Sargassum

'Sargassum was named by the Portuguese sailors who found it in the Sargasso Sea after a species of rock rose (Helianthemum) that grew in their water wells at home and that was called sargaço in Portuguese' (Wikipedia).

I took Mike up to Pisa for his return flight to Sheff. He has instilled in me that bemoaning the driving habits and/or traffic-cum-road conditions in Italy - never mind anywhere else - is akin to bemoaning the moods of the sea. Take it as a given and move on and don't get so I need to come and get you down off the ceiling just because you're bloody driving.

It's a good philosophy and let's you concentrate on getting even instead of mad.

Driving to pick Mike up a few days ago  I had a guy pull alongside me at high speed and make out (shouting in Italian) that I had hit his wing mirror whilst overtaking on the superstrada to Pisa. It seemed very unlikely.

He pulled in to emergency lay-bys twice and invited me to join him. Which I declined. Eventually I decided to pull off the dual carriageway rather than risk an escalation. Convinced that it was probably a scam.  I did a long dog-leg detour to miss out a section of the road.

Today returning from the drop-off I saw a foreign camper van pulled up on the other side of the barrier with a little white car in front and the guy from the car making a kind of 'you hit my wing mirror' sign with his two hands.

So now in traffic and in difficult conditions I visualise the turgid Sargasso sea, undulating almost imperceptibly under a blazing sun, the bubbles of noxious gas rising and bursting like belching frogs in heat.

It helps in a strange kind of way.

As I write my Mum is in the operating theatre at the John Radcliffe in Oxford undergoing a hip replacement after a fall that broke her femur. Here's hoping.