The first of the month arrived with a thunderstorm the previous night with much needed rain and heralding the beginning of the shooting season. From dawn to dusk we could hear the blasts of shotguns, no dogs as yet. Our property suddenly sprouted pheasants and squirrels, much to our felines delight as they chased (but didn't succeed in catching) their quarry all over the garden. The previous months had been devoid of moisture so the first week of September made up for it in a big way. Storms, flooding and high winds, more like a blustery March than the beginning of autumn, for most of the country. Two positive things, from our point of view, the new cemented drive wasn't affected at all and the pool was topped up just before the boys arrived to close it.

Two disappointments arrived with the new month in the first week. Two close friends had to cancel their trip to see us as one was suddenly rushed into hospital for an emergency operation, all went well but we'll have to wait until next year to catch up in person. Our second was the notary who'd been working on papers for us to re-register the property from a business to private ownership didn't get them ready for signing before this month. Via our geometra we complained saying they'd be getting our commercial rates bill as we wouldn't be able to pay the second 6 month having not budgeted for it.  Over 8 months to re-write the deeds for a 1 month job at most, after everything else had been completed, but their expert and head honcho seemed to take numerous holidays and our paperwork was never passed on for completion. They have moved forward, only after our geometra went to see them personally, and the papers were ready to sign by the end of the 2nd week.

Ponticelli had, for the first time, an 8 day shindig  from the first Wednesday to Sunday, almost flooded out, and then for a second Wednesday to Sunday entertainment and food from 8pm till gone midnight, with fireworks. When the weather had returned to seasonal norms and sunshine.

Seconds out round two. Whilst digesting lunch having teak oiled some outside furniture in the morning and working ourselves up to window cleaning (miss Haversham's comes to mind – outside fortunately) we heard what sounded like falling cement in the house! We listened and there it was again coming from the boiler room area. Naturally we approached the little hallway cautiously and there on the floor were two piles of sand with small cement bits mixed in. “Its an earthquake” was our immediate thought but then we saw a third pile being made a bit further along, odd we thought. A torch and some patience solved the riddle. A lizard had crawled in through a vent high up in the boiler room and it had manged to get on top of a beam, trapped he was trying to excavate a way out, dislodging lose sand, grit and cement from between the joists with his efforts. Having said all that we and others have noticed settlement cracks that have appeared in the house and in the tiles around to pool as the ground has dried out and moved. The house is just a case of some filler and paint but the pool will need the broken tiles replacing in the future.

Wallop or rather had the beast been smaller it might have been walloped but this was the biggest spider we'd ever seen here. OK 90% of people can get rid of these things but me I turn to jelly and I am certain they heard the scream in Rome. To say I was upset doesn't come close. I was nauseous, shaking and had complete loss of co-ordination and coherent thought for almost 12 hours. It was doubly unexpected as I spray with a product called “Stop” that is orderless, pet friendly, effective for most things that crawl, fly or burrow (fleas, tics, wood worm, ants, spiders etc) for 3-6 weeks at a time so we rarely get invaded even with the doors and windows open. Mike, having heard my “OMG its a spider” shriek many times before arrived but even he was aghast at its dimensions, gassing and a spade was mentioned, as he led me to a room furthest away from the horror. Mach1 took one look and joined me, so we both whimpered and shook together leaving the man of the house to deal with the monster. It wasn't a tarantula but in my book it was a close thing. I didn't ask how he'd tackled the problem (even though I cannot bear them I cannot think of them being killed either as it involves someone having to get close to them – even if it isn't me) but I was fervently glad we have other bathrooms to use instead ! Anyone with any type of phobia gets my total sympathy, been there, got the fridge magnet and bumper sticker!

We got on with the autumnal chores of varnishing the trellis and wood work, putting wood preservative on the tiles and teak oil on the loungers. To make a change we popped up into town to see the opening of the “Aphrodisiac's weekend” and were treated to a burlesque show at the theater
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87cdOfnHO6c&feature=relmfu and a piano recital. The whole weekend is dedicated to love, foods, oils, games, and saffron and ancient aphrodisiac apparently.

Now is this a melon or a zucchini? I planted pumpkins and zucchini in the rhubarb patch but neither germinated and then this large leafed green plant with tendrils and small yellow flowers appeared. It looked like zucchini but the flowers weren't long or large enough, perhaps a gourd of some sort? Then we got three small round green fruits that grew up into galia melons inside the month. Now where did they come from? Talking of fruit our grape vine went berserk and produced about 15kg of luscious green grapes that taste like champagne, the ants appreciated them as well as us, and the squirrels had every walnut off the tree this year with the porcupines eating the ones off the floor. The apples did exceptionally well with the branches loaded down almost to the floor but unfortunately most of the fruit was marked, bruised or damaged by insects and they turned brown on the tree, the pears did nothing and the olives look to be a poor harvest this year despite plumping up with the rain we got once a week this month.

 

The last week of the month was still warm, in the mid to high 20's but with terrificly strong hot southerly winds and almost daily thunderstorms causing the grass began to grow at the speed of a galloping horse.