Tuscan patchwork

On the approach toFlorence.

Those car park fees were happily attenuated. Just €41 for the week.

Great flight, just a quarter full, Edinburgh airport v quiet. All well at the house. The great mound of bagged walnuts on the balcony had not been molested by our diminutive black squirrels.

But strange to be back, as if I’ve put on a different set of clothes.

I bought some fresh sardines from the fish counter at the co-op. I mentioned I was just in from Scotland. The woman serving rolled her eyes upwards and said with an almost (and in my experience almost universal) longing:

‘Ma che bello la Scozia’

I passed her subsequently being harangued by the butchery foreman for putting packaged meats in the wrong bays. (The co-op is now under the oppressive management of the Florentine big boys.)

She whispered sottovoce, ‘I’m coming back to La Scozia with you.’