So much sickness in our house the last week! I can feel it’s starting to get better but it has been a long haul. All of us with various ailments…sore throats, fevers, stomach aches (and all that comes with that…), headache and lots of coughing. You name it, we’ve had it. But better now than in a week when we leave to go to the other side of the world. I may have even deliberately sneezed on a kid last week so that they’d get it sooner than later.
When my kids stay home sick I usually try to get them outside for some fresh air (it drives the locals nuts – I have been scolded by more than a few old ladies). Yesterday my daughter and I went for a very long walk in the woods close to our house. We made our way over to an old abandoned gunpowder factory which we’ve been visiting for years. It’s an enormous property full of hundreds of old derelict buildings covered with 50 years worth of vegetation. It’s really beautiful. And pretty creepy as well. Right now the leaves are just coming out so in about 2 weeks time it will be an absolute jungle.
In 1935 there was a big explosion that killed many local people. It was and is one of the worst local tradgedies and it is still talked about today by a lot of the older townfolk who used to work there.
They are now slowly clearing the whole area and have plans to start building houses, apartments, stores etc. It’s in times like this that I’m grateful for Italian bureacracy and the length of time they take to organise any such project (in other words, I’ll be long dead before any of it actually starts to happen).
Funny to think that I used to walk these same paths almost ten years ago with 2 weeny little babes in baby bjorns (one in front and one in back). Now I can stroll along with them hand in hand and have philisophical conversations.
Oops. We saw this on our way out…
Jillian In Italy 
Things rot so picturesquely in Italy