed, trained and employed full-time under the job title ‘Head Stick Operator’ (HSO). In turn, I was automatically promoted to (HPO) ...a highly skilled job with responsibilities involving a Hose-Pipe, crates and a soft brush for the rest of the afternoon....Happy Days!

Once finished and cleaned up we enjoyed another of Mums home cooked, home reared 4 course ‘piatti’ extravaganza on the big table in the cantina including crostini,lasagne, roasted rabbit and chicken with potatoes and veg and a fig and nut cake , baked and provided by his sister....all washed down with the 2016 and 7.

 A Great end to a great Vendemmia....🍷

https://youtu.be/IhTvifGShw4

Today’s blog track comes from the old surfer dude, Jack Johnson from an old 2005 album I used to like called ‘In between dreams’....enjoy the link.

Pearly Dewdrops Drop...

There are probably a number of folk out there that have a fair bit of wine knowledge but as some wise old scabby pigeon once told me “you never stop learning...” so I thought I’d share my wine experiences and knowledge with you as this week we had the Vendemmia...the Italian word used only for the harvest of grapes for wine production.

Per vendemmia si intende la raccolta delle uve da vino, in quanto nel caso delle uve da tavola si usa semplicemente il termine raccolta.

This in short is the day when the grapes are declared as ready for harvesting as they can be, the moons is in the right phase and the man from Del Monte has said  “YES”. 

At this point in time you need a crowd of folk to pick them, some clean plastic crates to put them in and a big truck to take them back to the ‘Cantina’ for processing...and just for all you wine romantics il just quash this notion right now....it’s hot, sweaty and hard graft to fill up the crates in the hot sunshine, lug them about, discarding the smelly ‘Muffa’ riddled bunches while trailing up and down the endless rows of sloping vines in a typical Tuscan vineyard.....but also it’s good fun!

muffa

(ˈmuffa) 

feminine noun

1. 1. (biancastra) mildew
   2. (verdognola) mould
   fare la muffa to go mouldy 
   avere odore di muffa to smell mouldy

Back at home we unload the crates and start the processing on the roof above the Cantina ...I may lose you here with some technological terms but try to keep up...

The bunches of grapes are tipped into the top of the ‘squishing machine’ by the ‘tipper’, a key player with strong  but steady role. The auger and rollers in the machine then miraculously separates the grapes from the stalks and spew them out into the awaiting ‘stalk bucket’. The sweet, dark grapes then fall out of the bottom of the machine and are funnelled down a hole that allows them to drop further into awaiting tanks below. As the funnel starts to get ‘bunged-up’, the responsibility then lies with the ‘stick operator’ to keep the flow going by ‘poking’

The stick operator 

 v. 1. the act of making quick or abrupt thrusts with a sharp object 

and without doubt......a role of utmost importance!

Here is the part where I explain about the ‘legs’....

Some call them the wines ‘tears’ and others link them to the quality of the wine or the signature of the alcohol content but I know that these beautiful droplets or streaks that form on the inside of the glass have a more sinister explanation...let me divulge my knowledge here...

As you savvy old wine guzzlers will know it is normal to see folk initially swilling their newly poured vino around their large crystal glasses and passing comment on the colour and complexity, the vibrant hue and the effects on the nose but then they usually delight in the interesting fact of the wines ‘legs’....so, let me explain first hand as to how a wine gets its impressive ‘legs’.

The squisher

As the bunches of newly picked grapes are tipped in to the machine, so are a variety of   grape-dwelling insects including flies, spiders, ants, earwigs and the odd centipede. All these bugs collectively have a great many legs so as they all get mashed up by the ‘squisher’ their bodily fluids combine forming a sticky visceral substance resembling pearly dewdrop drops thus giving a wine the desired and much appreciated by the discerning drinker, the ‘legs’....

Anyway, I digress...

The stalk bucket

Now with the grapes securely in the large steel vats the fermentation process can begin which is a long , uncomplicated drawn out process that has to happen before you can taste the stuff so I won’t bore with these details at this stage...you will just have to wait for perhaps another update at a later date!

"Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops" is a single by Scottish post-punk band Cocteau Twins, taken from their 1984 EP The Spangle Maker. The song was written by Cocteau Twins, and recorded at Rooster Studios in London.

https://youtu.be/s-5Xgw6d3h0

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.