What is your favourite season? Mine depends very much on what kind of weather the season is having during the year. Winter was relatively mild here – mild enough to be able to eat out on our terrace most lunchtimes. Spring was quite delightful and often stupendous as we were constantly discovering new blooms around our novel house; flowers that we never suspected could have blossomed in our garden. Summer started off well but then became a virtually living hell with well-above average temperatures confining us to the darkest and coolest corners of our dwelling. The once-grapelet-rich vines became burnt, the fruit trees started wilting and the daily preoccupation of watering what was left of greenery was tempered by the stringent but necessary hosepipe ban regulations. Autumn started off reasonably but was then interrupted by a fortnight of sodden weather. Let’s not forget that our area of Italy gets rather more rain annually than Manchester. Yes water was needed but not this much! We were worried about landslide occurring around our steeply placed house. Sadly in other parts of the peninsula the precipitation created dire situations, house losses and even deaths. Now, however, we seem to have come out of that and are entering the most delightful Indian summer with temperatures hovering well into the twenties during the day and lowering to just above ten at night – which means rather heavy dews!
We have taken advantage of this lovely weather, with temperatures that we can stand rather better those inflicted on us by the summer, to spend time at the seaside, particularly at the ‘wild’ beaches at Vecchiano and south of Viareggio which have already become remarkably free of holidaymakers.
There has also been the welcome return of traditional autumnal fetes. In particular we have enjoyed the Zucca (gourd) festival at Piegaio which was full of interesting craft stalls and included donkey rides, alpacas, a trad jazz band, basket weaving, a display of valve radios and some fine hunting birds like owls, eagles and vultures. It’s great that after two years deprivation because of the pandemic these events have returned with energy and devotion. Happily no-one seems to have forgotten the knack of how to set them up and run them!
An ‘Ottobrata’ is the Italian term for an outing or ‘scampagnata’ in October when the weather turns fine. Let’s have plenty more ‘ottobrate’ while they last for goodness knows what winter will bring us this year in the ever more volatile seasons the planet has decided to revenge itself with in the absence of any proper care for matter concerning climate change by the dominant species on this long-suffering earth!