Junefinnigan's Weblog

Welcome Ragazzi

Long September shadows Upper Terrace
Photo J Finnigan

So the weekend has arrived and my man is back from three working days in London.  Generally, it takes him twenty-four hours to properly wind down again, and that I understand as I am just the same.  Have I mentioned that he is a real gentleman?  He is a natural for helping the girlies, of all ages, to rack their suitcases and make more room on the trains for passengers.  Yesterday, on leaving Pisa on the Florence train, he noticed two such victims close by in his carriage and immediately offered his services to put their rather heavy cases up on the rack.  Both were very grateful, particularly as the train was full.  Now it hadn’t occurred to him that he would be changing trains at Empoli, which is half way to Florence, and that the girlies, one very short and the other slightly built, would have to get the big cases down again at Florence!  When this dawned on him, he had already changed trains and was on his way to Certaldo, so he closed his eyes and chuckled to himself for the rest of the journey!  You’ve heard the one about the old lady who was idly passing the time of day watching the traffic go by, and then got walked across the road by a good Samaritan who thought she wanted to cross it?  Exactly…….

The first winter crocuses
Photo P Finnigan

Now the man was very happy to get home and unwind with an aperitivo.  However, before sitting down, he took some Photos of the lovely yellow crocuses that had popped up whilst he was away and the Blue Plumbago which is looking brighter than ever.  The Bougainvillea is now going over, but it is producing some fascinating seed pods and we think it a good idea to pot some of these and see what happens.

Blue Plumbago

September is proving to be a good month for renewed growth in our garden, including more peppers!  The air is wonderful and the cooler days, around twenty-four degrees at midday, are right up my street.  However, there are those that hate the loss of hot summer nights and warm mornings.  For me every season is fabulous here and as for winter, I look forward to the crackling log fire and to wearing my favourite waxed jacket & Italian boots!

Bougainvillea Seeds
photo P Finnigan

Back at the Alimentari/bar I met a very nice Scots couple who were here on holiday and they promised to buy my book!  Thank you Marie and Larry, I hope you are enjoying it!  This morning friends from Florence arrived in the bar and their little boy aged about five , had a broken foot in plaster.  O no, we say, how did it happen!  Apparently his Nonna (grandmother) fell from a great height and unfortunately the little lad broke her fall with his foot!  They were spoiling him with  a massive piece of pizza for breakfast to compensate and he was stuffing it in like it was his last supper!  A that age, having a Nonna fall on you does not bode well for the future and I would imagine he will be constantly checking the sky for other falling relatives!   Previously, we were chatting with Benedetta who was talking about female twins in her family.  Sometimes my brain does not work too well in Italian and I thought she was talking about the star sign Gemini!  Twins in Italian is Gemelli, and it is the same translation for the star sign Gemini.  O dio, so I thought she was saying ‘My cousin is a Gemini, do you have any in your family?’  I was just about to say yes, when my man noticed my mistake and put me right, bless him…..  Mind you, that was just a small misunderstanding on my part, I’ll tell you about some of the real biggies another time!

Silvio ‘feel my muscle!’
Photo unknown

So what about our idol Silvio, how is he doing?  Well he and his over aged fiance, twenty-seven year old Francesca Pascale, have appeared together in an air-brushed photo shoot for ‘Vanity Fair’. (Not this photo)  She has claimed to have chased SB and that she fell in love with him when she was an under age shop girl.  SB said ‘She has brought me joy without asking for anything in return!’  What, you have to be in dreamland Silvio!  Well, we wait with bated breath to hear whether he remains in the senate (members of his party have renewed threats to resign from the government if he is stripped of his senate seat) and if he actually marries his lovely girlie.  In the meantime we wish SB buon compleanno (happy birthday) for tomorrow.

Time to go and cook a yummy lunch.

Have a great week and see you next weekend.

Salute June

PS don’t forget to check out http://www.first chapters.net for your Autumn reading.  In particular, ‘My Father, The Assassin, by J W Finnigan!