Come on England!

It seems a while since we last gave you an update on our progress and not
surprisingly we have not got that much to report. We are still at the site
in the Umbrian hills near the town of Preci and are just relaxing and
enjoying the views, oh and the odd World Cup game! The guy who owns the site
very generously brings in his own satellite box so that we can watch the
footie in a room above the bar.
We returned the other day back to Norcia to have a look at the town itself.
A very pretty old walled town, quite and peaceful except for a little bit of
hustle and bustle around the main square and the few shops that there are.
One of the shops is a great little deli with all sorts of lovely foods on
offer including a good selection of locally made salamis some of which are
made from wild boar, a must if you ever visit. We had some for lunch today,
yum yum.
One piece of luck we did have on our visit was returning to the supermarket
where we had shopped a few days earlier. When coming to pay for our
groceries we discovered that we were missing our credit card. You can
imagine what was going through our heads. We had enough cash so decided to
pay and then panic back in Noddy. The young girl on the checkout said
something to us in Italian but we didn't understand. Then the supervisor
came over and again tried to explain something to us, but to no avail. We
weren't sure what was going on. Eventually a lady from the shop next door
was called in to translate and it turned out that they had either recognised
us from our previous visit or the fact that we were English and seem to be
missing a certain piece of plastic. We had left our card there after paying
last time and they had put it aside in case we returned again. What a relief
it was to be reunited with our card and not having to try and work out where
we had lost it as well as having to cancel it. We do have a backup stashed
in Noddy but thankfully that can remain in its hiding place.
On Saturday after the excitement of the England game we had a very nice meal
in the restaurant on site. We did not go too mad with the menu, but had very
nice starters and a most delicious pizza each freshly cooked in the wood
fired oven, oh and a litre of the local red stuff and a bottle of fizzy
water to wash it all down. It was all very nice, but we did feel sorry for
the poor waiter who was running around in circles looking after everyone on
his own. He did however manage to do a great job of it.
We will be leaving here on Friday, after England has crushed T&T, and start
heading north towards Austria. We want to get there before the end of the
month to make best use of the cheap sites before prices start to climb in
Italy. We will stop at a site on the east coast near Ravenna for a few days,
perhaps even a week if it is nice, and might even watch a few more footie
games.
The weather here has been pretty good with most days warm and sunny except
when the chill breeze blows. Today has been the warmest yet, high 20's, and
tomorrow is supposed to be even better, into the 30's.

Anyway, time to go and watch France against Swisscheeseland.

Ciao

M&S