My birthday parade

15 agosto
Nearby Castorano had a birthday parade for me and they really went all out and built tremendous floats full of my fellow contadini!
I worked pretty much nonstop until 11:30 and then I relaxed a bit and enjoyed some good wine and food from the grill. This was the 1st time they had cooked corn on the cob on the grill, but all turned out well. You can see some of my little presents here including a complete contadino set (peasant farmer) and I also got a beautiful book on Passito wines, a horizontal of Pecorino wines of the zone, a nice t shirt that says Don't worry but in genovese dialect and a cheese knife set with cheese plate and cover. Also Fabio and Michele stopped off in Assisi and picked up some wonderful books and a crucifix from the church of St Francis. I am surely forgetting something, but as I remember, I will add the rest. Finally to bed before 2, but as the early riser of the group, it fell to me to do breakfast for our Czech guests and they rewarded me with a cd of the quartet the man plays in near Prague. I am looking forward to listening to it because it is music written by young Jewish composers who were killed in the holocaust and this string quartet has discovered the music and brought it back to life! Enough for now. I am pooped! dds the pictures are of the monastery where we attended vesper's service, my parade, my implements of destruction and the gift givers who are friends of raffaele's and now me from Ascoli, and Michele with my homemade birthday torte