Junefinnigan's Weblog

Benvenuti and Welcome to all my Lovely Followers around the World,

For the first time ever, last Saturday we went to a show at the Old Cinema in Fiano.  Not a lot happens there.  It is used by the local primary school for gymnastics and the occasional concert.  We were really surprised to find it newly refurbished inside and settled into our third row seat to wait for the start of a Comic Opera.  This being Italy the start time of 9pm stretched to 10pm as it takes that long for old friends and family chatting away in groups, to finally take their seats.  The set was very good and the characters funny and singing excellent.  Whilst my man and I did not understand all of it (regional dialects abounded) we did laugh in the right places and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Then at the second break, I reached for my bag, which had been carefully wedged between our seats, and my purse was gone!   To cut a long story short, the strange looking couple who had been sitting behind us, had gone too!  They were the only strangers in the place, everyone else was known to us and they were all horrified that this should happen to the English lady who had been made so welcome in the village.  The villagers hunted high and low, but it had obviously been stolen.  So I hastily cancelled my plastic cards then drove down to Certaldo at fifteen minutes past midnight to report the theft to the Carabiniere.  A sign outside said to return at 9am unless our visit was very serious and urgent.  We decided to go back on Sunday morning.  The lovely police officers were very helpful and as my purse/wallet had included all my documentation and driving licence, I had to make a written statement and apply for the police to issue a new licence!  Foto pinInterest – I make no excuses.

Through all this, I remained strangly optimistic and I said to my man “Lets check the waste bins outside the Cinema in case the theft was an unsoffisticated one and they were only interested in the cash.”  So we did, nothing.  Concerned locals asked if I had found my ‘portfolio’ and expressed their sorrow.  My man said he would take me out for a nice sunday lunch, so late morning I got ready to go, then the phone rang.  It was a signora from Fiano and her young son had found my purse on the road outside the closed bakery!  Hurrah, we stopped off at her house and were greeted at the door by a very excited boy called Giacomo, who turned out to be the young hero.  His lovely mother, Elisabetta spoke some English as she was a high school teacher.  All my documentation was intact, but the cash was gone……  For me, that was a small price to pay for getting everything else back.  The hassle of getting a new Carta Identica, driving licence etc, need I say more, this is Italy.  So, I now have a new friend called Giacomo and he has a signed book from me and a little something to spend.  We returned to the Carabiniere just in time to stop them proceeding with the driving licence application.  I doubt if they will be able to do much about the loss of cash, but they do have the names of the strangers sat behind us, assuming they are not false, as the theatre layout needed names for all the seats.  But hey ho, life eeez good, life eeez now!

And so to lighter things and I read in the paper that the amazing Italian singer Patty Pravo, now aged seventy, is still performing!  She of the amazing gravelly yet sexey voice, and without an ounce of fat, is still wowing her audiences.  If David Bowie had wanted a female look-a-like, Patty would have been perfect.  A big hit in sixties Italy, she reinvented herself in the mid-nineties and hit the charts again.  If you would like to listen to an italian female singer with attitude, Patty is for you.  Patty’s site

And now for something completely different.  All you lovers of Tuscany may not be aware that we have a thriving grain industry.  No, it’s not all vines and olives!  Wheat, Barley and Corn and other crops I cannot recall, are all grown here.  Also, of course, big fields of sunflowers for their seeds.  Italy does have a growing beer industry, so that’s one route some of these grains might take.  And, of course, Tuscany’s very own pasta made from local wheat.

This then leads us on to the other Italian drink, so very popular with the men as a digestivo, yes you are right Grappa.  Grappa is a fragrant, grape-based pomace brandy of Italian origin that contains 35 to 60 percent alcohol by volume.  I’m not too keen on it, we more northern europeans would more likely choose a port after dinner.  Mind you, after my purse theft experience, I might just drink anything!

Anyway, enough about alcohol, time to think about lunch.  The sun is shining and I took ten minutes out this morning to soak up some vitimin D in the garden.  How I miss doing that!  But it’s the run up to Christmas, which is so exciting!  So we don’t care about that.  I’ve bought us a joint present of a new record player for all our old LPs, better known as vinyls these days…….  I’ll send you a foto after Christmas!

Do drop me a line, I love to hear from you.  And visit my author site at June’s site

Have a great week and a big thank you again to Giacomo, my little star.

Salute June xx