12/11/2010

It was raining this morning, to our great joy -and to Roberto's chagrin. The harvest seems to be a bit poor this year. We walked to Montespertoli; apparently the wine capital of Tuscany - you really wouldn't have guessed. There was hardly anyone in sight, shops were shut and I really couldn't see all that many wineries - not like in Montalcino. We just missed the 'vino novello' festival (7-8 Nov), and the 'olio nuovo' festival is this weekend, but it's hard to imagine the town (if it can be called that) at all lively.
We went straight to the first cafe we saw. It was a pasticceria (and a good one at that, according to Roberto). We sat on some stools and had a couple of lattes, and were treated to home-made pannetone and chocolate crêpes. "Test please", said the only acceptable-looking Italian I've seen yet. Pannetone is not really one of my faves, but this one was fresh and juicy. We stayed for quite a while, getting stuffed. Looked at the postcards but none of them were that nice. Bought some more pressies in the bakery and walked back. The sky was quite clear and it'd stopped raining, so we knew there was work waiting for us. We started at 3. It wasn't that bad, there was barely enough time to do much. Only thing is i didn't have time to change into my wellies and put my foot in a puddle as soon as we started.
We're staying tomorrow Saturday in the end. Rob's feeling better and the work keeps getting interrupted, so it's not so bad at all. Plus, we've found that if we cook, we eat well, and I sure do enjoy it. Roberto is pretty insufferable - extremely stubborn and speaks to us as he would to a retarded 4 year-old. Clara says I get too worked up about it, it's true, but he does drive me nuts. He tried teaching me how to make tortilla the other night... I mean, come on. And he has the tendency to say "Claro!", when we ask really not-so-obvious questions. He also wanted to teach me how to eat my piece of pizza, but I refused to follow his advice. It doesn't need more olive oil for fuck's sakes.