Views from my Tuscan ….

Back storeroom window as the wind picks up and a violent squall is forecast.

May is a capricious ( goat like?) month but this year seems more wilful than I remember. The courtyard at the Renaissance workplace of La Comtesse has just been filled with hail in fair Florentia. And I’ve just put my delicates in the spongey wet ground - peppers and melanzane. So here’s hoping they are not shredded by hail as thunder starts on the rumble.

There’s a guy strimming down the hill from us, probably 400m away, but the wind is behind him. He revs the engine on every swing of the strimmer- brrrim brrrim. It’d try the patience of a saint and he’s at it every year.

Still I was at it yesterday for two and a half hours. I used to use the thickest line I could get but after trial and error realised it breaks more easily than a stock of thinner biodegradable line I’ve got.

Wisdom can sometimes be so hard to come by.

If at all.

iPhoto pitched me a snap from five years ago. Me looking steadfast and ready to take on our new Italian world. Five years later and the Italian saying rings in my ears

L’orto vuole l’uomo morto.

Which might be translated as’ ‘Your land will kill you given half a chance’.’