The C.O.S.I Group or to use their full title Crazy Observations by Stranieri in Italy have decided to blog about spring or festivals at Easter. The dead line date for publishing the post was yesterday. At the moment I am having an ENEL week, absolutely nothing is getting done on time. I’ll explain about ENEL later.

So what does springtime in Italy mean to me? First it means I can legally start to wear my flip flops outside, well providing Mrs Sensible isn’t clothing monitor for the day.The old ladies will put their fur coats away for another year, however springtime does not mean scarfs are put away. In Italy they are worn throughout the year, this is to prevent the onslaught of cervicale which can strike any Italian at any time.

Springtime also means builders start to work on houses. We have the builders digging holes around the house and tying the walls together with long metal rods in a vain attempt to stop the house from subsiding and moving, next week they will start digging up the garden while they search for our elusive poo hole.

You won’t find the septic tank up there

Can you see the little orange light on the wall? It means our house is officially catagorised as a emergency recovery vehicle, this allows us to park the house anywhere which is just as well as it might be parked somewhere down among the vineyards if it keeps sliding in a southerly direction.

One of the builders used a impressive looking jackhammer to dig up the concrete path, I managed to bribe him with grappa and espresso to help me to remove the damaged safe in my office. You may remember during August last year a couple of ‘not very bright’ burglars broke into my house and ruined a perfectly good but empty safe. Well one of the nice builders excavated around the safe and removed it.

I now have a rather large hole in the wall

At the moment springtime is about cleaning, because we have the builders digging holes and drilling in the walls,  the whole house is covered in dust, I did remember to close the office door while he used the jackhammer to dig the safe out, but the dust is everywhere. Mrs Sensible has been very chilled and laid back about the mess and the various holes around the house, to be honest I am a little worried about her calmness, this could be the calm before the storm.

Spring also means my local bar has run out of decent tea, this morning they served up something called Liptons, it was insipid and tasteless. I mentioned to the owner that I might bring my own tea bags in future.. But I think he might not have understood my fantastic Italian. By the way what is Italian for bags of tea? I bet it isn’t borsa di tè

Would you like lemon or milk in your dishwater?

Springtime also means I should now take my car to the garage and have the winter tyres removed and normal tyres put back on. Unfortunately last October I had another ENEL moment and completely forgot to have my winter tyres put on the car. They are still sat next to Mrs Sensibles Peugeot which is in storage in the outside shed.

One good thing about spring cleaning, is you find things you have lost for example when I was cleaning the bookcase in my office I found the plug adapters that no Italian house can function without or Italian grammar books, nice but not much use to me.

Its amazing how useful things such as glasses and electrical adapters can migrate next to useless things such as Italian Grammar books

I have to get back to cleaning the house, but I promise I will write a post about the very scary kids at my karate club, and why if you live in Italy the chances are you will have two or three jobs…..

Please go and say hi to the other C.O.S.I group member, they managed to get their posts up yesterday..

Surviving in Italy Spring Break Italy

Rick’s Rome: Favorite Spring Destinations in Italy

Girl in Florence: http://girlinflorence.com/?p=12562

Sicily Inside & Out: An Early Easter in Sicily

Sex, Lies, And Nutella: Food Traditions That Win Easter