Italian parking

An example of ....

Not mine I hasten to add!  

Not the only pebble on the beach

Going to the beach late Saturday afternoon has become a “must do”, affording us a rare opportunity to relax totally for a couple of hours in each other’s company.  Yesterday was very windy by the sea though and within minutes of sun tan lotion being applied, Vito made me giggle by remarking as he looked down at his finely sanded body “I feel like a schnitzel ready to be fried!”   Going to the beach every weekend is still something I haven’t got used to, even after living near the sea all these years.  The beach to me as a child was always synonymous with a two-week holiday somewhere on the Mediterranean, and that memory lingers on.  So too do memories of lovely snacks available to be eaten, the nicest of all I remember from a seller who used to call out “canditi” on the beach at Riccione.  Canditi were large green grape “kebabs” coated with caramelised sugar. I can still feel the caramel splintering into little pieces, the "pop" of a juicy grape against my teeth and the burst of sweetness in my mouth almost half a century later.  I’d never seen them before or since now I come to think of it.  L  I also remember coconut sellers, ice-cream sellers, cold drink sellers.  But things like this? 

Nowadays it seems the shops have arrived at the beach!  And people buy, or at least go to have a good look, and who can blame them?  Some of these stalls are so colourful they almost hurt your eyes but you certainly can’t help noticing them.

As for food on the beach these days.  Vito sitting up said to me “I can smell smoke, can you?”  I sniffed the air taking in plenty of sand into my lungs but nothing else “No”.  “Smells like BBQ” he insisted, “ah look!” he jerked his chin in the direction of a seller with fresh BBQ-ed corn on the cob for sale.  “Do you want one?”  More power to their elbows of the guys who sell corn on the beach, (this vendor was not the only one we’ve seen).

Good luck to them.  I’m sure the little girl who sat happily munching a cob nearby will have just as lovely memories as I do when she grows up of the taste of beach food.  But to be honest I’d have much preferred canditi. Do any of you have any memories of particular beach food you liked?

Comfortable as an old shoe

I just went out to hang up some towels to dry and looked round for my flip-flops.  Remembering I’d left them behind the back door to dry after I washed the terrace this morning, I made my way to the place I'd left them, and then just seeing one shoe on the mat, my heart sank. 

He was back to his old tricks again. The moment I turn my back, or as in this case, simply forgot, a shoe disappears.  Does anyone else have a dog with a shoe fetish?  The hunt was on.  I have a wardrobe full of “one” shoe.  I don’t need another for my collection.   

Ever since he was a small pup on the streets with his mother and brother when I first met him, and brought him home to join the menagerie he has had a “thing” about my shoes.  Rarely two (although I never did find a pair of black moccasins) even one missing is of course enough to be a nuisance as I’m sure you can imagine.  I love him to bits – who wouldn’t?  Just look at this picture of him as a babe. Have you ever seen anything so dopey looking?  Who could resist? 

I found the flip-flop buried in the front garden.  He didn’t even try to look guilty which is unusual for him.  Like I said, I love him to bits.  All 35Kg (that’s 5.5 stone in English – he’s a big boy!)  But he drives me nuts!!!   

Wouldn’t be without him though. J 

Things that go thump in the night

We don’t know where she came from.  We’d neither seen nor heard of her before her entrance.  Was she one of “er upstairs” cast offs?  Might have been.  At the time “er upstairs” was sporting a full tum as was her wont, and inclined to abandoning the previous litter to their fate, so she may have been discarded but I honestly have no idea.   A neighbour found her (knowing her, probably heard her first, she’s not backwards in coming forward where complaints are concerned) by the side of the road outside his house.  My neighbours are far too polite to say anything but I get the feeling they probably think of me as “that crazy English woman and her animals” so I suspect I was his first port of call when he found her.  He simply called my name and when I went out to greet him handed this little ball of fur over the gate.  

I took her and put her on my arm and to my amazement, she immediately leant back with her full weight, and began to purr.  Like she belonged. Not even slightly scared as you’d expect a wild kitten to be, but this one it turned out, isn’t a scaredy cat.  Vito who had followed me to the gate, sighed, raised his eyes to Heaven and walked back into the house.  Another sign she belonged, or maybe of Vito saving time by giving up before he had to give in.   She’s been with us ever since.

If you are wondering why I call her Thumper, that’s because you have never heard her make her way downstairs.  Delicate this one is not.  Where Chili and “er upstairs” could gyrate on a pinhead, or dance on a moon beam, this one  … thumps, and when she arrives there’s no mistaking she’s arrived. 

Sometimes at night, she jumps on the bed and throws herself (with real abandon) on my legs as though they belong to her and I’m just keeping them as a favour for her.  There’s nothing subtle about Thumper.  If she wants me to get up to feed her at 4 a.m., she just head bangs me, and I mean head bangs me!  A real full frontal attack guaranteed to make you start the day with a headache.  But she’s also an affectionate creature, and purrs like a steam engine as she nestles up to you for a cuddle.  She’s also tough.  Chili gave her hell for at least six months before she allowed her any peace at all (now they go everywhere together),

and she is a fierce defender of her territory.  Ask “er upstairs” who lives in terror of her and Chili.

No matter how nasty a passing stray is, she’s ready to see them off at a moment’s notice. 

She also, as you can see, grew up to be as beautiful as my other girls. 

I do like to be beside the seaside ...

One of the benefits of living not too far from the sea.  Today after shopping had been put away, and several wash loads done, it was nice to be able to escape to the beach for a couple of hours later in the afternoon to catch up on sun bathing.  Not something we could do when we lived in London.  Too hot to go after lunch (it registered 38° locally earlier today), but by 4.00 p.m. it had "dropped" to 31°C.  Bearable :)

Out of the blue ..

I'm sorry to report that the two little swallows died.  I don't know why.  Maybe they just took fright at being handled.  However as Vito pointed out, that was the reason so many are born in the first place, because the chances of their survival are against the odds from the outset.  I suppose that's true, but it's still sad. However on the plus side at least the cats never got them.   For a few days after I rarely saw any of them on the telephone lines, and then suddenly out of the blue, they they were.

Not just these few either but loads of them.    Vito laughed when we saw them and said they looked like musical notes.

Had to agree with him, I do wonder what it would sound like  if they were set to music.  It might be music to somebody's ears :)

But at least we can honestly say plenty of those little birds did survive their precarious start in life, and are now busy eating us out of house and home.
No more mosquitoes!!!!   Bless them (the swallows, the swallows ....   :)

Cool for cats

With temperatures hitting the 90's this week the tats have taken to hiding all day and disappearing all night. Sometimes they haven't even been in for food - that IS a rare occurrence.  Wondering where on earth they all were the other day, I went looking for them.

"Her upstairs" had climbed even higher and I found her lazing on the roof.

 "Thumper" (who you haven't met before)

I finally found skulking under the bougainvillea.

"Bear" was sprawled out under the table on the patio.

 I couldn't find "Blacky" at all, but Chili was chilling out in her usual place.

I suppose I ought to be grateful she only sleeps in the bidet and doesn't pee in it like our poor old "Prish Mish" used to.