If it weren't for the fact that this is malaria central I'd be sitting outside right now.  It has been a beautiful day.  Blue skies, 72 degrees.  But we have the worst freaking micro-skeeter problem.  There is a lot of green around us and probably standing water in all of the gardens.  And despite spraying in spring and summer we swarmed.  Grace sat out in the sun for half an hour last time here and came in with 22 bites.  The Maine woods ain't got nuthin' on this place.

I have a friend here, an American gal who works with me, who spent all last year preparing to do half of Il Cammino di Santiago in Northern Spain.  She walked over an hour to work each day and hiked most weekends.  She bought all the right clothes and booked hostels and hotels along the route.  She planned on taking it slowly, she's a couple years older than I am, and gave herself 12 days to do it.  Along the way she began to feel unwell and assumed she was just not as in shape as she had hoped but she trudged on and made to the end where, instead of spending a few relaxing days in the celebratory spa she had booked, she collapsed and spent a few days in the ICU of the local Spanish hospital.  Complete heart failure.  She returned to Italy where she had open heart surgery and spent the rest of the summer, and up til now, recovering!  The woman walked about 225 miles in heart failure!  And I bitch and complain about hiking up a stupid little mountain!  Anywho... so last Saturday I took her shopping and we had a little picnic in the hills.  Sunday I did this:

Who's the big girl??

moi

Year 7.

So these are the messages I get from the daughter in London.

10am  "Was just about to go out and it started pouring.  Guess I'll have to wait til later."
10:02am "Just kidding.  Now the sun's out."
10:06am "Raining again.  I'm wet."

Just a little aside.

I've been back more than a month.  Italy is just coming out of the throws of a many months long heatwave.  This past summer was one of the hottest on record.  Hi 80s and 90s daily up until last week and it has rained only twice since I've been here.  Some plants in my garden are literally cooked.  The leaves are brown and shriveled but not from lack of watering as GP watered nightly all summer and I've kept it up.  I never thought I'd say I'd love a cool, rainy day.  But Grace is getting all of those.

I managed a last beach trip the first weekend I was back.  A friend and I went to Noli, my favorite little seaside town, and swam and sunned all day.  It was lovely.  Noli was once part of the great Maritime Republics along with Amalfi, Genova, Pisa and Venice between 1000 and about 1300.  It's slightly less touristic as isn't on the trainline nor reachable by highway.  It's on it's own bay surrounded by looming hills covered in maritime pines and olive trees. There's a tiny ancient center with twisty, narrow roads and even a castle atop one of the hills.  Usually it takes a little over an hour to drive there but we ran into a lot of backed up traffic due to the bridge that collapsed in Genova.  Though Genova is a good hour south of our destination, the bridge was on a major highway and has messed up traffic everywhere on the coast.  When I think of the number of times we have driven over it I get chills.  Everyone is blaming everyone else and no conclusions nor definite plans for rebuilding have been made.  It's a mess.  It's Italian.

Then 2 weeks ago GP dragged me off on our first ventures into the mountains of the year.  VentureS.  With an S.   He wasn't happy with one hike per weekend but had to make it two.  Or at least for me.  Saturday was a reasonably easy climb with lovely FLAT areas through vineyards and past farms.  I survived.  Sunday HE did a via ferrata which I refuse to do for the sake of my sanity, so I hiked up to the top of the mountain that he was climbing.  It was already well into the 70's early on and it was STEEP.  When I first started up from the little village of San Ambrogio, a vital center of the Italian communist party, I met an old man with wonderful white mustaches, curled and waxed, who was just coming Down.  He must have started ot at 5 in the morning and he was as fresh as a daisy.  Geesh.  The hike is a popular Via Cruces with crosses at every few turns.  I needed them as I pretended to be very pious and stopped to study them intently and catch my breath.  All the 80 year olds that passed me probably though I was praying as I was on my knees, hand clasped to me breast.  Actually I was near fainting. 

My final destination was the Sagra di San Michele.  My patron saint should be nicer to me.   When I got to the top I bought a cold beer and threw myself down to snooze while waiting for GP.  Up was bad enough.  Down was very very bad!  My knees are a mess.  Going for x-rays on Friday.  No more mountains for a while for me.

Today instead we went to the annual Tripe festival in Moncalieri.  Yes.  TRIPE.  It is taken very seriously here.  The fair was packed with thousands of hungry people.  A scary thing to see in this country.  There is even a Brotherhood of the Tripe.  A fraternal organization dedicated to all things tripe.  I did not eat any but took photos for posterity.

The HUGE cauldron where the Tripe is cooked in the tradition local manner.  It stinks.

Your truly with members of the Knights of the Tripe

All manners tripe

I'm having salad tonight.  Sort of off meat at the moment.  xxoo me