Il Melo Blog

Sunny again! The forecast has finally caught up with reality and it seems the promised cloud has either missed us or was all over on Sunday and Monday. Lots of hugs and kisses and fond farewells and then il Melo is all our own again; time to get on with a few of the jobs that are always waiting to be done.

I’m just eating breakfast on the terrace when a little 4x4 drives up and out steps Delio Mancini and his faithful old dog Lasca. Delio sold us the house and still owns the cherry orchard and all the land around. He’s 81 now and lives over in Fermo (about 30 or 40 minutes away towards the coast) but drives over here every few days to look after his orto (vegetable patch) and tend to his trees. In fact we were expecting him sooner but he tells me he had been by a couple of times: once was early and we were still in bed and the next we had gone out.

We wander around having the longest conversation we have ever had over an enormous range of subjects from the breeding of Lasca (half lupa tedesca – German shepherd, half Abruzzo mountain dog) and her clever daughter who can turn keys in locks with her teeth; his life in the grain trade; the fact that builders are thieves; how bravi (good, honest, etc.) the neighbours are; the impending arrival of fruit on the cherry trees and so on. If you can speak a bit of Italian, it’s my experience that they assume you are fluent and don’t cut you any slack so a good portion of what he says goes over my head but it doesn’t matter; we always get on famously and I am proud to count him a friend… and also pleased that he is happy with what we have done to the house his grandfather built.

Later I phone our friend Pauline of La Mela Rosa B&B, at Caccianebbia near Amandola, and she invites us for tea on Saturday – with the promise of home made scones. Bliss! (Pauline does catering for our guests and organises cooking courses and other activities as well as running Tripadvisor’s top ranked B&B in the area – so I know tea will be delicious.)

In the afternoon, Dom and I go for a walk. Up the lane about fifty yards above the end of the garden, there’s a gap in the bank on the left and if you turn here, you are in a walnut grove that leads, in serried ranks of trees, up a steep hill. Emerging at the top and walking through the fields we climb to the top of the hill with incredible views up and down the Tenna valley and across to the mountains. The roof of il Melo is peeping above the cherry blossom. We pass several huge clumps of brambles which must be full of blackberries in July / August (not sure exactly when they are ripe but definitely earlier than at home.)

Apparently it’s cloudy in Rome and the clouds are building up over the mountains to the south west so it looks like the weather forecasts may finally be right about the clear weather ending.