What a glorious sunny day so we walked Daisy around the Church of The Clarisse Sisters. We are avoiding the park at the moment as signs have gone up warning about the Processionary Caterpillars. Last year we learnt how dangerous these beasties are and so are keeping well clear. I thought the freezing temperatures over February might have killed them off but way up in the pines the web pouches that contain the larvae and then the caterpillars, are still visible. After our walk we stopped off at Bar degli Artisti for a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice ‘una spremuta’. The oranges at the moment are blood oranges from Calabria and Sicily. We bought a whole box for €6 and had fresh orange juice for a week; what a luxury.
Home again I decided to tackle the light fitting for the guest bedroom. This a horrible laquered brass effect over a base metal so no loss if it doesn’t work out well. I have decided to paint this one in graphite and then dry brush a gold over the top. The Annie Sloan chalk paint in graphite is not covering the laquered finish very well so I will apply another coat tomorrow, even though I do want some touches of gilt to show through. The sun was really beating down on my work table out in the garden and so I thought a cup of mint tea might be nice. I climbed onto the flowerbed to pick some mint leaves and fell against the Seville Orange Tree trunk. Unfortunately the trunk has 2 cms woody spines around it and one of these pierced by arm. It was very deep and so after washing the wound I felt it would be best to go to our local medical centre which still has an emergency room left from when it was our local hospital. Fortunately there was no queue and the doctor cleansed and dressed the puncture wound. My tetanus jab is up to date so in under an hour I was back home.
Summer must have arrived as our local gelateria and bar, Delyziosa, have given in and put their table and chairs out onto the pavement in the main square. They are also selling their home made ice-cream which I asked them about last week as Bar Marconi and Bar degli Artisti have been selling ice cream for a couple of weeks now, but this gelateria makes their own and is very good. We tried the pistacchio and the coconut and cream, just to ensure that standards are being upheld, and after all my excitement I thought I deserved a treat. The town was really quiet too hence the photo of the piazza for once not a car park.
Time for another stroll with Daisy but as it was such a lovely evening, we arranged with our friend P. to go to nearby Monteleone d’Orvieto for a walk around town and a pizza at ‘Seven Pizzeria’. We chose a Burrata pizza, with fresh Burrata mozarella, basil leaves and tasty little pomodorino tomatoes. Finished with a drizzle of their own olive oil and it was delicious. Jamie had the Siciliana pizza: tomato sauce, mozzarella, scamorza ( a smoked cheese), courgettes and parmesan shavings.
Sunflowers and Saffron 