The Courtyard Circular: March and April

Last month, I wrote that we were beginning to emerge from our hibernal slumber and engage in some social interaction. We have built on those foundations and I am pleased to announce the following attempts to develop into normal human beings.

March 26th - 31st. Maggie and Phil stayed with us. They did their own thing during the day, visiting their friends and reacquainting themselves with the area, but we spent extremely convivial and well-lubricated evenings together. The evening before they left they treated us to dinner at the Farfense.

March 25th. Term began for the dayboys.
   Jane came for dinner on the 26th and the three of us had a walk together on the other side of the Aso Valley the following Saturday. Jane wanted to see her house in situ.

   John and Judy arrived on Good Friday and we had a meal withe them and Jane at Re Artù on Holy Saturday. John, being Scottish, was not amused by the reservation note on our table: "Gli inglesi'!
   Jane left on Easter Day as she had to be on flying granny duty in Dubai the following week
  Tony and Shona arrived on Low Sunday to a nasty surprise: three of their upstairs radiators and their shower had sprung leaks owing to the severe winter. A large flat radiator on the landing had been buckled into a curve by the frozen water.

   On the 17th April we had dinner at Lupo's with John and Judy - who were leaving for the Amalfi Coast the following day - and Tony and Shona. 

   Term ended with Tony and Shona driving back to England on the 26th.

House moving. On 4th April I helped Penny and Paul get their stuff into the removal van prior to their taking off for Liguria.

On Friday 13th April we had a follow-up meeting about tourism at Angela's house. I took along an English tourist guide I'd compiled  for non-Italian speaking visitors to the village. Pat brought along information on dye plants which could be planted in the proposed dye garden.

April 18th - 23rd: UK. Click here for movie of our visit.

   On the 19th we drove and walked through the rain to Jamie's Italian Restaurant in Cambridge for Candy's birthday lunch. 

Her previous birthday we'd also eaten Italian, but in a real Italian restaurant in glorious sunshine! Debbie joined us for lunch, a post-prandial wander around Cambridge, and afternoon tea at Patisserie Valerie. 

   On the 20th we got round to eating the birthday cake which we'd been too stuffed to eat the day before.

   On the 21st I went over to Leicester to see Dave and Sue. As I've mentioned before, Dave has taken up vaping in a very serious way. He has a vast array of devices, of which only a small selection is shown in the photo below:

Dave very generously gave me an electronic pipe - something I'd coveted for some time - together with a selection of 'juices' to vape.

  Having returned from Leicester on the 22nd, I went with Candy and Quinn to see Matthew performing at Old Hunstanton Social Club. To my amazement I found several fellow-vapers there, although like Dave they weren't  using devices which pretended to be real cigars.

   The following day at Stansted I was taken aside by a rather attractive security officer to have my case thoroughly searched. No doubt the various phials of 'juice' Dave had given me, which I'd placed in the regulatory plastic bag, combined with the large number of cables - to charge my electronic gadgets - which the scanner would have revealed to be inside my case, made me look a potential bomber. As we were in good time for the plane, the girl was pretty and affable, and I've no problem with genuine security measures as opposed to Ryanair's pointless rules I suppressed my inner-Meldrew.

Pat flew to England yesterday to resume Flying Granny duties. She returns on Sunday before going back again in June. But for me, there'll be no more social intercourse until July.