PANICALE, Umbria – MIDGE’S LIST VS MY LIST. What I’ve learned from comparing the two of them carefully: They are not the same.
And I’m rewriting mine.
Stew’s Italian vacation list:
• Go to hardware store for more big black plastic bags to clean garden.
• Clean the garden.
• Find computer store for power cable. This would be easy except the cord is for a Mac.
• Spread out all our gadgets and wires and adaptors and servers and routers and see what we’ve really got that makes sense together here.
• Find computer tech to hook up the above mess and get us connected to the darn broadband.
• Get a multiple plug from the electrical shop, if I can ever find it open.
• Keep trying.
• Find my friend that knows the mason and see if we can get him to come to the house.
• Meet the mason to fix the kitchen wall where it is shedding paint.
• Pay the garbage tax at town hall.
• Go to bank, check out our checking account status.
Midge’s Italian vacation list:
• Take a walk. Look at the olives
• Sit in the garden. Read.
• Find Paulette. Talk.
• Take short afternoon nap.
Her vacation time management list is a thing of beauty. Mine was more of a battle plan. Lesson learned? We’ll see. I hope so.
MONTEPULCIANO, Tuscany– OK the calendar says Fall. Late Fall. I checked. And the lazy November sun was punching in later and checking out earlier – every day. But! When that sun is out and about, so are we. We spend our days strolling about in short sleeves. And our nights sleeping with the windows wide open. And according to my Plant Diary, it was exactly like this last year at this same time. In Maine, the colors have run away and left us with shades of grey. But here in Umbria? Things are just starting to get their autumnal glow. When we got to Umbria on the 24th of October, I noted the left behind vines of recently harvested grapes were still rather green. The next week they went momentarily golden and now they are turning nut browns and drifting down to the still warm ground.
Today we are blessing Montepulciano with our presence and buying a few Christmas presents while we are at it. The town is abuzz and people are in their Sunday best. Which is maybe as it should be since it is Sunday after all. Looks like there are more than a handful of End of Summer neighborhood festivals, a chestnut festival, public dinners (you can hear and smell the sizzle of sausages being grilled, mid-day bells ringing, there is accordion music in the air outside one festival. Way too many stores are open so our progress is slow as we roam up and down the steep, stone streets. We dropped in the Osteria di Borgo that Paulette spoke of in glowing terms, and it is way up at the apex of the town. The better to see your view, Montepulciano. One of a million vantage points with panoramic vistas here in this crows’ nest of a town. After awhile, incredibly, you just start to take the fabulous overlooks in Montepulciano for granted. An embarrassment of Tuscan riches? Yes, indeed. 
HUGS AND KISSES