My year so far

We got home yesterday afternoon, back to the snow and slush though fortunately the house with its leaky boiler had been fine. The only damage happened when the coal man had delivered unexpectedly, slid down the drive into one of the gate pillars and completely demolished it, he kindly left a note asking us to contact him.

So the trip to Italy far exceeded my expectations, I didn't imagine the weather would be quite so good, bright sunny days with hardly any rain. The stove worked brilliantly, we lit it when we arrived, even though it was around 10.30 pm, and kept it going the whole time we were there. We bought a large rug to place in front of the stove and reduce the expanse of chilly ceramic tiles, how cosy we were.

We didn't really do any work at the house apart from the relaxing kind, Mr FF chopping wood and me pottering in the garden. We had several trips out that I will tell you about later, visited and were visited by friends, received many gifts of food and drink and saw in the New Year in the village. A table of 14 in the local restaurant, we enjoyed a huge dinner with live music and dancing as did other Italian families including of course small (and completely well behaved)children. Champagne was served at midnight as the whole valley erupted with fireworks, we have never seen anything like it. Around 1 am we ate cotechino, a type of sausage accompanied by lentils, a traditional New Years dish that will bring us good fortune. We left around 2.30 am despite pleas from the kitchen staff that we stay as they would soon be serving croissants, local biscuits, chocolate and other treats. 2011 so far has been full of good times and kindness. Not a lot of knitting though, I only produced one pair of socks in Italy, my buon anno socks that I hope will return to Italy with me before too long.