The cement pond with a leak

14 luglio
Happy independence day for france. Ciao Laurence.
What a fun weekend. Yesterday, we had friends of Raffaele's who are all scout leaders as he is and they had a festa with us including a stint in the pool which included roughhousing. The water which exited over the infinity border overwhelmed the little pool and exited towards the vineyards below. Worse, today we lost power for an hour and a half and the backup valve malfunctioned, so we lost 1/6 of the water from our pools and that prompted a visit from our pool guy, remember him? He has subsequently stated our pool was not well designed as the pool below is not big enough to recycle the water from above if there are more than a couple of people splashing there. As a Doctor in my previous life, I have heard all kinds of excuses from my brethren for complications, but maybe none equal the following. "The backup valve failed because the water is too hard" In other words, our water which has not clogged one faucet or shower head in 4 years here at Nascondiglio di Bacco has too much calcium which blocks backup valves quite quickly.
I have a number of choices: take Prozac, drink heavily, hoe more hours every day, slash someone's tires, don't pay the remainder of the money owed for the pool, etc. I think 3 and 5 are the most healthy.
Enough of my little frustrations. The 1st of 2 quintanas (remember the parade from last year at Ascoli) took place this weekend but you still have a chance to view the spectacle in August! I am enclosing pics from the parade this year. The hawk is suspiciously similar to our Harris Hawk, don't you think. Get out your bird books.
ciao dds