A Blustery Day

Today is one of my favourite kind of days in terms of weather.  It's a very blustery day.  The wind is really something awesome, the sun is shining brightly, the clouds are speeding through the sky, you could go outside in a t-shirt but it's much cozier to wear a sweater, little droplets of water hit your face probably from leaves left wet from a recent rain.  On a day like today you want to cozy up inside, make comfort food and look out the window while sipping something warm.  On days like today it's also fun to go on adventures if you have the right boots and jacket and a tight fitting hat but on this today we prefer to stay inside with all the before mentioned and do our work, taking little breaks to eat simple tasty meals and watch an episode of one of our favourite tv shows and read to each other.

 I think I owe enjoying blustery days a little to winnie the pooh.  He's been a favourite read of mine since I was little and still is today...if you haven't re read winnie the pooh in recent years I highly highly recommend it.  One of the stories (actually written by Disney and not A.A. Milne the original writer) was Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.

It all started yesterday with a very windy day, but not quite blustery yet.  I'm not sure where the line is between windy and blustery,  that's a whole discussion to itself which I'm not going to bother with.  But on that windy day you could tell the weather was changing a bit and I just kept saying to myself "it is so windy!" but not thinking too much of it.  The wind did die down and the night was clear so you could see all the stars.

The day before the blustery day was one month exactly since our wedding.  We were surprised how quickly it went by and it made us appreciate the time we have together.  It's been a perfect month.  There are two floors to our house and we mainly stay upstairs where the kitchen is, but downstairs are two other rooms and another sofa and a big table.  Chaim surprised me that night by pulling the couch out of the downstairs room outside under the patio umbrella, piled it with all the warm blankets and pillows we had, hung the flashlight lantern my Aba gave us and lit some candles.  And called me downstairs.   I don't know how he managed all of this without me noticing but it was a wonderful surprise.

We drank wine outside under the stars and watched one of my favourite movies Only You (which Chaim also surprised me with) in which Marisa Tomei searches all the most beautiful places of Italy for her soul mate who's name a fortune teller gave her when she was 10.  There's a scene where the two main characters pretend to be Audrey Hepburn & Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday at the mouth of truth.  Really it's more complicated and a lot more cute than it sounds..it is a lovely movie with a super happy ending, and the nice thing about watching it here is that the whole movie takes place in Italy and it had us laughing and smiling the whole time.

Only You

Roman Holiday

 For snacks we roasted potatoes which left our house smelling delicious but we didn't have enough and were not satisfied.  Being the special day that it was and wanting to have only the most special treats we (or I) decided that since we were so good at rationing the delicious challahs that Sarah Nechama baked for our trip we should eat one, and so we did.  After the movie we cleaned up and went back inside and watched a music clip sent to us by uncle Chaim of Eric Clapton singing Layla with Wynton Marsalis.  You can click HERE to see it.  We enjoyed it a lot and sang along in jazzy voices.  Thanks Uncle Chaim :)

Now we are still the night before the blustery day.  So the weather was definitely changing because we were awoken by loud claps of thunder and lightning in the middle of the night and a heavy rain which lasted for a while.  I didn't mind though...I happen to like stormy nights as long as I'm somewhere safe and cozy.  We woke up early to the most awesome sky full of clouds but completely pink, we had never seen anything like it and there were still distant sounds of thunder...I kept thinking to myself that this is what "awe inspiring" really means.  It was still very early in the day, and soon the strong winds pushed the clouds aside to let bits of sunshine stream through.  It was quite a site watching the shade of the clouds and breaks of sunlight role over the hills and villages in the distance.  Each time the light came out it so illuminated whatever it touched that the fields of straw looked like gold and the villages and their white houses shined in the purest shades of white.  I tried to capture this on photo but the clouds would move so quickly and the places were so far that I couldn't get the shot. That is how the blustery day began.

 That morning Michelangelo showed up, he had come to pick the remaining cherry tomatoes growing outside the house.  It made sense to do it this day because the wind kept it from being too hot and the rain was never long if it came.  I was wondering when he would come.  We made him an espresso and offered him some food, he thanked us and tried to teach us how to make better espresso in broken english, apparently ours was too weak.

I tried two tomatoes among the many other tomatoes I've had so far in Italy and I'm just going to say it...
Israel is much better at tomatoes!  I don't know if it's the season or the region although I had tomatoes in Rome but none have compared so far to the tomatoes I've had in Israel even when the crops were a little spoiled from the heat.

Pretty they may be, but it doesn't mean much if they don't have the taste 

Another thing I have to say is that cats are much nicer in Israel..maybe it's because they are less appreciated.  There are street cats all over Italy, not nearly as many as in Israel, but for some reason they have cats here on postcards and calendars all over the place "posing" on all the famous sites and statues so I'm making the assumption that they've got a thing for their cats...which Israel doesn't.
Anyway there are several cats in the area who frequent the grounds around our house and every time I try to make friends they either ignore me or run for it...so I'm put off by Italian cats.

That afternoon we spent doing work and I kept my eye our for sunny spots of time that I would use as an excuse to stop working and go outside.  There were many things to do outside of course.  I checked the fig tree to see if any were ready to be picked...no luck.  I chased cats and tried coaxing them towards me with gentle mewing sounds...no luck.  I looked around for flowers to pick and watched birds...satisfying enough.  I sat quietly and listened to the blustery winds...successful.

And the day had come to an end...so here we are finishing up with it and I have an online class from 10pm-1am and a wonderful day ahead of us tomorrow.

Happy Belated Birthday's to my Aunt Laury on the 16th, my Aba on the 18th and...
Happy Birthday Rikki Yunger Today!!

Ciao with love,

Tamar & Chaim