Regular torch and 2 'headlamps'
At about 11.30 pm last night we were suddenly plunged into darkness.
I was a bit confused to notice that the tower was a blaze of light until Clive reminded me about the emergency lights. They are small fluorescent strips with a rechargeable battery behind them, triggered to come on if the power goes off, and there are 3 of them up there.
We were in the single storey extension which is without them, hence the blackness. But the main part of the house has them so we hurried to take advantage as they only last about half an hour.
First thing, I phoned the emergency number of the Electricity Board (Enel). After much tapping in of codes and confirming of same, I finally got a real person.
“Oh yes,” he drawled pleasantly. “They’re working on your line. It’ll be back on at 7.00 am.”
Without warning. Typical. Unless they put a notice on a tree somewhere on the road leading to the house, which they seem to have stopped doing.
“Ah well,” I said. “We’ll just go to bed.”
He laughed.
And that’s exactly what we did, making sure our battery of independent illumination devices was to hand.
Joules
We drove to Terni today to find out, once again, that Joules’ white blood cell count is too low for him to have chemotherapy.
That’s the 4th wasted journey. But he has had treatment in between and we’re now half way through the sessions: 4 down, 4 to go.
I never would have believed the whole thing would be so onerous, but I haven’t doubted for one second that we made the right decision.
Apart from anything else, Joules has been in rude health and high spirits throughout. And who could resist the little face in the photo?
Today we heard a car drive almost up to the house. The dogs were going wild and I was all set to rush out and tell the driver that this was a private house etc etc.
Perhaps luckily, all I had on was a long shirt of Clive’s – perfectly decent except in a high wind. I therefore contented myself with leaning out of the window.
Fig leaf and ripe fig
It was then that I saw the car said Google Maps on the side and had a huge camera mounted on its roof. I waved at it and stayed put.
Assuming this is what they were up to, we can’t wait to be able to make a virtual journey along our road and drive. If only we could be put on Sat Nav as well, to make us easier to find!
Talking of fig leaves, the fig harvest has just started. I picked the first ripe figs today.
Sunset with Mount Subasio in the right background
With no pressure to be ready by 9.00 pm for a film or serial on the telly, we found ourselves sitting outside last night as it got dark. I was playing the violin (very badly) making use of the movement-activated outside light, which needed to be reactivated every so often, in order to read my music.
I felt sure I could hear the sound echoing from the hillside. It would make sense, because there is quite a loud echo in that spot.
I did definitely set our nearest neighbour’s dogs off barking. Fortunately ours were too busy with ritualistic mock-fighting on the gravel nearby to respond.
Our youngest dog, Taylor, normally accompanies me at some point with a series of prolonged, exultant paeans of sound, but for some reason he never does this outside.
Perhaps he’s too intent listening for night sounds: distant trot of wild boar, rattle of porcupine, though he must have difficulty hearing anything past the vibrant shimmer of the crickets.
The sun set as a vermilion smear behind Mount Subasio. We didn’t clink glasses, but, uncharacteristically, I opened a bottle of white wine to have with dinner.
We don’t know anything about wine. We’re not proud of this but the world of it is at such a remove from us that we can truthfully say we don’t want to know. Apart from the odd supermarket carton of red wine with a meal, white wine in a chicken dish and the once-in-a-lifetime taste of the darkness of Sagrantino, we are, in this respect, as innocent as new-born babes.
That doesn’t mean to say that we don’t have grapes. We didn’t grow them deliberately; they sprouted from the old, tangled vines that grew along a tumbledown fence and were mangled by the digger as it widened our drive. The majority of the vines have grown from the rootstock and have lightly-indented leaves and grow small bunches of grapes no bigger than elderberries. They are quite useless from a culinary point of view.
However, here and there a sprout has issued above the graft point (as I understand it in my ignorance). The difference is immediately recognisable in the heavily-indented leaves, and these vines produce very edible if pippy grapes which were obviously intended for wine-making.
We, however, squeeze the juice from the heated pulp more thoroughly or less thoroughly through gauze (in the lack of muslin) to produce either jam or jelly.
Grapes, grape jam and grape jelly
It’s delicious, and one hundred per cent non-alcoholic.
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