In Memory of My Friend Elinda

You know it is no longer a vacation home when you have to go to a funeral of a friend. Other friends have died in CVS during times we were not there, but Elinda was a friend from my first day in CVS and I saw her almost everyday of my time in CVS for the last seven days. She always told anyone else who happened to be there when I walked down how great I was. She loved my paintings. She always had something nice to say to me.

I went through a few years of the blog and found some of the pictures I took of my friend over the years. I miss you, Elinda.

This is how you find out that your friends have died and when the funeral is.

I believe this is the first picture I took with my Elinda and other friends. 

This is my last picture of Elinda. We are laughing our heads off because we are taking a selfie.
 I think I saw her the next day, the day after that was too hot to go to town and then she was gone. 

Elinda's husband, our friend Gino, Elinda and Olga.

At the market

Elinda's husband: I feel terrible that I can't remember his name.

A cold day in July.

Preparing weeds to use to tie up grape vines

Friendly afternoon chat.

This is where we could find Elinda everyday in the afternoon. Now her spot is bare.
It is strange to see it empty or with other people.

August 23 & 24 Leaving on a jet plane

No matter how hard you try, the last few days in Italy are always crammed with good-byes, shutting the house down, last minute events and trying to eat everything left in the house.

Ok just one more shot of the mountains from our terrace. 

One of the unexpected things was taking a trip to Brico to buy some more canvases. I sold a couple of my oil painting so had money to burn and I discovered that the canvases at the NEW Brico were more like the ones in America, which is pretty crappy, and so we returned to the OLD Brico and bought another 10. I am ready for next summer! 

The bad news about this trip is that the best gelato place did not have their gelato out and the good news was that there was a Saint band in Raiano.

Unfortunately our last day moved on to its end and, 

what should be no surprise by now, is to more surprises. 

I was happy to visit my friend, Fred, one last time. 

One of the unexpected things was that we went to a mattress sales presentation to support the daughter of some friends, boyfriend. Just saying we really had no idea what we were getting into. After about an hour and a half we left, because we were leaving in the morning and had saved getting a pizza at Antiqua Sapore for our last night.

We did get our pizza around 10pm and were joined by more and more defectors from the mattress sales pitch. Dinner with friends: mission accomplished.

Before leaving I try to put as many things away as possible and cover the furniture against the persistent dust.

Living room with its plethora of chairs.

Bedroom with no clothes on all the chairs.

Kitchen with shelves cleaned off. 

Before we leave I put all the breakable things under the metal bed in my studio. If there

is an earthquake I would rather everything broke in one place!

Jim takes a last look for this year. Everything has also been taken off the terrace and all the plants have gone to new homes. 

After nine hours we are waiting for Gina and Jessie to pick us up! Our trip went
really well. 

Now Jim is in Vermont and I am in Oklahoma for my mom's 90th birthday. Salute Italia and see you next summer!

Fire in Sulmona, August 22, 2017

I have to start with the fire, because it is such a disaster.

These are the pictures I took yesterday from Goriano Scioli.

This is the fire yesterday afternoon.

View of fire from Sulmona. A place we have been many times.  I did not take this photo.

View of fire last night from the same place I took my photo. I did not take this one. 

And on to happier things. Yesterday we went to our favorite beach for the last time this year. It was beautiful. The water was way to rough to go in, but it was great to sit and watch.

Not many Italians were willing to come out on such a cold day. 

We camped under a bridge so we did not need our umbrellas.

The grape harvest has started early, because of the weather. It is supposed to be less, but excellent wine.

We had some Danes over for drinks and snacks the other night. Our terrace looks pretty nice in the dark.

Last night we had dinner with our Italian and Danish friends. Usually the TV is on during dinner.
It was fun and delicious!

As I write I can hear the fire fighting helicopters and airplanes flying over to drop water on the fire.

723 Perdonza Celestino, Festa San Agata, Lago Scanno, August 20, 2017

Now is where I have to admit we were so bad and went to the beach instead of to the 723rd Perdonza Celestino. The mayor was very disappointed in us. Next year! Today is the Festa San Agata. For reasons that are not clear to me, the priest in CVS has refused to do Saint days anymore. There was only one Saint parade this year and that was for San Giovanni (my name saint). San Rocco has been locked away in the church somewhere. No one, but the priest knows where, and San Agata is supposedly in the church, but that is as close to outside as she is going to come. There is no band today and no concert at the big fountain, although it has been all cleaned in her honor. There is a big market today in CVS in her honor. 

It is garlic harvest time. 

Truck load of garlic.

Market of San Agata. 

Here we are with some real pilgrims who did the 723rd Perdonza Celestino. Trust me it is a very long walk.
They were so lucky to have their pictures taken with us who walked to the piazza. 

View of the Sirente from Goriano.

Lago Scanno

Lago Scanno with lots of water vehicles to rent.

The road around the lake is all one way and you can rent bike cars to go around it. 

A beautiful hill town in Abruzzo that I thought was named Anniversary of Abruzzo, but I can't find it for sure. 

Now we are home and there are the most clouds we have seen in two months. It has not really rained here for three. We are so hopeful. Driving today we could see a big fire up above Sulmona and a small one in the area of Corfino. Luckily for us we were not going to those places, but the fire by Sulmona was big. What is amazing is that there are not more fires at this time. It is dry as a bone, lots of trees have died, and the wind is howling.

Dinner with friends, 80's Night, Day at the beach, August 18 & 19

Jim finally got to make onion rings for our friends Vitorio and Ermilinda.

We have a car so we drove around in the Sirente.
This is a random shot of the valley looking
toward Gran Sasso.

Bell tower in Castel di Ieri

80's night disco at D'Lises in Castel di Ieri

Salute

Friday's market from behind the scene.

Lion head on a fountain in Goriano Sicoli.

Early morning church in Goriano Sicoli while waiting for
Paola to go to the beach.

San Vito Chietino.

Trobacci