Sunday 4th May

We elected to stay at the villa again today, we were really taking pleasure in potting around the villa in the sunshine and nothing opens on a Sunday here. Some more school work was on the agenda for the bambina and sitting out on the terrace reading was on ours! Again in the afternoon we decided to walk to the very top of via Tremonte where a small church sits right at the peak of the hill. Today being Sunday all the church’s around were tolling their huge bells and they seemed to be calling us!!! We have got a lot of enjoyment from walking around our hill, the views are stunning, watching the vineyards and olive groves come alive is striking, the smell of wood burning and the trees blossoming around the villas, is particularly fragrant. Not to forget the scattering of adorable squirrels when you surprise one occasionally!

We have also spotted woody wood peckers (they’re real and sooo cute!!) I only thought they existed in cartoons! Have I told you about our resident barn owl? He is huge and gives Leon regular frights when he decides to leave the barn in search of food. We also share our terrace with lizards just like home, but they have the most gorgeous patterned, bright green backs (even Italian lizards like to dress up) and also try to dart inside every chance they get.

At about 6:00pm an Ape putted up the driveway and we were delighted to see that it was Ernesto, but curious as to what he might want as we have such difficulty trying to converse with him. Ernesto is a bit hard of hearing, so when we try and work out what we want to say in Italian, most of the time he can’t hear us (He He). Today however he handed Leon a piece of paper and we thought immediately he has had someone write down what he wants in English! But we weren’t to be let off the hook so easily; Ernesto had given us the address of his brother in Melbourne, who he hadn’t seen in 54 years. We had an idea that he had hoped we might know of his brother, but it was just too hard to explain otherwise. We stood around for a while laughing at our difficulties in trying to communicate and then we tried to invite Ernesto in for a coffee or wine. He declined, but did let us know that he made a good grappa and we should share some sometime.