Wow do they keep the Umbertide band busy or what?! Friday May 1 is a European-wide holiday similar to Labor day in the US. We had the band out again. The local union leaders and polititians got up on the podium and speechified for a couple of hours. Umbertide is majority communist so labor unions etc. are very important. Later they blessed the tractors… I missed it but I am told it is the tradition.

After my sister and her husband left I asked them, since they were the first to use the guest room, what it lacked. All in all it served them well. The only issue is the odd steps in our hallway ready to trip you up in a very real sense. These steps are between the guest room and the designated guest bath. For their visit we moved a small lamp from their room into the hallway. It did the job but was a temporary fix. After they left I purchased a night light which is activated automatically. It comes on when the lights go out.

The weather is very beautiful now. Sunny and warm. It will be in the 80s for the next few days. It makes me want to plant things so I purchased some plants from our market and we got some dirt from the hardware store just down the street. Here is what I call the herb corner.

Sweet basil. Here they sell it oddly. You don’t get just one plant. Rather you get a densely packed bunch of small stems. I have to see how this works out.

First of the flowers. Three lonely petunias. There will be more soon.

View of Umbertide in the evening sun.

Finally here are my purchases from our Wednesday market. The strawberries are local now. The artichokes are perfect and YES! those are new spring peas. Sauteed them in some butter with salt and pepper. So sweet!