Now back from two weeks up an Italian mountain - real dekoboko time. For part of the time we were more or less snowed in, although with chains on the landrover we managed to get down to the main road. Most of the time it was below freezing and despite leaving the water running, the pipes froze, so for 6 or 7 days we had no running water and relied on getting containers from our neighbour, or breaking the ice on the vasca outside.
Ate pretty well - highlights included part of my neighbours' goat on Christmas Day, home-made tagliatelle (all over the kitchen), and a couple of home-made tiramisu.
Sang a lot. Laughed a lot.
Felled, cut, chopped and burned humungous amounts of wood. Used a couple of large Douglas fir trunks to shore up the bridge. We are still having circulation problems inside, so although we were warm enough we were also frequently smoked out while the fires really got going. The result was that ourselves and our belongings all reeked of smoke, despite washing. On the penultimate day I tried washing my going-home clothes in a bucket and then broke the thick ice on the vasca in order to dunk them up and down with an axe handle, by way of rinsing. But when I got on the plane in Florence the poor bloke next to me spent the trip with his jumper pulled over his nose, while the people behind me made sarcastic comments about smoked salmon. A woman on the train back in Japan sat next to me then immediately got up and moved away with an air of disgust.
The trip back was dreadful - Charles de Gaulle airport was snowed under so everything was super-delayed - when we finally got onto the plane 2 hours late we then spent an hour on the tarmac before take-off, and another one the other end waiting first for steps and then a bus to get us to the terminal, etc etc. Never again.
However, I am now 'home', everything has been washed, and tomorrow is another day.
Happy New Year!
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=S5w1Gxonito&feature=related
Ate pretty well - highlights included part of my neighbours' goat on Christmas Day, home-made tagliatelle (all over the kitchen), and a couple of home-made tiramisu.
Sang a lot. Laughed a lot.
Felled, cut, chopped and burned humungous amounts of wood. Used a couple of large Douglas fir trunks to shore up the bridge. We are still having circulation problems inside, so although we were warm enough we were also frequently smoked out while the fires really got going. The result was that ourselves and our belongings all reeked of smoke, despite washing. On the penultimate day I tried washing my going-home clothes in a bucket and then broke the thick ice on the vasca in order to dunk them up and down with an axe handle, by way of rinsing. But when I got on the plane in Florence the poor bloke next to me spent the trip with his jumper pulled over his nose, while the people behind me made sarcastic comments about smoked salmon. A woman on the train back in Japan sat next to me then immediately got up and moved away with an air of disgust.
The trip back was dreadful - Charles de Gaulle airport was snowed under so everything was super-delayed - when we finally got onto the plane 2 hours late we then spent an hour on the tarmac before take-off, and another one the other end waiting first for steps and then a bus to get us to the terminal, etc etc. Never again.
However, I am now 'home', everything has been washed, and tomorrow is another day.
Happy New Year!
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=S5w1Gxonito&feature=related
