Christmas cats

This is why I didn't do christmas decorations last year. The kitties were still only six months old by then. Imagine this, only times three.


Not that they've calmed down all that much even now. Cute little dickenses, but they can be pretty rambunctious.


But the year before last was Winnie's last christmas, and she was pretty quiet. Her christmas tree climbing days were over.

I figure at least I will buy some lights and a few bits and pieces. The Chinese stores have their decorations in and they're not expensive. And maybe we can even do a bird. But it's never quite the same having Christmas at the beach-o, when it can be as much as 18 degrees in December. It doesn't really start getting cold at all in S. Mar until February, and then its blink and you'll miss it. Winter is much more northern in Norcia.

I suppose this is why there are a lot more people who do christmas trees in Norcia. It's really not a thing in Lazio/Rome, so it's not only very difficult to find a live tree, but they are exceedingly expensive. I got a very nice one a few years ago for my last Christmas in the flat in Santa Marinella, but it was over a hundred Euros! This nice little one above, with the root ball attached so you could put it in a pot and it lasts for ages, was only about 30 I think.



I hope we can go up to Norcia next weekend, to bring up some supplies we've collected for distribution - including 20 plug-in heaters that are sitting in my front hall. We're going for a festa that the Nursini have been doing on December 9th since the 13th century and a group of people have decided to go ahead. It involves house-size bonfires, grilled meat, mulled wine and staying outside late and is huge fun. It's sort of the Christmas season kickoff in Norcia and the people really want to do it, and I hate to miss it. So we're going to rent or borrow a car and go up. It will give me a chance to get the house sorted and clean out the fridge and put my address on the list for the engineers to inspect, so I can start thinking about when to go home.

The earthquakes haven't stopped, so we're still sort of in limbo, but lots of people are still there and they're not waiting for the quakes to stop before doing a bunch of the work to get things up and running again. I don't feel quite right sitting down here on the coast not helping. Or at least, not being there.



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