[Itinerary Page]The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
September 28 - Hangin' Out at Home
Margene is down with something flu-like -- queasy stomach and general malaise -- so she is spending the day in a horizontal position. She doesn't feel much like eating or drinking anything so there really isn't a lot for me to do except stick my head into the room from time to time to make sure all is well. I suspect it will take a day or so for her to shake this off.
The remaining two folks in our senior six-pack arrive in Arezzo mid-afternoon on the train from Rome. While Hap and Pat headed out to pick them up, I just stayed with Margene and enjoyed a down day of my own. I needed a little time to get caught up on my correspondence and put out the weekly newsletter for my pizza guys so it all worked out perfectly.
The only downside here is that we don't have Internet access in the apartment, so I do as much as I can offline and then head down to the office where I can tap into the wi-fi and do the rest. It isn't the most convenient arrangement but still a great improvement over the struggles I used to go through in years past trying to find a phone I could use to get online with dial-up.
Late in the afternoon, Hap and Pat returned with Linda and Ray ... although without Ray's luggage which Alitalia had sent to London rather than Rome. The latest story is that they have found the bag and are sending it to Florence where someone will drive it down to us. Nobody is sure if we actually believe that or not, but we live in hope. There really aren't a lot of alternatives but to go with the flow and enjoy things the way they play out.
Our on-site host at La Selva is Patrick Spencer, an American ex-pat from California who fell in love with the European lifestyle as a child (his father was a diplomat) and gravitated back here fifteen years ago. When I was at the office using the Internet, I bought a case of wine (made on the estate, of course). I had walked down there originally, so Patrick stopped by later in the afternoon to drop it off. It didn't take too much arm-twisting to convince him to join us for a glass or two of grape, some good cheese and pleasant conversation.
And that's the way the rest of the night went, just sitting around talking, roughing out a plan for the rest of the week and generally enjoying where we were and who we were with. Even Margene was showing signs of life by evening so I suspect one more day to get her system back in balance and she should be good to go.
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