I’ll take another November please

Now we are into our first ever December in Italy we enter unknown territory.  We’ve always left by mid November with a car full of our own olive oil and enough local wine to see us through a UK winter.  We’ve no idea what to expect, though the way all the neighbours have disappeared back to Rome leaving us alone on the bare mountain is a bit worrying.  We once spent New Year here and it was fine, I seem to remember some sunshine, but that was only a week.  So far December has been cooler and quite wet, not enough to keep us indoors but maybe a foretaste of things to come.

November was perfect, such bright sunny days and though temperatures didn’t rise above 15 degrees there has been real heat in the sun and no rain at all.  We’ve made great progress outside, Mr FF keeps building and I keep gardening.  

I was surprised to see the berginia are flowering already.  I think of them as spring plants but they add to the welcome winter colour to the front garden.

We are pretty well stocked with what we need, our little freezer is full although it makes a strange noise now and again.  It’s only about 18 months old and of course wasn’t used for 8 months while we were in the UK so we shall be very cross if it breaks down.  The logs we ordered to be delivered Monday or Tuesday of this week did not arrived, when we contacted the woodman he said he was having problems which his vehicle and couldn't deliver before Thursday, today he said maybe Friday or Saturday. Meantime Mario put us in touch with a friend who delivered 200 kilos of good logs this afternoon.  We will still take the original order, can’t have too much firewood, so far we’ve managed with just the wood burner and not used the central heating.

Of course there are two cats who are very pleased we are still around, we left them for 8 months to live and eat outside, they are making up for lost time.  If Mr FF and I keep this snuggly over winter we shall be fine.