Social Sarnano

One of my friends on the course asked what I did in Sarnano – didn’t I get bored in a place as sleepy as Le Marche?

The answer this week is certainly no! It’s been a whirlwind few days and I have barely managed to fit in everything that I had planned – let alone time to be bored. I have eaten 2 delicious meals, one at Simonetta and Fabiano’s house where I tested out my newly improved Italian on them and their friends, and the other at Chris and Irene’s where we sampled Irene’s rendering of the local bacala.

On the menu at Simonetta’s house was carbonara pasta. Its one of those dishes that sounds easy, and I suspect is horribly difficult! For secondo we had cold meats and bread – thin slices of proscuitto crudo, 2 types of salami and

The two highlights of the trip home were a trip to the shoe mecca of Cassetta D’Ete – home of the Tods factory – where I treated myself to my annual to-me-from-me present of some boots for the winter. Not at the Tods factory – now that I am no longer working Euros 200 for a pair of boots – even if this is heavily discounted from the normal retail price – seems exorbitant! But I got a good bargain and like all addicted shoppers, am wearing my new purchase whilst typing this on the train!

The other highlight was the Diamanti a Tavola (Diamonds on the Table) festival in Amandola. All the small towns in the region have these autumn tastes festivals and the Amadola one didn’t disappoint with truffles – both white and black – local wine and cheese and mountains of salami and local ham. The festivals are always done well – and it is jolly to see all the locals strolling around and shopping.

The rude awakening this week was the onset of winter. It was 19 degrees when I left Trieste – no complaints – but I noticed on arrival in Marche that it was appreciably colder. That night there was a hard frost and by Thursday the temperature had fallen to zero in the day too. Then the snow started on the mountains and today as I left the wind was so strong I was worried about the olive tree in my garden. Especially as one of Augustino’s flower pots took off from the roof above me and smashed on the ground – I was delighted that I was not in the garden at the time!

Its also been a bit of a mad scramble as it appears as if the internal staircase that I have been waiting years for is going to be started this week. I am not entirely sure that I know how the finished article will look, and I am working on suspending my disbelief that the stairs will actually ever happen – it has been so long coming that I am not entirely convinced! But nevertheless, I have once again cleared out the downstairs room in the flat, and covered the furniture. So we’ll see.

Actually, it wouldn’t surprise me if this time there was progress on the stairs. And there is a litany of reasons:-
1. Its winter and the builders want inside work
2. Now that all my things have arrived from Hong Kong this is the time of maximum inconvenience for me
3. I have friends coming for Christmas – so predict unfinished work and HUGE amounts of mess
4. The price has gone up so much on this work that its now worth their while getting out of bed to do it!

I have attached a picture of the lounge before the whole in the roof, so I can remember what it used to be like in case anything goes wrong.