at last from P

Lizards, snakes, ants and mosquitoes

OK, enough natural history. It’s been a busy first week or so, and as you can tell, no regular Internet access to tell anyone about it. I’m into a routine of breakfast /drive to area /take ‘now’ pics /drive home /download and name ‘now’ pics/dinner/sort out next day’s ‘then’ shots. It’s pretty full on and the weather has been stinking hot (mid-thirties the last few days) so it has been pretty tiring and I haven’t seen much of J.

Overall it has been pretty productive and I have located most of what I’ve been searching for. A few have remained illusive which is frustrating but perhaps to be expected given the lack of detail we have about some of the photos. RMc, you may be interested to know we found one of your old billets, although it is rather the worse for the passage of 65 years. It was an easy find as we just looked across the valley above Hunter’s bridge and saw it straight away. I’ve matched a couple of your photos, so will post them, when possible, for you to see. Drop me a line – I want to know if your op went OK.

JP, you will be happy to know that I’ve found the Tiki/Heartbeat site to within 50m, Lobe to within 100m, the Messerschmidt (410? 260?) to within 25m, the ford to within 100m, Glossop and Sullivan’s Shermans to within 5m, and had a general good look around the Perano battlefield and the Sangro Valley. (BTW, was there a second ford used after these Shermans got bogged, as the pics and maps show the ford as being further downstream by ½ a km or so.) I thought I had the Toretta shot but am 100m to far down slope so if I get a chance I’ll go back and nail it. I spent a day in Castel Frentano getting matches there, and have a good selection for you to use, although you may not be happy with the originals. I’ll have managed a couple of days in Orsogna by the time you read this (all going well.)

I haven’t seen much of J with the above routine so we took a day off today. It didn’t work quite as planned but we had a look around Termoli on the same day I was reading of the battles for its liberation. Commandos landed on the beaches where about half a dozen people were bathing today. That was the easy bit as there was a large German counter-attack to recapture the town that came close to success, but not close enough. We found an Internet café just as it closed (sometimes mezzogiorno – siesta – is a pain). The towns are decidedly empty at midday, as all the Italians head home for lunch and probably a kip. Often we’re the only ones on the street. We wandered around then took the train back – through tunnels a lot of the way so not the best for sightseeing. The Italians are fantastic for transport engineering. Viaducts across valleys, tunnels through mountains: it’s all very impressive. It makes you wonder why Auckland can have so many problems. The trains are cheap, comfortable and run on time even without Mussolini. They beat the Pommy ones (and our own of course) hands down. BTW, can anyone tell me what’s up with Toll? Has the government bought the rail back?

J’s been watching the trabocchi in action - this is the Costa Trabocchi after all. She has some lovely photos to show what a trabocco is, so check out her site. These things have been working the same way for hundreds of years, though they can’t make much of a living if tonight’s catch was anything to go by. She’s had a couple of swims while I’ve been gallivanting about and has kept Mum company.

We had some sad news from home, so our thoughts are there.

To finish on wildlife, I no sooner cleared up my blood-poisoning from an infected ingrown hair, than a mosquito bite has gone septic and also appears to be tracking up my arm. I’ll have to keep a careful eye on it. The old body is packing it in – I wrenched my big toe climbing a hill in jandals, my UV allergy rash is back, I think I have carpal tunnel in my left wrist and my shaky hands are starting to effect my photographs. Sigh.

Ciao to all in Brizzle, and everybody make sure you go to J’s blog to see what a real Italian holiday is about. (What would someone who doesn’t drink coffee or wine know?)

A presto.