The Courtyard Circular: October and November 2013.

October.

After a wet and relatively cold spell at the beginning of the month the weather improved  and remained good until October was almost over -  22º at San Lorenzo on the 28th - before rain arrived on the 29th and the temperature dropped to the mid-teens.

  Pat was in England from the 6th to the 12th but Tony and Shona arrived for the Sagra on the 7th, Jane on the 5th and John and Judi on the 11th. I had lunch at Peppe and Angiola's together with Tony and Shona on the 10th and Pat and I had supper with the Cairns at the Taverna on the 17th.

 On the 20th Peppe and Angiola took me to visit Calascio a village in the Monti della Laga in Abruzzo:

 

We then went on to L'Aquila which despite Berlusconi's promise to rebuild the city quickly still looks like a modern version of Pompei over four years after the earthquake which killed 297 people in the city and its hinterland.

Click here to see other photos of the trip.

October's other positive event was finding Meg safe and well after she had disappeared overnight on the 23rd.

Now for the bad news! 

November.

Things have continued to fall apart. Although I got the computer back with a new graphics card last month the coffee machine decided to pack up at the beginning of November, just before I went to the UK for Dave's seventieth, and to look after Quinn and attend the OEs' Bristol dinner. We took it to Porto d'Ascoli to be repaired when I got back, picked it up last Saturday and found that the problem was still there so I've taken it back today.

   Snow arrived on the 25th, and on the 26th I woke to find it had snowed very heavily overnight. 

It began thawing on the 28th.

  Although my computer was repaired gratis, it ended up costing me 80 euros as I managed to be caught twice by speed cameras: the first time going to Ascoli to take the computer to be repaired and the second when I went to pick it up.