Junefinnigan's Weblog

Benvenuti to all my lovely Loyal and New Followers

Il Liberazione Parade in Certaldo.
foto J Finnigan

Today, Monday, is a festa (holiday) in celebration of Il Liberazione, that is when the Germans surrendered at the end of the Second World War.  But we are unable to stop work due to the backlog and I really want to get this blog to you!

I could write a whole book about last week and call it ‘Moving House in Tuscany and Keeping One’s Sense of Humour’.  It would have all the ingredients including mystery, adventure, success and failure.  We have a saying here for many things and it is ‘Only in Italy.’

Only in Italy do you have to report your change of address directly to the town commune offices by appointment.  Then only in Italy, when your commune man goes on his computer will he find that your wonderful new, yet very old,  home does not exist!   So our commune man rings his colleague Uri who wants us to identify where it is on the map.  He asks if it has a big oak tree outside the main gate and is it close to a certain agriturismo property? We say yes.  OK, Uri happily tells our man that our new address was changed to something completely different five years ago!

Acacia Trees below our new garden.
foto J Finnigan

Acacia blossom after the rain. Foto J Finnigan

Now, just to add spice to this, our commune man also pointed out that I must change my UK driving licence to an Italian one.  You cannot own a car here unless you have an Italian licence.   In anticipation of being told this, I had already made an appointment at the local ACI office to get it changed this coming Tuesday and I told him so.   “Well, I will renew your Identity Card when you bring me your new driving licence.” He announced.  Only in Italy…

So anyway, enough of that!  The Acacia trees are full of blossom and it has rained heavily for the last forty-eight hours watering the parched vineyards and olive groves, so the countryside smells and looks fabulous.

Farty Barty “I’m just popping back up to the old house, see you in a few days..”

Oh yes, I should mention that five days ago Farty Barty the cat went AWOL and almost certainly had gone back to our old house again, just up the track.  He has disappeared for that long before when the girlies were on heat, but this is different and I have found myself getting rather too stressed about it.  So this morning and for the third time since we have moved, we go back with the cat cage, but there was no sign of him.  We sadly drive home both silently thinking that it would be purrfect if he were to return to the new house of his own accord.  And would you believe it, there he was, as bold as brass, waiting on the outside doormat to be let in!!  As I write, he is curled up at my feet, so today we have a happy ending.

Have a great week and many happy endings of your own.

salute June x

PS  do visit my author site at http://www.amazon.com/author/junefinnigan

‘My Father, The Assassin’. Book one in the series.

‘The Bolivian Connection’ Book two in the series.