Sunny day

May 5, 2005 · Filed Under Uncategorized · Comment

Despite the stormy turn the weather took last night, this morning is wonderfully sunny - as I expected it would be. It is even warm in the sun, although in the shadows it is a mite cool - but you can still get away with a tee-shirt. Any unacclimatised Englishman would fine it hot even at this time of day and would be donning a pair of shorts, I’ve no doubt.

Ah, Italian weather. How I love it. You just cannot beat the incredibly vivid blue of the skies here. You rarely if ever see this blue in the skies back in the UK. Not sure exactly why, but the light here is stronger and more intense. Must be something to do with being that little bit closer to the sun, I suppose. Sunglasses are almost an essential here.

Hope you have a good day, too. A sunny day makes me shine too.

Tags: Italian

Storms

May 4, 2005 · Filed Under Uncategorized · Comment

The April storms have arrived a little late this year. Last night a heavy downpour was preceded by a spectacular lightening show. This evening the shy has been lighting up quite often as more lightening bolts do their thing.

The storms here are quite drammatic and I rarely saw anything like them back in the UK. On more than one occasion I’ve stayed up to watch the weather do its worst. The jagged forks of blue electricity have to be seen to be believed. Before coming here I had only seen the sort of thing the sky produces here in books. Seeing the effect in real life gives it a whole new dimension, I can tell you.

This stormy light show is often, though not always accompanied by raucous thunder claps and lashings of rain. The rain can often be described as a waterfall from the sky. It really can be seriously heavy. If you get caught without an umbrella, you get very, very wet.

These almost tropical storms cause one or two little problems in the city too. Floods abound and public transport can even grind to a halt as a result.

Even though the weather is likely to be noisy tonight, I’m pretty sure that I’ll wake up to a cloudless blue sky and somewhere in the region of 25+ degrees C tomorrow. It’s the beginning of May and a jeans are making me awfully sweaty now.

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Paying for past vices

April 26, 2005 · Filed Under Uncategorized · Comment

I used to love playing my music at rather loud levels - much to the disgust of my neighbours. My stereo back in the UK was seriously powerful - so powerful that when the neighbours started hammering on the front door, I used to think it was just part of the music. Well, I was young, free and, let’s face it, pretty inconsiderate.

Well, those who live by the sword, or stereo in my case, die by it or so the old saying goes. Where I now live there is this bar which specialises in live and loud music and it just happens to back onto our appartment block. I do remember asking the former owners about the music level and remember being told that it was hardly noticeable. They were lying, big time. The music pounds away until 2 in the morning most nights and you can hear it pretty well with all the windows closed. Summer is now coming and sleeping with the windows shut here is a great way to suffocate yourself, not to mention finding yourself lying in you very own home made water bed, only the water is not water, it is your sweat. Not nice.

I will never again pay my favourite toons at unsocially loud levels, I promise. Not unless I happen to move into some isolated spot in the middle of the mountains where my own personal disco will annoy no-one.

My ex-neighbours would be laughing themselves silly if they knew just what I was having to put up with. ‘Serves himself right’, I can hear them saying. And much as I hate to admit it, they are right. My sins have caught up with me and revenge is being well and truly, if indirectly, extracted. If you happen to know anyone who is selling a secondhand time machine at a good price, let me know. I promise that I will go back and turn down the volume. Naughty me.

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