A Little Catching-Up

Long-time friends

La Soucera

When we moved to Italy in 2006 I found myself writing posts for this blog a couple times a week. Everything was new and we did a lot of exploring. Now we seem to be busier with work and all the activities that go with owning a house in Italy. Besides being off to work 6 or 8 hours a day there is wood to be split and carried in for the fireplace, less Valerie gets cold. Friends want to chat in the piazza, errands to run and then there is the ongoing stalla project.

So I’m going to catch-up for the past couple weeks. As Valerie posted on her blog, her Mom was here to visit with a high school friend who she had not spent a lot of time with for many years. They had a lot of catching-up to do. As predicted the weather was mostly cold and wet while they were in Lucanella. It started to rain the day they arrived. They endured some record rainfall that washed out a bridge on the highway south of us which is the main route between Potenza and Metaponto.

The broken bridge

Many of our friends who knew of the arrival of mia suocera were please to meet la mamma. They were fortunate to pick the best day we had to take a trip to Matera, always a jewel to see in any weather. I was not able to join them but they had a great time there seeing the wonders of the sassi.

Despite the dreary weather we enjoyed our first American visitors to our new home town and our new house. I know we will have more in the coming weeks and months.