Living in San Giorgio di Pesaro and Kingston

The last few days in January are called the days of the Merlo or Blackbird. According to legend the blackbird  was originally white but when the cold weather arrived at the end of January the whitebird and family decided to take up residence in a chimney until the cold weather passed. After 3 days things improved but when they came out of the chimney they were covered with soot and they have remained (at least the males) black ever since.

This year the Days of the Merla have begun in February with the snow. Here in san Giorgio they haven’t seen snow like it since 1985. One of the good things about snow is that people talk about it and we have discovered a local saying:

“Sotto la neve pane, sotto la pioggia fame”  Under the snow bread, under the rain hunger”

Having snow in winter means that insects and diseases that damage the plants are killed and so a good harvest can be expected. However, if it only rains in winter the insects and diseases can survive to damage the plants and bring a poor harvest.

One other local saying, which has nothing to do with the snow, is:  “Meglio un morto in casa che un Marchigiano alla porta” i.e. better a death in the family than a Marchigiano (native of the Marche) at the door. This saying goes back to the days when the Marche was part of the Papal States and many people from the Marche found work as tax collectors, never the most popular of people.

Views from the back of the house.

After a few days warning the snow arrived in San Giorgio on Wednesday. On Tuesday we had decided to go to the supermarket to stock up and they had snowboots on sale. We decided no to buy as the snow may not come to anything. Mistake. On Wednesday evening it started and we cancelled the English class. We have had snow on Thursday and Friday with more promised. Only being at 201 metres asl we have got off relatively lightly. Further inland they are talking of snow falls up to 4ft. We have some bird feeder in the garden and Bill has been keeping them filled up which has meant the garden has been like an aviary.

In the evening Sam the cat normally comes downstairs, jumps on the sofa beside Bill and falls asleep. A couple of weeks ago she didn’t. She stayed in her basket all evening and we knew she was obviously ailing. So the next day we went to the Vets. Normally she cries when being taken to there but this time there wasn’t a murmer. She seemed so poorly and as she is now 17 we also began to think it was her lasts days.

Checking Sam over the vets thought it may be a problem with her kidneys and decided to keep her in for some tests. The blood tests showed that her kidneys and liver were fine but that she had a urine infection which could be treated by antibiotics. They also decided to do a test on her thyroid which, if not functioning properly, could make her prone to infection. The tests showed the thyroid was working normally and so confirmed that the problems were due to the infection.

The antibiotics came in liquid form which we had to syringe down her throat. The first couple of days it was relatively easy but once the infection began to subside and Sam returned to health the protests, at having strawberry flavoured antibiotics pumped into her mouth, began to increase. Each morning and evening became a battle as we were also having to give her vitamin tablets. We were so glad when the treatment period was up and the vet gave Sam a clean bill of health and gave us the bill.

Cortina is an up-market ski resort in Italy which has been in the news since new year as the takings from hotels, restaurants and bars over the Christmas and New Year period increased by 300 to 400% over the same period last year. Could it be a sign that the crisis is over at least for the rich?

Unfortunately the answer is no. This year the Finance Police had a crack down in Cortina. This meant that they were checking if bars and restaurants were issuing proper receipts and so providing tax to the state or were they pocketing the money themselves. From the increase in issued receipts and declared income it was obviously the latter.

The Finance Police also checked on the number of very expensive cars on the streets of Cortina. They discovered that there were over 200 expensive cars and of these 30% of the owners had a declared income of less than 30,000 euros per year.  Something not quite right there.

The event caused a stir in  all the papers and reaction went from, it was a good thing as it showed up how widespread tax evasion was in Italy and that is wasn’t just something which happened in the south, to criticism that it showed Italy in a bad light as Cortina was the “pearl of the Dolomites” and what would foreigners think.

Fighting tax evasion is one of the major aims of the new Government. In the local paper yesterday there was an article about a new ipad applications which allows customers to report to the police if they buy something but don’t get a receipt. The system doesn’t identify the specific shop but just the area in which the event occurred.

One of the pleasures of Italy is having breakfast out – which means having a cappucino and a brioche/cornetto filled with apricot jam. Having seen a recipe for them in a book I got bought for Christmas I decided it would be something I could make at home. To make them you need “Strong flour” or bread flour. I have never worked out what this is in italian getting completely confused with “00” flour, “0” flour”, flour for pizza, flour for cakes, soft wheat, hard wheat, durum wheat etc

So the other day we were having a coffee in the “Dolce Vita”, a cafe not too far away which has delicious brioche and I asked the owner which flour he uses. He told me it was “farina manitoba”. This is flour made from soft wheat grown in more nothern climes and which contains higher levels of protein and makes better bread. Although the wheat used may come from Canada, Russia etc in Italy it has been given the name of the Canadian Province.

So yesterday in the supermarket I saw a packet of “Manitoba Flour” and the first batch of bread (not the brioche) is  in the oven as I write.

The Christmas lights are on in San Giorgio. Unfortunately no one had donated a Christmas tree this year but the commune have been creative and have used strings of lights to create a Christmas tree shape. Although simple it does look quite good. The other Christmas decoration is the crib. It is made from metal figures which were sculpted by a local artist some time ago and donated to the commune. They are unfortunately rather dark and do not stand out. To make them more noticeable they have been dressed in plastic bags of various colours. This obviously teaches us about the value of recycling but it doesn’t add much to the crib looking good.

A few weeks after making the road beside our house one way with traffic having to come down the road, there was been a complete change of plan. Now the no entry sign has been turned round and traffic can go up the road. Not sure why this has happened or whether it could change again.

In the last week the Marche area has started to go Digital. We woke up last Wednesday to discover that the analogue signal had been switched off and we were left with a television screen full of static. Fortunately we had already bought our digital box and plugging it in we had 12 channels available to us. Unfortunately Rai 1,2, 3 (equivilent of bbc 1, 2, 3) were terrible as the picture was continually breaking up. The other channels were better but there were no mediaset channels available. Talking to people in the village we discovered that we were not the only ones having limited channels and quality. Two days and a lot of moaning later we resynchronised the tv and this time we got about 30 channels downloaded including mediaset but still poor reception on some of the channels including Rai. Another two days later we resynchronised again and we now have about 40 channels and the picture quality is good.