Fiacca!

Writing this while lying on the bed, showered, drinking tea - and totally knackered. That’s the new word I leaned from our waitress last night: fiacca. Perhaps I ought to check if it has any connotations that should bar a respectable matron from using it in public, but that’ll have to wait till the fitful wifi arrives in our room again.

Meanwhile, carefully writing this offline in Notes, I shall tell you that we spent the morning in Tre Archi learning to make two puddings. To be accurate, the only contribution we made to the second was breaking ten eggs, but the other - a little dome of marzipan and chocolate-encased ricotta mixed with a few chocolate drops and a whisper of candied peel, on a sponge base, sprinkled with icing sugar- we made from rolling out the marzipan.

We followed this by eating an unexpectedly hearty lunch (ending with the cakes we made) and a sip or two of a fierce nut-based spirit before heading out to the forest for what was to have been a six-mile walk before our leader took an executive decision and cut it by more than half. I don’t think she fancied losing us all as darkness fell on a damp forest …

We’ll be eating again in two hours. Meanwhile… zzz.