The Weekend

Despite and because of the weather we enjoyed a very pleasant weekend.  This week the little sunshine we have had has seen the first of our Daffodils come into full bloom, which is always a cheerful sight.

Saturday was yet another strange day weather wise,  a real mixture of sun, wind, rain and hail! This winter as we all know has felt particularly long and more than ever it seems to be the major topic of conversation here in Italy. So you see it is not just the British that seem to be obsessed with discussing the weather.
Everyone you meet wants to talk about what an extraordinary winter it has been.
We spent the day mainly indoors, me doing various tasks, jobs, chores whatever, including dreaming up my Saturday/Sunday song feature. I think that the Laura Pausini video I posted is enchanting and certainly lifted my mood.  
Laura Pausini Sorella Terra

David meanwhile was working on the interior doors downstairs, they are now finished and really look superb. Here are the before and after photos for you to admire his handiwork.

We were certainly looking forward to going out on Saturday evening and meeting up with our friends Nick and Viv. If we needed an excuse, which we didn’t, it was to celebrate Viv completing successfully her TEFL (Teaching English As A Foreign Language) course. We met up with them in a Wine Bar in the centro storico of Montefiascone and then later went to one of our favourite local trattoria’s, Alvaro’s whose speciality is meat, which  is grilled on the open fire and tastes absolutely delicious.

Viv and I had lamb which we do tend to do when we go there as there are not many places around here where it is available and certainly not up to the standard of Alvaro’s! The men opted for pork and veal, the portions are always generous, well they seem so to us, so it is definitely the place to go locally when you want a meat fest!  Usually the restaurants around this region specialise in fish, not surprising as we are on the shores of  the Lago di Bolsena  and not that far from the sea, normally we choose fish when we go out to eat.  However sometimes it makes a change to eat meat out, especially cooked this way and the lamb is so delicious.

Yesterday in complete contrast to Saturday and the forecast for the early part of this week we had some sunshine as promised. It actually felt pleasantly warm for awhile out of the wind and we were able to sit outside with a cup of coffee mid morning and later for lunch. Not that we ate much after the feast the night before.
We had two lots of visitors first our neighbour Franco, of  Postbox Saga  fame came over with a gift for us. You will never guess,  half a lamb, our neighbours certainly look after us well.  He had told us earlier in the week that he was going to be culling some of his lambs and was concerned that we might find it upsetting, as it can all rather be in your face, no hiding things around here. It is a fact of life around here one minute those lambs are gamboling around in the field and then you see one hanging up! I know this might be distressing to some especially vegetarians but as I have stated here strongly already that I do like to eat lamb. So therefore I maintain that they would never have been born at all if humans were not carnivores. It all comes down to quality of life and humane killing in my opinion.

Our other visitors were Viv and Nick as Nick had kindly volunteered to come and help us with the pruning of the larger branches from the walnut tree outside our bedroom. He is much more agile than David and happy to clamber about up in trees, as some of you will remember from the Olive Harvest.

Anyway with his much appreciated help we made a good job of the pruning.

So that was our weekend, productive and relaxing.