Italy in the Spring

It's kind of like summer, only there aren't so many people swimming and the surfers are still wearing wet suits.


Jagular. Mysterious.

One of the things people notice when they come to Italy is the cats. The cats, mostly feral, are everywhere. People feed them and sometimes when they are obviously injured or sick, will take them to the vet's. Each area of town has its tribes, complete with tribal markings. You can tell from their coats which cats belong to which set of rubbish bins or empty lots or abandoned buildings.

The one above is one of the train station cats in Santa Marinella.

Went to a conference a few weeks ago.

Met the very nice Cardinal Antonelli. He didn't speak a word of English, so we got on famously.


The beach at the end of my street. This is the pebble beach, which is much nicer than the sand beach, in my opinion. And you don't have to pay to get on it in July.

The posh end of town.

Posh house. Out of my price range.
I'm looking for a new apartment. My lease is up at the end of May and I'm fed up with walking up the damned hill from the train station every bloody night. Time to get closer to civilisation. I might ask those of you who pray, to ask God especially nicely to help me out.


Close to this big posh house I found a very lovely and charming park. This is notable since I have yet to find any other that could meet the description. Most "parks" I've seen so far, have been patches of weeds with some sad remnants of half-hearted attempts to put in a bench or two. This one almost looked like a real park. It had swings and a (for Italy) well-kept games ground,


a little water park sort of thing with ducks and terapins. It was clean and there was actual grass that looked as if it had been mowed. When I found it, I wondered if it were not a private thing, but the sign said "Commune di Santa Marinella" and the gate was open. As a rule, the private in Italy is beautiful, and all that is public looks as if it were abandoned after a nuclear war.


My bike-guy. V. nice and speaks a bit of Anglo. He took the pieces of bike I brought him and put them all together. I can shift gears now for the first time since I took it apart in Toronto 2 1/2 years ago. And he charged me 65E for the whole thing, including a new saddle and basket.

Good grief, I've just realised I may have found the only honest business man in Italy.

...and come to think of it, I've just noticed he's rather good looking too...

I wonder if he's married.