P.S. Rowena is M.I.A

Yeah, and I think I liked her better when I KNEW where she was!!!!!
We had a windstorm on Sat night and when we went to take the dogs for a walk on Sunday, Rowena was nowhere to be seen. It looks like the storm blew her web away so who knows where she is now. Maybe she made a new web further into the bush where its sheltered. Maybe she perished in the storm.

All I know is that if she tries to cross the borders into The Land of Burwell.......... I WILL declare war, and I will win.

Vorrai sei francobolli per il Canada per favore!!!

I'm not kidding when I tell you that I repeated that phrase ALL the way from Basiglio to Milano 3 and I STILL had to look at it just before I went into the post office to say

"I would like six stamps for Canada please"

BUT.....I did manage to get my six Canadian stamps, and seven to the UK, AND pay....all without speaking a word of English. I was pretty freaking proud of myself!!!!

Big day here in Basiglio today, you guessed it, the local grocery store re-opened after some major renovations. I got a free carrier bag for shopping there today, VERY exciting!!!! It is pretty exciting in my world actually because it means I can get some groceries during the day when Richard has the car at work. Well, we actually don't have a car anymore since Ken got here yesterday and his rental car is now back with him. We would LIKE to buy a cheap car but in order to do that the official lease paperwork needs to come back from the office in Madrid, be signed by our rental agent and our landlord(both of whom are currently on vacation...its August) and then Richard takes it to the town office in Basiglio and they have to do more paperwork to grant him a residency permit(which we've been assured he will get because he's living in Basiglio and is an EU citizen. Once THAT paperwork comes back then we can buy a car and register it. So it might be another month or so before all that happens!!!!! We're thinking of renting a car during that time but we're going to see how it goes.

It was really hot here today, I think it was around 29 or 30 Celcius, but with the humidity they said it felt like 36 C. I turned on the AC in the house because I was MELTING!!!

Sky Italia is supposed to come tomorrow to hook up the TV. We got my laptop working on our tv here so we can watch true blood and things from the slingbox that is hooked up to my mom's cable!!!!

Rowena STILL hasn't moved.

I think that's all I have to report today!!!

There is a GIGANTIC spider living in my yard

I've named her Rowena....Rowena Ragno(Italian for spider!!) She is HUGE, and she might be dead because she hasn't moved in the last 2 days since I "discovered" her. I'll let you know if she goes MIA once of these days, I hope to god she doesn't have babies because I don't think I could handle it!!!! I can't kill her either because she really isn't doing me any harm hanging out in the bush. I took an up close picture of her with my zoom lens.

Ok so this is the bush where Rowena lives near the back stairs, and Rowena herself crazy web hey!?

We also have a fig tree in our backyard, its a BIG fig tree and I have NO idea what to do with figs!!!! Brandy and Harry(who works with Richard) live in the same complex as us and are from Texas, and apparently Brandy knows what to do with figs so I'm inviting her over for a fig picking party!!!!!!
Seriously if anyone has any great recipes that have figs in it PLEASE let me know!!!!!!!!!

Other than the gigantic spider and the crazy figs I absolutely love it here. Its hotter than hell here but I feel like I'm on vacation in Mexico or something and when it gets too overwhelming I turn on the AC :)

The language barrier is frustrating at times but we usually manage to make it work, and I'm now carrying around my little Italian dictionary with me and once I get 3G hooked back up to the phone then itranslate will also help me out :) I managed to understand from the man at the greenhouse who spoke NO English the other day that lemon scented geraniums/citronella plants are only sold in the Spring here, and sometimes you can get them into early july but they are always all gone by August!! I was pretty proud of myself for understanding that! The bugs here are pretty bad, we're near rice paddies so the mosquitos are horrific. The wasps are better now that I put up the fake wasps nests but apparently there are horseflies....*BASTARDS* And I went screaming from one yesterday that was dive bombing me while I raked the lawn!!!!

WOW...and a freaking HAWK or Falcon or something just landed on the neighbours roof!!!!! All the birds went crazy and then this big thing swooped in!!!

I love living in the country!!! And to put our village in perspective, its about as big as Abercrave in Wales, and about as big as maybe......Balzac or Delburne in Alberta....about 10-15 streets in total, very small ones, not a lot of people, no grocery store!!! Milano 3 is bigger and is the next town down the road within walking distance.

AND, while I'm on a roll. We found out that the only thing we should be scared about here in northern Italy other than Rowena(actually I don't think she's poisonous) are Ticks and VIPERS............yeah you read that right...FREAKING VIPERS. Apparently all the pharmacies carry anti-venom and the bite is not instantly deadly(lovely) so Richard has now taken to wearing his "viper boots" when mowing the lawn!!!!! And any strange noise we hear..."must be the vipers" hahahahahahhaa