Snow tyres

The Boss needed to be in early and after consulting various weather sites I decided to head out to the Consuma pass in the hope of getting through to the garage on the other side that was holding our winter tyres.

Italian highway law makes the use of winter tyres or chains compulsory on many roads from 15th November.

The snow began at 800m and got steadily thicker. It was wet sticky stuff and had clearly brought down some trees and great clots of the stuff fell on the car. The ploughs had been out and the road although very wet was clear and ice free even though the temp sunk to 0 at the top of the pass.

It was a very different world in the Casentino from two weeks ago. There has been lots and lots of rain and a cold NE was blowing scudding clouds along the mountain tops.

I got to the garage and hung around for the main man to come down from his house above the fantastic workshop with not a diagnostic machine in sight - just a massive lathe and other impressive engineering machines in the back.

I eventually got my turn and the tyres were changed in twenty minutes of so. It turned out the older guy had lived in our house in the 1950s for 5 years - maybe during the time when sharecropping (mezzadria) was still a big part of Tuscan agricultural life. He said the people who had followed them had mercilessly exploited the land and that at one time there were lots of fruit trees and vines.

I drove up the house after but it was cold and wet and my acute toothache that has been plaguing me for the least three days (I have a two hour root canal appointment tomorrow) made me feel a bit low and I decided to head back over the pass.

The road was very empty but the sun shone over the vineyards on the other side once down out of the pine plantations. The land looks increasingly bare, the autumn colours drummed into the ground by the rain.