The Courtyard Circular: April 2013

Winter has finally loosened its grip. On the 7th, the day of Pat's departure for a nine days trip to the UK, I stopped lighting the sitting-room fire which runs the central heating, and have only needed to light the kitchen fire once. On the 9th the lizards who live on the rupe began emerging from their winter hibernation. Since the 14th I've stopped wearing a jumper in the daytime, though the evenings are still sufficiently chilly to require one. Temperatures have reached the mid-twenties on occasions and Marche saw cloudless blue skies from the 12th to the 20th.
   Peppe and Angiola came to lunch the Thursday before Pat's departure and I stayed with them in Senigallia the day before her return on the 16th.  In the morning, before I went to pick Pat up from Ancona we visited Arcevia:

While Pat was away I dined at the Taverna in Santa Vittoria with the Cairns on the Wednesday evening, and lunched there with the Omenetti the following day.
   On Sunday the 22nd I went to the archæological site at Monte Rinaldo as part of an event organised by Francesco Capriotti, a young chap living in the village. It rained heavily all afternoon, with frequent claps of thunder and flashes of lightning. Maybe Cupra and the other Romano-Picene deities were angered by their shrine being trampled over by a motley collection of non-pagans.

The following day Pat and I went to the outskirts of Ascoli to register Daisy's change of ownership and Glynn came to supper the day after. 

  And, finally, two days ago Pat returned to England. Her flight from Ancona took off around seven hours late - they had to fly a technician out from the UK to fix a non-functioning light. I've downloaded the EU form to claim compensation on her behalf. But although her claim appears to be warranted I don't suppose for a moment O'Leary will cough up.

   If the world at large has had its problems in April - from the 3.6 million squandered by the British government on Thatcher's funeral to the Boston bombing - Montefalcone has not been immune. Early in the month, the Locanda del Lupo closed down. Bruno is transferring his restaurant to the Lungomare Sud in Porto San Giorgio. I suppose I'll have to get gas cylinders from Comunanza in future, risking another hernia as I lug them into the car. Smokers, however, are more fortunate: the tobacco licence has been transferred to the alimentari. This may have been a contributing factor to its being broken into overnight on the 23rd, once again mirroring its fictional counterpart on Radio 4. Well, perhaps only up to a point: as well as cigarettes, the thieves made off with the shop's stock of cheese and salami. I don't imagine the last two items would have appealed to Clive Horrobin.