With San Giorgio full of snow we cannot go anywhere and so all we can do is take some more photos. The romantic view of SG under snow by night was taken by Massimo De Cerreto. The other more prosaic photos were taken by me and show the main street followed by another of the main street where the igloo shapes are people’s cars and finally the back of our house where we are waiting for the snow to be cleared so we can start to think about getting the car, still under snow, out.

Having managed to survive a few days of snow things were looking brighter. Thursday was a beautiful sunny day and in the evening we had gone to the cinema and driving home there was no hint that snow was on the way. However, early Friday morning it began to snow and it snowed all day Saturday and is continuing into Sunday. Once again we have had to dig our way out a couple more times and the funside of digging through the snow has long since gone.

The sad thing is that a couple of the branches of the old olive tree behind the house have broken. This provided welcome shade in the summer and partially hid an electric pylon. But the weight of snow proved too much and so we can only hope that the legendary capacity of the olive tree to come back is true.

After surviving the snow we were blessed with a beautiful sunny day on Thursday. We decided to celebrate by going to the cinema and opted for the 3D movie Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese. It  has been nominated for 11 oscars and so we were expecting great things. Most of the reviews had been ecstatic. However, we both found the film too long and rather boring. Couldn’t understand how it was being nominated for so many oscars although some of the 3D effects were outstanding. We can’t even blame the italian as the dialogue was pretty simple and easy to follow. So 22 euros wasted.

When we left the cinema there was no snow and we thought the weather forecasts of heavy snow for the next couple of days were wrong. Oh, no they weren’t!

Needless to say the smiling picture of us was taken before we went for a coffee in Orciano.

Some more photos of San Giorgio under snow. The main street has been kept passable and Bill continues the “animaliterian work” of keeping the birds fed.

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.

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.