Junefinnigan's Weblog

Benvenuti to all my Lovely Loyal and New Followers

“It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning, shall we go back into the villa now?”  My man was looking at me with concern on his face, after my shaky reaction to the second part of the earthquake, which had happened an hour previously.  “I, I think so.”  I stammered.  “I followed you out to the car in a dream like state.  It was the nightmare I had before the worst part of the earthquake hit, which really shook me up!”  My man held my hand again.  “I thought it might be better for your state of mind if we came and sat in the car away from any falling masonry.”  He is such a lovely man, I would follow him anywhere.  So we returned to the villa on that strange Tuesday night and were relieved to find only tiny bits of masonry on the landing that had fallen out from between the ceiling tiles.

One of many trees blown down during the Tempesta.
Il Terreno newspaper.

A church loses its steeple.
La Nazione newspaper.

Then the following night, the tempest hit.  Horrible strong cold winds that roared through the trees and rattled the shutters.  Then the pouring rain.  By now you have probably forgotten that we live in the land of wine and olive oil.  The following morning we drive to Fiano for coffee and small tree is fallen across the track, which is too difficult to move.  So my man breaks off the top brittle branches, pops them in the boot for kindling and drives around it.  Then just before the main road, a huge old famiglia tree, which has blown down next to a small house and landing on the owners workshop, is surrounded by the locals who are deciding how best to deal with it.  My man and I make concerned faces as we gaze out the window, but we are waved on by one of the men and we just squeeze by.  At Laura’s bar/alimentare, the talk is all about the weather.  Lots more trees are down and I read in the paper that a steeple blew off the top of a church tower just a few miles away!  However,  back at the villa, we managed to squeeze into a sunny corner of our lower terrace for a pre-lunch aperitivo, despite the high wind warnings.  We are a couple of die-hards for sitting outside.  Then to our horror, after lunch we discovered a big bird’s empty nest and some branches on the ground, exactly where we had been sitting an hour earlier!

Lovely laura with her gift of Mimosa from our garden. A little thank you to a hard working lady.
Photo J Finnigan.

As I write this blog on Saturday morning, the wind is still cold and strong, but, thank god, the sun is shining.  We took Laura a nice bunch of Mimosa this morning as she will be closed tomorrow which is Festa della Donna.  We were sad to hear from a lovely local lady, that it was eleven years ago today that her husband died.  One feels the emotion of the local people at times like this.  So we tried to cheer her up with some silly talk about English weather and she went away smiling.

But some good news!  Both the second edition of ‘My Father, The Assassin’ and my new book ‘The Bolivian Connection’ have had their final proofing, and hard copies are winging their way from the States for my final approval.  So, with a bit of luck, both will be available on Amazon in the next week or so!  I’ll let you know of course.

Well, must go down and see what my man has been up to in the garden.  I can hear scraping and brushing, so no doubt he is taking advantage of the dry weather, despite the cold wind.  Burrrrrrr.

Have a great week and don’t forget to drop me a line.

Amore June x

Book cover for ‘The Bolivian Connection’ – available soon.