My 'Stamping Ground' !

Just a few photo's to show a little of the village that I proudly call "home"..... Plus a n explanation of what is what!

1. This is the village shop - with the 'one star' hotel behind!
2. An overview of where my place fits into the scheme of things...

3. Couldn't resist this one - the mountain wearing a cloud necklace!
4. The approach lane to my house from the East. (Note the stores of wood ready for the winter.)


5. An old house - still inhabited, and with it's stable and barn still attached and used.

6. Sorry - I seem to have repeated this one!

7. The car entrance to where my niece has her 'holiday home' - hers is at the end on the extreme left (painted in yellow).

8. The local 'lavanderia'. Still used daily in the summer. The beating boards are in granite and the trough carries fresh icy cold' water from the mountain above!


9. A small 'lean to' - still in use and left attached to the obviously restructured house behind it!

10. More inhabited dwellings that despite their age have been left intact - even though the 'new road' passes above them.

11. Yet another working store....psarts of which will be at least 300 years old.

12. My next door but one neighbours house (in all it's 'blue' glory). This family have been in the village for at least four centuries..... In fact all the houses that surround his house belong to his children. That is with the exception of mine and my 'new neighbours' - but so as not to spoil things, he is their uncle!!!!! 

Finally - The roof!

Well the top is finally on the neighbour's new house. And it is certianly looking impressive as it goes on. The next step will be a 'surround' roof right around the first floor and extending out over the terrace. The top floor has just the master bedroom and thier 'en suite' then the ground floor will have the second bedroom, family bathroom, utility/laundry room and a huge living/dining room with the 'kitchen area' at the end on one of those 'island' things.
Then in the basement there will be the large double garage and yet another 'Italian' thing - 'una taverna'. This is a large party room which will have a wood-fired pizza oven built in and where it is usual for the entire family to meet up regularly. Rather like the German 'party kellers' I think.

It would seem that once the final roof is finished and the wall rendered, then work will stop until the young couple gather more money to enable them to then start work on the inside. Eros' mother told me that they are hoping to be able to move in in about 2 years time!!!!

As is the custom here - there is no question of a mortgage - the land was a gift, so they (like most couples up here) will just do as much as they can themselves, as and when the money permits! For example - last weekend both Eros and his wife spent the whole time fixing the copper guttering around the finished roof - and this morning they were up here again taking a lot of measurements too. 

Little 'uns - but not for Halloween!

My neighbour who has a small stable for hay and wood storage (plus her two goats and a few chickens), has put these pumpkins out to ripen ready for the winter. She only has small ones here, but others have those really big ones that we are used to seeing at Halloween.

For most people here these are part of their food stores for the winter. Even I'm beginning to get into the habit (but on a really 'tiny' scale when I consider their storage).

Today I prepared all the 'useable' fruit (only 3lb) for my 'quince jam'.....I've no idea what it will turn out like as it's my first real try at jam making. The quince weren't particularly good as the trees hadn't been pruned this spring - but I'm assured that after pruning next year the crop should be of good quality. I bought the special small bottling jars too this week, so even if it does turn out to be inedible (yuk) at least it will look good!

I also took a lot of photo's around the village today - mainly of some of the really old buildings that are still in use on a regular basis even today! Some pics of my neighbours places too - not just the 'new house'. The update on that will be tomorrow.... Eros' (the owner) mother spent the afternoon drinking 'English tea' with me yesterday and we were talking about their (Eros and his wife's) plans for the house. It sounds - and looks - really impressive! But more on that tomorrow.

A Quick update...

This was the 'state of play' last week with the roof. Things have moved on now and the house is really starting to look good.

As you can see, I no longer have a view of the car park, lorries and the large building wher the valuable 'loads' are parked overnight. 

Our 'local' Honey Man!

Well here's our local guy selling his wares at the Festa del Bitto.... As you can see he has a variety of 'goodies' and is, I suppose, the modern equivalent of the old Wild West Travelling charlatan (?)
His 'cure alls' you can see here are, in order left to right...

Veleno d?api.: Bee's poison. Against all pains.

Balsamo al miele: Honey balm. Containing choice honey, mint, eucalyptus, pine, propoli (?), thyme, boninacea(?), and dog rose......

Propoli syrup: Advisable for coughs and inflienza syptoms.

Propoli delle api: Bee's propoli. preventative cure.

It would seem, from what I can find out, that propoli 'may' be beeswax. At anyrate, it seems it is the thing the bees use to seal the nectar in their honeycomb....

I don't know how efficacious his 'cures' are...but he is very popular amonthe the older generations locally. He was doing quite a steady trade here with the 'incomers' too at the festa on Sunday. 

Our "Festa del Bitto"

This weekend has seen the annual "Festa del Bitto" in the Valtellina.....
What is Bitto? Well it's perhaps the most famous Valtellinese cheese of all and you can see it here on a stall in the town of Delebio (next to my village....), though the really BIG 'festa' is held in Morbegno 6 miles further on.
Here in the first photo you can see one of the 'local' small producers - these are often local families who do not produce enough to have large commercial premises and so they usually sell their wares in the local markets or 'door to door'. The best Bitto is usually labelled Fior d'Alpe as you can see...(Alpine flowers) indicating the Alpine pastures where their cows spend the summer and often where the cheese is actually made. (All done under very strict government health controls I might add!).

While the stall above only sells Bitto, this second one, while still selling 'local' produce, has his own shop and he sells a variety of things throughout the year. One of his other specialities are local 'fresh' and 'dried' wild mushrooms.
He also sells a variety of local goat products, including 'Violini di Capra' which are dried baby goat legs - a bit like bresaula and not only very tasty, but very expensive too. They have various local salami's, bresaula, and goats cheeses (captini and Tomi!!!)

I had tried to post a third photo here, but it just didn't appear - so I'll add another to show our 'local honey and cure all' man....

Swiss 'Rosti'

Well here are the two 'Swiss delights' ordered by Pat and I on the other side of the Spluga Pass last week...
The first (if these photo's publish this time) is Pat's 'rosti with bacon and egg....














And here is my totally forbidden dish of 'rosti with four large prawns - topped with a superb curry sauce!!!

Honest to god, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I just hope my cardiologist or my GP don't look at my 'blog'!

Of course I am well aware that I should NOT eat such things, but hey - I've given up the fags, and almost totally the booze - no more 'spirits' and just a very rare glass of wine.... No spuds (except these...ssh!). No sweeties or chocolate - in fact very few things that are 'naughty but nice'.

I'm just hoping that hese pics come out (publish) properly - if not I think it will be a case of 'hara-kiri' before dawn!
So here goes.......... 

Oh Bu*ger!!!!

I don't know what is going on with this 'photo posting' on this blooming blog. It's driving me up the wall. I sit and assiduously write a bit of my usual brand of cr*p and upload or download - I'm never sure which - some totally uninteresting pictures....and what happens? Half the text doesnt show (it's in the editable version) and the photos are reduced into some miniscule sized box that you have to 'click on' to see!!!!

I'm rapidly returning to the thoughs I had recently - i.e. "They're coming to take me away - ha haaaaaaa"!

Shame really that the Picasa system that I use to download my 'pics' is playing up - or should I say 'at the moment it is bl**dy useless? Because I have, waiting in the wings, a picture of #1 Son's leg in plaster (hahahaha) and some of two truly delicious Swiss rosti dishes - one with egg and bacon and the other with large prawns and curry sauce (now that one was truly to die for).

It's playing up yet again now.....I've been trying to publish this 'post' since yesterday - it keeps trying to 'publish' but never shows it as DONE - so I continue to wait... 'nothing' - 'zilch'- 'nada', until I look and nothing is on the 'blog' but I have EIGHT copies of this on the 'EDIT' page......So here I am again 15 hours later trying yet again!
"They're coming to take me away - ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa"!

Getting there - slowly but surely!

I don't know quite what has gone wrong (yet again), but the photo's I posted ARE here but they are 'hidden' in these titchy little boxes


Well this was the 'state of play' last week. Getting ready to pour the concrete floor above the main living quarters.

Next step will be to set in place the final 'half floor'. Though it will be a bit more than that once in place....








Here - at last - is the top 'half floor'. As you can see they have a nice terrace on the left of the reduced size bedroom(s) and a small balcony on the right of the building. The roof is smaller than I envisioned and as can be seen does not block my view from my terrace and balcony up the Val Chiavenna. Of course the view of the base of the mountains and the village is considerably reduced frommy kitchen and lounge downstairs. But at least it has blocked the view of the car park and lorries without reducing my ability to see the main part of the ridges and valley 'out front'.

I must admit that it is going to be a very nice house and I am looking forward to when the landscaping is done - whenever that might be......

A Mountain Rescue!!!

Yesterday was quite exciting from 'our' point of view (mine, Pat and Joe's). Though maybe not quite so interesting from the point of view of the injured lady!

It was late afternoon when I heard the helicopter above the house. This is nothting new here because the village has a hangar for helicopters about a kilometer from me.... But this one was very close and didn't 'disappear'!!! Now that was unusal.

So we became curious (not to say - even NOSY) and went out to see what was going on. The helicopter was hovering above the woods a good way up the mountain, but out of our view. It was clear that a 'rescue' was in progress. There wasanother one a year ago too - but I didn't have a camera then. After about 20 mins the helicopter flew back over, circled and came to land in a field about 150 meters from the house. There it stayed for a while then took off again and went back to hovering above the woods. By now I think the entire population of the village was along the road watching the drama unfold.....
The woods behind me are very popular for wild mushrooms - the 'locals' - who know just where to find them - collect kilo's of them every autumn. But there are often some who are injured when falling/slipping on the wet leaves following rain. In fact that was just what had happened - an elerly local lady who was collecting these funghi with her husband had slipped and fallen down a steep slope breaking her arm. Unfortunately she was in a narrow gap and while the chopper could lower a doctor down, they could not get a stretcher down to get her out. So the local village mountain rescue team had to climb up and carry her down to the ambulance....

I understand from 'my lady who does for me' this morning that the injured lady is fine this morning, but is angry for being so careless - not because she fell - but because she dropped her mushrooms!!!

So the helicopter hung around until they came down with the injured faller, who was put into the ambulance and taken off to the hospital at Morbegno.

Let's hope this will be the only incident of this kind this autumn, as while mushrooms are the current 'treasure' - in just a few days it will be the sweet chestnuts....and the way I see it, neither a mushroom OR a chestnut (free or not) will ever be worth risking life or limb for!


All the photo's here were taken from my balcony and from the back window looking up the mountain 'out back'!!!!