Summer in Grottole

Our two latest visits were very different. In early May we were shivering, having arrived to stay in our house once the water had been connected (it's a long story...) Perhaps we should have taken some bedding with us other than sheets, but hey, May in Southern Italy, we assumed it would be warm. We had to sleep with all our clothes on and the floor mats over the bed!It was mostly too windy to sit on our little terrace- well, OK, maybe the wind farm across the valley might have been a clue as to the strength of the prevailing winds...But in August it was a different story, beastly hot. In fact on the last evening it was actually too hot outside on the terrace, even at 10pm, it was cooler indoors, not suprisingly as our house was used for making and storing wine and the back wall is solid rock.Our visit coincided with the local festa- a week of music in the squares- we heard opera, brass bands, Neopolitan music and acordeon music - processions, involving the statue of the village saint, San Rocco, being carried thorough the village, accompanied by priests, the failthful, the obligatory brass band, horses-- all thronging the nrrow streets of the old town.Our wood burning stove had arrived, though it was difficult to think about using it in the 40 C heat, and our neighbours agreed to order some wood for us ready for our next visit.Every evening a group of elderly neighbours take a passegiata along the road outside our house, they stroll to the end, and then turn round and come back again. there seems to be a regular core of about five, but sometimes more. If I join them my next door neighbour has to translate between dialect and standard (simplified!) Italian, a lot of the older people only speak dialect. Apparently there are still some isolated villages in Basilicata where people speak Greek and Albanian.I am still struggling with Italian, but our frequent visits to the ferramenta for DIY supplies mean that I can now confidently ask for black insulating tape and floor tile polish (nastro isolante negro and cera per cotto respectiively). It's a steep learning curve...