Junefinnigan's Weblog

Welcome and Benvenuti to all my Lovely Followers around the World

Yes, it’s that time of year when we are reminded that summer has arrived.  Firstly it was the arrival of a swarm of Honey bees, trying to find their queen, which like last year, decided to hone in on our property.  We rushed to shut them out leaving a few stragglers.  All went quiet then an ominous buzzing sound came down the chimney.  My man went outside and yes a crowd of the blighters were around the chimney pot.  So on a beautiful warm May day we lit a log fire and kept it going all day; finally the queen decided to leave!  Phew.  Have you had any swarming experiences?

Then there was the sound of a mosquito (zanzari) next to my ear.  We were sitting soaking up the evening sunshine with a nice gin & tonic and the little devil found me.  My man says it’s because I’m hot stuff, bless him!  The thing is, I am always warm and the mozzies will find me.  If I hear that eeeeeeeeee sound, then I know the nasty thing has already bitten me and is laughing as it flies away!  But no worries, we have all the netting up at the windows now and lots of lemon candles and creams out.  I don’t believe in harming or killing insects, but that mosquito will get a whack if it comes near me again!  Foto ecdc.europa.eu

But on a much lighter note, other less threatening creatures are also arriving.  The beautiful Long-horned Beetle for example.  We see one every year, but never with friends or family. They like to eat decaying bark and old wood, we have lots of this and some very interesting ones too.  The loose bark hides lizards and insects, sometimes even small rodents.  Our morning walks around the garden, which is full of old trees, is always fascinating.  Foto P Finnigan

Well, things are looking brighter here I’m glad to say.  Many factories and distributors opened last Monday and a lot of local people have returned to work.  Some additional shops have also opened and walkers are back out and about on our track.  Yes, I know, as I said last week it’s not really our track, but it has been so quiet for the last nine weeks, we have claimed it as our own!  I’m convinced that  the group of people who turned up and stared through our gate yesterday were foreign tourists.  How they got here, heaven knows, I suppose it may be possible to drive across European borders?

The most welcome change has been permission to visit close family members in small groups.  So last Tuesday we went over to our daughter’s house to see the family and grandkids and Monty the dog.  So lovely to spend time with them after nine weeks of lockdown.  Our granddaughter baked a gluten and egg free carrot cake in my honour and our daughter produced a huge strawberry pavlova, which is my man’s favourite!  We enjoyed good wine and lunch in the garden, all carefully spaced out, but not too far apart!  Thank you my darlings.

Well, enough for now.  Hopefully, just another few weeks and I’ll be reporting what it’s like to be back to normal, or rather the New Normal, in Beautiful Tuscany.

Have a good week and stay safe.

Salute June xx

PS Visit my book site at  June’s site