Welcome and Benvenuti to all My Lovely Followers
We have just had heavy overnight rain. “So what?” I hear you say. The UK has virtually had no summer and we are excited about the arrival of rain! Yes, I know, large parts of the World have been deluged with terrible storms and our thoughts are with those people struggling with loss of life and property. But, here in Tuscany, it has been over three months without a drop of the refreshing stuff. Now the countryside smells wonderfully damp and the vines are sighing with relief. The crazy thing is, until today it has been too hot to work outside, now it is too wet! But lets move on…. Foto Storms clouds arriving, J Finnigan.
Meanwhile, down in Certaldo, the Saturday morning market arrived as usual, with all the local growers selling seasonal fruit and veg. 
Last week I mentioned the Certaldo Red Onion and was disturbed to hear a tourist guide beside me telling a group of American tourists all about the onion, whilst standing next to baskets of red onions that were, in my opinion, the Statina variety and not the bright red Vernina as she was indicating. You really do need to know your onions in Certaldo and it’s important to ask the vendor if they are ‘The Certaldo Onion’ and which variety they are. Now I am not trying to be clever here , and I would be very happy to have one of you knowledgeable readers put me right, if you think I am wrong! See Foto. Also, you cooks out there could tell me, which are the best varieties for the various cooking methods. Grazie Mille! Foto J Finnigan.
It is also the season for Fichi (figs to you and me) and at Ristorante C’era Una Volta in Lucardo, they were on the menu last week. Paolo the owner, grows all his own fruit and veg and the freshly picked Fichi were not going to last long. So I had my fill on two separate days in the week! Yummy. Foto J Finnigan.
Ok, enough 
about food! Back in our local village of Fiano and over coffee, I read a fascinating article by Paolo Pejrone in La Repubblica, about ‘walking’ Olive Trees. Well, you only have to see the pictures to understand why, and amazing to look at they are too. As olive trees get older they can take on the most amazing shapes and characters! Fotos Alejandro Chasklelberg.
Meanwhile, the Regional Election in Sicily is hotting up and it seems that the Rock Star of Politics, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star party, is currently slashing its way through the front-line. I love this magazine cover that depicts his rivals as either blind or struggling to see. But I am glad to see Silvio on the hustings promoting his Forza Italia party, it certainly puts the colour back in. I’ll just go and check when the elections actually take place, so don’t go away, I’ll be back in a minute…. OK, that didn’t take long; the election is on 5th November and the winning party will be found using some kind of complicated ‘proportional representation’ system. Whoever wins, the current President Rosario Crocetta will go, as he has not been candidated by his own party due to lack of popularity! I won’t go any deeper than that! But I’ll keep you posted.
From a personal point of view, I will be back into my fourth book ‘Assassin’s List’ next week and organising a big marketing splurge of my three published books in the series ‘The Continuing Adventures of Joanna Wilde,’ in time for Christmas. So watch out for that. There’s nothing like unwrapping a new paperback book at Christmas! Visit my site at June’s author site or any Amazon site around the world, or simply Google June Finnigan. If you want to be notified directly of the Christmas promotion, send your email address to june.finnigan@virgin.net
Have a great week and do drop me a line, I love to hear from you.
Salute June x
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