Happy New Year

Happy New Year from Italy

These are the church bells just 20 yards from our house and which Suellen can sleep through at 7am when they ring for the first mass.

When planning the trip Suellen bought a small Italian/English dictionary to help with translation problems.

As we enter our fourth week here it has becoming something of a joke. Every time we have looked up a word it has not been in the dictionary. The only words we have found that we wanted were ironing board and firelighters.

Suellen looked up the word for fireworks - fuochi d'artificio - and armed with that we went into town for the final shop of 2008. In our local veg shop, Suellen asked if the town had fireworks
"La città ha fuochi d'artificio stasera"
"No", she said, "No fireworks"
Since my stroke I don't do late nights, so after a good supper, off to bed with a book.
Midnight
Bang, bang, bigger bang, woosh.
Up we get, throw on some clothes, up on to the roof.
The town was alive with bangs, flashes and colourful bursts of light illuminating the harbour, the church tower and the towns along the coast.
So we went out into the town - not much life on the streets. The Fra Stefano restaurant was having a boisterous party. Otherwise just young boys setting off home made bangers and rockets.
So back to bed.
We plan to light our last fire in the house with the dictionary - obviously published by the "My postilion has been struck by lightning" school of language courses.