So, here we are after a wonderful two weeks in Tuscany. I have to say, the whole vacation exceeded my expectations and although we had a couple of days of slightly dodgy weather, the villa was fantastic, the area is gorgeous, the family and friends were magnificent and, all in all, it was just about perfect. I guess the only imperfection was having to come home.
Our second week was, apart from one long day out, somewhat more local and relaxed than the first. On Saturday Ben, Nick, Lucy and Bump had to set off fairly early to make their way to the airport and our new guests, the Waltons and Kelly-Browns weren’t due to arrive until late in the evening. So, Adam, Pen, J and I had the day to ourselves. We decided to set off in the car to Montefegatesi, a magnificent hilltop village about thirteen km from Bagni di Lucca. It’s actually probably only about five or six km from here as the crow flies but it’s towards the top of the mountains and hence is accessed by narrow, winding roads that snake their way up the hillside. It’s a gloriously exciting drive up through chestnut woods with fabulous views of the peaks above and the foothills below, the excitement intensifying on every hairpin curve as you wonder whether you will meet another mad Italian careening down the hill. Fortunately, the SatNav guided us expertly and equally fortunately we met only a few other vehicles on the way up. Meeting the bus on the way down the mountain was more than exciting enough. Continue reading “31 July 2011”
Good morning and welcome to another week at the Villa San Francesco. The bad news is that we are half way through this vacation – doesn’t time fly when you are enjoying yourself! The other bad news is that Ben, Nick & Lucy and Bump left yesterday. It’s been absolutely wonderful having them all here and especially having Ben and Adam together. (Of course, I am not saying that it hasn’t been grand having Nick and Lucy here but we do have the opportunity of seeing them quite regularly. The last time we had all three boys together was at Nick and Lucy’s wedding two years ago). Our disappointment in saying “good-bye” to Ben (and Nick, Lucy and Bump) is only marginally tempered by the arrival yesterday evening of our friends Dave and Sue Walton and Sue and Stuart Kelly-Brown who will no doubt try their best to help us through the rest of this week. 
You will all recollect the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, one of Rupert Murdoch’s News International titles. Clearly, the attempted cover-up has not succeeded and the story has been blown wide open this week with such a force and pace that it’s difficult for a poor befuddled weekly periodical such as the Befouled Weakly News to keep pace. I don’t imagine there will have been quite so much coverage in countries other than the UK so I’ll try to provide a potted update of the latest developments. For fuller details have a look at 
Apologies for the failure to provide any advance warning of last week’s Weakly News “outage”. Some of you know that what it’s like becoming increasingly incapable of remembering stuff and remembering that we were off to the south coast last weekend was clearly one of those things that this tired brain was incapable of doing.