Category Archives: Umbertide

Parade of Christmas trees

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Our first tree here was in 2014. We had not yet moved into our house so we were in the little apartment in the building next to ours owned by our friends Susan and Gary. From this apartment we could see them bringing the tree down a tiny street. They don’t truss trees here — it was bushy and big! They had to be careful not to knock the street lamps off the buildings or the flowers from the balcony!

Coming through! See that lamp on the right? They had to bring a cherry picker to allow them to keep the branches from knocking it off the wall.
2014 – nice tree.

And just for the record, shortly after the tree arrived we moved into our own home. Here is our itty bitty tree in our brand new home in 2014.

Here are the trees from subsequent years. Some from ground level, some from our window. Somehow I don’t have a picture from 2017. 🥺

2015 – this one was smaller than the others but they had the extra lights strung across which made it nice. From underneath it was magic,
2016 – right after they erected the scaffolding on the Comune building to renovate it. Also one of my favorite trees.
2018 – one of my favorites.
2019 – this one wins the contest for ugliest tree! What were they thinking?!

Now in 2020 our tree has arrived and people have been busy with cherry pickers decorating it. I am told it came from a farm in Montecorona which is in the Umbertide Comune just beneath Monte Acuto, our big mountain. It is a nicely shaped and tall tree.

In normal times, the tree is lit on December 8, Immacolata or Immaculate Conception in English. There are big crowds to watch the scheduled lighting of the tree, and Babbo Natale, Father Christmas, or our Santa Claus is there for the kids. But these are not normal times. Susan told me the tree would be lit tonight. Sure enough, once it was dark I went to look and there it was…all lit up and beautiful. No crowds…no fanfare. It was rather sad. Look at some of the older pictures to see the normal crowds. Anyway, here is our 2020 tree…at least one thing is beautiful in this strange year.

Stay Covid safe everyone 😷…andrà tutto bene🌈

Bits and pieces

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The weather has been vile. Very cold and rainy. But some things needed doing. I took a trip, out of Comune which is not allowed except for necessity. My thinking was, I need to mail packages to the US and the only place is in Citta di Castello. There is a Mailboxes etc there. So I chanced it and breathed a sigh of relief when I crossed my Comune line on my return!

I also picked up a meal kit from Calagrana and a couple of pasties. It felt very christmassy up there. They are making Christmas baskets for gifts.

Tonight I made the meal. Very yummy Indian spiced lamb chops with a ginger infused rice and a salad of cucumber and sweet red onion. Excellent meal.

I put up our own Christmas tree today. It is pretty but I find I get sad when decorating it because all of my old ornaments are back in the US in storage. I miss them. They were collected from all over and have great meaning to me. One day I will get them over here. Here are my boys next to the tree.

Stay safe everyone. Andrà tutto bene 🌈

Christmas tree 2020

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They brought our Christmas tree last Friday. It is a good tall one. They haven’t started decorating it yet. Pictures to come when it’s lit!

Happy December…last month of 2020. How many want to see this year stick around a while, raise your hand… I didn’t think so…Good riddance I say. I think I’m pretty safe in saying 2021 can’t be worse…
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Stay safe everyone 🌈.

Thanksgiving – let’s give thanks 💕

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Thanksgiving is tomorrow. In Italy, the holiday doesn’t exist except sometimes in the American and foreign community. In any event, there can be no big celebrations here this year with friends, because gatherings aren’t allowed. Having a non-pod member into your home is also taboo. I say pod — all people in your normal household are your “pod”.

As you know, we are celebrating on our own. A normal Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and all the trimmings. I’ve even got a small container of frozen cranberry sauce left.

We ordered our turkey last week. From our local EuroSpin supermercato. These are the bargain basements of food stores. They all have the same pattern. The center of the store is canned, boxed, and bottled goods. Cheap, and I don’t buy any because they have off brands and the quality can be iffy. BUT around the middle, along the walls are individual stands owned by independent contractors. They provide produce, cheeses, prepared foods, bakery goods, meat and fish. These people have great stuff. Here, we get our turkey from the butcher. Italians like turkey but never, ever whole! We carefully explain we want — tacchino femmina intera. Turkey female whole. Here they have two sizes…male and female. Male is 15 kilos and up (~35 lbs+) and females 6 kilos and up (~15 lbs+). My oven can barely fit a smaller one. So we asked for it to be as small as possible. We picked it up today and it weighs 7.1 kilos or 15.6 lbs. This should be enough for us and the friends we are sharing with.

We are celebrating it on the Thursday, not that I have to do it on the exact day… yet… I want to. I’m needing that right now. Things in their proper place and time. The normality of the Before Times. I’m going to miss my sister this year. We try to celebrate at least one holiday together. We usually fly to the US. But this particular year we had planned a Windstar cruise from Barcelona to Lisbon. It would have encompassed Thanksgiving and since it’s an American line I assume they would have had a “turkey with all the trimmings” dinner. Sigh. Maybe in a future, unseeable now, it will happen. But meanwhile we celebrate how we can. And we stay safe, and we keep our families safe. We’ll always have Paris…ooops wrong movie! 😁

The fact that we can’t celebrate Thanksgiving like normal, doesn’t mean we still shouldn’t stop and think of what we ourselves have got to be thankful for. And we have a lot. Think on it. We’ve got food. A bed to sleep in at night. Running water. Toilets.  Plus first world extras like WiFi and computer… and wine or booze (probably). There are hundreds of millions of people in this world who do not have the basic things. They are hungry most of the time, they sleep on the ground or floor. They don’t have plumbing or clean water. We are the winners in the lottery of life. So, let’s stop our kvetching and remember WE are some of the lucky ones. Let’s not forget. And let’s be thankful. And hopeful.
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I’m heartened to see more State Governors are mandating masks in the face of enormous numbers of cases. Keep Covid-safe everyone…Andrà tutto bene 🌈 and Happy Thanksgiving. 💕

Sunday lunch

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Sunday lunch. It was not my normal soup….it was the wonderful goat cheese I bought Saturday. Very yummy, soft and spreadable. I had it with Hjortronsylt. It is a jam popular in Sweden, from a fruit I am not familiar with. It goes very well with cheeses. I was lucky enough to be gifted with a jar from my friend Ava. And I am here to say, it was wonderful. Thank you Ava!

We woke this Monday morning to the first freeze of the year. But it is bright and sunny so that’s cheerful anyway. We have a busy week ahead. Our list of chores has grown. Shopping, a visit to the Poste and the Tabacchi for bill paying, and picking up all the thanksgiving food, to include the turkey.

Stay Covid safe everyone! 😷 Andrà tutto bene 🌈

Boring things. We all have to do them…

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Like everyone on this earth, we all have errands to run to keep our lives ticking along on track. We are happy all the shops are still open and, although we have to stay in our Comune, we have everything we need here.

Our list for today was extensive. First stop. As everyone does, we are preparing for winter. We have a heated mattress pad for our bed. And we have a summer one. So that summer one went to the dry cleaner to be cleaned for next summer…SUMMER ☀️ which I see as a shining light ahead of us! Maybe a new beginning after this pandemic. Spero di si.

Second issue we had been dealing with. Our old printer had died and we ordered a new one from Amazon, after trying to find one locally. We got that on Friday and have semi-set it up. (Don’t get me going on how hard it was!) Of course, as these things go, I had JUST ordered new toner for our previous printer when it died. €80 worth. So I needed to return it. But, without a printer, I was unable to print the mailing labels to do so. So I waited. Today we took the toner to the DHL pickup location to return. Check.

Last week we also had to go to the ASL (Azienda Sanitaria Locale – Local Health Unit) because our E01 had expired. Our Dottoressa had noticed when we visited her. This is the code that is used here to determine how much you must pay for prescriptions and some tests…according to your income. If it expires, you automatically pay the most. So we got that updated but we didn’t have all of the copies of our cards they needed (of COURSE they need copies!!). At home, we had no copier…so we waited and once we got the new printer – we made the copies and we took them there to drop off. Check.

A trip to the EuroSpin supermarket to order a turkey for thanksgiving was next. This part I liked best. This year I decided to do Thanksgiving dinner, even if it is just for us. Our friend Susan offered to make a pie and I think Gary is making a vegetable. No matter. I will take a pan of turkey, maybe dressing, gravy, and of course, mashed potatoes to them. We will eat alone, alas, but at least we will share the bounty with some friends.

After that we visited the Coop supermercato. I had not been since we went to Code Orange and they are again taking things seriously. We had our temperatures taken before we could go into the mall, of course masks are mandatory everywhere now, both inside and outside, and the spacing between people is being enforced. We bought a bunch of the staples we needed. And also some cat food for our friend who is in isolation. She feeds a mamma cat and her litter from this year and was running low on food. I dropped it by her house so she should be good for a while. She told me they are coming to her house to give her the Covid test rather than making her go to Citta di Castello. One of the few benefits of age 🙂.
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I took a walk Sunday evening. By the time I got back to the Centro the sun was just setting and the sky was pretty. Here are two pictures.

The Rocca, our fortress.
The entrance to the Centro Storico. We have a pedestrian bridge which crosses over from the road.

Stay safe all….andrà tutto bene 🌈

Tuscany is Code Red

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It’s getting ramped up fast here. We are still Orange but just a few miles from here is Tuscany, and it is Code Red now. The highest. Pretty much a complete lockdown over there. The map below shows how fast Italy is raising the alarms.

Unfortunately I now know of a number of people in our area who’ve tested positive, or of people in self-isolation after being exposed. It is far worse for Umbria in this second wave that it was in the first.

It is Saturday. It’s cold and damp here. I am not even going outside to our Kilometer zero market. We have the stufa burning so it’s cozy inside. Here’s the foggy view from our terazza …No laundry will be drying today!

I had hoped to clean up some in my ortino. Take a look at my biggest producer. I’ve never had a pepper with so many before! These all ripened in the last 3 days. And these babies are HOT. I freeze them but now they are taking over all the space.

Stay Covid-safe everyone. Wear your mask! Andrà tutto bene 🌈

My beloved Umbertide 💕

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I have found out lately one must have thick skin to write a blog. I hope my readers don’t think I am always tearing down my town! A friend has recently told me I am guilty of this. I like to tell my tales and I like to be honest about my life here. I think most people appreciate that. Umbertide is, as I’ve said many times, a “real” town. So it has good things and not so good. But I love it for all of these things. It is no Disneyland. It is a slice of Italian life. 🥰

In my last blog I wrote about the difficulties our bars and restaurants will have in the newly restrictive Code Orange lockdown. I mentioned one of the bars in the Piazza, Cafe Centrale, and that I was worried for the owner, Diego, who had made quite an investment in his bar. I got my information from a friend who said he had talked to the owner who said he may not be able to manage on only day traffic. To set the record straight. It seems this may not be true, and not a problem for the bar after all. I’m happy to hear he will be OK and won’t have to close. His bar certainly brought a lot of life to our Piazza. I wouldn’t want to see it go. It is a class act. I want all of our businesses to survive this latest trouble. Now, I hope my friend tells Diego, that I wrote this.

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Stay safe everyone. Andrà tutto bene 🌈

Autumn market

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Our weather has been perfect fall weather. We reach the upper 60s in the day. And it chills down to the 40s at night. We almost always wake to dense fog in the morning, which takes until around noon-ish to burn off. Rather dreary starts to our days. I should be used to it, but I’m not.

Town wall and buildings inside — in the fog.

Very suddenly, the fog miraculously begins to burn off and finally the sun shines brightly. Nothing like blue skies and sunshine to lighten the mood.

Despite the new Code Orange lockdown, we have the normal market outside. One of the two bars is closed. The other is doing carry out. Irene was bustling across the Piazza with trays of tiny cups of espresso. I hope this doesn’t hurt them too much. Bar Mary is less of a young people’s bar so it will keep doing the takeout. Cafe Centrale is the bar with the big nightlife which attracts many young people who don’t follow the rules and I’m sure they are one of the reasons our cases are up. I’m sorry for Diego, the owner though. He says he may go out of business. He can’t manage on just takeout, or only daytime traffic. It is too bad because he has poured a lot of money into that bar.

Anyway, we went out to do our shopping. Here are some photos.
In the autumn you will always find mounds of chestnuts. And sometimes one of the stands will have a roaster going. In the foreground is one of the weirdest vegetables I’ve ever seen. It is called Gobbi. Also known as cardoni and cardi in Italian. And cardoons in English. It is a lot of trouble to prepare and I only have done it once. Not worth the work.

These next ones are the winter squashes. The word for all squash is zucca. The second one is the gigantic zucca which they sell by the piece. They lop off however much you want.

And finally the cheese. I’m sure I’ve mentioned the cheese in Umbria is probably 95% pecorino. It is sheep’s cheese. There are a few small artisanal goat cheese places which I want to try someday. But mostly they make pecorino here, and in many styles but it is still pecorino…

Today, for the first time in my life, someone said cheerio to me. A British gentleman who lives in town. I knew OF him but we had never met. Today we were introduced to him in the market — Robin, and his dog Zorro — by Susan and Gary. He is going back to England soon. Driving. It is a long way. He goes up through Switzerland, then into Germany, France and the Low Countries of Netherlands and Belgium, and finally across the English channel. He said he’d take his time. He says the only finicky ones are the French. Susan asked how long they had been like that , he said probably for the last thousand years! I had to laugh. And then he said cheerio! So I will also sign off with a cheerful cheerio to you all — stay COVID safe and wear your masks! Andrà tutto bene 🌈