DON'T GIVE UP
I am still here!!! Just back from the joys of Switzerland. I will retro-post as soon as I get over a couple of deadlines that are looming and approaching fast...
Wanted to post a quick pic to add some colour to the page but Blogger seems to be on strike, sorry.


So it is working now!

PROFITEROLES SAVE THE DAY
Today is World Women’s Day, so Idoia bought some mimosa for Luigi… she also purchased lunch for me which was a saviour! Blasting sunshine and a fresh breeze kept us company as we munched through melanzane alla parmigiana and basically caught up – or rather whilst she updated me on the developments of her mad life and I gave her an ear full about my morning trip to the Ministry. It should have been a defining moment, instead it was the usual. I arrived on time only to be made to wait. I was expecting challenging stuff only to discover I lugged my laptop some 300km to enter edits into the desktop… ahhh life in Roma.

SNIFFER SUNRISE, NOT ANOTHER COCKTAIL
Alba is now part of our lives. At precisely one year of us living in Cortona, we collected her for Pozzuolo. Expecting trained, astute and guard to all define her, we were taken aback to be handed over a petrified hound. She looked as if she had just been beaten up or abandoned – the latter, she in fact had. Not quite fitting the bill for the sniffer or anti-terrorist divisions of the Guardia della Finanza, we have taken her in, hoping that she will eventually learn. Poor sausage has never really been out of the training compound, and at the tender age of two, still has a lot to absorb…

PAINTING PARADISE
Luca Signorelli is a delight. Cortona’s museo diocesano provided us with an eyeful of bliss. The beauty of his paintings of the Madonna and the shepherds were enough to fill the whole weekend. And he came from our village, so what more can we ask?

PREACHING FROM ABOVE
Marc Clanet (check out Marco and Brigitte) sent me this brilliant link about bird flu: L'eveque des Landes recommande aux fideles de manger de la volaille pendant le Carême - on href="http://archquo.nouvelobs.com/cgi/articles?ad=societe/20060302.FAP1023.html (you will have to copy paste, as the link option will not work...) Once read, I immediately took to the steps of the Comune here to demand that they say the same thing. Now, you public, go out there and stuff your faces with chicken will you, Friday or not, I don’t want any excuses!

WHAT COULD I BECOME?
That is what I have been up to this week; driving myself up the wall, round the bend, up the spout. I have quizzed, brainstormed, assessed and evaluated a whole range of options, whilst driving up and down to Figline Val d’Arno, testing mais for aflatoxins, washing, baking and putting on two kilos. I am trying so hard to figure out what I should be doing that even my body has stopped functioning and is no longer burning calories, in an attempt to find the big breakthrough. Send in your thoughts, they are well-needed.