The Courtyard Circular: May & June

Term has begun and the day-boys are slowly trickling in. Jane has been here since the middle of May, Norman and Jayne arrived on Tuesday, John and Judy arrive today, and Tony and Shona next Wednesday.

On the 27th of May we had the chimneys swept which led to the discovery that many of our roof-tiles had been damaged by the winter's heavy snow. Fortunately the sweep's brother was a roofer and he replaced the damaged tiles over the following two Saturdays.

Also on the 27th, together with Jane and Angela and Peppe Omenetti, I went on an excursion organised by the Tartufi association of Amandola. It was led by an expert on wild orchids and we spent a day in the Sibillini foothills examining innumerable species. Rather wasted on me: I think wild flowers are attractive but learning about them in detail is about as exciting as watching a cricket match. However, the lunch at the Rifugio di Amandola was excellent. The following Tuesday, as Pat is interested in flowers - though, thank heavens, she's not so perverse as to find cricket  worth watching - I took her to the first wild-flower meadow I'd visited with the group. I'd taken a photo of  the meadow on my iPhone and TomTom satnav allows you to navigate to a photograph. Not a feature I'd previously thought would ever be useful.

Pat was in the UK from the 8th to the 16th June and Dave came over from the 11th to the 15th to keep me company. The weather in England was awful and she was glad to get back to an Italy basking in temperatures in the high twenties; this week it climbed into the mid-thirties. However, there was a downside to Italy's lacking the UK's rainfall. Having, in Pat's absence, to do all the watering I got up at six every morning  to walk the dogs, and water the orto and the courtyard. As Dave and I sat up until the small hours drinking and reminiscing I was absolutely knackered by the time Pat arrived in Ancona at twenty to nine on the evening of the 16th. Have just about recovered now. As I mentioned in the last circular, Dave is heavily into vaping. Just as the internet site, iLounge, has a section for Apple fanboys to display photos of their iPhones in exotic locations, so one of the vaping forums displays pictures of vapers' equipment in interesting places. I accordingly took this photo for Dave to display.